[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D. W. ]

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 21. 

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

By John Lothrop Motley

1855

1573 [CHAPTER IX. ]

 Position of Alva--Hatred entertained for him by elevated personages --Quarrels between him and Medina Coeli--Departure of the latter-- Complaints to the King by each of the other--Attempts at conciliation addressed by government to the people of the Netherlands--Grotesque character of the address--Mutinous demonstration of the Spanish troops--Secret overtures to Orange-- Obedience, with difficulty, restored by Alva--Commencement of the siege of Alkmaar--Sanguinary menaces of the Duke--Encouraging and enthusiastic language of the Prince--Preparations in Alkmaar for defence--The first assault steadily repulsed--Refusal of the soldiers to storm a second time--Expedition of the Carpenter-envoy-- Orders of the Prince to flood the country--The Carpenter's despatches in the enemy's hands--Effect produced upon the Spaniards --The siege raised--Negotiations of Count Louis with France-- Uneasiness and secret correspondence of the Duke--Convention with the English government--Objects pursued by Orange--Cruelty of De la Marck--His dismissal from office and subsequent death--Negotiations with France--Altered tone of the French court with regard to the St. Bartholomew--Ill effects of the crime upon the royal projects-- Hypocrisy of the Spanish government--Letter of Louis to Charles IX. --Complaints of Charles IX. --Secret aspirations of that monarch and of Philip--Intrigues concerning the Polish election--Renewed negotiations between Schomberg and Count Louis, with consent of Orange--Conditions prescribed by the Prince--Articles of secret alliance--Remarkable letter of Count Louis to Charles IX. -- Responsible and isolated situation of Orange--The "Address" and the "Epistle"--Religious sentiments of the Prince--Naval action on the Zuyder Zee--Captivity of Bossu and of Saint Aldegonde--Odious position of Alva--His unceasing cruelty--Execution of Uitenhoove-- Fraud practised by Alva upon his creditors--Arrival of Requesens, the new Governor-General--Departure of Alva--Concluding remarks upon his administration. 

For the sake of continuity in the narrative, the siege of Harlem has beenrelated until its conclusion. This great event constituted, moreover, the principal stuff in Netherland, history, up to the middle of the year1573. A few loose threads must be now taken up before we can proceedfarther. 

Alva had for some time felt himself in a false and uncomfortableposition. While he continued to be the object of a popular hatred asintense as ever glowed, he had gradually lost his hold upon those who, at the outset of his career, had been loudest and lowest in theirdemonstrations of respect. "Believe me, " wrote Secretary Albornoz toSecretary Cayas, "this people abhor our nation worse than they abhor theDevil. As for the Duke of Alva, they foam at the mouth when they hearhis name. " Viglius, although still maintaining smooth relations with theGovernor, had been, in reality, long since estranged from him. EvenAerschot, far whom the Duke had long maintained an intimacy halfaffectionate, half contemptuous, now began to treat him with a contumelywhich it was difficult for so proud a stomach to digest. 

But the main source of discomfort was doubtless the presence of MedinaCoeli. This was the perpetual thorn in his side, which no cunning couldextract. A successor who would not and could not succeed him, yet whoattended him as his shadow and his evil genius--a confidential colleaguewho betrayed his confidence, mocked his projects, derided his authority, and yet complained of ill treatment--a rival who was neither compeer norsubaltern, and who affected to be his censor--a functionary of a purelyanomalous character, sheltering himself under his abnegation of anauthority which he had not dared to assume, and criticising measureswhich he was not competent to grasp;--such was the Duke of Medina Coeliin Alva's estimation. 

The bickering between the two Dukes became unceasing and disgraceful. Of course, each complained to the King, and each, according to his ownaccount, was a martyr to the other's tyranny, but the meekness manifestedby Alva; in all his relations with the new comer, was wonderful, if weare to believe the accounts furnished by himself and by his confidentialsecretary. On the other hand, Medina Coeli wrote to the King, complaining of Alva in most unmitigated strains, and asserting thathe was himself never allowed to see any despatches, nor to have theslightest information as to the policy of the government. He reproached, the Duke with shrinking from personal participation in militaryoperations, and begged the royal forgiveness if he withdrew froma scene where he felt himself to be superfluous. 

Accordingly, towards the end of November, he took his departure, withoutpaying his respects. The Governor complained to the King of thisunceremonious proceeding, and assured His Majesty that never werecourtesy and gentleness so ill requited as his had been by this ingrateand cankered Duke. "He told me, " said Alva, "that if I did not stay inthe field, he would not remain with me in peaceful cities, and he askedme if I intended to march into Holland with the troops which were towinter there. I answered, that I should go wherever it was necessary, even should I be obliged to swim through all the canals of Holland. "After giving these details, the Duke added, with great appearance ofcandor and meekness, that he was certain Medina Coeli had only beeninfluenced by extreme zeal for His Majesty's service, and that, finding, so little for him to do in the Netherlands, he had become dissatisfiedwith his position. 

Immediately after the fall of Harlem, another attempt was made by Alva towin back the allegiance of the other cities by proclamations. It hadbecome obvious to the Governor that so determined a resistance on thepart of the first place besieged augured many long campaigns before thewhole province could be subdued. A circular was accordingly issued uponthe 26th July from Utrecht, and published immediately afterwards in allthe cities of the Netherlands. It was a paper of singular character, commingling an affectation of almost ludicrous clemency, with honest andhearty brutality. There was consequently something very grotesque aboutthe document. Philip, in the outset, was made to sustain towards hisundutiful subjects the characters of the brooding hen and the prodigal'sfather; a range of impersonation hardly to be allowed him, even by themost abject flattery. "Ye are well aware, " thus ran the address, "thatthe King has, over and over again, manifested his willingness to receivehis children, in however forlorn a condition the prodigals might return. His Majesty assures you once more that your sins, however black they mayhave been, shall be forgiven and forgotten in the plenitude of royalkindness, if you repent and return in season to his Majesty's embrace. Notwithstanding your manifold crimes, his Majesty still seeks, like a hencalling her chickens, to gather you all under the parental wing. TheKing hereby warns you once more, therefore, to place yourselves in hisroyal hands, and not to wait for his rage, cruelty, and fury, and theapproach of his army. "

The affectionate character of the address, already fading towards the endof the preamble, soon changes to bitterness. The domestic maternal fowldilates into the sanguinary dragon as the address proceeds. "But if, "continues the monarch, "ye disregard these offers of mercy, receivingthem with closed ears, as heretofore, then we warn you that there is norigor, nor cruelty, however great, which you are not to expect by layingwaste, starvation, and the sword, in such manner that nowhere shallremain a relic of that which at present exists, but his Majesty willstrip bare and utterly depopulate the land, and cause it to be inhabitedagain by strangers; since otherwise his Majesty could not believe thatthe will of God and of his Majesty had been accomplished. "

It is almost superfluous to add that this circular remained fruitless. The royal wrath, thus blasphemously identifying itself with divinevengeance, inspired no terror, the royal blandishments no affection. 

The next point of attack was the city of Alkmaar, situate quite at thetermination of the Peninsula, among the lagunes and redeemed prairies ofNorth Holland. The Prince of Orange had already provided it with a smallgarrison. The city had been summoned to surrender by the middle ofJuly, and had returned a bold refusal. --Meantime, the Spaniards hadretired from before the walls, while the surrender and chastisement ofHarlem occupied them during the next succeeding weeks. The month ofAugust, moreover, was mainly consumed by Alva in quelling a dangerous andprotracted mutiny, which broke out among the Spanish soldiers at Harlem--between three and four thousand of them having been quartered upon theill-fated population of that city. 

Unceasing misery was endured by the inhabitants at the hands of theferocious Spaniards, flushed with victory, mutinous for long arrears ofpay, and greedy for the booty which had been denied. At times, however, the fury of the soldiery was more violently directed against their owncommanders than against the enemy. A project was even formed by themalcontent troops to deliver Harlem into the hands of Orange. A party ofthem, disguised as Baltic merchants, waited upon the Prince at Delft, andwere secretly admitted to his bedside before he had risen. They declaredto him that they were Spanish soldiers, who had compassion on his cause, were dissatisfied with their own government, and were ready, upon receiptof forty thousand guilders, to deliver the city into his hands. ThePrince took the matter into consideration, and promised to accept theoffer if he could raise the required sum. This, however, he foundhimself unable to do within the stipulated time, and thus, for want of sopaltry a sum, the offer was of necessity declined. 

Various were the excesses committed by the insubordinate troops in everyprovince in the Netherlands upon the long-suffering inhabitants. "Nothing, " wrote Alva, "had given him so much pain during his forty yearsof service. " He avowed his determination to go to Amsterdam in order tooffer himself as a hostage to the soldiery, if by so doing he could quellthe mutiny. He went to Amsterdam accordingly, where by his exertions, ably seconded by those of the Marquis Vitelli, and by the payment ofthirty crowns to each soldier--fourteen on account of arrearages andsixteen as his share in the Harlem compensation money--the rebellion wasappeased, and obedience restored. 

