The Project Gutenberg EBook Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561-62, by Motley
#7 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561-62
Author: John Lothrop Motley
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4807]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 12, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1561-62 ***
This etext was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 7.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855
1561-1562 [CHAPTER III.]
The inquisition the great cause of the revolt--The three varieties
of the institution--The Spanish inquisition described--The Episcopal
inquisition in the Netherlands--The Papal inquisition established in
the provinces by Charles V.--His instructions to the inquisitors--
They are renewed by Philip--Inquisitor Titelmann--Instances of his
manner of proceeding--Spanish and Netherland inquisitions compared--
Conduct of Granvelle--Faveau and Mallart condemned at Valenciennes--
"Journee des maubrulea"--Severe measures at Valenciennes--Attack of
the Rhetoric Clubs Upon Granvelle--Granvelle's insinuations against
Egmont and Simon Renard--Timidity of Viglius--Universal hatred
toward the Cardinal--Buffoonery of Brederode and Lumey--Courage of
Granvelle--Philip taxes the Netherlands for the suppression of the
Huguenots in France--Meeting of the Knights of the Fleece--Assembly
at the house of Orange--Demand upon the estates for supplies--
Montigny appointed envoy to Spain--Open and determined opposition to
Granvelle--Secret representations by the Cardinal to Philip,
concerning Egmont and other Seigniors--Line of conduct traced out
for the King--Montigny's representations in Spain--Unsatisfactory
result of his mission.
The great cause of the revolt which, within a few years, was to break
forth throughout the Netherlands; was the inquisition. It is almost
puerile to look further or deeper, when such a source of convulsion lies
at the very outset of any investigation. During the war there had been,
for reasons already indicated, an occasional pause in the religious
persecution. Philip had now returned to Spain, having arranged, with
great precision, a comprehensive scheme for exterminating that religious
belief which was already accepted by a very large portion of his
Netherland Subjects. From afar there rose upon the provinces the
prophetic vision of a coming evil still more terrible than any which had
yet oppressed them. As across the bright plains of Sicily, when the sun
is rising, the vast pyramidal shadow of Mount Etna is definitely and
visibly projected--the phantom of that ever-present enemy, which holds
fire and devastation in its bosom--so, in the morning hour of Philip's
reign, the shadow of the inquisition was cast from afar across those warm
and smiling provinces--a spectre menacing fiercer flames and wider
desolation than those which mere physical agencies could ever compass.
There has been a good deal of somewhat superfluous discussion concerning
the different kinds of inquisition. The distinction drawn between the
papal, the episcopal, and the Spanish inquisitions, did not, in the
sixteenth century, convince many unsophisticated minds of the merits of
the establishment in any of its shapes. However classified or entitled,
it was a machine for inquiring into a man's thoughts, and for burning him
if the result was not satisfactory.
The Spanish inquisition, strictly so called, that is to say, the modern
or later institution established by Pope Alexander the Sixth and
Ferdinand the Catholic, was doubtless invested with a more complete
apparatus for inflicting human misery, and for appalling human
imagination, than any of the other less artfully arranged inquisitions,
whether papal or episcopal. It had been originally devised for Jews or
Moors, whom the Christianity of the age did not regard as human beings,
but who could not be banished without depopulating certain districts.
It was soon, however, extended from pagans to heretics. The Dominican
Torquemada was the first Moloch to be placed upon this pedestal of blood
and fire, and from that day forward the "holy office" was almost
exclusively in the hands of that band of brothers. In the eighteen years
of Torquemada's administration; ten thousand two hundred and twenty
individuals were burned alive, and ninety-seven thousand three hundred
and twenty-one punished with infamy, confiscation of property, or
perpetual imprisonment, so that the total number of families destroyed by
this one friar alone amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand four
hundred and one. In course of time the jurisdiction of the office was
extended. It taught the savages of India and America to shudder at the
name of Christianity. The fear of its introduction froze the earlier
heretics of Italy, France, and Ger many into orthodoxy. It was a court
owning allegiance to no temporal authority, superior to all other
tribunals. It was a bench of monks without appeal, having its familiars
in every house, diving into the secrets of every fireside, judging, and
executing its horrible decrees without responsibility. It condemned not
deeds, but thoughts. It affected to descend into individual conscience,
and to punish the crimes which it pretended to discover. Its process was
reduced to a horrible simplicity. It arrested on suspicion, tortured
till confession, and then punished by fire. Two witnesses, and those to
separate facts, were sufficient to consign the victim to a loathsome
dungeon. Here he was sparingly supplied with food, forbidden to speak,
or even to sing to which pastime it could hardly be thought he would feel
much inclination--and then left to himself, till famine and misery should
break his spirit. When that time was supposed to have arrived he was
examined. Did he confess, and forswear his heresy, whether actually
innocent or not, he might then assume the sacred shirt, and escape with
confiscation of all his property. Did he persist in the avowal of his
innocence, two witnesses sent him to the stake, one witness to the rack.
He was informed of the testimony against him, but never confronted with
the witness. That accuser might be his son, father, or the wife of his
bosom, for all were enjoined, under the death penalty, to inform the
inquisitors of every suspicious word which might fall from their nearest
relatives. The indictment being thus supported, the prisoner was tried
by torture. The rack was the court of justice; the criminal's only
advocate was his fortitude--for the nominal counsellor, who was permitted
no communication with the prisoner, and was furnished neither with
documents nor with power to procure evidence, was a puppet, aggravating
the lawlessness of the proceedings by the mockery of legal forms: The
torture took place at midnight, in a gloomy dungeon, dimly, lighted by
torches. The victim--whether man, matron, or tender virgin--was stripped
naked, and stretched upon the wooden bench. Water, weights, fires,
pulleys, screws--all the apparatus by which the sinews could be strained
without cracking, the bones crushed without breaking, and the body racked
exquisitely without giving up its ghost, was now put into operation. The
executioner, enveloped in a black robe from head to foot, with his eyes
glaring at his victim through holes cut in the hood which muffled his
face, practised successively all the forms of torture which the devilish
ingenuity of the monks had invented. The imagination sickens when
striving to keep pace with these dreadful realities. Those who wish to
indulge their curiosity concerning the details of the system, may easily
satisfy themselves at the present day. The flood of light which has been
poured upon the subject more than justifies the horror and the rebellion
of the Netherlanders.
The period during which torture might be inflicted from day to day was
unlimited in duration. It could only be terminated by confession; so
that the scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack. Individuals have
borne the torture and the dungeon fifteen years, and have been burned at
the stake at last.
Execution followed confession, but the number of condemned prisoners was
allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of victims might grace each great
gala-day. The auto-da fe was a solemn festival. The monarch, the high
functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, the populace regarded it
as an inspiring and delightful recreation. When the appointed morning
arrived, the victim was taken from his dungeon. He was then attired in a
yellow robe without sleeves, like a herald's coat, embroidered all over
with black figures of devils. A large conical paper mitre was placed
upon his head, upon which was represented a human being in the midst of
flames, surrounded by imps. His tongue was then painfully gagged, so
that he could neither open nor shut his mouth. After he was thus
accoutred, and just as he was leaving his cell, a breakfast, consisting
of every delicacy, was placed before him, and he was urged, with ironical
politeness, to satisfy his hunger. He was then led forth into the public
square. The procession was formed with great pomp. It was headed by the
little school children, who were immediately followed by the band of
prisoners, each attired in the horrible yet ludicrous manner described.
Then came the magistrates and nobility, the prelates and other
dignitaries of the Church: the holy inquisitors, with their officials and
familiars, followed, all on horseback, with the blood-red flag of the
"sacred office" waving above them, blazoned upon either side with the
portraits of Alexander and of Ferdinand, the pair of brothers who had
established the institution. After the procession came the rabble. When
all had reached the neighborhood of the scaffold, and had been arranged
in order, a sermon was preached to the assembled multitude. It was
filled with laudations of the inquisition, and with blasphemous revilings
against the condemned prisoners. Then the sentences were read to the
individual victims. Then the clergy chanted the fifty-first psalm, the
whole vast throng uniting in one tremendous miserere. If a priest
happened to be among the culprits, he was now stripped of the canonicals
which he had hitherto worn; while his hands, lips, and shaven crown were
scraped with a bit of glass, by which process the oil of his consecration
was supposed to be removed. He was then thrown into the common herd.
Those of the prisoners who were reconciled, and those whose execution was
not yet appointed, were now separated from the others. The rest were
compelled to mount a scaffold, where the executioner stood ready to
conduct them to the fire. The inquisitors then delivered them into his
hands, with an ironical request that he would deal with them tenderly,
and without blood-letting or injury. Those who remained steadfast to the
last were then burned at the stake; they who in the last extremity
renounced their faith were strangled before being thrown into the flames.
Such was the Spanish inquisition--technically--so called: It was,
according' to the biographer of Philip the Second, a "heavenly remedy,
a guardian angel of Paradise, a lions' den in which Daniel and other just
men could sustain no injury, but in which perverse sinners were torn to
pieces." It was a tribunal superior to all human law, without appeal,
and certainly owing no allegiance to the powers of earth or heaven. No
rank, high or humble, was safe from its jurisdiction. The royal family
were not sacred, nor, the pauper's hovel. Even death afforded no
protection. The holy office invaded the prince in his palace and the
beggar in his shroud. The corpses of dead heretics were mutilated and
burned. The inquisitors preyed upon carcases and rifled graves. A
gorgeous festival of the holy office had, as we have seen, welcomed
Philip to his native land. The news of these tremendous autos-da fe, in
which so many illustrious victims had been sacrificed before their
sovereign's eyes, had reached the Netherlands almost simultaneously with
the bulls creating the new bishoprics in the provinces. It was not
likely that the measure would be rendered more palatable by this
intelligence of the royal amusements.
