Part 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 15.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

By John Lothrop Motley

1855

1568 [CHAPTER II.]

Orange, Count Louis, Hoogstraaten, and others, cited before the Blood-Council--Charges against them--Letter of Orange in reply-- Position and sentiments of the Prince--Seizure of Count de Buren-- Details of that transaction--Petitions to the Council from Louvain and other places--Sentence of death against the whole population of the Netherlands pronounced by the Spanish Inquisition and proclaimed by Philip--Cruel inventions against heretics--The Wild Beggars-- Preliminary proceedings of the Council against Egmont and Horn-- Interrogatories addressed to them in prison--Articles of accusation against them--Foreclosure of the cases--Pleas to the jurisdiction-- Efforts by the Countesses Egmont and Horn, by many Knights of the Fleece, and by the Emperor, in favor of the prisoners--Answers of Alva and of Philip--Obsequious behavior of Viglius--Difficulties arising from the Golden Fleece statutes set aside--Particulars of the charges against Count Horn and of his defence--Articles of accusation against Egmont--Sketch of his reply--Reflections upon the two trials--Attitude of Orange--His published 'Justification'--His secret combinations--His commission to Count Louis--Large sums of money subscribed by the Nassau family, by Netherland refugees, and others--Great personal sacrifices made by the Prince--Quadruple scheme for invading the Netherlands--Defeat of the patriots under Cocqueville--Defeat of Millers--Invasion of Friesland by Count Louis--Measures of Alva to oppose him--Command of the royalists entreated to Aremberg and Meghem--The Duke's plan for the campaign-- Skirmish at Dam--Detention of Meghem--Count Louis at Heiliger--Lee-- Nature of the ground--Advance of Aremberg--Disposition of the patriot forces--Impatience of the Spanish troops to engage--Battle of Heiliger-Lee--Defeat and death of Aremberg--Death of Adolphus Nassau--Effects of the battle--Anger and severe measures of Alva-- Eighteen nobles executed at Brussels--Sentence of death pronounced upon Egmont and Horn--The Bishop of Ypres sent to Egmont--Fruitless intercession by the prelate and the Countess--Egmont's last night in prison--The "grande place" at Brussels--Details concerning the execution of Egmont and Horn--Observation upon the characters of the two nobles--Destitute condition of Egmont's family.

Late in October, the Duke of Alva made his triumphant entry into the new fortress. During his absence, which was to continue during the remainder of the year, he had ordered the Secretary Courteville and the Councillor del Rio to superintend the commission, which was then actually engaged in collecting materials for the prosecutions to be instituted against the Prince of Orange and the other nobles who had abandoned the country. Accordingly, soon after his return, on the 19th of January, 1568, the Prince, his brother Louis of Nassau, his brother-in-law, Count Van den Berg, the Count Hoogstraaten, the Count Culemburg, and the Baron Montigny, were summoned in the name of Alva to appear before the Blood- Council, within thrice fourteen days from the date of the proclamation, under pain of perpetual banishment with confiscation of their estates. It is needless to say that these seigniors did not obey the summons. They knew full well that their obedience would be rewarded only by death.

The charges against the Prince of Orange, which were drawn up in ten articles, stated, chiefly and briefly, that he had been, and was, the head and front of the rebellion; that as soon as his Majesty had left the Netherlands, he had begun his machinations to make himself master of the country and to expel his sovereign by force, if he should attempt to return to the provinces; that he had seduced his Majesty's subjects by false pretences that the Spanish inquisition was about to be introduced; that he had been the secret encourager and director of Brederode and the confederated nobles; and that when sent to Antwerp, in the name of the Regent, to put down the rebellion, he had encouraged heresy and accorded freedom of religion to the Reformers.