There was now leisure for the General to devote his whole energiesagainst the little city of Alkmaar. On that bank and shoal, the extremeverge of habitable earth, the spirit of Holland's Freedom stood at bay. The grey towers of Egmont Castle and of Egmont Abbey rose between thecity and the sea, and there the troops sent by the Prince of Orange werequartered during the very brief period in which the citizens wavered asto receiving them. The die was soon cast, however, and the Prince'sgarrison admitted. The Spaniards advanced, burned the village of Egmontto the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st ofAugust Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally toinvest Allanaar. In a few days this had been so thoroughly accomplishedthat, in Alva's language, "it was impossible for a sparrow to enter orgo out of the city. " The odds were somewhat unequal. Sixteen thousandveteran troops constituted the besieging force. Within the city were agarrison of eight hundred soldiers, together with thirteen hundredburghers, capable of bearing arms. The rest of the population consistedof a very few refugees, besides the women and children. Two thousand onehundred able-bodied men, of whom only about one-third were soldiers, toresist sixteen thousand regulars. 

Nor was there any doubt as to the fate which was reserved for them, should they succumb. The Duke was vociferous at the ingratitude withwhich his clemency had hitherto been requited. He complained bitterly ofthe ill success which had attended his monitory circulars; reproachedhimself with incredible vehemence, for his previous mildness, andprotested that, after having executed only twenty-three hundred personsat the surrender of Harlem, besides a few additional burghers since, hehad met with no correspondent demonstrations of affection. He promisedhimself, however, an ample compensation for all this ingratitude, in thewholesale vengeance which he purposed to wreak upon Alkmaar. Already hegloated in anticipation over the havoc which would soon be let loosewithin those walls. Such ravings, if invented by the pen of fiction, would seem a puerile caricature; proceeding, authentically, from his own, --they still appear almost too exaggerated for belief. "If I takeAlkmaar, " he wrote to Philip, "I am resolved not to leave a singlecreature alive; the knife shall be put to every throat. Since theexample of Harlem has proved of no use, perhaps an example of crueltywill bring the other cities to their senses. "

He took occasion also to read a lecture to the party of conciliation inMadrid, whose counsels, as he believed, his sovereign was beginning toheed. Nothing, he maintained, could be more senseless than the idea ofpardon and clemency. This had been sufficiently proved by recent events. It was easy for people at a distance to talk about gentleness, but thoseupon the spot knew better. Gentleness had produced nothing, so far;violence alone could succeed in future. "Let your Majesty, " he said, "bedisabused of the impression, that with kindness anything can he done withthese people. Already have matters reached such a point that many ofthose born in the country, who have hitherto advocated clemency, are nowundeceived, and acknowledge--their mistake. They are of opinion that nota living soul should be left in Alkmaar, but that every individual shouldbe put to the sword. " At the same time he took occasion, even in theseferocious letters, which seem dripping with blood, to commend his ownnatural benignity of disposition. "Your Majesty may be certain, " hesaid, "that no man on earth desires the path of clemency more than I do, notwithstanding my particular hatred for heretics and traitors. " It wastherefore with regret that he saw himself obliged to take the oppositecourse, and to stifle all his gentler sentiments. 

Upon Diedrich Sonoy, Lieutenant-Governor for Orange in the province ofNorth Holland, devolved the immediate responsibility of defending thispart of the country. As the storm rolled slowly up from the south, eventhat experienced officer became uneasy at the unequal conflict impending. He despatched a letter to his chief, giving a gloomy picture of hisposition. All looked instinctively towards the Prince, as to a God intheir time of danger; all felt as if upon his genius and fortitudedepended the whole welfare of the fatherland. It was hoped, too, thatsome resource had been provided in a secret foreign alliance. "If yourprincely grace, " wrote Sonoy, "have made a contract for assistance withany powerful potentate, it is of the highest importance that it should beknown to all the cities, in order to put an end to the emigration, and toconsole the people in their affliction. "

The answer, of the Prince was full of lofty enthusiasm. He reprimandedwith gentle but earnest eloquence the despondency and little faith of hislieutenant and other adherents. He had not expected, he said, that theywould have so soon forgotten their manly courage. They seemed toconsider the whole fate of the country attached to the city of Harlem. He took God to witness that--he had spared no pains, and would willinglyhave spared no drop of his blood to save that devoted city. "But as, notwithstanding our efforts, " he continued, "it has pleased God Almightyto dispose of Harlem according to His divine will, shall we, therefore, deny and deride His holy word? Has the strong arm of the Lord therebygrown weaker? Has his Church therefore come to caught? You ask if Ihave entered into a firm treaty with any great king or potentate, towhich I answer, that before I ever took up the cause of the oppressedChristians in these provinces, I had entered into a close alliance withthe King of kings; and I am firmly convinced that all who put their trustin Him shall be saved by His almighty hand. The God of armies will raiseup armies for us to do battle with our enemies sad His own. " Inconclusion, he stated his preparations for attacking the enemy by sea aswell as by land, and encouraged his lieutenant and the citizens of thenorthern quarter to maintain a bold front before the advancing foe. 

And now, with the dismantled and desolate Harlem before their eyes, aprophetic phantom, perhaps, of their own imminent fate, did the handfulof people shut up within Alkmaar prepare for the worst. Their main hopelay in the friendly sea. The vast sluices called the Zyp, through whichan inundation of the whole northern province could be very soon effected, were but a few miles distant. By opening these gates, and by piercing afew dykes, the ocean might be made to fight for them. To obtain thisresult, however, the consent of the inhabitants was requisite, as thedestruction of all the standing crops would be inevitable. The city wasso closely invested, that it was a matter of life and death to ventureforth, and it was difficult, therefore, to find an envoy for thishazardous mission. At last, a carpenter in the city, Peter Van der Meyby name, undertook the adventure, and was entrusted with letters toSonoy, to the Prince of Orange, and to the leading personages, in severalcities of the province: These papers were enclosed in a hollow walking-staff, carefully made fast at the top. 

Affairs soon approached a crisis within the beleaguered city. Dailyskirmishes, without decisive result; had taken place outside the walls. At last, on the 18th of September, after a steady cannonade of nearlytwelve hours, Don Frederic, at three in the afternoon, ordered anassault. Notwithstanding his seven months' experience at Harlem, hestill believed it certain that he should carry Alkmaar by storm. Theattack took place at once upon the Frisian gate and upon the red tower onthe opposite side. Two choice regiments, recently arrived from Lombardy;led the onset, rending the air with their shouts, and confident of aneasy victory. They were sustained by what seemed an overwhelming forceof disciplined troops. Yet never, even in the recent history of Harlem, had an attack been received by more dauntless breasts. Every living manwas on the walls. The storming parties were assailed with cannon, withmusketry, with pistols. Boiling water, pitch and oil, molten lead, andunslaked lime, were poured upon them every moment. Hundreds of tarredand burning hoops were skilfully quoited around the necks of thesoldiers, who struggled in vain to extricate themselves from these fieryruffs, while as fast as any of the invaders planted foot upon the breach, they were confronted face to face with sword and dagger by the burghers, who hurled them headlong into the moat below. 

Thrice was the attack renewed with ever-increasing rage--thrice repulsedwith unflinching fortitude. The storm continued four hours long. Duringall that period, not one of the defenders left his post, till he droppedfrom it dead or wounded. The women and children, unscared by the ballsflying in every direction, or by the hand-to-hand conflicts on theramparts; passed steadily to and fro from the arsenals to thefortifications, constantly supplying their fathers, husbands, andbrothers with powder and ball. Thus, every human being in the city thatcould walk had become a soldier. At last darkness fell upon the scene. The trumpet of recal was sounded, and the Spaniards, utterly discomfited, retired from the walls, leaving at least one thousand dead in thetrenches, while only thirteen burghers and twenty-four of the garrisonlost their lives. Thus was Alkmaar preserved for a little longer--thusa large and well-appointed army signally defeated by a handful of menfighting for their firesides and altars. Ensign Solis, who had mountedthe breach for an instant, and miraculously escaped with life, afterhaving been hurled from the battlements, reported that he had seen"neither helmet nor harness, " as he looked down into the city: only someplain-looking people, generally dressed like fishermen. Yet these plain-looking fishermen had defeated the veterans of Alva. 

The citizens felt encouraged by the results of that day's work. Moreover, they already possessed such information concerning thecondition of affairs in the camp of the enemy as gave them additionalconfidence. A Spaniard, named Jeronimo, had been taken prisoner andbrought into the city. On receiving a promise of pardon, he had revealedmany secrets concerning the position and intentions of the besiegingarmy. It is painful to add that the prisoner, notwithstanding hisdisclosures and the promise under which they had been made, wastreacherously executed. He begged hard for his life as he was led to thegallows, offering fresh revelations, which, however, after the amplecommunications already made, were esteemed superfluous. Finding this ofno avail, he promised his captors, with perfect simplicity, to go down onhis knees and worship the Devil precisely as they did, if by so doing hemight obtain mercy. It may be supposed that such a proposition was notlikely to gain additional favor for him in the eyes of these rigidCalvinists, and the poor wretch was accordingly hanged. 