The Spanish inquisition had never flourished in any soil but that of the
peninsula. It is possible that the King and Granvelle were sincere in
their protestations of entertaining no intention of introducing it into
the Netherlands, although the protestations of such men are entitled to
but little weight. The truth was, that the inquisition existed already
in the provinces. It was the main object of the government to confirm
and extend the institution. The episcopal inquisition, as we have
already seen, had been enlarged by the enormous increase in the number of
bishops, each of whom was to be head inquisitor in his diocese, with two
special inquisitors under him. With this apparatus and with the edicts,
as already described, it might seem that enough had already been done for
the suppression of heresy. But more had been done. A regular papal
inquisition also existed in the Netherlands. This establishment, like
the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth. A word of introduction is
here again necessary--nor let the reader deem that too much time is
devoted to this painful subject. On the contrary, no definite idea can
be formed as to the character of the Netherland revolt without a thorough
understanding of this great cause--the religious persecution in which the
country had lived, breathed, and had its being, for half a century, and
in which, had the rebellion not broken out at last, the population must
have been either exterminated or entirely embruted. The few years which
are immediately to occupy us in the present and succeeding chapter,
present the country in a daily increasing ferment from the action of
causes which had existed long before, but which received an additional
stimulus as the policy of the new reign developed itself.
Previously to the accession of Charles V., it can not be said that an
inquisition had ever been established in the provinces. Isolated
instances to the contrary, adduced by the canonists who gave their advice
to Margaret of Parma, rather proved the absence than the existence of the
system. In the reign of Philip the Good, the vicar of the inquisitor-
general gave sentence against some heretics, who were burned in Lille
(1448). In 1459, Pierre Troussart, a Jacobin monk, condemned many
Waldenses, together with some leading citizens of Artois, accused of
sorcery and heresy. He did this, however, as inquisitor for the Bishop
of Arras, so that it was an act of episcopal, and not papal inquisition.
In general, when inquisitors were wanted in the provinces, it was
necessary to borrow them from France or Germany. The exigencies of
persecution making a domestic staff desirable, Charles the Fifth, in the
year 1522, applied to his ancient tutor, whom he had placed on the papal
throne.
Charles had, however, already, in the previous year appointed Francis Van
der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Netherlands. This man, whom
Erasmus called a "wonderful enemy to learning," was also provided with a
coadjutor, Nicholas of Egmond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was
characterized by the same authority as "a madman armed with a sword."
The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison,
torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to
cause his sentences to be executed without appeal. He was, however, in
pronouncing definite judgments, to take the advice of Laurens, president
of the grand council of Mechlin, a coarse, cruel and ignorant man, who
"hated learning with a more than deadly hatred," and who might certainly
be relied upon to sustain the severest judgments which the inquisitor
might fulminate. Adrian; accordingly, commissioned Van der Hulst to be
universal and general inquisitor for all the Netherlands. At the same
time it was expressly stated that his functions were not to supersede
those exercised by the bishops as inquisitors in their own sees. Thus
the papal inquisition was established in the provinces. Van der Hulst,
a person of infamous character, was not the man to render the institution
less odious than it was by its nature. Before he had fulfilled his
duties two years, however, he was degraded from his office by the Emperor
for having forged a document. In 1525, Buedens, Houseau and Coppin were
confirmed by Clement the Seventh as inquisitors in the room of Van der
Hulst. In 1531, Ruard Tapper and Michael Drutius were appointed by Paul
the Third, on the decease of Coppin, the other two remaining in office.
The powers of the papal inquisitors had been gradually extended, and they
were, by 1545, not only entirely independent of the episcopal
inquisition, but had acquired right of jurisdiction over bishops and
archbishops, whom they were empowered to arrest and imprison. They had
also received and exercised the privilege of appointing delegates, or
sub-inquisitors, on their own authority. Much of the work was, indeed,
performed by these officials, the most notorious of whom were Barbier, De
Monte, Titelmann, Fabry, Campo de Zon, and Stryen. In 1545, and again in
1550, a stringent set of instructions were drawn up by the Emperor for
the guidance of these papal inquisitors. A glance at their context shows
that the establishment was not intended to be an empty form.
They were empowered to inquire, proceed against, and chastise all
heretics, all persons suspected of heresy, and their protectors.
Accompanied by a notary, they were to collect written information
concerning every person in the provinces, "infected or vehemently
suspected." They were authorized to summon all subjects of his Majesty,
whatever their rank, quality, or station, and to compel them to give
evidence, or to communicate suspicions. They were to punish all who
pertinaciously refused such depositions with death. The Emperor
commanded his presidents, judges, sheriffs, and all other judicial and
executive officers to render all "assistance to the inquisitors and their
familiars in their holy and pious inquisition, whenever required so to
do," on pain of being punished as encouragers of heresy, that is to say,
with death. Whenever the inquisitors should be satisfied as to the
heresy of any individual, they were to order his arrest and detention by
the judge of the place, or by others arbitrarily to be selected by them.
The judges or persons thus chosen, were enjoined to fulfil the order,
on pain of being punished as protectors of heresy, that is to say, with
death, by sword or fire. If the prisoner were an ecclesiastic, the
inquisitor was to deal summarily with the case "without noise or form in
the process--selecting an imperial councillor to render the sentence of
absolution or condemnation." If the prisoner were a lay person, the
inquisitor was to order his punishment, according to the edicts, by the
council of the province. In case of lay persons suspected but not
convicted of heresy, the inquisitor was to proceed to their chastisement,
"with the advice of a counsellor or some other expert." In conclusion,
the Emperor ordered the "inquisitors to make it known that they were not
doing their own work, but that of Christ, and to persuade all persons of
this fact." This clause of their instructions seemed difficult of
accomplishment, for no reasonable person could doubt that Christ, had he
re-appeared in human form, would have been instantly crucified again, or
burned alive in any place within the dominions of Charles or Philip. The
blasphemy with which the name of Jesus was used by such men to sanctify
all these nameless horrors, is certainly not the least of their crimes.
In addition to these instructions, a special edict had been issued on
the 26th April, 1550, according to which all judicial officers, at the
requisition of the inquisitors, were to render them all assistance in
the execution of their office, by arresting and detaining all persons
suspected of heresy, according to the instructions issued to said
inquisitors; and this, notwithstanding any privileges or charters to the
contrary. In short, the inquisitors were not subject to the civil
authority, but the civil authority to them. The imperial edict empowered
them "to chastise, degrade, denounce, and deliver over heretics to the
secular judges for punishment; to make use of gaols, and to make arrests,
without ordinary warrant, but merely with notice given to a single
counselor, who was obliged to give sentence according to their desire,
without application to the ordinary judge."
These instructions to the inquisitors had been renewed and confirmed by
Philip, in the very first month of his reign (28th Nov. 1555). As in
the case of the edicts, it had been thought desirable by Granvelle to
make use of the supposed magic of the Emperor's name to hallow the whole
machinery of persecution. The action of the system during the greater
part of the imperial period had been terrible. Suffered for a time to
languish during the French war, it had lately been renewed with
additional vigor. Among all the inquisitors, the name of Peter Titelmann
was now pre-eminent. He executed his infamous functions throughout
Flanders, Douay, and Tournay, the most thriving and populous portions of
the Netherlands, with a swiftness, precision, and even with a jocularity
which hardly seemed human. There was a kind of grim humor about the man.
The woman who, according to Lear's fool, was wont to thrust her live eels
into the hot paste, "rapping them o' the coxcombs with a stick and crying
reproachfully, Wantons, lie down!" had the spirit of a true inquisitor.
Even so dealt Titelmann with his heretics writhing on the rack or in the
flames. Cotemporary chronicles give a picture of him as of some
grotesque yet terrible goblin, careering through the country by night or
day, alone, on horseback, smiting the trembling peasants on the head with
a great club, spreading dismay far and wide, dragging suspected persons
from their firesides or their beds, and thrusting them into dungeons,
arresting, torturing, strangling, burning, with hardly the shadow of
warrant, information, or process.
The secular sheriff, familiarly called Red-Rod, from the color of his
wand of office, meeting this inquisitor Titelmann one day upon the high
road, thus wonderingly addressed him--"How can you venture to go about
alone, or at most with an attendant or two, arresting people on every
side, while I dare not attempt to execute my office, except at the head
of a strong force, armed in proof; and then only at the peril of my
life?"
"Ah! Red-Rod," answered Peter, jocosely, "you deal with bad people.
I have nothing to fear, for I seize only the innocent and virtuous, who
make no resistance, and let themselves be taken like lambs."
"Mighty well," said the other; "but if you arrest all the good people
and I all the bad, 'tis difficult to say who in the world is to escape
chastisement." The reply of the inquisitor has not been recorded, but
there is no doubt that he proceeded like a strong man to run his day's
course.
He was the most active of all the agents in the religious persecution at
the epoch of which we are now treating, but he had been inquisitor for
many years. The martyrology of the provinces reeks with his murders.
He burned men for idle words or suspected thoughts; he rarely waited,
according to his frank confession, for deeds. Hearing once that a
certain schoolmaster, named Geleyn de Muler, of Audenarde, "was addicted
to reading the Bible," he summoned the culprit before him and accused him
of heresy. The schoolmaster claimed, if he were guilty of any crime,
to be tried before the judges of his town. "You are my prisoner," said
Titelmann, "and are to answer me and none other." The inquisitor
proceeded accordingly to catechize him, and soon satisfied himself of the
schoolmaster's heresy. He commanded him to make immediate recantation.
The schoolmaster refused. "Do you not love your wife and children?"
asked the demoniac Titelmann. "God knows," answered the heretic, "that
if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I would give it all only to
have them with me, even had I to live on bread and water and in bondage."
"You have then," answered the inquisitor, "only to renounce the error of
your opinions."--" Neither for wife, children, nor all the world, can I
renounce my God and religious truth," answered the prisoner. Thereupon
Titelmann sentenced him to the stake. He was strangled and then thrown
into the flames.
At about the same-time, Thomas Calberg, tapestry weaver, of Tournay,
within the jurisdiction of this same inquisitor, was convicted of having
copied some hymns from a book printed in Geneva. He was burned alive.
Another man, whose name has perished, was hacked to death with seven
blows of a rusty sword, in presence of his wife, who was so horror-
stricken that she died on the spot before her husband. His crime, to be
sure, was anabaptism, the most deadly offence in the calendar. In the
same year, one Walter Kapell was burned at the stake for heretical
opinions. He was a man of some property, and beloved by the poor people
of Dixmuyde, in Flanders, where he resided, for his many charities.