The articles against Hoogstraaten and the other gentlemen mere of similar tenor. It certainly was not a slender proof of the calm effrontery of the government thus to see Alva's proclamation charging it as a crime upon Orange that he had inveigled the lieges into revolt by a false assertion that the inquisition was about to be established, when letters from the Duke to Philip, and from Granvelle to Philip, dated upon nearly the same day, advised the immediate restoration of the inquisition as soon as an adequate number of executions had paved the way for the measure. It was also a sufficient indication of a reckless despotism, that while the Duchess, who had made the memorable Accord with the Religionists, received a flattering letter of thanks and a farewell pension of fourteen thousand ducats yearly, those who, by her orders, had acted upon that treaty as the basis of their negotiations, were summoned to lay down their heads upon the block.

The Prince replied to this summons by a brief and somewhat contemptuous plea to the jurisdiction. As a Knight of the Fleece, as a member of the Germanic Empire, as a sovereign prince in France, as a citizen of the Netherlands, he rejected the authority of Alva and of his self- constituted tribunal. His innocence he was willing to establish before competent courts and righteous judges. As a Knight of the Fleece, he said he could be tried only by his peers, the brethren of the Order, and, for that purpose, he could be summoned only by the King as Head of the Chapter, with the sanction of at least six of his fellow-knights. In conclusion, he offered to appear before his Imperial Majesty, the Electors, and other members of the Empire, or before the Knights of the Golden Fleece. In the latter case, he claimed the right, under the statutes of that order, to be placed while the trial was pending, not in a solitary prison, as had been the fate of Egmont and of Horn, but under the friendly charge and protection of the brethren themselves. The letter was addressed to the procurator-general, and a duplicate was forwarded to the Duke.

From the general tenor of the document, it is obvious both that the Prince was not yet ready to throw down the gauntlet to his sovereign, nor to proclaim his adhesion to the new religion: Of departing from the Netherlands in the spring, he had said openly that he was still in possession of sixty thousand florins yearly, and that he should commence no hostilities against Philip, so long as he did not disturb him in his honor or his estates. Far-seeing politician, if man ever were, he knew the course whither matters were inevitably tending, but he knew how much strength was derived from putting an adversary irretrievably in the wrong. He still maintained an attitude of dignified respect towards the monarch, while he hurled back with defiance the insolent summons of the viceroy. Moreover, the period had not yet arrived for him to break publicly with the ancient faith. Statesman, rather than religionist, at this epoch, he was not disposed to affect a more complete conversion than the one which he had experienced. He was, in truth, not for a new doctrine, but for liberty of conscience. His mind was already expanding beyond any dogmas of the age. The man whom his enemies stigmatized as atheist and renegade, was really in favor of toleration, and therefore, the more deeply criminal in the eyes of all religious parties.

Events, personal to himself, were rapidly to place him in a position from which he might enter the combat with honor.

His character had already been attacked, his property threatened with confiscation. His closest ties of family were now to be severed by the hand of the tyrant. His eldest child, the Count de Buren, torn from his protection, was to be carried into indefinite captivity in a foreign land. It was a remarkable oversight, for a person of his sagacity, that, upon his own departure from the provinces, he should leave his son, then a boy of thirteen years, to pursue his studies at the college of Louvain. Thus exposed to the power of the government, he was soon seized as a hostage for the good behavior of the father. Granvelle appears to have been the first to recommend the step in a secret letter to Philip, but Alva scarcely needed prompting. Accordingly, upon the 13th of February, 1568, the Duke sent the Seignior de Chassy to Louvain, attended by four officers and by twelve archers. He was furnished with a letter to the Count de Buren, in which that young nobleman was requested to place implicit confidence in the bearer of the despatch, and was informed that the desire which his Majesty had to see him educated for his service, was the cause of the communication which the Seignior de Chassy was about to make.

That gentleman was, moreover, minutely instructed as to his method of proceeding in this memorable case of kidnapping. He was to present the letter to the young Count in presence of his tutor. He was to invite him to Spain in the name of his Majesty. He was to assure him that his Majesty's commands were solely with a view, to his own good, and that he was not commissioned to arrest, but only to escort him. He was to allow the Count to be accompanied only by two valets, two pages, a cook, and a keeper of accounts. He was, however, to induce his tutor to accompany him, at least to the Spanish frontier. He was to arrange that the second day after his arrival at Louvain, the Count should set out for Antwerp, where he was to lodge with Count Lodron, after which they were to proceed to Flushing, whence they were to embark for Spain. At that city he was to deliver the young Prince to the person whom he would find there, commissioned for that purpose by the Duke. As soon as he had made the first proposition at Louvain to the Count, he was, with the assistance of his retinue, to keep the most strict watch over him day and night, but without allowing the supervision to be perceived.