The day following the assault, a fresh cannonade was opened upon thecity. Seven hundred shots having been discharged, the attack wasordered. It was in vain: neither threats nor entreaties could induce theSpaniards, hitherto so indomitable, to mount the breach. The placeseemed to their imagination protected by more than mortal powers;otherwise how was it possible that a few half-starved fishermen couldalready have so triumphantly overthrown the time-honored legions ofSpain. It was thought, no doubt, that the Devil, whom they worshipped, would continue to protect his children. Neither the entreaties nor themenaces of Don Frederic were of any avail. Several soldiers allowedthemselves to be run through the body by their own officers, rather thanadvance to the walls; and the assault was accordingly postponed to anindefinite period. 

Meantime, as Governor Sonoy had opened many of the dykes, the land in theneighbourhood of the camp was becoming plashy, although as yet thethreatened inundation had not taken place. The soldiers were alreadyvery uncomfortable and very refractory. The carpenter-envoy had not beenidle, having, upon the 26th September, arrived at Sonoy's quarters, bearing letters from the Prince of Orange. These despatches gavedistinct directions to Sonoy to flood the countlv at all risks; ratherthan allow Alkmaar to, fall into the enemy's hands. The dykes andsluices were to be protected by a strong guard, lest the peasants, inorder to save their crops, should repair or close them in the night-time. The letters of Orange were copied, and, together with freshcommunications from Sonoy, delivered to the carpenter. A note on themargin of the Prince's letter, directed the citizens to kindle fourbeacon fires in specified places, as soon as it should prove necessary toresort to extreme measures. When that moment should arrive, it wassolemnly promised that an inundation should be created which should sweepthe whole Spanish army into the sea. The work had, in fact, beencommenced. The Zyp and other sluices had already been opened, and a vastbody of water, driven by a strong north-west wind, had rushed in from theocean. It needed only that two great dykes should be pierced to renderthe deluge and the desolation complete. The harvests were doomed todestruction, and a frightful loss of property rendered inevitable, but, at any rate, the Spaniards, if this last measure were taken, must fly orperish to a man. 

This decisive blow having been thus ordered and promised; the carpenterset forth towards the city. He was, however, not so successful inaccomplishing his entrance unmolested, as he had been in effecting hisdeparture. He narrowly escaped with his life in passing through theenemy's lines, and while occupied in saving himself was so unlucky, or, as it proved, so fortunate, as to lose the stick in which his despatcheswere enclosed. He made good his entrance into the city, where, byword ofmouth, he encouraged his fellow-burghers as to the intentions of thePrince and Sonoy. In the meantime his letters were laid before thegeneral of the besieging army. The resolution taken by Orange, of whichDon Frederic was thus unintentionally made aware, to flood the countryfar and near, rather than fail to protect Alkmaar, made a profoundimpression upon his mind. It was obvious that he was dealing with adetermined leader and with desperate men. His attempt to carry the placeby storm had signally failed, and he could not deceive himself as to thetemper and disposition of his troops ever since that repulse. When itshould become known that they were threatened with submersion in theocean, in addition to all the other horrors of war, he had reason tobelieve that they would retire ignominiously from that remote anddesolate sand hook, where, by remaining, they could only find a waterygrave. These views having been discussed in a council of officers, theresult was reached that sufficient had been already accomplished for theglory of Spanish arms. Neither honor nor loyalty, it was thought, required that sixteen thousand soldiers should be sacrificed in acontest, not with man but with the ocean. 

On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted sevenweeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in Amsterdam. Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both themselves andtheir foes in a common catastrophe the Hollanders had at last compelledtheir haughty enemy to fly from a position which he had so insolentlyassumed. 

These public transactions and military operations were not the onlyimportant events which affected the fate of Holland and its sisterprovinces at this juncture. The secret relations which had already beenrenewed between Louis of Nassau, as plenipotentiary of his brother andthe French court, had for some time excited great uneasiness in the mindof Alva. Count Louis was known to be as skilful a negotiator as he wasvaliant and accomplished as a soldier. His frankness and boldnesscreated confidence. The "brave spirit in the loyal breast" inspired allhis dealing; his experience and quick perception of character preventedhis becoming a dupe of even the most adroit politicians, while his truthof purpose made him incapable either of overreaching an ally or ofbetraying a trust. His career indicated that diplomacy might besometimes successful, even although founded upon sincerity. 

Alva secretly expressed to his sovereign much suspicion of France. Hereminded him that Charles IX. ; during the early part of the precedingyear, had given the assurance that he was secretly dealing with Louis ofNassau, only that he might induce the Count to pass over to Philip'sservice. At the same time Charles had been doing all he could to succorMoos, and had written the memorable letter which had fallen into Alva'shands on the capture of Genlis, and which expressed such a fixeddetermination to inflict a deadly blow upon the King, whom the writer wasthus endeavouring to cajole. All this the Governor recalled to therecollection of his sovereign. In view of this increasing repugnance ofthe English court, Alva recommended that fair words should be employed;hinting, however, that it would be by no means necessary for his masterto consider himself very strictly bound by any such pledges to Elizabeth, if they should happen to become inconveniently pressing. "A monarch'spromises, " he delicately suggested, "were not to be considered so sacredas those of humbler mortals. Not that the King should directly violatehis word, but at the same time, " continued the Duke, "I have thought allmy life, and I have learned it from the Emperor, your Majesty's father, that the negotiations of kings depend upon different principles fromthose of us private gentlemen who walk the world; and in this manner Ialways observed that your Majesty's father, who was, so great a gentlemanand so powerful a prince, conducted his affairs. " The Governor tookoccasion, likewise, to express his regrets at the awkward manner in whichthe Ridolfi scheme had been managed. Had he been consulted at an earlierday, the affair could have been treated much more delicately; as it was, there could be little doubt but that the discovery of the plot hadprejudiced the mind of Elizabeth against Spain. "From that dust, "concluded the Duke, "has resulted all this dirt. " It could hardly bematter of surprise, either to Philip or his Viceroy, that the discoveryby Elizabeth of a plot upon their parts to take her life and place thecrown upon the head of her hated rival, should have engendered unamiablefeelings in her bosom towards them. For the moment, however, Alva'snegotiations were apparently successful. 

On the first of May, 1573, the articles of convention between England andSpain, with regard to the Netherland difficulty, had been formallypublished in Brussels. The Duke, in communicating the termination ofthese arrangements, quietly recommended his master thenceforth to takethe English ministry into his pay. In particular he advised his Majestyto bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh, "who held the kingdom inhis hand; for it has always been my opinion, " he continued, "that it wasan excellent practice for princes to give pensions to the ministers ofother potentates, and to keep those at home who took bribes from nobody. "

On the other hand, the negotiations of Orange with the English court werenot yet successful, and he still found it almost impossible to raise therequisite funds for carrying on the war. Certainly, his private lettersshowed that neither he nor his brothers were self-seekers in theirnegotiations. "You know;" said he in a letter to his brothers, "that myintention has never been to seek my private advantage. I have onlyaspired for the liberty of the country, in conscience and in polity, which foreigners have sought to oppress. I have no other articles topropose, save that religion, reformed according to the Word of God, should be permitted, that then the commonwealth should be restored to itsancient liberty, and, to that end, that the Spaniards and other soldieryshould be compelled to retire. "

The restoration of civil and religious liberty, the, establishment of thegreat principle of toleration in matters of conscience, constituted thepurpose to which his days and nights were devoted, his princely fortunesacrificed, his life-blood risked. At the same time, his enforcement oftoleration to both religions excited calumny against him among thebigoted adherents of both. By the Catholics he was accused of havinginstigated the excesses which he had done everything in his power torepress. The enormities of De la Marck, which had inspired the Prince'sindignation, were even laid at the door of him who had risked his life toprevent and to chastise them. De la Marck had, indeed, more thancounterbalanced his great service in the taking of Brill, by hissubsequent cruelties. At last, Father Cornelius Musius, pastor of SaintAgatha, at the age of seventy-two, a man highly esteemed by the Prince ofOrange, had been put to torture and death by this barbarian, undercircumstances of great atrocity. The horrid deed cost the Prince manytears, aroused the indignation of the estates of Holland, and producedthe dismission of the perpetrator from their service. It was consideredexpedient, however, in view of his past services, his powerfulconnexions, and his troublesome character, that he should be inducedpeaceably to leave the country. 

It was long before the Prince and the estates could succeed in riddingthemselves of this encumbrance. He created several riots in differentparts of the province, and boasted, that he had many fine ships of warand three thousand men devoted to him, by whose assistance he could makethe estates "dance after his pipe. " At the beginning of the followingyear (1574), he was at last compelled to leave the provinces, which henever again troubled with his presence. Some years afterwards, he diedof the bite of a mad dog; an end not inappropriate to a man of so rabid adisposition. 