A poor idiot, who had been often fed by his bounty, called out to the
inquisitor's subalterns, as they bound his patron to the stake, "ye are
bloody murderers; that man has done no wrong; but has given me bread to
eat." With these words, he cast himself headlong into the flames to
perish with his protector, but was with difficulty rescued by the
officers. A day or two afterwards, he made his way to the stake, where
the half-burnt skeleton of Walter Kapell still remained, took the body
upon his shoulders, and carried it through the streets to the house of
the chief burgomaster, where several other magistrates happened then to
be in session. Forcing his way into their presence, he laid his burthen
at their feet, crying, "There, murderers! ye have eaten his flesh, now
eat his bones!" It has not been recorded whether Titelmann sent him to
keep company with his friend in the next world. The fate of so obscure a
victim could hardly find room on the crowded pages of the Netherland
martyrdom.
This kind of work, which went on daily, did not increase the love of the
people for the inquisition or the edicts. It terrified many, but it
inspired more with that noble resistance to oppression, particularly to
religious oppression, which is the sublimest instinct of human nature.
Men confronted the terrible inquisitors with a courage equal to their
cruelty: At Tournay, one of the chief cities of Titelmann's district,
and almost before his eyes, one Bertrand le Blas, a velvet manufacturer,
committed what was held an almost incredible crime. Having begged his
wife and children to pray for a blessing upon what he was about to
undertake, he went on Christmas-day to the Cathedral of Tournay and
stationed himself near the altar. Having awaited the moment in which the
priest held on high the consecrated host, Le Blas then forced his way
through the crowd, snatched the wafer from the hands of the astonished
ecclesiastic, and broke it into bits, crying aloud, as he did so,
"Misguided men, do ye take this thing to be Jesus Christ, your Lord and
Saviour?" With these words, he threw the fragments on the ground and
trampled them with his feet.
[Histoire des Martyrs, f. 356, exev.; apud Brandt, i. 171,172.
It may be well supposed that this would be regarded as a crime of
almost inconceivable magnitude. It was death even to refuse to
kneel in the streets when the wafer was carried by. Thus, for
example, a poor huckster, named Simon, at Bergen-op-Zoom, who
neglected to prostrate himself before his booth at the passage of
the host, was immediately burned. Instances of the same punishment
for that offence might be multiplied. In this particular case, it
is recorded that the sheriff who was present at the execution was so
much affected by the courage and fervor of the simple-minded victim,
that he went home, took to his bed, became delirious, crying
constantly, Ah, Simon! Simon! and died miserably, "notwithstanding
all that the monks could do to console him."]
The amazement and horror were so universal at such an appalling offence,
that not a finger was raised to arrest the criminal. Priests and
congregation were alike paralyzed, so that he would have found no
difficulty in making his escape. Ho did not stir, however; he had come
to the church determined to execute what he considered a sacred duty,
and to abide the consequences. After a time, he was apprehended.
The inquisitor demanded if he repented of what he had done. He
protested, on the contrary, that he gloried in the deed, and that he
would die a hundred deaths to rescue from such daily profanation the name
of his Redeemer, Christ. He was then put thrice to the torture, that he
might be forced to reveal his accomplices. It did not seem in human
power for one man to accomplish such a deed of darkness without
confederates. Bertrand had none, however, and could denounce none.
A frantic sentence was then devised as a feeble punishment for so much
wickedness. He was dragged on a hurdle, with his mouth closed with an
iron gag, to the market-place. Here his right hand and foot were burned
and twisted off between two red-hot irons. His tongue was then torn out
by the roots, and because he still endeavored to call upon the name of
God, the iron gag was again applied. With his arms and legs fastened
together behind his back, he was then hooked by the middle of his body to
an iron chain, and made to swing to and fro over a slow fire till he was
entirely roasted. His life lasted almost to the end of these ingenious
tortures, but his fortitude lasted as long as his life.
In the next year, Titelmann caused one Robert Ogier, of Ryssel, in
Flanders, to be arrested, together with his wife and two sons. Their
crime consisted in not going to mass, and in practising private worship
at home. They confessed the offence, for they protested that they could
not endure to see the profanation of their Saviour's name in the
idolatrous sacraments. They were asked what rites they practised in
their own house. One of the sons, a mere boy, answered, "We fall on our
knees, and pray to God that he may enlighten our hearts, and forgive our
sins. We pray for our sovereign, that his reign may be prosperous, and
his life peaceful. We also pray for the magistrates and others in
authority, that God may protect and preserve them all." The boy's simple
eloquence drew tears even from the eyes of some of his judges; for the
inquisitor had placed the case before the civil tribunal. The father and
eldest son were, however, condemned to the flames. "Oh God!" prayed the
youth at the stake, "Eternal Father, accept the sacrifice of our lives,
in the name of thy beloved Son."--"Thou liest, scoundrel!" fiercely
interrupted a monk, who was lighting the fire; "God is not your father;
ye are the devil's children." As the flames rose about them, the boy
cried out once more, "Look, my father, all heaven is opening, and I see
ten hundred thousand angels rejoicing over us. Let us be glad, for we
are dying for the truth."--" Thou liest! thou liest !" again screamed
the monk; "all hell is opening, and you see ten thousand devils thrusting
you into eternal fire." Eight days afterwards, the wife of Ogier and his
other son were burned; so that there was an end of that family.
Such are a few isolated specimens of the manner of proceeding in a single
district of the Netherlands. The inquisitor Titelmann certainly deserved
his terrible reputation. Men called him Saul the persecutor, and it was
well known that he had been originally tainted with the heresy which he
had, for so many years, been furiously chastising. At the epoch which
now engages our attention, he felt stimulated by the avowed policy of the
government to fresh exertions, by which all his previous achievements
should be cast into the shade. In one day he broke into a house in
Ryssel, seized John de Swarte, his wife and four children, together with
two newly-married couples, and two other persons, convicted them of
reading the Bible, and of praying in their own doors, and had them all
immediately burned.
Are these things related merely to excite superfluous horror? Are the
sufferings of these obscure Christians beneath the dignity of history?
Is it not better to deal with murder and oppression in the abstract,
without entering into trivial details? The answer is, that these things
are the history of the Netherlands at this epoch; that these hideous
details furnish the causes of that immense movement, out of which a great
republic was born and an ancient tyranny destroyed; and that Cardinal
Granvelle was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not open
their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise. Because the
great lords "owed their very souls"--because convulsions might help to
pay their debts, and furnish forth their masquerades and banquets--
because the Prince of Orange was ambitious, and Egmont jealous of the
Cardinal--therefore superficial writers found it quite natural that the
country should be disturbed, although that "vile and mischievous animal,
the people," might have no objection to a continuance of the system which
had been at work so long. On the contrary, it was exactly because the
movement was a popular and a religious movement that it will always
retain its place among the most important events of history. Dignified
documents, state papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more value than
the lambskin on which they are engrossed. Ten thousand nameless victims,
in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may build up great states
and alter the aspect of whole continents.
The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it was well for the cause of
the right that, as in the early hours of English liberty, the crown and
mitre were opposed by the baron's sword and shield. Had all the
seigniors made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting
their breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty
would have been still more desperate. Nevertheless they were directed
and controlled, under Providence, by humbler, but more powerful agencies
than their own. The nobles were but the gilded hands on the outside of
the dial--the hour to strike was determined by the obscure but weighty
movements within.
Nor is it, perhaps, always better to rely upon abstract phraseology, to
produce a necessary impression. Upon some minds, declamation concerning
liberty of conscience and religious tyranny makes but a vague impression,
while an effect may be produced upon them, for example by a dry,
concrete, cynical entry in an account book, such as the following, taken
at hazard from the register of municipal expenses at Tournay, during the
years with which we are now occupied:
"To Mr. Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, twice, Jean
de Lannoy, ten sous.
"To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, sixty sous.
For having thrown his cinders into the river, eight sous."
This was the treatment to which thousands, and tens of thousands, had
been subjected in the provinces. Men, women, and children were burned,
and their "cinders" thrown away, for idle words against Rome, spoken
years before, for praying alone in their closets, for not kneeling to
a wafer when they met it in the streets, for thoughts to which they had
never given utterance, but which, on inquiry, they were too honest to
deny. Certainly with this work going on year after year in every city
in the Netherlands, and now set into renewed and vigorous action by a man
who wore a crown only that he might the better torture his fellow-
creatures, it was time that the very stones in the streets should be
moved to mutiny.
Thus it may be seen of how much value were the protestations of Philip
and of Granvelle, on which much stress has latterly been laid, that it
was not their intention to introduce the Spanish inquisition. With the
edicts and the Netherland inquisition, such as we have described them,
the step was hardly necessary.
In fact, the main difference between the two institutions consisted in
the greater efficiency of the Spanish in discovering such of its victims
as were disposed to deny their faith. Devised originally for more
timorous and less conscientious infidels who were often disposed to skulk
in obscure places and to renounce without really abandoning their errors,
it was provided with a set of venomous familiars who glided through every
chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside. The secret details of
each household in the realm being therefore known to the holy office and
to the monarch, no infidel or heretic could escape discovery. This
invisible machinery was less requisite for the Netherlands. There was
comparatively little difficulty in ferreting out the "vermin"--to use the
expression of a Walloon historian of that age--so that it was only
necessary to maintain in good working order the apparatus for destroying
the noxious creatures when unearthed. The heretics of the provinces
assembled at each other's houses to practise those rites described in
such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible
penalties by the edicts. The inquisitorial system of Spain was hardly
necessary for men who had but little prudence in concealing, and no
inclination to disavow their creed. "It is quite a laughable matter,"
wrote Granvelle, who occasionally took a comic view of the inquisition,
"that the King should send us depositions made in Spain by which we are
to hunt for heretics here, as if we did not know of thousands already.
Would that I had as many doubloons of annual income," he added, "as there
are public and professed heretics in the provinces." No doubt the
inquisition was in such eyes a most desirable establishment. "To speak
without passion," says the Walloon, "the inquisition well administered is
a laudable institution, and not less necessary than all the other offices
of spirituality and temporality belonging both to the bishops and to the
commissioners of the Roman see." The papal and episcopal establishments,
in co-operation with the edicts, were enough, if thoroughly exercised and
completely extended. The edicts alone were sufficient. "The edicts and
the inquisition are one and the same thing," said the Prince of Orange.
The circumstance, that the civil authorities were not as entirely
superseded by the Netherland, as by the Spanish system, was rather a
difference of form than of fact. We have seen that the secular officers
of justice were at the command of the inquisitors. Sheriff, gaoler,
judge, and hangman, were all required, under the most terrible penalties,
to do their bidding. The reader knows what the edicts were. He knows
also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by
Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person and by letter,
had done his utmost to sharpen those instructions, during the latter
portion of his sojourn in the Netherlands. Fourteen new bishops, each
with two special inquisitors under him, had also been appointed to carry
out the great work to which the sovereign had consecrated his existence.