The plan was carried out admirably, and in strict accordance with the program. It was fortunate, however, for the kidnappers, that the young Prince proved favorably disposed to the plan. He accepted the invitation of his captors with alacrity. He even wrote to thank the governor for his friendly offices in his behalf. He received with boyish gratification the festivities with which Lodron enlivened his brief sojourn at Antwerp, and he set forth without reluctance for that gloomy and terrible land of Spain, whence so rarely a Flemish traveller had returned. A changeling, as it were, from his cradle, he seemed completely transformed by his Spanish tuition, for he was educated and not sacrificed by Philip. When he returned to the Netherlands, after a twenty years' residence in Spain, it was difficult to detect in his gloomy brow, saturnine character, and Jesuistical habits, a trace of the generous spirit which characterized that race of heroes, the house of Orange-Nassau.

Philip had expressed some anxiety as to the consequences of this capture upon the governments of Germany. Alva, however, re-assured his sovereign upon that point, by reason of the extreme docility of the captive, and the quiet manner in which the arrest had been conducted. At that particular juncture, moreover, it would, have been difficult for the government of the Netherlands to excite surprise any where, except by an act of clemency. The president and the deputation of professors from the university of Louvain waited upon Vargas, by whom, as acting president of the Blood-Council, the arrest had nominally been made, with a remonstrance that the measure was in gross violation of their statutes and privileges. That personage, however, with his usual contempt both for law and Latin, answered brutally, "Non curamus vestros privilegios," and with this memorable answer, abruptly closed his interview with the trembling pedants.

Petitions now poured into the council from all quarters, abject recantations from terror-stricken municipalities, humble intercessions in behalf of doomed and imprisoned victims. To a deputation of the magistracy of Antwerp, who came with a prayer for mercy in behalf of some of their most distinguished fellow-citizens, then in prison, the Duke gave a most passionate and ferocious reply. He expressed his wonder that the citizens of Antwerp, that hotbed of treason, should dare to approach him in behalf of traitors and heretics. Let them look to it in future, he continued, or he would hang every man in the whole city, to set an example to the rest of the country; for his Majesty would rather the whole land should become an uninhabited wilderness, than that a single Dissenter should exist within its territory.

Events now marched with rapidity. The monarch seemed disposed literally to execute the threat of his viceroy. Early in the year, the most sublime sentence of death was promulgated which has ever been pronounced since the creation of the world. The Roman tyrant wished that his enemies' heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them off at a blow; the inquisition assisted Philip to place the heads of all his Netherland subjects upon a single neck for the same fell purpose. Upon the 16th February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named; were excepted. A proclamation of the King, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in: three lines; and, as it was well known that these were not harmless thunders, like some bulls of the Vatican, but serious and practical measures, which it was intended should be enforced, the horror which they produced may be easily imagined. It was hardly the purpose of Government to compel the absolute completion of the wholesale plan in all its length and breadth, yet in the horrible times upon which they had fallen, the Netherlanders might be excused for believing that no measure was too monstrous to be fulfilled. At any rate, it was certain that when all were condemned, any might at a moment's warning be carried to the scaffold, and this was precisely the course adopted by the authorities.

Under this universal decree the industry of the Blood-Council might, now seem superfluous. Why should not these mock prosecutions be dispensed with against individuals, now that a common sentence had swallowed the whole population in one vast grave? Yet it may be supposed that if the exertions of the commissioners and councillors served no other purpose, they at least furnished the Government with valuable evidence as to the relative wealth and other circumstances of the individual victims. The leading thought of the Government being that persecution, judiciously managed, might fructify into a golden harvest,--it was still desirable to persevere in the cause in which already such bloody progress had been made.

