RESIGNATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

Ever since the establishment of the Guesen league, but more perceptibly
since the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, the spirit of rebellion and
disaffection had spread so rapidly among all classes, parties had become
so blended and confused, that the regent had difficulty in
distinguishing her own adherents, and at last hardly knew on whom to
rely.  The lines of demarcation between the loyal and the disaffected
had grown gradually fainter, until at last they almost entirely
vanished.  The frequent alterations, too, which she had been obliged to
make in the laws, and which were at most the expedients and suggestions
of the moment, had taken from them their precision and binding force,
and had given full scope to the arbitrary will of every individual whose
office it was to interpret them.  And at last, amidst the number and
variety of the interpretations, the spirit was lost and the intention of
the lawgiver baffled.  The close connection which in many cases
subsisted between Protestants and Roman Catholics, between Gueux and
Royalists, and which not unfrequently gave them a common interest, led
the latter to avail themselves of the loophole which the vagueness of
the laws left open, and in favor of their Protestant friends and
associates evaded by subtle distinctions all severity in the discharge
of their duties.  In their minds it was enough not to be a declared
rebel, not one of the Gueux, or at least not a heretic, to be authorized
to mould their duties to their inclinations, and to set the most
arbitrary limits to their obedience to the king.  Feeling themselves
irresponsible, the governors of the provinces, the civil functionaries,
both high and low, the municipal officers, and the military commanders
had all become extremely remiss in their duty, and presuming upon this
impunity showed a pernicious indulgence to the rebels and their
adherents which rendered abortive all the regent's measures of coercion.
This general indifference and corruption of so many servants of the
state had further this injurious result, that it led the turbulent to
reckon on far stronger support than in reality they had cause for, and
to count on their own side all who were but lukewarm adherents of the
court.  This way of thinking, erroneous as it was, gave them greater
courage and confidence; it had the same effect as if it had been well
founded; and the uncertain vassals of the king became in consequence
almost as injurious to him as his declared enemies, without at the same
time being liable to the same measures of severity.  This was especially
the case with the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont, Bergen, Hogstraten,
Horn, and several others of the higher nobility.  The regent felt the
necessity of bringing these doubtful subjects to an explanation, in
order either to deprive the rebels of a fancied support or to unmask the
enemies of the king.  And the latter reason was of the more urgent
moment when being obliged to send an army into the field it was of the
utmost importance to entrust the command of the troops to none but those
of whose fidelity she was fully assured.  She caused, therefore, an oath
to be drawn up which bound all who took it to advance the Roman Catholic
faith, to pursue and punish the Iconoclasts, and to help by every means
in their power in extirpating all kinds of heresy.  It also pledged them
to treat the king's enemies as their own, and to serve without
distinction against all whom the regent in the king's name should point
out.  By this oath she did not hope so much to test their sincerity, and
still less to secure them, as rather to gain a pretext for removing the
suspected parties if they declined to take it, and for wresting from
their hands a power which they abused, or a legitimate ground for
punishing them if they took it and broke it.  This oath was exacted from
all Knights of the Fleece, all civil functionaries and magistrates, all
officers of the army--from every one in short who held any appointment
in the state.  Count Mansfeld was the first who publicly took it in the
council of state at Brussels; his example was followed by the Duke of
Arschot, Counts Egmont, Megen, and Barlaimont.  Hogstraten and Horn
endeavored to evade the necessity.  The former was offended at a proof
of distrust which shortly before the regent had given him.  Under the
pretext that Malines could not safely be left any longer without its
governor, but that the presence of the count was no less necessary in
Antwerp, she had taken from him that province and given it to another
whose fidelity she could better reckon upon.  Hostraten expressed his
thanks that she had been pleased to release him from one of his burdens,
adding that she would complete the obligation if she would relieve him
from the other also.  True to his determination Count Horn was living
on one of his estates in the strong town of Weerdt, having retired
altogether from public affairs.  Having quitted the service of the
state, he owed, he thought, nothing more either to the republic or to
the king, and declined the oath, which in his case appears at last to
have been waived.

The Count of Brederode was left the choice of either taking the
prescribed oath or resigning the command of his squadron of cavalry.
After many fruitless attempts to evade the alternative, on the plea that
he did not hold office in the state, he at last resolved upon the latter
course, and thereby escaped all risk of perjuring himself.