The manner in which the hunters of heretics performed their office has
been exemplified by slightly sketching the career of a single one of the
sub-inquisitors, Peter Titelmann. The monarch and his minister scarcely
needed, therefore, to transplant the peninsular exotic. Why should they
do so? Philip, who did not often say a great deal in a few words, once
expressed the whole truth of the matter in a single sentence: "Wherefore
introduce the Spanish inquisition?" said he; "the inquisition of the
Netherlands is much more pitiless than that of Spain."
Such was the system of religious persecution commenced by Charles,
and perfected by Philip. The King could not claim the merit of the
invention, which justly belonged to the Emperor. At the same time, his
responsibility for the unutterable woe caused by the continuance of the
scheme is not a jot diminished. There was a time when the whole system
had fallen into comparative desuetude. It was utterly abhorrent to the
institutions and the manners of the Netherlanders. Even a great number
of the Catholics in the provinces were averse to it. Many of the leading
grandees, every one of whom was Catholic were foremost in denouncing its
continuance. In short, the inquisition had been partially endured, but
never accepted. Moreover, it had never been introduced into Luxemburg or
Groningen. In Gelderland it had been prohibited by the treaty through
which that province had been annexed to the emperor's dominions, and it
had been uniformly and successfully resisted in Brabant. Therefore,
although Philip, taking the artful advice of Granvelle, had sheltered
himself under the Emperor's name by re-enacting, word for word, his
decrees, and re-issuing his instructions, he can not be allowed any such
protection at the bar of history. Such a defence for crimes so enormous
is worse than futile. In truth, both father and son recognized
instinctively the intimate connexion between ideas of religious and of
civil freedom. "The authority of God and the supremacy of his Majesty"
was the formula used with perpetual iteration to sanction the constant
recourse to scaffold and funeral pile. Philip, bigoted in religion, and
fanatical in his creed of the absolute power of kings, identified himself
willingly with the Deity, that he might more easily punish crimes against
his own sacred person. Granvelle carefully sustained him in these
convictions, and fed his suspicions as to the motives of those who
opposed his measures. The minister constantly represented the great
seigniors as influenced by ambition and pride. They had only disapproved
of the new bishoprics, he insinuated, because they were angry that his
Majesty should dare to do anything without their concurrence, and because
their own influence in the states would be diminished. It was their
object, he said, to keep the King "in tutelage"--to make him a "shadow
and a cipher," while they should themselves exercise all authority in the
provinces. It is impossible to exaggerate the effect of such suggestions
upon the dull and gloomy mind to which they were addressed. It is easy,
however, to see that a minister with such views was likely to be as
congenial to his master as he was odious to the people. For already, in
the beginning of 1562, Granvelle was extremely unpopular. "The Cardinal
is hated of all men," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham. The great struggle
between him and the leading nobles had already commenced. The people
justly identified him with the whole infamous machinery of persecution,
which had either originated or warmly made his own. Viglius and
Berlaymont were his creatures. With the other members of the state
council, according to their solemn statement, already recorded, he did
not deign to consult, while he affected to hold them responsible for the
measures of the administration. Even the Regent herself complained that
the Cardinal took affairs quite out of her hands, and that he decided
upon many important matters without her cognizance. She already began to
feel herself the puppet which it had been intended she should become;
she already felt a diminution of the respectful attachment for the
ecclesiastic which had inspired her when she procured his red hat.
Granvelle was, however, most resolute in carrying out the intentions of
his master. We have seen how vigorously he had already set himself to
the inauguration of the new bishoprics, despite of opposition and
obloquy. He was now encouraging or rebuking the inquisitors in their
"pious office" throughout all the provinces. Notwithstanding his
exertions, however, heresy continued to spread. In the Walloon provinces
the infection was most prevalent, while judges and executioners were
appalled by the mutinous demonstrations which each successive sacrifice
provoked. The victims were cheered on their way to the scaffold. The
hymns of Marot were sung in the very faces of the inquisitors. Two
ministers, Faveau and Mallart, were particularly conspicuous at this
moment at Valenciennes. The governor of the province, Marquis Berghen,
was constantly absent, for he hated with his whole soul the system of
persecution. For this negligence Granvelle denounced him secretly and
perpetually to Philip, "The Marquis says openly," said the Cardinal,
"that 'tis not right to shed blood for matters of faith. With such men
to aid us, your Majesty can judge how much progress we can make." It was,
however, important, in Granvelle's opinion, that these two ministers at
Valenciennes should be at once put to death. They were avowed heretics,
and they preached to their disciples, although they certainly were not
doctors of divinity. Moreover, they were accused, most absurdly, no
doubt, of pretending to work miracles. It was said that, in presence of
several witnesses, they had undertaken to cast out devils; and they had
been apprehended on an accusation of this nature.
["Histoire des choses les plus memorables qui se sent passees en la
ville et Compte de Valenciennes depuis le commencement des troubles
des Pays-Bas sons le regne de Phil. II., jusqu' a l'annee 1621."--
MS. (Collect. Gerard).--This is a contemporary manuscript belonging
to the Gerard collection in the Royal Library at the Hague. Its
author was a citizen of Valenciennes, and a personal witness of most
of the events which he describes. He appears to have attained to a
great age, as he minutely narrates, from personal observation, many
scenes which occurred before 1566, and his work is continued till
the year 1621. It is a mere sketch, without much literary merit,
but containing many local anecdotes of interest. Its anonymous
author was a very sincere Catholic.]
Their offence really consisted in reading the Bible to a few of their
friends. Granvelle sent Philibert de Bruxelles to Valenciennes to
procure their immediate condemnation and execution. He rebuked the
judges and inquisitors, he sent express orders to Marquis Berghen to
repair at once to the scene of his duties. The prisoners were condemned
in the autumn of 1561. The magistrates were, however, afraid to carry
the sentence into effect. Granvelle did not cease to censure them for
their pusillanimity, and wrote almost daily letters, accusing the
magistrates of being themselves the cause of the tumults by which they
were appalled. The popular commotion was, however, not lightly to be
braved. Six or seven months long the culprits remained in confinement,
while daily and nightly the people crowded the streets, hurling threats
and defiance at the authorities, or pressed about the prison windows,
encouraging their beloved ministers, and promising to rescue them in case
the attempt should be made to fulfil the sentence. At last Granvelle
sent down a peremptory order to execute the culprits by fire. On the
27th of April, 1562, Faveau and Mallart were accordingly taken from their
jail and carried to the market-place, where arrangements had been made
for burning them. Simon Faveau, as the executioner was binding him to
the stake, uttered the invocation, "O! Eternal Father!" A woman in the
crowd, at the same instant, took off her shoe and threw it at the funeral
pile. This was a preconcerted signal. A movement was at once visible in
the crowd. Men in great numbers dashed upon the barriers which had been
erected in the square around the place of execution. Some seized the
fagots, which had been already lighted, and scattered them in every
direction; some tore up the pavements; others broke in pieces the
barriers. The executioners were prevented from carrying out the
sentence, but the guard were enabled, with great celerity and
determination, to bring off the culprits and to place them in their
dungeon again. The authorities were in doubt and dismay. The
inquisitors were for putting the ministers to death in prison, and
hurling their heads upon the street. Evening approached while the
officials were still pondering. The people who had been chanting the
Psalms of David through the town, without having decided what should be
their course of action, at last determined to rescue the victims. A vast
throng, after much hesitation, accordingly directed their steps to the
prison. "You should have seen this vile populace," says an eye-witness,
"moving, pausing, recoiling, sweeping forward, swaying to and fro like
the waves of the sea when it is agitated by contending winds." The
attack was vigorous, the defence was weak--for the authorities had
expected no such fierce demonstration, notwithstanding the menacing
language which had been so often uttered. The prisoners were rescued,
and succeeded in making their escape from the city. The day in which the
execution had been thus prevented was called, thenceforward, the "day of
the ill-burned," (Journee des mau-brulez). One of the ministers,
however, Simon Faveau, not discouraged by this near approach to
martyrdom, persisted in his heretical labors, and was a few years
afterwards again apprehended. "He was then," says the chronicler,
cheerfully, "burned well and finally" in the same place whence he had
formerly been rescued. [Valenciennes MS.]
This desperate resistance to tyranny was for a moment successful,
because, notwithstanding the murmurs and menaces by which the storm had
been preceded, the authorities had not believed the people capable of
proceeding to such lengths. Had not the heretics--in the words of
Inquisitor Titelmann--allowed themselves, year after year, to be taken
and slaughtered like lambs? The consternation of the magistrates was
soon succeeded by anger. The government at Brussels was in a frenzy of
rage when informed of the occurrence. A bloody vengeance was instantly
prepared, to vindicate the insult to the inquisition. On the 29th of
April, detachments of Bossu's and of Berghen's "band of ordonnance" were
sent into Valenciennes, together with a company of the Duke of Aerschot's
regiment. The prisons were instantly filled to overflowing with men and
women arrested for actual or suspected participation in the tumult.
Orders had been sent down from the capital to make a short process and a
sharp execution for all the criminals. On the 16th of May, the slaughter
commenced. Some were burned at the stake, some were beheaded: the number
of victims was frightful. "Nothing was left undone by the magistrates,"
says an eyewitness, with great approbation, "which could serve for the
correction and amendment of the poor people." It was long before the
judges and hangmen rested from their labors. When at last the havoc was
complete, it might be supposed that a sufficient vengeance had been taken
for the "day of the ill-burned," and an adequate amount of "amendment"
provided for the "poor people."