And under this new decree, the executions certainly did not slacken. Men in the highest and the humblest positions were daily and hourly dragged to the stake. Alva, in a single letter to Philip, coolly estimated the number of executions which were to take place immediately after the expiration of holy week, "at eight hundred heads." Many a citizen, convicted of a hundred thousand florins and of no other crime, saw himself suddenly tied to a horse's tail, with his hands fastened behind him, and so dragged to the gallows. But although wealth was an unpardonable sin, poverty proved rarely a protection. Reasons sufficient could always be found for dooming the starveling laborer as well as the opulent burgher. To avoid the disturbances created in the streets by the frequent harangues or exhortations addressed to the bystanders by the victims on their way to the scaffold, a new gag was invented. The tongue of each prisoner was screwed into an iron ring, and then seared with a hot iron. The swelling and inflammation which were the immediate result, prevented the tongue from slipping through the ring, and of course effectually precluded all possibility of speech.

Although the minds of men were not yet prepared for concentrated revolt against the tyranny under which they were languishing, it was not possible to suppress all sentiments of humanity, and to tread out every spark of natural indignation.

Unfortunately, in the bewilderment and misery of this people, the first development of a forcible and organized resistance was of a depraved and malignant character. Extensive bands of marauders and highway robbers sprang into existence, who called themselves the Wild Beggars, and who, wearing the mask and the symbols of a revolutionary faction, committed great excesses in many parts of the country, robbing, plundering, and murdering. Their principal wrath was exercised against religious houses and persons. Many monasteries were robbed, many clerical persons maimed and maltreated. It became a habit to deprive priests of their noses or ears, and to tie them to the tails of horses. This was the work of ruffian gangs, whose very existence was engendered out of the social and moral putrescence to which the country was reduced, and who were willing to profit by the deep and universal hatred which was felt against Catholics and monks. An edict thundered forth by Alva, authorizing and commanding all persons to slay the wild beggars at sight, without trial or hangman, was of comparatively slight avail. An armed force of veterans actively scouring the country was more successful, and the freebooters were, for a time, suppressed.

Meantime the Counts Egmont and Horn had been kept in rigorous confinement at Ghent. Not a warrant had been read or drawn up for their arrest. Not a single preliminary investigation, not the shadow of an information had preceded the long imprisonment of two men so elevated in rank, so distinguished in the public service. After the expiration of two months, however, the Duke condescended to commence a mock process against them. The councillors appointed to this work were Vargas and Del Rio, assisted by Secretary Praets. These persons visited the Admiral on the 10th, 11th, 12th and 17th of November, and Count Egmont on the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 16th, of the same month; requiring them to respond to a long, confused, and rambling collection of interrogatories. They were obliged to render these replies in prison, unassisted by any advocates, on penalty of being condemned 'in contumaciam'. The questions, awkwardly drawn up as they seemed, were yet tortuously and cunningly arranged with a view of entrapping the prisoners into self-contradiction. After this work had been completed, all the papers by which they intended to justify their answers were taken away from them. Previously, too, their houses and those of their secretaries, Bakkerzeel and Alonzo de la Loo, had been thoroughly ransacked, and every letter and document which could be found placed in the hands of government. Bakkerzeel, moreover, as already stated, had been repeatedly placed upon the rack, for the purpose of extorting confessions which might implicate his master. These preliminaries and precautionary steps having been taken, the Counts had again been left to their solitude for two months longer. On the 10th January, each was furnished with a copy of the declarations or accusations filed against him by the procurator-general. To these documents, drawn up respectively in sixty-three, and in ninety articles, they were required, within five days' time, without the assistance of an advocate, and without consultation with any human being, to deliver a written answer, on pain, as before, of being proceeded against and condemned by default.