While the Prince was thus steadily striving for a lofty and generouspurpose, he was, of course, represented by his implacable enemies as aman playing a game which, unfortunately for himself, was a losing one. "That poor prince, " said Granvelle, "has been ill advised. I doubt nowwhether he will ever be able to make his peace, and I think we shallrather try to get rid of him and his brother as if they were Turks. Themarriage with the daughter of Maurice, 'unde mala et quia ipse talis', and his brothers have done him much harm. So have Schwendi and Germanintimacies. I saw it all very plainly, but he did not choose to believeme. "

Ill-starred, worse counselled William of Orange! Had he but taken thefriendly Cardinal's advice, kept his hand from German marriages and hisfeet from conventicles--had he assisted his sovereign in burning hereticsand hunting rebels, it would not then have become necessary "to treat himlike a Turk. " This is unquestionable. It is equally so that there wouldhave been one great lamp the less in that strait and difficult pathwaywhich leads to the temple of true glory. 

The main reliance of Orange was upon the secret negotiations which hisbrother Louis was then renewing with the French government. The Princehad felt an almost insurmountable repugnance towards entertaining anyrelation with that blood-stained court, since the massacre of SaintBartholomew. But a new face had recently been put upon that transaction. Instead of glorying, in their crime, the King and his mother now assumeda tone of compunction, and averred that the deed had been unpremeditated;that it had been the result of a panic or an ecstasy of fear inspired bythe suddenly discovered designs of the Huguenots; and that, in theinstinct of self-preservation, the King, with his family and immediatefriends, had plunged into a crime which they now bitterly lamented. TheFrench envoys at the different courts of Europe were directed to impressthis view upon the minds of the monarchs to whom they were accredited. It was certainly a very different instruction from that which they had atfirst received. Their cue had originally been to claim a full meed ofpraise and thanksgiving in behalf of their sovereign for his meritoriousexploit. The salvos of artillery, the illuminations and rejoicings, thesolemn processions and masses by which the auspicious event had beencelebrated, mere yet fresh in the memory of men. The ambassadors weresufficiently embarrassed by the distinct and determined approbation whichthey had recently expressed. Although the King, by formal proclamation, had assumed the whole responsibility, as he had notoriously been one ofthe chief perpetrators of the deed, his agents were now to stultifythemselves and their monarch by representing, as a deplorable act offrenzy, the massacre which they had already extolled to the echo as askilfully executed and entirely commendable achievement. 

To humble the power of Spain, to obtain the hand of Queen Elizabeth forthe Duke d'Alencon, to establish an insidious kind of protectorate overthe Protestant princes of Germany, to obtain the throne of Poland for theDuke of Anjou, and even to obtain the imperial crown for the house ofValois--all these cherished projects seemed dashed to the ground by theParis massacre and the abhorrence which it had created. Charles andCatharine were not slow to discover the false position in which they hadplaced themselves, while the Spanish jocularity at the immense errorcommitted by France was visible enough through the assumed mask of holyhorror. 

Philip and Alva listened with mischievous joy to the howl of execrationwhich swept through Christendom upon every wind. They rejoiced asheartily in the humiliation of the malefactors as they did in theperpetration of the crime. "Your Majesty, " wrote Louis of Nassau, verybluntly, to King Charles, "sees how the Spaniard, your mortal enemy, feasts himself full with the desolation of your affairs; how he laughs, to-split his sides, at your misfortunes. This massacre has enabled himto weaken your Majesty more than he could have done by a war of thirtyyears. "

Before the year had revolved, Charles had become thoroughly convinced ofthe fatal impression produced by the event. Bitter and almost abjectwere his whinings at the Catholic King's desertion of his cause. "He knows well, " wrote Charles to Saint Goard, "that if he can terminatethese troubles and leave me alone in the dance, he will have leisure andmeans to establish his authority, not only in the Netherlands butelsewhere; and that he will render himself more grand and formidable thanhe has ever been. This is the return they render for the good receivedfrom me, which is such as every one knows. "

Gaspar de Schomberg, the adroit and honorable agent of Charles inGermany, had at a very early day warned his royal master of the illeffect of the massacre upon all the schemes which he had been pursuing, and especially upon those which referred to the crowns of the Empire andof Poland. The first project was destined to be soon abandoned. It wasreserved neither for Charles nor Philip to divert the succession inGermany from the numerous offspring of Maximilian; yet it is instructiveto observe the unprincipled avidity with which the prize was sought byboth. Each was willing to effect its purchase by abjuring what weresupposed his most cherished principles. Philip of Spain, whose missionwas to extirpate heresy throughout his realms, and who, in pursuance ofthat mission, had already perpetrated more crimes, and waded more deeplyin the blood of his subjects, than monarch had often done before; Philip, for whom his apologists have never found any defence, save that hebelieved it his duty to God rather to depopulate his territories than topermit a single heretic within their limits--now entered into secretnegotiations with the princes of the Empire. He pledged himself, if theywould confer the crown upon him, that he would withdraw the Spaniardsfrom the Netherlands; that he would tolerate in those provinces theexercise of the Reformed religion; that he would recognize their unionwith the rest of the German Empire, and their consequent claim to thebenefits of the Passau treaty; that he would restore the Prince of Orange"and all his accomplices" to their former possessions, dignities, andcondition; and that he would cause to be observed, throughout every realmincorporated with the Empire, all the edicts and ordinances which hadbeen constructed to secure religious freedom in Germany. In brief, Philip was willing, in case the crown of Charlemagne should be promisedhim, to undo the work of his life, to reinstate the arch-rebel whom hehad hunted and proscribed, and to bow before that Reformation whosedisciples he had so long burned, and butchered. So much extent and nomore had that religious, conviction by which he had for years had theeffrontery to excuse the enormities practised in the Netherlands. Godwould never forgive him so long as one heretic remained unburned in theprovinces; yet give him the Imperial sceptre, and every heretic, withoutforswearing his heresy, should be purged with hyssop and become whiterthan snow. 

Charles IX. , too, although it was not possible for him to recal to lifethe countless victims of the Parisian wedding, was yet ready to explainthose murders to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind. This hadbecome strictly necessary. Although the accession of either his MostChristian or Most Catholic Majesty to the throne of the Caesars was amost improbable event, yet the humbler elective, throne actually vacantwas indirectly in the gift of the same powers. It was possible that thecrown of Poland might be secured for the Duke of Anjou. That key unlocksthe complicated policy of this and the succeeding year. The Polishelection is the clue to the labyrinthian intrigues and royaltergiversations during the period of the interregnum. SigismundAugustus, last of the Jagellons, had died on the 7th July; 1572. Theprominent candidates to succeed him were the Archduke Ernest, son ofthe Emperor, and Henry of Anjou. The Prince of Orange was not forgotten. A strong party were in favor of compassing his election, as the mostsignal triumph which Protestantism could gain, but his ambition had notbeen excited by the prospect of such a prize. His own work required allthe energies of all his life. His influence, however, was powerful, andeagerly sought by the partisans of Anjou. The Lutherans and Moravians inPoland were numerous, the Protestant party there and in Germany holdingthe whole balance of the election in their hands. 

It was difficult for the Prince to overcome his repugnance to the veryname of the man whose crime had at once made France desolate, andblighted the fair prospects under which he and his brother had, the yearbefore, entered the Netherlands. Nevertheless; he was willing to listento the statements by which the King and his ministers endeavoured, notentirely without success, to remove from their reputations, if not fromtheir souls; the guilt of deep design. It was something, that themurderers now affected to expiate their offence in sackcloth and ashes--it was something that, by favoring the pretensions of Anjou, and bylistening with indulgence to the repentance of Charles, the siege ofRochelle could be terminated, the Huguenots restored to freedom ofconscience, and an alliance with a powerful nation established, by aid ofwhich the Netherlands might once more lift their heads. The Frenchgovernment, deeply hostile to Spain, both from passion and policy, was capable of rendering much assistance to the revolted provinces. "I entreat you most humbly, my good master, " wrote Schomberg to CharlesIX. , "to beware of allowing the electors to take into their heads thatyou are favoring the affairs of the King of Spain in any mannerwhatsoever. Commit against him no act of open hostility, if you thinkthat imprudent; but look sharp! if you do not wish to be thrown clean outof your saddle. I should split with rage if I should see you, inconsequence of the wicked calumnies of your enemies, fail to secure theprize. "

Orange was induced, therefore, to accept, however distrustfully, theexpression of a repentance which was to be accompanied with healingmeasures. He allowed his brother Louis to resume negotiations withSchomberg, in Germany. He drew up and transmitted to him the outlinesof a treaty which he was willing to make with Charles. The mainconditions of this arrangement illustrated the disinterested characterof the man. He stipulated that the King of France should immediatelymake peace with his subjects, declaring expressly that he had been abusedby those, who, under pretext of his service, had sought their own profitat the price of ruin to the crown and people. The King should makereligion free. The edict to that effect should be confirmed by all theparliaments and estates of the kingdom, and such confirmations should bedistributed without reserve or deceit among all the princes of Germany. If his Majesty were not inclined to make war for the liberation of theNetherlands, he was to furnish the Prince of Orange with one hundredthousand crowns at once, and every three months with another hundredthousand. The Prince was to have liberty to raise one thousand cavalryand seven thousand infantry in France. Every city or town in theprovinces which should be conquered by his arms, except in Holland orZealand, should be placed under the sceptre, and in the hands of the Kingof France. The provinces of Holland and Zealand should also be placedunder his protection, but should be governed by their own gentlemen andcitizens. Perfect religious liberty and maintenance of the ancientconstitutions, privileges, and charters were to be guaranteed "withoutany cavilling whatsoever. " The Prince of Orange, or the estates ofHolland or Zealand, were to reimburse his Christian Majesty for the sumswhich he was to advance. In this last clause was the only mention whichthe Prince made of himself, excepting in the stipulation that he was tobe allowed a levy of troops in France. His only personal claims wereto enlist soldiers to fight the battles of freedom, and to pay theirexpense, if it should not be provided for by the estates. At nearlythe same period, he furnished his secret envoys, Luinbres and DoctorTaijaert, who were to proceed to Paris, with similar instructions. 