Such scenes as these did not tend to increase the loyalty of the nation,
nor the popularity of the government. On Granvelle's head was poured a
daily increasing torrent of hatred. He was looked upon in the provinces
as the impersonation of that religious oppression which became every
moment more intolerable. The King and the Regent escaped much of the
odium which belonged to them, because the people chose to bestow all
their maledictions upon the Cardinal. There was, however, no great
injustice in this embodiment. Granvelle was the government. As the
people of that day were extremely reverent to royalty, they vented all
their rage upon the minister, while maintaining still a conventional
respect for the sovereign. The prelate had already become the constant
butt of the "Rhetoric Chambers." These popular clubs for the manufacture
of homespun poetry and street farces out of the raw material of public
sentiment, occupied the place which has been more effectively filled in
succeeding ages, and in free countries by the daily press. Before the
invention of that most tremendous weapon, which liberty has ever wielded
against tyranny, these humble but influential associations shared with
the pulpit the only power which existed of moving the passions or
directing the opinions of the people. They were eminently liberal in
their tendencies. The authors and the actors of their comedies, poems,
and pasquils were mostly artisans or tradesmen, belonging to the class
out of which proceeded the early victims, and the later soldiers of the
Reformation. Their bold farces and truculent satire had already effected
much in spreading among the people a detestation of Church abuses. They
were particularly severe upon monastic licentiousness. "These corrupt
comedians, called rhetoricians," says the Walloon contemporary already
cited, "afforded much amusement to the people." Always some poor little
nuns or honest monks were made a part of the farce. It seemed as if the
people could take no pleasure except in ridiculing God and the Church.
The people, however, persisted in the opinion that the ideas of a monk
and of God were not inseparable. Certainly the piety of the early
reformers was sufficiently fervent, and had been proved by the steadiness
with which they confronted torture and death, but they knew no measure
in the ridicule which they heaped upon the men by whom they were daily
murdered in droves. The rhetoric comedies were not admirable in an
aesthetic point of view, but they were wrathful and sincere. Therefore
they cost many thousand lives, but they sowed the seed of resistance to
religious tyranny, to spring up one day in a hundredfold harvest. It was
natural that the authorities should have long sought to suppress these
perambulating dramas. "There was at that tyme," wrote honest Richard
Clough to Sir Thomas Gresham, "syche playes (of Reteryke) played thet
hath cost many a 1000 man's lyves, for in these plays was the Word of God
first opened in thys country. Weche playes were and are forbidden moche
more strictly than any of the bookes of Martin Luther."
These rhetoricians were now particularly inflamed against Granvelle.
They were personally excited against him, because he had procured the
suppression of their religious dramas. "These rhetoricians who make
farces and street plays," wrote the Cardinal to Philip, "are particularly
angry with me, because two years ago I prevented them from ridiculing the
holy Scriptures." Nevertheless, these institutions continued to pursue
their opposition to the course of the government. Their uncouth gambols,
their awkward but stunning blows rendered daily service to the cause of
religious freedom. Upon the newly-appointed bishops they poured out an
endless succession of rhymes and rebuses, epigrams, caricatures and
extravaganzas. Poems were pasted upon the walls of every house, and
passed from hand to hand. Farces were enacted in every street; the
odious ecclesiastics figuring as the principal buffoons. These
representations gave so much offence, that renewed edicts were issued to
suppress them. The prohibition was resisted, and even ridiculed in many
provinces, particularly in Holland. The tyranny which was able to drown
a nation in blood and tears, was powerless to prevent them from laughing
most bitterly at their oppressors. The tanner, Cleon, was never
belabored more soundly by the wits of Athens, than the prelate by these
Flemish "rhetoricians." With infinitely less Attic salt, but with as
much heartiness as Aristophanes could have done, the popular rhymers
gave the minister ample opportunity to understand the position which he
occupied in the Netherlands. One day a petitioner placed a paper in his
hand and vanished. It contained some scurrilous verses upon himself,
together with a caricature of his person. In this he was represented as
a hen seated upon a pile of eggs, out of which he was hatching a brood of
bishops. Some of these were clipping the shell, some thrusting forth an
arm, some a leg, while others were running about with mitres on their
heads, all bearing whimsical resemblance to various prelates who had been
newly-appointed. Above the Cardinal's head the Devil was represented
hovering, with these words issuing from his mouth: "This is my beloved
Son, listen to him, my people."
There was another lampoon of a similar nature, which was so well
executed, that it especially excited Granvelle's anger. It was a rhymed
satire of a general nature, like the rest, but so delicate and so
stinging, that the Cardinal ascribed it to his old friend and present
enemy, Simon Renard. This man, a Burgundian by birth, and college
associate of Granvelle, had been befriended both by himself and his
father. Aided by their patronage and his own abilities, he had arrived
at distinguished posts; having been Spanish envoy both in France and
England, and one of the negotiators of the truce of Vaucelles. He had
latterly been disappointed in his ambition to become a councillor of
state, and had vowed vengeance upon the Cardinal, to whom he attributed
his ill success. He was certainly guilty of much ingratitude, for he had
been under early obligations to the man in whose side he now became a
perpetual thorn. It must be confessed, on the other hand, that Granvelle
repaid the enmity of his old associate with a malevolence equal to his
own, and if Renard did not lose his head as well as his political
station, it was not for want of sufficient insinuation on the part of the
minister. Especially did Granvelle denounce him to "the master" as the
perverter of Egmont, while he usually described that nobleman himself, as
weak, vain, "a friend of smoke," easily misguided, but in the main well-
intentioned and loyal. At the same time, with all these vague
commendations, he never omitted to supply the suspicious King with an
account of every fact or every rumor to the Count's discredit. In the
case of this particular satire, he informed Philip that he could swear it
came from the pen of Renard, although, for the sake of deception, the
rhetoric comedians had been employed. He described the production as
filled with "false, abominable, and infernal things," and as treating not
only himself, but the Pope and the whole ecclesiastical order with as
much contumely as could be showed in Germany. He then proceeded to
insinuate, in the subtle manner which was peculiarly his own, that Egmont
was a party to the publication of the pasquil. Renard visited at that
house, he said, and was received there on a much more intimate footing
than was becoming. Eight days before the satire was circulated, there
had been a conversation in Egmont's house, of a nature exactly similar to
the substance of the pamphlet. The man, in whose hands it was first
seen, continued Granvelle, was a sword cutler, a godson of the Count.
This person said that he had torn it from the gate of the city hall, but
God grant, prayed the Cardinal, that it was not he who had first posted
it up there. 'Tis said that Egmont and Mansfeld, he added, have sent
many times to the cutler to procure copies of the satire, all which
augments the suspicion against them.
With the nobles he was on no better terms than with the people. The
great seigniors, Orange, Egmont, Horn, and others, openly avowed their
hostility to him, and had already given their reasons to the King.
Mansfeld and his son at that time were both with the opposition.
Aerschot and Aremberg kept aloof from the league which was forming
against the prelate, but had small sympathy for his person. Even
Berlaymont began to listen to overtures from the leading nobles, who,
among other inducements, promised to supply his children with bishoprics.
There were none truly faithful and submissive to the Cardinal but such
men as the Prevot Morillon, who had received much advancement from him.
This distinguished pluralist was popularly called "double A, B, C," to
indicate that he had twice as many benefices as there were letters in the
alphabet. He had, however, no objection to more, and was faithful to the
dispensing power. The same course was pursued by Secretary Bave, Esquire
Bordey, and other expectants and dependents. Viglius, always remarkable
for his pusillanimity, was at this period already anxious to retire. The
erudite and opulent Frisian preferred a less tempestuous career. He was
in favor of the edicts, but he trembled at the uproar which their literal
execution was daily exciting, for he knew the temper of his countrymen.
On the other hand, he was too sagacious not to know the inevitable
consequence of opposition to the will of Philip. He was therefore most
eager to escape the dilemma. He was a scholar, and could find more
agreeable employment among his books. He had accumulated vast wealth,
and was desirous to retain it as long as possible. He had a learned head
and was anxious to keep it upon his shoulders. These simple objects
could be better attained in a life of privacy. The post of president of
the privy council and member of the "Consulta" was a dangerous one. He
knew that the King was sincere in his purposes. He foresaw that the
people would one day be terribly in earnest. Of ancient Frisian blood
himself, he knew that the, spirit of the ancient Batavians and Frisians
had not wholly deserted their descendants. He knew that they were not
easily roused, that they were patient, but that they would strike at last
and would endure. He urgently solicited the King to release him, and
pleaded his infirmities of body in excuse. Philip, however, would not
listen to his retirement, and made use of the most convincing arguments
to induce him to remain. Four hundred and fifty annual florins, secured
by good reclaimed swamps in Friesland, two thousand more in hand, with a
promise of still larger emoluments when the King should come to the
Netherlands, were reasons which the learned doctor honestly confessed
himself unable to resist. Fortified by these arguments, he remained at
his post, continued the avowed friend and adherent of Granvelle, and
sustained with magnanimity the invectives of nobles and people. To do
him justice, he did what he could to conciliate antagonists and to
compromise principles. If it had ever been possible to find the exact
path between right and wrong, the President would have found it, and
walked in it with respectability and complacency.
In the council, however, the Cardinal continued to carry it with a high
hand; turning his back on Orange and Egmont, and retiring with the
Duchess and President to consult, after every session. Proud and
important personages, like the Prince and Count, could ill brook such
insolence; moreover, they suspected the Cardinal of prejudicing the mind
of their sovereign against them. A report was very current, and obtained
almost universal belief, that Granvelle had expressly advised his Majesty
to take off the heads of at least half a dozen of the principal nobles in
the land. This was an error; "These two seigniors," wrote the Cardinal
to Philip, "have been informed that I have written to your Majesty, that
you will never be master of these provinces without taking off at least
half a dozen heads, and that because it would be difficult, on account of
the probable tumults which such a course would occasion, to do it here,
your Majesty means to call them to Spain and do it there. Your Majesty
can judge whether such a thing has ever entered my thoughts. I have
laughed at it as a ridiculous invention. This gross forgery is one of
Renard's." The Cardinal further stated to his Majesty that he had been
informed by these same nobles that the Duke of Alva, when a hostage for
the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, had negotiated an alliance between the
crowns of France and Spain for the extirpation of heresy by the sword.
He added, that he intended to deal with the nobles with all gentleness,
and that he should do his best to please them. The only thing which he
could not yield was the authority of his Majesty; to sustain that, he
would sacrifice his life, if necessary. At the same time Granvelle
carefully impressed upon the King the necessity of contradicting the
report alluded to, a request which he took care should also be made
through the Regent in person. He had already, both in his own person and
in that of the Duchess, begged for a formal denial, on the King's part,
that there was any intention of introducing the Spanish inquisition into
the Netherlands, and that the Cardinal had counselled, originally, the
bishoprics. Thus instructed, the King accordingly wrote to Margaret of
Parma to furnish the required contradictions. In so doing, he made a
pithy remark. "The Cardinal had not counselled the cutting off the half
a dozen heads," said the monarch, "but perhaps it would not be so bad to
do it!" Time was to show whether Philip was likely to profit by the hint
conveyed in the Cardinal's disclaimer, and whether the factor "half
dozen" were to be used or not as a simple multiplier in the terrible
account preparing.