Vain were all the attempts to prevail on the Prince of Orange to take
the oath, who, from the suspicion which had long attached to him,
required more than any other this purification; and from whom the great
power which it had been necessary to place in his hands fully justified
the regent in exacting it.  It was not, however, advisable to proceed
against him with the laconic brevity adopted towards Brederode and the
like; on the other hand, the voluntary resignation of all his offices,
which he tendered, did not meet the object of the regent, who foresaw
clearly enough how really dangerous he would become, as soon as he
should feel himself independent, and be no longer checked by any
external considerations of character or duty in the prosecution of his
secret designs.  But ever since the consultation in Dendermonde the
Prince of Orange had made up his mind to quit the service of the King of
Spain on the first favorable opportunity, and till better days to leave
the country itself.  A very disheartening experience had taught him how
uncertain are hopes built on the multitude, and how quickly their zeal
is cooled by the necessity of fulfilling its lofty promises.  An army
was already in the field, and a far stronger one was, he knew, on its
road, under the command of the Duke of Alva.  The time for remonstrauces
was past; it was only at the head of an army that an advantageous treaty
could now be concluded with the regent, and by preventing the entrance
of the Spanish general.  But now where was he to raise this army, in
want as he was of money, the sinews of warfare, since the Protestants
had retracted their boastful promises and deserted him in this pressing
emergency?

     [How valiant the wish, and how sorry the deed was, is proved by the
     following instance amongst others.  Some friends of the national
     liberty, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, had solemnly
     engaged in Amsterdam to subscribe to a common fund the hundredth
     penny of their estates, until a sum of eleven thousand florins
     should be collected, which was to be devoted to the common cause
     and interests.  An alms-box, protected by three locks, was prepared
     for the reception of these contributions.  After the expiration of
     the prescribed period it was opened, and a sum was found amounting
     to seven hundred florins, which was given to the hostess of the
     Count of Brederode, in part payment of his unliquidated score.
     Univ. Hist. of the N., vol. 3.]

Religious jealousy and hatred, moreover, separated the two Protestant
churches, and stood in the way of every salutary combination against
the common enemy of their faith.  The rejection of the Confession of
Augsburg by the Calvinists had exasperated all the Protestant princes of
Germany, so that no support was to be looked for from the empire.  With
Count Egmont the excellent army of Walloons was also lost to the cause,
for they followed with blind devotion the fortunes of their general, who
had taught them at St. Quentin and Gravelines to be invincible.  And
again, the outrages which the Iconoclasts had perpetrated on the
churches and convents had estranged from the league the numerous,
wealthy, and powerful class of the established clergy, who, before this
unlucky episode, were already more than half gained over to it; while,
by her intrigues, the regent daily contrived to deprive the league
itself of some one or other of its most influential members.

All these considerations combined induced the prince to postpone to
a more favorable season a project for which the present juncture was
little suited, and to leave a country where his longer stay could not
effect any advantage for it, but must bring certain destruction on
himself.  After intelligence gleaned from so many quarters, after so
many proofs of distrust, so many warnings from Madrid, he could be no
longer doubtful of the sentiments of Philip towards him.  If even he
had any doubt, his uncertainty would soon have been dispelled by the
formidable armament which was preparing in Spain, and which was to have
for its leader, not the king, as was falsely given out, but, as he was
better informed, the Duke of Alva, his personal enemy, and the very man
he had most cause to fear.  The prince had seen too deeply into Philip's
heart to believe in the sincerity of his reconciliation after having
once awakened his fears.  He judged his own conduct too justly to
reckon, like his friend Egmont, on reaping a gratitude from the king to
which he had not sown.  He could therefore expect nothing but hostility
from him, and prudence counselled him to screen himself by a timely
flight from its actual outbreak.  He had hitherto obstinately refused
to take the new oath, and all the written exhortations of the regent
had been fruitless.  At last she sent to him at Antwerp her private
secretary, Berti, who was to put the matter emphatically to his
conscience, and forcibly remind him of all the evil consequences which
so sudden a retirement from the royal service would draw upon the
country, as well as the irreparable injury it would do to his own fair
fame.  Already, she informed him by her ambassador, his declining the
required oath had cast a shade upon his honor, and imparted to the
general voice, which accused him of an understanding with the rebels, an
appearance of truth which this unconditional resignation would convert
to absolute certainty.  It was for the sovereign to discharge his
servants, but it did not become the servant to abandon his sovereign.
The envoy of the regent found the prince in his palace at Antwerp,
already, as it appeared, withdrawn from the public service, and entirely
devoted to his private concerns.  The prince told him, in the presence
of Hogstraten, that he had refused to take the required oath because he
could not find that such a proposition had ever before been made to a
governor of a province; because he had already bound himself, once for
all, to the king, and therefore, by taking this new oath, he would
tacitly acknowledge that he had broken the first.  He had also refused
because the old oath enjoined him to protect the rights and privileges
of the country, but he could not tell whether this new one might not
impose upon him duties which would contravene the first; because, too,
the clause which bound him to serve, if required, against all without
distinction, did not except even the emperor, his feudal lord, against
whom, however, he, as his vassal, could not conscientiously make war.
He had refused to take this oath because it might impose upon him the
necessity of surrendering his friends and relations, his children, nay,
even his wife, who was a Lutheran, to butchery.  According to it,
moreover, he must lend himself to every thing which it should occur to
the king's fancy or passion to demand.  But the king might thus exact
from him things which he shuddered even to think of, and even the
severities which were now, and had been all along, exercised upon the
Protestants, were the most revolting to his heart.  This oath, in short,
was repugnant to his feelings as a man, and he could not take it.  In
conclusion, the name of the Duke of Alva dropped from his lips in a tone
of bitterness, and he became immediately silent.