The indefatigable exertions of Schomberg, and the almost passionateexplanations on the part of the court of France, at length produced theireffect. "You will constantly assure the princes, " wrote the Duke ofAnjou to Schomberg, "that the things written, to you concerning thatwhich had happened in this kingdom are true; that the events occurredsuddenly, without having been in any manner premeditated; that neitherthe King nor myself have ever had any intelligence with, the King ofSpain, against those of the religion, and that all is utter imposturewhich is daily said on this subject to the princes. "

Count Louis required peremptorily, however, that the royal repentanceshould bring forth the fruit of salvation for the remaining victims. Outof the nettles of these dangerous intrigues his fearless hand plucked the"flower of safety" for his down-trodden cause. He demanded not words, but deeds, or at least pledges. He maintained with the agents of Charlesand with the monarch himself the same hardy scepticism which wasmanifested by the Huguenot deputies in their conferences with Catharinede Medicis. "Is the word of a king, " said the dowager to thecommissioners, who were insisting upon guarantees, "is the word of a kingnot sufficient?"--"No, madam, " replied one of them, "by SaintBartholomew, no!" Count Louis told Schomberg roundly, and repeated itmany times, that he must have in a very few days a categorical response, "not to consist in words alone, but in deeds, and that he could not, andwould not, risk for ever the honor of his brother, nor the property;blood, and life of those poor people who favored the cause. "

On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis, which lasted seven or eight hours. In that interview the enterprises ofthe Count, "which, " said Schomberg, "are assuredly grand and beautiful, "were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly inthe hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitelyagreed upon. These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate overHolland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over theother places to be acquired in the Netherlands. They were in strictaccordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange. Libertyof worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipalcharters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part ofFrance, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principalfeatures. 

Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willingto use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown ofPoland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with theagent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal. Thisremarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of thewriter's frank and fearless character. "Thus diddest thou" has rarelybeen addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones: The letterpainted the favorable position in which the king had been placedpreviously to the fatal summer of 1572. The Queen of England was thenmost amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closerconnexion with his family. The German princes were desirous to electhim King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had sofruitlessly contended. The Netherlanders, driven to despair by thetyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into hisarms. All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification. How changed the picture now! Who now did reverence to a King so criminaland so fallen? "Your Majesty to-day, " said Louis, earnestly and plainly, "is near to ruin. The State, crumbling on every side and almostabandoned, is a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the moreso, because your Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the warspreviously made, endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now sodestitute, not only of nobility and soldiery but of that whichconstitutes the strongest column of the throne, the love and good wishesof the lieges, that your Majesty resembles an ancient building proppedup, day after, day, with piles, but which it will be impossible long toprevent from falling to the earth. " Certainly, here were wholesometruths told in straightforward style. 

The Count proceeded to remind the King of the joy which the "Spaniard, his mortal enemy, " had conceived from the desolation of his affairs, being assured that he should, by the troubles in France, be enabled toaccomplish his own purposes without striking a blow. This, he observed, had been the secret of the courtesy with which the writer himself hadbeen treated by the Duke of Alva at the surrender of Mons. Louis assuredthe King, in continuation, that if he persevered in these oppressivecourses towards his subjects of the new religion, there was no hope forhim, and that his two brothers would, to no purpose, take their departurefor England, and, for Poland, leaving him with a difficult and dangerouswar upon his hands. So long as he maintained a hostile attitude towardsthe Protestants in his own kingdom, his fair words would produce noeffect elsewhere. "We are beginning to be vexed, " said the Count, "withthe manner of negotiation practised by France. Men do not proceedroundly to business there, but angle with their dissimulation as with ahook. "

He bluntly reminded the King of the deceit which he had practised towardsthe Admiral--a sufficient reason why no reliance could in future beplaced upon his word. Signal vengeance on those concerned in theattempted assassination of that great man had been promised, in the royalletters to the Prince of Orange, just before St. Bartholomew. "Two daysafterwards, " said Louis, "your Majesty took that vengeance, but in ratherill fashion. " It was certain that the King was surrounded by men whodesired to work his ruin, and who, for their own purposes, would causehim to bathe still deeper than he had done before in the blood of hissubjects. This ruin his Majesty could still avert; by making peace inhis kingdom, and by ceasing to torment his poor subjects of thereligion. 

In conclusion, the Count, with a few simple but eloquent phrases, alluded to the impossibility of chaining men's thoughts. The soul, being immortal, was beyond the reach of kings. Conscience was not to beconquered, nor the religious spirit imprisoned. This had been discoveredby the Emperor Charles, who had taken all the cities and great personagesof Germany captive, but who had nevertheless been unable to take religioncaptive. "That is a sentiment, " said Louis, "deeply rooted in the heartsof men, which is not to be plucked out by force of arms. Let yourmajesty, therefore not be deceived by the flattery of those who, like badphysicians, keep their patients in ignorance of their disease, whencecomes their ruin. "

It would be impossible, without insight into these private and mostimportant transactions, to penetrate the heart of the mystery whichenwrapped at this period the relations of the great powers with eachother. Enough has been seen to silence for ever the plea, often enteredin behalf of religious tyranny, that the tyrant acts in obedience to asincere conviction of duty; that, in performing his deeds of darkness, he believes himself to be accomplishing the will of Heaven. Here we haveseen Philip, offering to restore the Prince of Orange, and to establishfreedom of religion in the Netherlands, if by such promises he can layhold of the Imperial diadem. Here also we have Charles IX. And hismother--their hands reeking with the heretic-blood of St. Bartholomew--making formal engagements with heretics to protect heresy everywhere, if by such pledges the crown of the Jagellons and the hand of Elizabethcan be secured. 

While Louis was thus busily engaged in Germany, Orange was usuallyestablished at Delft. He felt the want of his brother daily, for thesolitude of the Prince, in the midst of such fiery trials, amountedalmost to desolation. Not often have circumstances invested anindividual with so much responsibility and so little power. He wasregarded as the protector and father of the country, but from his ownbrains and his own resources he was to furnish himself with the means offulfilling those high functions. He was anxious thoroughly to dischargethe duties of a dictatorship without grasping any more of its power thanwas indispensable to his purpose. But he was alone on that littleisthmus, in single combat with the great Spanish monarchy. It was to himthat all eyes turned, during the infinite horrors of the Harlem siegesand in the more prosperous leaguer of Alkmaar. What he could do he did. He devised every possible means to succor Harlem, and was only restrainedfrom going personally to its rescue by the tears of the whole populationof Holland. By his decision and the spirit which he diffused through thecountry, the people were lifted to a pitch of heroism by which Alkmaarwas saved. Yet, during all this harassing period, he had no one to leanupon but himself. "Our affairs are in pretty good; condition in Hollandand Zealand, " he wrote, "if I only had some aid. 'Tis impossible for meto support alone so many labors, and the weight of such great affairs ascome upon me hourly--financial, military, political. I have no one tohelp me, not a single man, wherefore I leave you to suppose in whattrouble I find myself. "

For it was not alone the battles and sieges which furnished him withoccupation and filled him with anxiety. Alone, he directed in secret thepolitics of the country, and, powerless and outlawed though he seemed, was in daily correspondence not only with the estates of Holland andZealand, whose deliberations he guided, but with the principalgovernments of Europe. The estates of the Netherlands, moreover, hadbeen formally assembled by Alva in September, at Brussels, to devise waysand means for continuing the struggle. It seemed to the Prince a goodopportunity to make an appeal to the patriotism of the whole country. He furnished the province of Holland, accordingly, with the outlines ofan address which was forthwith despatched in their own and his name, tothe general assembly of the Netherlands. The document was a nervous andrapid review of the course of late events in the provinces, with a cogentstatement of the reasons which should influence them all to unite in thecommon cause against the common enemy. It referred to the old affectionand true-heartedness with which they had formerly regarded each other, and to the certainty that the inquisition would be for ever establishedin the land, upon the ruins of all their ancient institutions, unlessthey now united to overthrow it for ever. It demanded of the people, thus assembled through their representatives, how they could endure thetyranny, murders, and extortions of the Duke of Alva. The princes ofFlanders, Burgundy, Brabant, or Holland, had never made war or peace, coined money, or exacted a stiver from the people without the consent ofthe estates. How could the nation now consent to the daily impositionswhich were practised? Had Amsterdam and Middelburg remained true; hadthose important cities not allowed themselves to be seduced from thecause of freedom, the northern provinces would have been impregnable. "'Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed, " said theappeal. "Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, butfrom yourselves--from Netherland cities? Whence his ships, supplies, money, weapons, soldiers? From the Netherland people. Why has poorNetherland thus become degenerate and bastard? Whither has fled thenoble spirit of our brave forefathers, that never brooked the tyranny offoreign nations, nor suffered a stranger even to hold office within ourborders? If the little province of Holland can thus hold at bay thepower of Spain, what could not all the Netherlands--Brabant, Flanders, Friesland, and the rest united accomplish?" In conclusion, the estates-general were earnestly adjured to come forward like brothers in blood, and join hands with Holland, that together they might rescue thefatherland and restore its ancient prosperity and bloom. 