The contradictions, however sincere, were not believed by the persons
most interested. Nearly all the nobles continued to regard the Cardinal
with suspicion and aversion. Many of the ruder and more reckless class
vied with the rhetoricians and popular caricaturists in the practical
jests which they played off almost daily against the common foe.
Especially Count Brederode, "a madman, if there ever were one," as a
contemporary expressed himself, was most untiring in his efforts to make
Granvelle ridiculous. He went almost nightly to masquerades, dressed as
a cardinal or a monk; and as he was rarely known to be sober on these or
any other occasions, the wildness of his demonstrations may easily be
imagined. He was seconded on all these occasions by his cousin Robert de
la Marck, Seigneur de Lumey, a worthy descendant of the famous "Wild Boar
of Ardennes;" a man brave to temerity, but utterly depraved, licentious,
and sanguinary. These two men, both to be widely notorious, from their
prominence in many of the most striking scenes by which the great revolt
was ushered in, had vowed the most determined animosity to the Cardinal,
which was manifested in the reckless, buffooning way which belonged to
their characters. Besides the ecclesiastical costumes in which they
always attired themselves at their frequent festivities, they also wore
fog-tails in their hats instead of plumes. They decked their servants
also with the same ornaments; openly stating, that by these symbols they
meant to signify that the old fox Granvelle, and his cubs, Viglius,
Berlaymont, and the rest, should soon be hunted down by them, and the
brush placed in their hats as a trophy.
Moreover, there is no doubt that frequent threats of personal violence
were made against the Cardinal. Granvelle informed the King that his
life was continually menaced by, the nobles, but that he feared them
little, "for he believed them too prudent to attempt any thing of the
kind." There is no doubt, when his position with regard to the upper
and lower classes in the country is considered, that there was enough
to alarm a timid man; but Granvelle was constitutionally brave. He was
accused of wearing a secret shirt of mail, of living in perpetual
trepidation, of having gone on his knees to Egmont and Orange, of having
sent Richardot, Bishop of Arras, to intercede for him in the same
humiliating manner with Egmont. All these stories were fables. Bold as
he was arrogant, he affected at this time to look down with a forgiving
contempt on the animosity of the nobles. He passed much of his time
alone, writing his eternal dispatches to the King. He had a country-
house, called La Fontaine, surrounded by beautiful gardens, a little way
outside the gates of Brussels, where he generally resided, and whence,
notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends, he often returned to
town, after sunset, alone, or with but a few attendants. He avowed that
he feared no attempts at assassination, for, if the seigniors took his
life, they would destroy the best friend they ever had. This villa,
where most of his plans were matured and his state papers drawn up,
was called by the people, in derision of his supposed ancestry,
"The Smithy." Here, as they believed, was the anvil upon which the
chains of their slavery were forging; here, mostly deserted by those who
had been his earlier, associates, he assumed a philosophical demeanor
which exasperated, without deceiving his adversaries. Over the great
gate of his house he had placed the marble statue of a female. It held
an empty wine-cup in one hand, and an urn of flowing water in the other.
The single word "Durate" was engraved upon the pedestal. By the motto,
which was his habitual device, he was supposed, in this application,
to signify that his power would outlast that of the nobles, and that
perennial and pure as living water, it would flow tranquilly on, long
after the wine of their life had been drunk to the lees. The fiery
extravagance of his adversaries, and the calm and limpid moderation of
his own character, thus symbolized, were supposed to convey a moral
lesson to the world. The hieroglyphics, thus interpreted, were not
relished by the nobles--all avoided his society, and declined his
invitations. He consoled himself with the company of the lesser gentry,
--a class which he now began to patronize, and which he urgently
recommended to the favor of the King,--hinting that military and civil
offices bestowed upon their inferiors would be a means of lowering the
pride of the grandees. He also affected to surround himself with even
humbler individuals. "It makes me laugh," he wrote to Philip, "to see
the great seigniors absenting themselves from my dinners; nevertheless,
I can always get plenty of guests at my table, gentlemen and councillors.
I sometimes invite even citizens, in order to gain their good will."
The Regent was well aware of the anger excited in the breasts of the
leading nobles by the cool manner in which they had been thrust out of
their share in the administration of affairs. She defended herself with
acrimony in her letters to the King, although a defence was hardly needed
in that quarter for implicit obedience to the royal commands. She
confessed her unwillingness to consult with her enemies.
She avowed her determination to conceal the secrets of the government
from those who were capable of abusing her confidence. She represented
that there were members of the council who would willingly take advantage
of the trepidation which she really felt, and which she should exhibit if
she expressed herself without reserve before them. For this reason she
confined herself, as Philip had always intended, exclusively to the
Consulta. It was not difficult to recognize the hand which wrote the
letter thus signed by Margaret of Parma.
Both nobles and people were at this moment irritated by another
circumstance. The civil war having again broken out in France, Philip,
according to the promise made by him to Catharine de Medici, when he took
her daughter in marriage, was called upon to assist the Catholic party
with auxiliaries. He sent three thousand infantry, accordingly, which he
had levied in Italy, as many more collected in Spain, and gave immediate
orders that the Duchess of Parma should despatch at least two thousand
cavalry, from the Netherlands. Great was the indignation in the council
when the commands were produced. Sore was the dismay of Margaret. It
was impossible to obey the King. The idea of sending the famous mounted
gendarmerie of the provinces to fight against the French Huguenots could
not be tolerated for an instant. The "bands of ordonnance" were very few
in number, and were to guard the frontier. They were purely for domestic
purposes. It formed no part of their duty to go upon crusades in foreign
lands; still less to take a share in a religious quarrel, and least of
all to assist a monarch against a nation. These views were so cogently
presented to the Duchess in council, that she saw the impossibility of
complying with her brother's commands. She wrote to Philip to that
effect. Meantime, another letter arrived out of Spain, chiding her
delay, and impatiently calling upon her to furnish the required cavalry
at once. The Duchess was in a dilemma. She feared to provoke another
storm in the council, for there was already sufficient wrangling there
upon domestic subjects. She knew it was impossible to obtain the
consent, even of Berlaymont and Viglius, to such an odious measure as the
one proposed. She was, however, in great trepidation at the peremptory
tone of the King's despatch. Under the advice of Granvelle, she had
recourse to a trick. A private and confidential letter of Philip was
read to the council, but with alterations suggested and interpolated by
the Cardinal. The King was represented as being furious at the delay,
but as willing that a sum of money should be furnished instead of the
cavalry, as originally required. This compromise, after considerable
opposition, was accepted. The Duchess wrote to Philip, explaining and
apologizing for the transaction. The King received the substitution with
as good a grace as could have been expected, and sent fifteen hundred
troopers from Spain to his Medicean mother-in-law, drawing upon the
Duchess of Parma for the money to pay their expenses. Thus was the
industry of the Netherlands taxed that the French might be persecuted
by their own monarch.
The Regent had been forbidden, by her brother, to convoke the states-
general; a body which the Prince of Orange, sustained by Berghen,
Montigny, and other nobles, was desirous of having assembled. It may be
easily understood that Granvelle would take the best care that the royal
prohibition should be enforced. The Duchess, however, who, as already
hinted, was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable under the Cardinal's
dominion, was desirous of consulting some larger council than that with
which she held her daily deliberations. A meeting of the Knights of the
Fleece was accordingly summoned. They assembled in Brussels, in the
month of May, 1562. The learned Viglius addressed them in a long and
eloquent speech, in which he discussed the troubled and dangerous
condition of the provinces, alluded to some of its causes, and suggested
various remedies. It may be easily conceived, however, that the
inquisition was not stated among the causes, nor its suppression included
among the remedies. A discourse, in which the fundamental topic was thus
conscientiously omitted, was not likely, with all its concinnities, to
make much impression upon the disaffected knights, or to exert a soothing
influence upon the people. The orator was, however, delighted with his
own performance. He informs us, moreover, that the Duchess was equally
charmed, and that she protested she had never in her whole life heard any
thing more "delicate, more suitable, or more eloquent." The Prince of
Orange, however, did not sympathize with her admiration. The President's
elegant periods produced but little effect upon his mind. The meeting
adjourned, after a few additional words from the Duchess, in which she
begged the knights to ponder well the causes of the increasing
discontent, and to meet her again, prepared to announce what, in their
opinion, would be the course best adapted to maintain the honor of the
King, the safety of the provinces, and the glory of God.
Soon after the separation of the assembly, the Prince of Orange issued
invitations to most of the knights, to meet at his house for the purpose
of private deliberation. The President and Cardinal were not included in
these invitations. The meeting was, in fact, what we should call a
caucus, rather than a general gathering. Nevertheless, there were many
of the government party present--men who differed from the Prince, and
were inclined to support Granvelle. The meeting was a stormy one. Two
subjects were discussed. The first was the proposition of the Duchess,
to investigate the general causes of the popular dissatisfaction; the
second was an inquiry how it could be rendered practicable to discuss
political matters in future--a proceeding now impossible, in consequence
of the perverseness and arrogance of certain functionaries, and one
which, whenever attempted, always led to the same inevitable result.
This direct assault upon the Cardinal produced a furious debate. His
enemies were delighted with the opportunity of venting their long-
suppressed spleen. They indulged in savage invectives against the man
whom they so sincerely hated. His adherents, on the other hand--Bossu,
Berlaymont, Courieres--were as warm in his defence. They replied by
indignant denials of the charge against him, and by bitter insinuations
against the Prince of Orange. They charged him with nourishing the
desire of being appointed governor of Brabant, an office considered
inseparable from the general stadholderate of all the provinces. They
protested for themselves that they were actuated by no ambitious designs
--that they were satisfied with their own position, and not inspired by
jealousy of personages more powerful than themselves. It is obvious that
such charges and recriminations could excite no healing result, and that
the lines between Cardinalists and their opponents would be defined in
consequence more sharply than ever. The adjourned meeting of the
Chevaliers of the Fleece took place a few days afterwards. The Duchess
exerted herself as much as possible to reconcile the contending factions,
without being able, however, to apply the only remedy which could be
effective. The man who was already fast becoming the great statesman of
the country knew that the evil was beyond healing, unless by a change of
purpose on the part of the government. The Regent, on the other hand,
who it must be confessed never exhibited any remarkable proof of
intellectual ability during the period of her residence in the
Netherlands, was often inspired by a feeble and indefinite hope that the
matter might be arranged by a compromise between the views of conflicting
parties. Unfortunately the inquisition was not a fit subject for a
compromise.