All these objections were answered, point by point, by Berti.  Certainly
such an oath had never been required from a governor before him, because
the provinces had never been similarly circumstanced.  It was not
exacted because the governors had broken the first, but in order to
remind them vividly of their former vows, and to freshen their activity
in the present emergency.  This oath would not impose upon him anything
which offended against the rights and privileges of the country, for the
king had sworn to observe these as well as the Prince of Orange.  The
oath did not, it was true, contain any reference to a war with the
emperor, or any other sovereign to whom the prince might be related; and
if he really had scruples on this point, a distinct clause could easily
be inserted, expressly providing against such a contingency.  Care would
be taken to spare him any duties which were repugnant to his feelings as
a man, and no power on earth would compel him to act against his wife or
against his children.  Berti was then passing to the last point, which
related to the Duke of Alva, but the prince, who did not wish to have
this part of his discourse canvassed, interrupted him.  "The king was
coming to the Netherlands," he said, "and he knew the king.  The king
would not endure that one of his servants should have wedded a Lutheran,
and he had therefore resolved to go with his whole family into voluntary
banishment before he was obliged to submit to the same by compulsion.
But," he concluded, "wherever he might be, he would always conduct
himself as a subject of the king."  Thus far-fetched were the motives
which the prince adduced to avoid touching upon the single one which
really decided him.

Berti had still a hope of obtaining, through Egmont's eloquence, what by
his own he despaired of effecting.  He therefore proposed a meeting with
the latter (1567), which the prince assented to the more willingly as he
himself felt a desire to embrace his friend once more before his
departure, and if possible to snatch the deluded man from certain
destruction.  This remarkable meeting, at which the private secretary,
Berti, and the young Count Mansfeld, were also present, was the last
that the two friends ever held, and took place in Villebroeck, a village
on the Rupel, between Brussels and Antwerp.  The Calvinists, whose last
hope rested on the issue of this conference, found means to acquaint
themselves of its import by a spy, who concealed himself in the chimney
of the apartment where it was held.  All three attempted to shake the
determination of the prince, but their united eloquence was unable to
move him from his purpose.  "It will cost you your estates, Orange, if
you persist in this intention," said the Prince of Gaure, as he took him
aside to a window.  "And you your life, Egmont, if you change not
yours," replied the former.  "To me it will at least be a consolation in
my misfortunes that I desired, in deed as well as in word, to help my
country and my friends in the hour of need; but you, my friend, you are
dragging friends and country with you to destruction."  And saying these
words, he once again exhorted him, still more urgently than ever, to
return to the cause of his country, which his arm alone was yet able to
preserve; if not, at least for his own sake to avoid the tempest which
was gathering against him from Spain.

But all the arguments, however lucid, with which a far-discerning
prudence supplied him, and however urgently enforced, with all the ardor
and animation which the tender anxiety of friendship could alone
inspire, did not avail to destroy the fatal confidence which still
fettered Egmont's better reason.  The warning of Orange seemed to come
from a sad and dispirited heart; but for Egmont the world still smiled.
To abandon the pomp and affluence in which he had grown up to youth and
manhood; to part with all the thousand conveniences of life which alone
made it valuable to him, and all this to escape an evil which his
buoyant spirit regarded as remote, if not imaginary; no, that was not a
sacrifice which could be asked from Egmont.  But had he even been less
given to indulgence than he was, with what heart could he have consigned
a princess, accustomed by uninterrupted prosperity to ease and comfort,
a wife who loved him as dearly as she was beloved, the children on whom
his soul hung in hope and fondness, to privations at the prospect of
which his own courage sank, and which a sublime philosophy alone can
enable sensuality to undergo.  "You will never persuade me, Orange,"
said Egmont, "to see things in the gloomy light in which they appear to
thy mournful prudence.  When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, and chastising the Iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels, and
restoring peace and order in the provinces, what can the king lay to my
charge?  The king is good and just; I have claims upon his gratitude,
and I must not forget what I owe to myself."  "Well, then," cried
Orange, indignantly and with bitter anguish, "trust, if you will, to
this royal gratitude; but a mournful presentiment tells me--and may
Heaven grant that I am deceived!--that you, Egmont, will be the bridge
by which the Spaniards will pass into our country to destroy it."  After
these words, he drew him to his bosom, ardently clasping him in his
arms.  Long, as though the sight was to serve for the remainder of his
life, did he keep his eyes fixed upon him; the tears fell; they saw each
other no more.