At almost the same time the Prince drew up and put in circulation one ofthe most vigorous and impassioned productions which ever came from hispen. It was entitled, an "Epistle, in form of supplication, to his royalMajesty of Spain, from the Prince of Orange and the estates of Hollandand Zealand. " The document produced a profound impression throughoutChristendom. It was a loyal appeal to the monarch's loyalty--a demandthat the land-privileges should be restored, and the Duke of Alvaremoved. It contained a startling picture of his atrocities and thenation's misery, and, with a few energetic strokes, demolished thepretence that these sorrows had been caused by the people's guilt. Inthis connexion the Prince alluded to those acts of condemnation which theGovernor-General had promulgated under the name of pardons, and treatedwith scorn the hypothesis that any crimes had been committed for Alva toforgive. "We take God and your Majesty to witness, " said the epistle, "that if we have done such misdeeds as are charged in the pardon, weneither desire nor deserve the pardon. Like the most abject creatureswhich crawl the earth, we will be content to atone for our misdeeds withour lives. We will not murmur, O merciful King, if we be seized oneafter another, and torn limb from limb, if it can be proved that we havecommitted the crimes of which we have been accused. "

After having thus set forth the tyranny of the government and theinnocence of the people, the Prince, in his own name and that of theestates, announced the determination at which they had arrived. "Thetyrant, " he continued, "would rather stain every river and brook with ourblood, and hang our bodies upon every tree in the country, than not feedto the full his vengeance, and steep himself to the lips in our misery. Therefore we have taken up arms against the Duke of Alva and hisadherents, to free ourselves, our wives and children, from his blood-thirsty hands. If he prove too strong nor us, we will rather die anhonorable death and leave a praiseworthy fame, than bend our necks, andreduce our dear fatherland to such slavery. Herein are all our citiespledged to each other to stand every siege, to dare the utmost, to endureevery possible misery, yea, rather to set fire to all our homes, and beconsumed with them into ashes together, than ever submit to the decreesof this cruel tyrant. "

These were brave words, and destined to be bravely fulfilled, as the lifeand death of the writer and the records of his country proved, fromgeneration unto generation. If we seek for the mainspring of the energywhich thus sustained the Prince in the unequal conflict to which he haddevoted his life, we shall find it in the one pervading principle of hisnature--confidence in God. He was the champion of the political rightsof his country, but before all he was the defender of its religion. Liberty of conscience for his people was his first object. To establishLuther's axiom, that thoughts are toll-free, was his determination. ThePeace of Passau, and far more than the Peace of Passau, was the goal forwhich he was striving. Freedom of worship for all denominations, toleration for all forms of faith, this was the great good in hisphilosophy. For himself, he had now become a member of the Calvinist, or Reformed Church, having delayed for a time his public adhesion tothis communion, in order not to give offence to the Lutherans and tothe Emperor. He was never a dogmatist, however, and he sought inChristianity for that which unites rather than for that which separatesChristians. In the course of October he publicly joined the church atDort. 

The happy termination of the siege of Alkmaar was followed, threedays afterwards, by another signal success on the part of the patriots. Count Bossu, who had constructed or collected a considerable fleetat Amsterdam, had, early in October, sailed into the Zuyder Zee, notwithstanding the sunken wrecks and other obstructions by which thepatriots had endeavored to render the passage of the Y impracticable. The patriots of North Holland had, however, not been idle, and a fleetof five-and-twenty vessels, under Admiral Dirkzoon, was soon cruising inthe same waters. A few skirmishes took place, but Bossu's ships, whichwere larger, and provided with heavier cannon, were apparently notinclined for the close quarters which the patriots sought. The SpanishAdmiral, Hollander as he was, knew the mettle of his countrymen in aclose encounter at sea, and preferred to trust to the calibre of hiscannon. On the 11th October, however, the whole patriot fleet, favoredby a strong easterly, breeze, bore down upon the Spanish armada, which, numbering now thirty sail of all denominations, was lying off and on inthe neighbourhood of Horn and Enkhuyzen. After a short and generalengagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation, closely pursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels. Five of the King'sships were eventually taken, the rest effected their escape. Only theAdmiral remained, who scorned to yield, although his forces had thusbasely deserted him. His ship, the "Inquisition, "--for such was herinsolent appellation, was far the largest and best manned of both thefleets. Most of the enemy had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, butfour vessels of inferior size had attacked the "Inquisition" at thecommencement of the action. Of these, one had soon been silenced, whilethe other three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides andprow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe andsavage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of theships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no military ornaval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. It was alife-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard andNetherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed inbullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield and sword on the deck ofthe "Inquisition, " ready to repel all attempts to board. The Hollander, as usual, attacked with pitch hoops, boiling oil, and molten lead. Repeatedly they effected their entrance to the Admiral's ship, and asoften they were repulsed and slain in heaps, or hurled into the sea. The battle began at three in the afternoon, and continued withoutintermission through the whole night. The vessels, drifting together, struck on the shoal called the Nek, near Wydeness. In the heat of theaction the occurrence was hardly heeded. In the morning twilight, JohnHaring, of Horn, the hero who had kept one thousand soldiers at bay uponthe Diemer dyke, clambered on board the "Inquisition" and hauled hercolors down. The gallant but premature achievement cost him his life. He was shot through the body and died on the deck of the ship, which wasnot quite ready to strike her flag. In the course of the forenoon, however, it became obvious to Bossu that further resistance was idle. The ships were aground near a hostile coast, his own fleet was hopelesslydispersed, three quarters of his crew were dead or disabled, while thevessels with which he was engaged were constantly recruited by boats fromthe shore, which brought fresh men and ammunition, and removed theirkilled and wounded. At eleven o'clock, Admiral Bossu surrendered, andwith three hundred prisoners was carried into Holland. Bossu was himselfimprisoned at Horn, in which city he was received, on his arrival, withgreat demonstrations of popular hatred. The massacre of Rotterdam, dueto his cruelty and treachery, had not yet been forgotten or forgiven. 

This victory, following so hard upon the triumph at Alkmaar, wasas gratifying to the patriots as it was galling to Alva. As hisadministration drew to a close, it was marked by disaster and disgrace onland and sea. The brilliant exploits by which he had struck terror intothe heart of the Netherlanders, at Jemmingen and in Brabant, had beeneffaced by the valor of a handful of Hollanders, without discipline orexperience. To the patriots, the opportune capture of so considerablea personage as the Admiral and Governor of the northern province was ofgreat advantage. Such of the hostages from Harlem as had not yet beenexecuted, now escaped with their lives. Moreover, Saint Aldegonde, the eloquent patriot and confidential friend of Orange, who was takenprisoner a few weeks later, in an action at Maeslands-luis, was preservedfrom inevitable destruction by the same cause. The Prince hastened toassure the Duke of Alva that the same measure would be dealt to Bossu asshould be meted to Saint Aldegonde. It was, therefore, impossible forthe Governor-General to execute his prisoner, and he was obliged tosubmit to the vexation of seeing a leading rebel and heretic in hispower, whom he dared not strike. Both the distinguished prisonerseventually regained their liberty. 

The Duke was, doubtless, lower sunk in the estimation of all classes thanhe had ever been before, during his long and generally successful life. The reverses sustained by his army, the belief that his master had growncold towards him, the certainty that his career in the Netherlands wasclosing without a satisfactory result, the natural weariness producedupon men's minds by the contemplation of so monotonous and unmitigated atyranny during so many years, all contributed to diminish his reputation. He felt himself odious alike to princes and to plebeians. With hiscabinet councillors he had long been upon unsatisfactory terms. President Tisnacq had died early, in the summer, and Viglius, muchagainst his will, had been induced, provisionally, to supply his place. But there was now hardly a pretence of friendship between the learnedFrisian and the Governor. Each cordially detested the other. Alva wasweary of Flemish and Frisian advisers, however subservient, and wasanxious to fill the whole council with Spaniards of the Vargas stamp. He had forced Viglius once more into office, only that, by a littledelay, he might expel him and every Netherlander at the same moment. "Till this ancient set of dogmatizers be removed, " he wrote to Philip, "with Viglius, their chief, who teaches them all their lessons, nothingwill go right. 'Tis of no use adding one or two Spaniards to fillvacancies; that is only pouring a flask of good wine into a hogsheadof vinegar; it changes to vinegar likewise. Your Majesty will soon beable to reorganize the council at a blow; so that Italians or Spaniards, as you choose, may entirely govern the country. "