Nothing of radical importance was accomplished by the Assembly of the
Fleece. It was decided that an application should be made to the
different states for a giant of money, and that, furthermore, a special
envoy should be despatched to Spain. It was supposed by the Duchess and
her advisers that more satisfactory information concerning the provinces
could be conveyed to Philip by word of mouth than by the most elaborate
epistles. The meeting was dissolved after these two measures had been
agreed upon. Doctor Viglius, upon whom devolved the duty of making the
report and petition to the states, proceeded to draw up the necessary
application. This he did with his customary elegance, and, as usual,
very much to his own satisfaction. On returning to his house, however,
after having discharged this duty, he was very much troubled at finding
that a large mulberry-tree; which stood in his garden, had been torn up
by the roots in a violent hurricane. The disaster was considered ominous
by the President, and he was accordingly less surprised than mortified
when he found, subsequently, that his demand upon the orders had remained
as fruitless as his ruined tree. The tempest which had swept his garden
he considered typical of the storm which was soon to rage through the
land, and he felt increased anxiety to reach a haven while it was yet
comparatively calm.
The estates rejected the request for supplies, on various grounds; among
others, that the civil war was drawing to a conclusion in France, and
that less danger was to be apprehended from that source than had lately
been the case. Thus, the "cup of bitterness," of which Granvelle had
already complained; was again commended to his lips, and there was more
reason than ever for the government to regret that the national
representatives had contracted the habit of meddling with financial
matters.
Florence de Montmorency, Seigneur de Montigny, was selected by the Regent
for the mission which had been decided upon for Spain. This gentleman
was brother to Count Horn, but possessed of higher talents and a more
amiable character than those of the Admiral. He was a warm friend of
Orange, and a bitter enemy to Granvelle. He was a sincere Catholic, but
a determined foe to the inquisition. His brother had declined to act as
envoy. This refusal can excite but little surprise, when Philip's wrath
at their parting interview is recalled, and when it is also remembered
that the new mission would necessarily lay bare fresh complaints against
the Cardinal, still more extensive than those which had produced the
former explosion of royal indignation. Montigny, likewise, would have
preferred to remain at home, but he was overruled. It had been written
in his destiny that he should go twice into the angry lion's den, and
that he should come forth once, alive.
Thus it has been shown that there was an open, avowed hostility on the
part of the grand seignors and most of the lesser nobility to the
Cardinal and his measures. The people fully and enthusiastically
sustained the Prince of Orange in his course. There was nothing
underhand in the opposition made to the government. The Netherlands did
not constitute an absolute monarchy. They did not even constitute a
monarchy. There was no king in the provinces. Philip was King of Spain,
Naples, Jerusalem, but he was only Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders,
Lord of Friesland, hereditary chief, in short, under various titles, of
seventeen states, each one of which, although not republican, possessed
constitutions as sacred as, and much more ancient than, the Crown. The
resistance to the absolutism of Granvelle and Philip was, therefore,
logical, legal, constitutional. It was no cabal, no secret league,
as the Cardinal had the effrontery to term it, but a legitimate exercise
of powers which belonged of old to those who wielded them, and which only
an unrighteous innovation could destroy.
Granvelle's course was secret and subtle. During the whole course of the
proceedings which have just been described, he was; in daily confidential
correspondence with the King, besides being the actual author of the
multitudinous despatches which were sent with the signature of the
Duchess. He openly asserted his right to monopolize all the powers of
the Government; he did his utmost to force upon the reluctant and almost
rebellious people the odious measures which the King had resolved upon,
while in his secret letters he uniformly represented the nobles who
opposed him, as being influenced, not by an honest hatred of oppression
and attachment to ancient rights, but by resentment, and jealousy of
their own importance. He assumed, in his letters to his master, that
the absolutism already existed of right and in fact, which it was the
intention of Philip to establish. While he was depriving the nobles,
the states and the nation of their privileges, and even of their natural
rights (a slender heritage in those days), he assured the King that there
was an evident determination to reduce his authority to a cipher.
The estates, he wrote, had usurped the whole administration of the
finances, and had farmed it out to Antony Van Stralen and others, who
were making enormous profits in the business. "The seignors," he said,
"declare at their dinner parties that I wish to make them subject to the
absolute despotism of your Majesty. In point of fact, however, they
really exercise a great deal more power than the governors of particular
provinces ever did before; and it lacks but little that Madame and your
Majesty should become mere ciphers, while the grandees monopolize the
whole power. This," he continued, "is the principal motive of their
opposition to the new bishoprics. They were angry that your Majesty
should have dared to solicit such an arrangement at Rome, without,
first obtaining their consent. They wish to reduce your Majesty's
authority to so low a point that you can do nothing unless they desire
it. Their object is the destruction of the royal authority and of the
administration of justice, in order to avoid the payment of their debts;
telling their creditors constantly that they, have spent their all in
your Majesty's service, and that they have never received recompence or
salary. This they do to make your Majesty odious."
As a matter of course, he attributed the resistance on the part of the
great nobles, every man of whom was Catholic, to base motives. They were
mere demagogues, who refused to burn their fellow-creatures, not from any
natural repugnance to the task, but in order to gain favor with the
populace. "This talk about the inquisition," said he, "is all a
pretext. 'Tis only to throw dust in the eyes of the vulgar, and to
persuade them into tumultuous demonstrations, while the real reason is,
that they choose that your Majesty should do nothing without their
permission, and through their hands."
He assumed sometimes, however, a tone of indulgence toward the seignors
--who formed the main topics of his letters--an affectation which might,
perhaps, have offended them almost as much as more open and sincere
denunciation. He could forgive offences against himself. It was for
Philip to decide as to their merits or crimes so far as the Crown was
concerned. His language often was befitting a wise man who was speaking
of very little children. "Assonleville has told me, as coming from
Egmont," he wrote, "that many of the nobles are dissatisfied with me;
hearing from Spain that I am endeavoring to prejudice your Majesty
against them." Certainly the tone of the Cardinal's daily letters would
have justified such suspicion, could the nobles have seen them.
Granvelle begged the King, however, to disabuse them upon this point.
"Would to God," said he, piously, "that they all would decide to sustain
the authority of your Majesty, and to procure such measures as tend to
the service of God and the security of the states. May I cease to exist
if I do not desire to render good service to the very least of these
gentlemen. Your Majesty knows that, when they do any thing for the
benefit of your service, I am never silent. Nevertheless, thus they are
constituted. I hope, however, that this flurry will blow over, and that
when your Majesty comes they will all be found to deserve rewards of
merit."
Of Egmont, especially, he often spoke in terms of vague, but somewhat
condescending commendation. He never manifested resentment in his
letters, although, as already stated, the Count had occasionally
indulged, not only in words, but in deeds of extreme violence against
him. But the Cardinal was too forgiving a Christian, or too keen a
politician not to pass by such offences, so long as there was a chance of
so great a noble's remaining or becoming his friend. He, accordingly,
described him, in general, as a man whose principles, in the main, were
good, but who was easily led by his own vanity and the perverse counsels
of others. He represented him as having been originally a warm supporter
of the new bishoprics, and as having expressed satisfaction that two of
them, those of Bruges and Ypres, should have been within his own
stadholderate. He regretted, however; to inform the King that the Count
was latterly growing lukewarm, perhaps from fear of finding himself
separated from the other nobles. On the whole, he was tractable enough,
said the Cardinal, if he were not easily persuaded by the vile; but one
day, perhaps, he might open his eyes again. Notwithstanding these vague
expressions of approbation, which Granvelle permitted himself in his
letters to Philip, he never failed to transmit to the monarch every fact,
every rumor, every inuendo which might prejudice the royal mind against
that nobleman or against any of the noblemen, whose characters he at the
same time protested he was most unwilling to injure.
It is true that he dealt mainly by insinuation, while he was apt to
conclude his statements with disclaimers upon his own part, and with
hopes of improvement in the conduct of the seignors. At this particular
point of time he furnished Philip with a long and most circumstantial
account of a treasonable correspondence which was thought to be going on
between the leading nobles and the future emperor, Maximilian. The
narrative was a good specimen of the masterly style of inuendo in which
the Cardinal excelled, and by which he was often enabled to convince his
master of the truth of certain statements while affecting to discredit
them. He had heard a story, he said, which he felt bound to communicate
to his Majesty, although he did not himself implicitly believe it. He
felt himself the more bound to speak upon the subject because it tallied
exactly with intelligence which he had received from another source. The
story was that one of these seigniors (the Cardinal did not know which,
for he had not yet thought proper to investigate the matter) had said
that rather than consent that the King should act in this matter of the
bishoprics against the privileges of Brabant, the nobles would elect for
their sovereign some other prince of the blood. This, said the Cardinal,
was perhaps a fantasy rather than an actual determination. Count Egmont,
to be sure, he said, was constantly exchanging letters with the King of
Bohemia (Maximilian), and it was supposed, therefore, that he was the
prince of the blood who was to be elected to govern the provinces. It
was determined that he should be chosen King of the Romans, by fair means
or by force, that he should assemble an army to attack the Netherlands,
that a corresponding movement should be made within the states, and that
the people should be made to rise, by giving them the reins in the matter
of religion. The Cardinal, after recounting all the particulars of this
fiction with great minuteness, added, with apparent frankness, that
the correspondence between Egmont and Maximilian did not astonish him,
because there had been much intimacy between them in the time of the late
Emperor. He did not feel convinced, therefore, from the frequency of the
letters exchanged, that there was a scheme to raise an army to attack the
provinces and to have him elected by force. On the contrary, Maximilian
could never accomplish such a scheme without the assistance of his
imperial father the Emperor, whom Granvelle was convinced would rather
die than be mixed up with such villany against Philip. Moreover, unless
the people should become still more corrupted by the bad counsels
constantly given them, the Cardinal did not believe that any of the great
nobles had the power to dispose in this way of the provinces at their
pleasure. Therefore, he concluded that the story was to be rejected as
improbable, although it had come to him directly from the house of the
said Count Egmont. It is remarkable that, at the commencement of his
narrative, the Cardinal had expressed his ignorance of the name of the
seignior who was hatching all this treason, while at the end of it he
gave a local habitation to the plot in the palace of Egmont. It is also
quite characteristic that he should add that, after all, he considered
that nobleman one of the most honest of all, if appearances did not
deceive.