The very next day the Prince of Orange wrote his letter of resignation
to the regent, in which he assured her of his perpetual esteem, and once
again entreated her to put the best interpretation on his present step.
He then set off with his three brothers and his whole family for his own
town of Breda, where he remained only as long as was requisite to
arrange some private affairs.  His eldest son, Prince Philip William,
was left behind at the University of Louvain, where he thought him
sufficiently secure under the protection of the privileges of Brabant
and the immunities of the academy; an imprudence which, if it was really
not designed, can hardly be reconciled with the just estimate which, in
so many other cases, he had taken of the character of his adversary.  In
Breda the heads of the Calvinists once more consulted him whether there
was still hope for them, or whether all was irretrievably lost.  "He had
before advised them," replied the prince, "and must now do so again, to
accede to the Confession of Augsburg; then they might rely upon aid from
Germany.  If they would still not consent to this, they must raise six
hundred thousand florins, or more, if they could."  "The first," they
answered, "was at variance with their conviction and their conscience;
but means might perhaps be found to raise the money if he would only let
them know for what purpose he would use it."  "No!"  cried he, with the
utmost displeasure, "if I must tell you that, it is all over with the
use of it."  With these words he immediately broke off the conference
and dismissed the deputies.

The Prince of Orange was reproached with having squandered his fortune,
and with favoring the innovations on account of his debts; but he
asserted that he still enjoyed sixty thousand florins yearly rental.
Before his departure he borrowed twenty thousand florins from the states
of Holland on the mortgage of some manors.  Men could hardly persuade
themselves that he would have succumbed to necessity so entirely, and
without an effort at resistance given up all his hopes and schemes.  But
what he secretly meditated no one knew, no one had read in his heart.
Being asked how he intended to conduct himself towards the King of
Spain, "Quietly," was his answer, "unless he touches my honor or my
estates."  He left the Netherlands soon afterwards, and betook himself
in retirement to the town of Dillenburg, in Nassau, at which place he
was born.  He was accompanied to Germany by many hundreds, either as his
servants or as volunteers, and was soon followed by Counts Hogstraten,
Kuilemberg, and Bergen, who preferred to share a voluntary exile with
him rather than recklessly involve themselves in an uncertain destiny.
In his departure the nation saw the flight of its guardian angel; many
had adored, all had honored him.  With him the last stay of the
Protestants gave way; they, however, had greater hopes from this man
in exile than from all the others together who remained behind.  Even
the Roman Catholics could not witness his departure without regret.
Them also had he shielded from tyranny; he had not unfrequently
protected them against the oppression of their own church, and he had
rescued many of them from the sanguinary jealousy of their religious
opponents.  A few fanatics among the Calvinists, who were offended with
his proposal of an alliance with their brethren, who avowed the
Confession of Augsburg, solemnized with secret thanksgivings the day on
which the enemy left them.  (1567).




                DECAY AND DISPERSION OF THE GEUSEN LEAGUE.

Immediately after taking leave of his friend, the Prince of Gaure
hastened back to Brussels, to receive from the regent the reward of his
firmness, and there, in the excitement of the court and in the sunshine
of his good fortune, to dispel the light cloud which the earnest
warnings of the Prince of Orange had cast over his natural gayety.
The flight of the latter now left him in possession of the stage.
He had now no longer any rival in the republic to dim his glory.  With
redoubled zeal he wooed the transient favor of the court, above which he
ought to have felt himself far exalted.  All Brussels must participate
in his joy.  He gave splendid banquets and public entertainments, at
which, the better to eradicate all suspicion from his mind, the regent
herself frequently attended.  Not content with having taken the required
oath, he outstripped the most devout in devotion; outran the most
zealous in zeal to extirpate the Protestant faith, and to reduce by
force of arms the refractory towns of Flanders.  He declared to his old
friend, Count Hogstraten, as also to the rest of the Gueux, that he
would withdraw from them his friendship forever if they hesitated any
longer to return into the bosom of the church, and reconcile themselves
with their king.  All the confidential letters which had been exchanged
between him and them were returned, and by this last step the breach
between them was made public and irreparable.  Egmont's secession, and
the flight of the Prince of Orange, destroyed the last hope of the
Protestants and dissolved the whole league of the Gueux.  Its members
vied with each other in readiness--nay, they could not soon enough
abjure the covenant and take the new oath proposed to them by the
government.  In vain did the Protestant merchants exclaim at this breach
of faith on the part of the nobles; their weak voice was no longer
listened to, and all the sums were lost with which they had supplied the
league.