Such being his private sentiments with regard to his confidentialadvisers, it may be supposed that his intercourse with his council duringthe year was not like to be amicable. Moreover, he had kept himself, forthe most part, at a distance from the seat of government. During themilitary operations in Holland, his head-quarters had been at Amsterdam. Here, as the year drew to its close, he had become as unpopular as inBrussels. The time-serving and unpatriotic burghers, who, at thebeginning of the spring, set up his bust in their houses, and would givelarge sums for his picture in little, now broke his images and tore hisportraits from their walls, for it was evident that the power of his namewas gone, both with prince and people. Yet, certainly, those fiercedemonstrations which had formerly surrounded his person with such anatmosphere of terror had not slackened or become less frequent thanheretofore. He continued to prove that he could be barbarous, bothon a grand and a minute scale. Even as in preceding years, he couldordain wholesale massacres with a breath, and superintend in person theexecutions of individuals. This was illustrated, among other instances, by the cruel fate of Uitenhoove. That unfortunate nobleman, who had beentaken prisoner in the course of the summer, was accused of having beenengaged in the capture of Brill, and was, therefore, condemned by theDuke to be roasted to death before a slow fire. He was accordinglyfastened by a chain, a few feet in length, to a stake, around which thefagots were lighted. Here he was kept in slow torture for a long time, insulted by the gibes of the laughing Spaniards who surrounded him--untilthe executioner and his assistants, more humane than their superior, despatched the victim with their spears--a mitigation of punishment whichwas ill received by Alva. The Governor had, however, no reason to remainlonger in Amsterdam. Harlem had fallen; Alkmaar was relieved; andLeyden--destined in its second siege to furnish so signal a chapter tothe history of the war--was beleaguered, it was true, but, because knownto be imperfectly supplied, was to be reduced by blockade rather than byactive operations. Don Francis Valdez was accordingly left in command ofthe siege, which, however, after no memorable occurrences, was raised, as will soon be related. 

The Duke had contracted in Amsterdam an enormous amount of debt, both public and private. He accordingly, early in November, caused aproclamation to be made throughout the city by sound of trumpet, that allpersons having demands upon him were to present their claims, in person, upon a specified day. During the night preceding the day so appointed, the Duke and his train very noiselessly took their departure, withoutnotice or beat of drum. By this masterly generalship his unhappycreditors were foiled upon the very eve of their anticipated triumph;the heavy accounts which had been contracted on the faith of the Kingand the Governor, remained for the most part unpaid, and many opulent andrespectable families were reduced to beggary. Such was the consequenceof the unlimited confidence which they had reposed in the honor of theirtyrant. 

On the 17th of November, Don Luis de Requesens y Cuniga, Grand Commanderof Saint Jago, the appointed successor of Alva, arrived in Brussels, where he was received with great rejoicings. The Duke, on the same day, wrote to the King, "kissing his feet" for thus relieving him of hisfunctions. There was, of course, a profuse interchange of courtesybetween the departing and the newly-arrived Governors. Alva was willingto remain a little while, to assist his successor with his advice, butpreferred that the Grand Commander should immediately assume the reins ofoffice. To this Requesens, after much respectful reluctance, at lengthconsented. On the 29th of November he accordingly took the oaths, atBrussels, as Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General, in presence of theDuke of Aerschot, Baron Berlaymont, the President of the Council, andother functionaries. 

On the 18th of December the Duke of Alva departed from the provincesfor ever. With his further career this history has no concern, and it isnot desirable to enlarge upon the personal biography of one whose namecertainly never excites pleasing emotions. He had kept his bed for thegreater part of the time during the last few weeks of his government--partly on account of his gout, partly to avoid being seen in hishumiliation, but mainly, it was said, to escape the pressing demandsof his creditors. He expressed a fear of travelling homeward throughFrance, on the ground that he might very probably receive a shot out ofa window as he went by. He complained pathetically that, after all hislabors, he had not "gained the approbation of the King, " while he hadincurred "the malevolence and universal hatred of every individual in thecountry. " Mondoucet, to whom he made the observation, was of the sameopinion; and informed his master that the Duke "had engendered such anextraordinary hatred in the hearts of all persons in the land, that theywould have fireworks in honor of his departure if they dared. "

On his journey from the Netherlands, he is said to have boasted that hehad caused eighteen thousand six hundred inhabitants of the provinces tobe executed during the period of his government. The number of those whohad perished by battle, siege, starvation, and massacre, defiedcomputation. The Duke was well received by his royal master, andremained in favor until a new adventure of Don Frederic brought fatherand son into disgrace. Having deceived and abandoned a maid of honor, he suddenly espoused his cousins in order to avoid that reparation bymarriage which was demanded for his offence. In consequence, both theDuke and Don Frederic were imprisoned and banished, nor was Alva releasedtill a general of experience was required for the conquest of Portugal. Thither, as it were with fetters on his legs, he went. After havingaccomplished the military enterprise entrusted to him, he fell into alingering fever, at the termination of which he was so much reduced thathe was only kept alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breast. Such was the gentle second childhood of the man who had almost literallybeen drinking blood for seventy years. He died on the 12th December, 1582. 

The preceding pages have been written in vain, if an elaborate estimatebe now required of his character. His picture has been painted, as faras possible, by his own hand. His deeds, which are not disputed, and hiswritten words, illustrate his nature more fully than could be done by themost eloquent pen. No attempt has been made to exaggerate his crimes, or to extenuate his superior qualities. Virtues he had none, unlessmilitary excellence be deemed, as by the Romans, a virtue. In war, bothas a science and a practical art, he excelled all the generals who wereopposed to him in the Netherlands, and he was inferior to no commanderin the world during the long and belligerent period to which his lifebelonged. Louis of Nassau possessed high reputation throughout Europeas a skilful and daring General. With raw volunteers he had overthrownan army of Spanish regulars, led by a Netherland chieftain of fame andexperience; but when Alva took the field in person the scene was totallychanged. The Duke dealt him such a blow at Jemmingen as would havedisheartened for ever a less indomitable champion. Never had a defeatbeen more absolute. The patriot army was dashed out of existence, almostto a man, and its leader, naked and beggared, though not disheartened, sent back into Germany to construct his force and his schemes anew. 

Having thus flashed before the eyes of the country the full terrors ofhis name, and vindicated the ancient military renown of his nation, theDuke was at liberty to employ the consummate tactics, in which he couldhave given instruction to all the world, against his most formidableantagonist. The country, paralyzed with fear, looked anxiously butsupinely upon the scientific combat between the two great champions ofDespotism and Protestantism which succeeded. It was soon evident thatthe conflict could terminate in but one way. The Prince had considerablemilitary abilities, and enthusiastic courage; he lost none of his well-deserved reputation by the unfortunate issue of his campaign; he measuredhimself in arms with the great commander of the age, and defied him, dayafter day, in vain, to mortal combat; but it was equally certain that theDuke's quiet game was, played in the most masterly manner. His positionsand his encampments were taken with faultless judgment, his skirmisheswisely and coldly kept within the prescribed control, while theinevitable dissolution of the opposing force took place exactly as he hadforeseen, and within the limits which he had predicted. Nor in thedisastrous commencement of the year 1572 did the Duke less signallymanifest his military genius. Assailed as he was at every point, withthe soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he didnot lose his firmness nor his perspicacity. Certainly, if he had notbeen so soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on SaintBartholomew's Day caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered therecent structure of Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might havebeen worse for his reputation. With Mons safe, the Flemish frontierguarded; France faithful, and thirty thousand men under the Prince ofOrange in Brabant, the heroic brothers might well believe that the Dukewas "at their mercy. " The treason of Charles IX. "smote them as with aclub, " as the Prince exclaimed in the bitterness of his spirit. Underthe circumstances, his second campaign was a predestined failure, andAlva easily vanquished him by a renewed application of those dilatoryarts which he so well understood. 

The Duke's military fame was unquestionable when he came to theprovinces, and both in stricken fields and in long campaigns, he showedhow thoroughly it had been deserved; yet he left the Netherlands abaffled man. The Prince might be many times defeated, but he was not tobe conquered. As Alva penetrated into the heart of the ancient Batavianland he found himself overmatched as he had never been before, even bythe most potent generals of his day. More audacious, more inventive, more desperate than all the commanders of that or any other age, thespirit of national freedom, now taught the oppressor that it wasinvincible; except by annihilation. The same lesson had been read in thesame thickets by the Nervii to Julius Caesar, by the Batavians to thelegions of Vespasian; and now a loftier and a purer flame than that whichinspired the national struggles against Rome glowed within the breasts ofthe descendants of the same people, and inspired them with the strengthwhich comes, from religious enthusiasm. More experienced, more subtle, more politic than Hermann; more devoted, more patient, more magnanimousthan Civilis, and equal to either in valor and determination, William ofOrange was a worthy embodiment of the Christian, national resistance ofthe German race to a foreign tyranny. Alva had entered the Netherlandsto deal with them as with conquered provinces. He found that theconquest was still to be made, and he left the land without havingaccomplished it. Through the sea of blood, the Hollanders felt that theywere passing to the promised land. More royal soldiers fell during theseven months' siege of Harlem than the rebels had lost in the defeat ofJemmingen, and in the famous campaign of Brabant. At Alkmaar the rollingwaves of insolent conquest were stayed, and the tide then ebbed for ever. 