It may be supposed, however, that all these details of a plot which was
quite imaginary, were likely to produce more effect upon a mind so narrow
and so suspicious as that of Philip, than could the vague assertions of
the Cardinal, that in spite of all, he would dare be sworn that he
thought the Count honest, and that men should be what they seemed.
Notwithstanding the conspiracy, which, according to Granvelle's letters,
had been formed against him, notwithstanding that his life was daily
threatened, he did not advise the King at this period to avenge him by
any public explosion of wrath. He remembered, he piously observed, that
vengeance belonged to God, and that He would repay. Therefore he passed
over insults meekly, because that comported best with his Majesty's
service. Therefore, too, he instructed Philip to make no demonstration
at that time, in order not to damage his own affairs. He advised him to
dissemble, and to pretend not to know what was going on in the provinces.
Knowing that his master looked to him daily for instructions, always
obeyed them with entire docility, and, in fact, could not move a step in
Netherland matters without them, he proceeded to dictate to him the terms
in which he was to write to the nobles, and especially laid down rules
for his guidance in his coming interviews with the Seigneur de Montigny.
Philip, whose only talent consisted in the capacity to learn such lessons
with laborious effort, was at this juncture particularly in need of
tuition. The Cardinal instructed him, accordingly, that he was to
disabuse all men of the impression that the Spanish inquisition was
to be introduced into the provinces. He was to write to the seigniors,
promising to pay them their arrears of salary; he was to exhort them to
do all in their power for the advancement of religion and maintenance of
the royal authority; and he was to suggest to them that, by his answer to
the Antwerp deputation, it was proved that there was no intention of
establishing the inquisition of Spain, under pretext of the new
bishoprics.
The King was, furthermore, to signify his desire that all the nobles
should exert themselves to efface this false impression from the popular
mind. He was also to express himself to the same effect concerning the
Spanish inquisition, the bishoprics, and the religious question, in the
public letters to Madame de Parma, which were to be read in full council.
The Cardinal also renewed his instructions to the King as to the manner
in which the Antwerp deputies were to be answered, by giving them,
namely, assurances that to transplant the Spanish inquisition into the
provinces would be as hopeless as to attempt its establishment in Naples.
He renewed his desire that Philip should contradict the story about the
half dozen heads, and he especially directed him to inform Montigny that
Berghen had known of the new bishoprics before the Cardinal. This, urged
Granvelle, was particularly necessary, because the seigniors were
irritated that so important a matter should have been decided upon
without their advice, and because the Marquis Berghen was now the
"cock of the opposition."
At about the same time, it was decided by Granvelle and the Regent, in
conjunction with the King, to sow distrust and jealousy among the nobles,
by giving greater "mercedes" to some than to others, although large sums
were really due to all. In particular, the attempt was made in this
paltry manner, to humiliate William of Orange. A considerable sum was
paid to Egmont, and a trifling one to the Prince, in consideration of
their large claims upon the treasury. Moreover the Duke of Aerschot was
selected as envoy to the Frankfort Diet, where the King of the Romans was
to be elected, with the express intention, as Margaret wrote to Philip,
of creating divisions among the nobles, as he had suggested. The Duchess
at the same time informed her brother that, according to, Berlaymont, the
Prince of Orange was revolving some great design, prejudicial to his
Majesty's service.
Philip, who already began to suspect that a man who thought so much must
be dangerous, was eager to find out the scheme over which William the
Silent was supposed to be brooding, and wrote for fresh intelligence to
the Duchess.
Neither Margaret nor the Cardinal, however, could discover any thing
against the Prince--who, meantime, although disappointed of the mission
to Frankfort, had gone to that city in his private capacity--saving that
he had been heard to say, "one day we shall be the stronger." Granvelle
and Madame de Parma both communicated this report upon the same day, but
this was all that they were able to discover of the latent plot.
In the autumn of this year (1562) Montigny made his visit to Spain, as
confidential envoy from the Regent. The King being fully prepared as to
the manner in which he was to deal with him, received the ambassador with
great cordiality. He informed him in the course of their interviews,
that Granvelle had never attempted to create prejudice against the
nobles, that he was incapable of the malice attributed to him, and that
even were it otherwise, his evil representations against other public
servants would produce no effect. The King furthermore protested that he
had no intention of introducing the Spanish inquisition into the
Netherlands, and that the new bishops were not intended as agents for
such a design, but had been appointed solely with a view of smoothing
religious difficulties in the provinces, and of leading his people back
into the fold of the faithful. He added, that as long ago as his visit
to England for the purpose of espousing Queen Mary, he had entertained
the project of the new episcopates, as the Marquis Berghen, with whom he
had conversed freely upon the subject, could bear witness. With regard
to the connexion of Granvelle with the scheme, he assured Montigny that
the Cardinal had not been previously consulted, but had first learned the
plan after the mission of Sonnius.
Such was the purport of the King's communications to the envoy,
as appears from memoranda in the royal handwriting and from the
correspondence of Margaret of Parma. Philip's exactness in conforming
to his instructions is sufficiently apparent, on comparing his statements
with the letters previously received from the omnipresent Cardinal.
Beyond the limits of those directions the King hardly hazarded a
syllable. He was merely the plenipotentiary of the Cardinal, as Montigny
was of the Regent. So long as Granvelle's power lasted, he was absolute
and infallible. Such, then, was the amount of satisfaction derived from
the mission of Montigny. There was to be no diminution of the religious
persecution, but the people were assured upon royal authority, that the
inquisition, by which they were daily burned and beheaded, could not be
logically denominated the Spanish inquisition. In addition to the
comfort, whatever it might be, which the nation could derive from this
statement, they were also consoled with the information that Granvelle
was not the inventor of the bishoprics. Although he had violently
supported the measure as soon as published, secretly denouncing as
traitors and demagogues, all those who lifted their voices against it,
although he was the originator of the renewed edicts, although he took,
daily, personal pains that this Netherland inquisition, "more pitiless
than the Spanish," should be enforced in its rigor, and although he,
at the last, opposed the slightest mitigation of its horrors, he was
to be represented to the nobles and the people as a man of mild and
unprejudiced character, incapable of injuring even his enemies. "I will
deal with the seigniors most blandly," the Cardinal had written to
Philip, "and will do them pleasure, even if they do not wish it, for the
sake of God and your Majesty." It was in this light, accordingly, that
Philip drew the picture of his favorite minister to the envoy. Montigny,
although somewhat influenced by the King's hypocritical assurances of
the, benignity with which he regarded the Netherlands, was, nevertheless,
not to be deceived by this flattering portraiture of a man whom he knew
so well and detested so cordially as he did Granvelle. Solicited by the
King, at their parting interview, to express his candid opinion as to the
causes of the dissatisfaction in the provinces, Montigny very frankly and
most imprudently gave vent to his private animosity towards the Cardinal.
He spoke of his licentiousness, greediness, ostentation, despotism, and
assured the monarch that nearly all the inhabitants of the Netherlands
entertained the same opinion concerning him. He then dilated upon the
general horror inspired by the inquisition and the great repugnance felt
to the establishment of the new episcopates. These three evils,
Granvelle, the inquisition, and the bishoprics, he maintained were the
real and sufficient causes of the increasing popular discontent. Time
was to reveal whether the open-hearted envoy was to escape punishment for
his frankness, and whether vengeance for these crimes against Granvelle
and Philip were to be left wholly, as the Cardinal had lately suggested,
in the hands of the Lord.
Montigny returned late in December. His report concerning the results of
his mission was made in the state council, and was received with great
indignation. The professions of benevolent intentions on the part of the
sovereign made no impression on the mind of Orange, who was already in
the habit of receiving secret information from Spain with regard to the
intentions of the government. He knew very well that the plot revealed
to him by Henry the Second in the wood of Vincennes was still the royal
program, so far as the Spanish monarch was concerned. Moreover, his
anger was heightened by information received from Montigny that the names
of Orange, Egmont and their adherents, were cited to him as he passed
through France as the avowed defenders of the Huguenots, in politics and
religion. The Prince, who was still a sincere Catholic, while he hated
the persecutions of the inquisition, was furious at the statement.
A violent scene occurred in the council. Orange openly denounced the
report as a new slander of Granvelle, while Margaret defended the
Cardinal and denied the accusation, but at the same time endeavored with
the utmost earnestness to reconcile the conflicting parties.
It had now become certain, however, that the government could no longer
be continued on its present footing. Either Granvelle or the seigniors
must succumb. The Prince of Orange was resolved that the Cardinal should
fall or that he would himself withdraw from all participation in the
affairs of government. In this decision he was sustained by Egmont,
Horn, Montigny, Berghen, and the other leading nobles.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Affecting to discredit them
An inspiring and delightful recreation (auto-da-fe)
Arrested on suspicion, tortured till confession
Inquisition of the Netherlands is much more pitiless
Inquisition was not a fit subject for a compromise
Made to swing to and fro over a slow fire
Orator was, however, delighted with his own performance
Philip, who did not often say a great deal in a few words
Scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack
Ten thousand two hundred and twenty individuals were burned
Torquemada's administration (of the inquisition)
Two witnesses sent him to the stake, one witness to the rack
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1561-62 ***
******** This file should be named 4807.txt or 4807.zip ********
This etext was produced by David Widger
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.
Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.
Most people start at our Web sites at:
https://gutenberg.org or
http://promo.net/pg
These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
eBooks Year Month
1 1971 July
10 1991 January
100 1994 January
1000 1997 August
1500 1998 October
2000 1999 December
2500 2000 December
3000 2001 November
4000 2001 October/November
6000 2002 December*
9000 2003 November*
10000 2004 January*
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
We need your donations more than ever!
As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.
As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
In answer to various questions we have received on this:
We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.
While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.
International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.
Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109
Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
We need your donations more than ever!
You can get up to date donation information online at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
***
If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:
Michael S. Hart
Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
We would prefer to send you information by email.
**The Legal Small Print**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.
To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word
processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to
let us know your plans and to work out the details.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.
The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
[email protected]
[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