This order was obeyed within nearly the prescribed period and here, it may be said, their own participation in their trial ceased; while the rest of the proceedings were buried in the deep bosom of the Blood- Council. After their answers had been delivered, and not till then, the prisoners were, by an additional mockery, permitted to employ advocates. These advocates, however, were allowed only occasional interviews with their clients, and always in the presence of certain persons, especially deputed for that purpose by the Duke. They were also allowed commissioners to collect evidence and take depositions, but before the witnesses were ready, a purposely premature day, 8th of May, was fixed upon for declaring the case closed, and not a single tittle of their evidence, personal or documentary, was admitted.--Their advocates petitioned for an exhibition of the evidence prepared by government, and were refused. Thus, they were forbidden to use the testimony in their favor, while that which was to be employed against them was kept secret. Finally, the proceedings were formally concluded on the 1st of June, and the papers laid before the Duke. The mass of matter relating to these two monster processes was declared, three days afterwards to have been examined--a physical impossibility in itself--and judgment was pronounced upon the 4th of June. This issue was precipitated by the campaign of Louis Nassau in Friesland, forming a aeries of important events which it will be soon our duty to describe. It is previously necessary, however, to add a few words in elucidation of the two mock trials which have been thus briefly sketched.

The proceeding had been carried on, from first to last, under protest by the prisoners, under a threat of contumacy on the part of the government. Apart from the totally irresponsible and illegal character of the tribunal before which they were summoned--the Blood-Council being a private institution of Alva's without pretext or commission--these nobles acknowledged the jurisdiction of but three courts. As Knights of the Golden Fleece, both claimed the privilege of that Order to be tried by its statutes. As a citizen and noble of Brabant, Egmont claimed the protection of the "Joyeuse Entree," a constitution which had been sworn to by Philip and his ancestors, and by Philip more amply, than by all his ancestors. As a member and Count of the Holy Roman Empire, the Admiral claimed to be tried by his peers, the electors and princes of the realm.

The Countess Egmont, since her husband's arrest, and the confiscation of his estates before judgment, had been reduced to a life of poverty as well as agony. With her eleven children, all of tender age, she had taken refuge in a convent. Frantic with despair, more utterly desolate, and more deeply wronged than high-born lady had often been before, she left no stone unturned to save her husband from his fate, or at least to obtain for him an impartial and competent tribunal. She addressed the Duke of Alva, the King, the Emperor, her brother the Elector Palatine, and many leading Knights of the Fleece. The Countess Dowager of Horn, both whose sons now lay in the jaws of death, occupied herself also with the most moving appeals to the same high personages. No pains were spared to make the triple plea to the jurisdiction valid. The leading Knights of the Fleece, Mansfeld, whose loyalty was unquestioned, and Hoogstraaten, although himself an outlaw; called upon the King of Spain to protect the statutes of the illustrious order of which he was the chief. The estates of Brabant, upon the petition of Sabina, Countess Egmont, that they would take to heart the privileges of the province, so that her husband might enjoy that protection of which the meanest citizen in the land could not be justly deprived, addressed a feeble and trembling protest to Alva, and enclosed to him the lady's petition. The Emperor, on behalf of Count Horn, wrote personally to Philip, to claim for him a trial before the members of the realm.

It was all in vain. The conduct of Philip and his Viceroy coincided in spirit with the honest brutality of Vargas. "Non curamus vestros privilegios," summed up the whole of the proceedings. Non curamus vestros privilegios had been the unanswerable reply to every constitutional argument which had been made against tyranny since Philip mounted his father's throne. It was now the only response deemed necessary to the crowd of petitions in favor of the Counts, whether they proceeded from sources humble or august. Personally, the King remained silent as the grave. In writing to the Duke of Alva, he observed that "the Emperor, the Dukes of Bavaria and Lorraine, the Duchess and the Duchess-dowager, had written to him many times, and in the most pressing manner, in favor of the Counts Horn and Egmont." He added, that he had made no reply to them, nor to other Knights of the Fleece who had implored him to respect the statutes of the order, and he begged Alva "to hasten the process as fast as possible." To an earnest autograph letter, in which the Emperor, on the 2nd of March, 1568, made a last effort to save the illustrious prisoners, he replied, that "the whole world would at last approve his conduct, but that, at any rate, he would not act differently, even if he should risk the loss of the provinces, and if the sky should fall on his head."