The accomplished soldier struggled hopelessly, with the wild andpassionate hatred which his tyranny had provoked. Neither his legionsnor his consummate strategy availed him against an entirely desperatepeople. As a military commander, therefore, he gained, upon the whole, no additional laurels during his long administration of the Netherlands. Of all the other attributes to be expected in a man appointed to dealwith a free country, in a state of incipient rebellion, he manifested asignal deficiency. As a financier, he exhibited a wonderful ignorance ofthe first principles of political economy. No man before, ever gravelyproposed to establish confiscation as a permanent source of revenue tothe state; yet the annual product from the escheated property ofslaughtered heretics was regularly relied upon, during hisadministration, to replenish the King's treasury, and to supportthe war of extermination against the King's subjects. Nor did statesmanever before expect a vast income from the commerce of a nation devoted toalmost universal massacre. During the daily decimation of the people'slives, he thought a daily decimation of their industry possible. Hispersecutions swept the land of those industrious classes which had madeit the rich and prosperous commonwealth it had been so lately; while, at the same time, he found a "Peruvian mine, " as he pretended, in theimposition of a tenth penny upon every one of its commercialtransactions. He thought that a people, crippled as this had been by theoperations of the Blood Council; could pay ten per cent. , not annuallybut daily; not upon its income, but upon its capital; not once only, butevery time the value constituting the capital changed hands. He hadboasted that he should require no funds from Spain, but that, on thecontrary, he should make annual remittances to the royal treasury athome, from the proceeds of his imposts and confiscations; yet, notwithstanding these resources, and notwithstanding twenty-five millionsof gold in five years, sent by Philip from Madrid, the exchequer of theprovinces was barren and bankrupt when his successor arrived. Requesensfound neither a penny in the public treasury nor the means of raisingone. 

As an administrator of the civil and judicial affairs of the country, Alva at once reduced its institutions to a frightful simplicity. In theplace of the ancient laws of which the Netherlanders were so proud, hesubstituted the Blood Council. This tribunal was even more arbitrarythan the Inquisition. Never was a simpler apparatus for tyranny devised, than this great labor-saving machine. Never was so great a, quantity ofmurder and robbery achieved with such despatch and regularity. Sentences, executions, and confiscations, to an incredible extent, wereturned out daily with appalling precision. For this invention, Alva isalone responsible. The tribunal and its councillors were the work andthe creatures of his hand, and faithfully did they accomplish the darkpurpose of their existence. Nor can it be urged, in extenuation of theGovernor's crimes, that he was but the blind and fanatically loyal slaveof his sovereign. A noble nature could not have contaminated itself withsuch slaughter-house work, but might have sought to mitigate the royalpolicy, without forswearing allegiance. A nature less rigid than iron, would at least have manifested compunction, as it found itself convertedinto a fleshless instrument of massacre. More decided than his master, however, he seemed, by his promptness, to rebuke the dilatory genius ofPhilip. The King seemed, at times, to loiter over his work, teasing andtantalising his appetite for vengeance, before it should be gratified:Alva, rapid and brutal, scorned such epicureanism. He strode withgigantic steps over haughty statutes and popular constitutions; crushingalike the magnates who claimed a bench of monarchs for their jury, andthe ignoble artisans who could appeal only to the laws of their land. From the pompous and theatrical scaffolds of Egmont and Horn, to thenineteen halters prepared by Master Karl, to hang up the chief bakers andbrewers of Brussels on their own thresholds--from the beheading of thetwenty nobles on the Horse-market, in the opening of the Governor'scareer, to the roasting alive of Uitenhoove at its close-from the blockon which fell the honored head of Antony Straalen, to the obscure chairin which the ancient gentlewoman of Amsterdam suffered death for an actof vicarious mercy--from one year's end to another's--from the mostsignal to the most squalid scenes of sacrifice, the eye and hand of thegreat master directed, without weariness, the task imposed by thesovereign. 

No doubt the work of almost indiscriminate massacre had been duly mappedout. Not often in history has a governor arrived to administer theaffairs of a province, where the whole population, three millions strong, had been formally sentenced to death. As time wore on, however, he evensurpassed the bloody instructions which he had received. He waved asidethe recommendations of the Blood Council to mercy; he dissuaded themonarch from attempting the path of clemency, which, for secret reasons, Philip was inclined at one period to attempt. The Governor had, as heassured the King, been using gentleness in vain, and he was nowdetermined to try what a little wholesome severity could effect. Thesewords were written immediately after the massacres at Harlem. 

With all the bloodshed at Mons, and Naarden, and Mechlin, and by theCouncil of Tumults, daily, for six years long, still crying from theground, he taxed himself with a misplaced and foolish tenderness to thepeople. He assured the King that when Alkmaar should be taken, he would, not spare a "living soul among its whole population;" and, as his partingadvice, he recommended that every city in the Netherlands should beburned to the ground, except a few which could he occupied permanently bythe royal troops. On the whole, so finished a picture of a perfect andabsolute tyranny has rarely been presented to mankind by history, as inAlva's administration of the Netherlands. 

The tens of thousands in those miserable provinces who fell victims tothe gallows, the sword, the stake, the living grave, or to livingbanishment, have never been counted; for those statistics of barbarityare often effaced from human record. Enough, however, is known, andenough has been recited in the preceding pages. No mode in which humanbeings have ever caused their fellow-creatures to suffer, was omittedfrom daily practice. Men, women, and children, old and young, noblesand paupers, opulent burghers, hospital patients, lunatics, dead bodies, all were indiscriminately made to furnish food for-the scaffold and thestake. Men were tortured, beheaded, hanged by the neck and by the legs, burned before slow fires, pinched to death with red hot tongs, brokenupon the wheel, starved, and flayed alive. Their skins stripped from theliving body, were stretched upon drums, to be beaten in the march oftheir brethren to the gallows. The bodies of many who had died a naturaldeath were exhumed, and their festering remains hanged upon the gibbet, on pretext that they had died without receiving the sacrament, but inreality that their property might become the legitimate prey of thetreasury. Marriages of long standing were dissolved by order ofgovernment, that rich heiresses might be married against their will toforeigners whom they abhorred. Women and children were executed for thecrime of assisting their fugitive husbands and parents with a penny intheir utmost need, and even for consoling them with a letter, in theirexile. Such was the regular course of affairs as administered by theBlood Council. The additional barbarities committed amid the sack andruin of those blazing and starving cities, are almost beyond belief;unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; womenand children were violated by thousands; and whole populations burned andhacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in its wantoningenuity, could devise. Such was the administration, of which Vargasaffirmed, at its close, that too much mercy, "nimia misericordia, " hadbeen its ruin. 

Even Philip, inspired by secret views, became wearied of the Governor, who, at an early period, had already given offence by his arrogance. To commemorate his victories, the Viceroy had erected a colossal statue, not to his monarch, but to himself. To proclaim the royal pardon, he hadseated himself upon a golden throne. Such insolent airs could be illforgiven by the absolute King. Too cautious to provoke an open rupture, he allowed the Governor, after he had done all his work, and more thanall his work, to retire without disgrace, but without a triumph. For thesins of that administration, master and servant are in equal measureresponsible. 

The character of the Duke of Alva, so far as the Netherlands areconcerned, seems almost like a caricature. As a creation of fiction, itwould seem grotesque: yet even that hardy, historical scepticism, whichdelights in reversing the judgment of centuries, and in re-establishingreputations long since degraded to the dust, must find it difficult toalter this man's position. No historical decision is final; an appeal toa more remote posterity, founded upon more accurate evidence, is alwaysvalid; but when the verdict has been pronounced upon facts which areundisputed, and upon testimony from the criminal's lips, there islittle chance of a reversal of the sentence. It is an affectationof philosophical candor to extenuate vices which are not only avowed, but claimed as virtues. 

 [The time is past when it could be said that the cruelty of Alva, or the enormities of his administration, have been exaggerated by party violence. Human invention is incapable of outstripping the truth upon this subject. To attempt the defence of either the man or his measures at the present day is to convict oneself of an amount of ignorance or of bigotry against which history and argument are alike powerless. The publication of the Duke's letters in the correspondence of Simancas and in the Besancon papers, together with that compact mass of horror, long before the world under the title of "Sententien van Alva, " in which a portion only of the sentences of death and banishment pronounced by him during his reign, have been copied from the official records--these in themselves would be a sufficient justification of all the charges ever brought by the most bitter contemporary of Holland or Flanders. If the investigator should remain sceptical, however, let him examine the "Registre des Condamnes et Bannia a Cause des Troubles des Pays Bas, " in three, together with the Records of the "Conseil des Troubles, " in forty-three folio volumes, in the Royal Archives at Brussels. After going through all these chronicles of iniquity, the most determined historic, doubter will probably throw up the case. ]

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Advised his Majesty to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord BurleighAngle with their dissimulation as with a hookLuther's axiom, that thoughts are toll-freeOnly kept alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breastScepticism, which delights in reversing the judgment of centuriesSo much responsibility and so little powerSometimes successful, even although founded upon sincerityWe are beginning to be vexed