The most important places were quickly reduced and garrisoned; the
rebels had fled, or perished by the hand of the executioner; in the
provinces no protector was left.  All yielded to the fortune of the
regent, and her victorious army was advancing against Antwerp.  After a
long and obstinate contest this town had been cleared of the worst
rebels; Hermann and his adherents took to flight; the internal storms
had spent their rage.  The minds of the people became gradually
composed, and no longer excited at will by every furious fanatic, began
to listen to better counsels.  The wealthier citizens earnestly longed
for peace to revive commerce and trade, which had suffered severely from
the long reign of anarchy.  The dread of Alva's approach worked wonders;
in order to prevent the miseries which a Spanish army would inflict upon
the country, the people hastened to throw themselves on the gentler
mercies of the regent.  Of their own accord they despatched
plenipotentiaries to Brussels to negotiate for a treaty and to hear her
terms.  Agreeably as the regent was surprised by this voluntary step,
she did not allow herself to be hurried away by her joy.  She declared
that she neither could nor would listen to any overtures or
representations until the town had received a garrison.  Even this was
no longer opposed, and Count Mansfeld marched in the day after with
sixteen squadrons in battle array.  A solemn treaty was now made between
the town and duchess, by which the former bound itself to prohibit the
Calvinistic form of worship, to banish all preachers of that persuasion,
to restore the Roman Catholic religion to its former dignity, to
decorate the despoiled churches with their former ornaments, to
administer the old edicts as before, to take the new oath which the
other towns had sworn to, and, lastly, to deliver into the hands of
justice all who been guilty of treason, in bearing arms, or taking part
in the desecration of the churches.  On the other hand, the regent
pledged herself to forget all that had passed, and even to intercede for
the offenders with the king.  All those who, being dubious of obtaining
pardon, preferred banishment, were to be allowed a month to convert
their property into money, and place themselves in safety.  From this
grace none were to be excluded but such as had been guilty of a capital
offence, and who were excepted by the previous article.  Immediately
upon the conclusion of this treaty all Calvinist and Lutheran preachers
in Antwerp, and the adjoining territory, were warned by the herald to
quit the country within twenty-four hours.  All the streets and gates
were now thronged with fugitives, who for the honor of their God
abandoned what was dearest to them, and sought a more peaceful home for
their persecuted faith.  Here husbands were taking an eternal farewell
of their wives, fathers of their children; there whole families were
preparing to depart.  All Antwerp resembled a house of mourning;
wherever the eye turned some affecting spectacle of painful separation
presented itself.  A seal was set on the doors of the Protestant
churches; the whole worship seemed to be extinct.  The 10th of April
(1567) was the day appointed for the departure of the preachers.  In the
town hall, where they appeared for the last time to take leave of the
magistrate, they could not command their grief; but broke forth into
bitter reproaches.  They had been sacrificed, they exclaimed, they had
been shamefully betrayed; but a time would come when Antwerp would pay
dearly enough for this baseness.  Still more bitter were the complaints
of the Lutheran clergy, whom the magistrate himself had invited into the
country to preach against the Calvinists.  Under the delusive
representation that the king was not unfavorable to their religion they
had been seduced into a combination against the Calvinists, but as soon
as the latter had been by their co-operation brought under subjection,
and their own services were no longer required, they were left to bewail
their folly, which had involved themselves and their enemies in common
ruin.

A few days afterwards the regent entered Antwerp in triumph, accompanied
by a thousand Walloon horse, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, all the
governors and counsellors, a number of municipal officers, and her whole
court.  Her first visit was to the cathedral, which still bore
lamentable traces of the violence of the Iconoclasts, and drew from her
many and bitter tears.  Immediately afterwards four of the rebels, who
had been overtaken in their flight, were brought in and executed in the
public market-place.  All the children who had been baptized after the
Protestant rites were rebaptized by Roman Catholic priests; all the
schools of heretics were closed, and their churches levelled to the
ground.  Nearly all the towns in the Netherlands followed the example of
Antwerp and banished the Protestant preachers.  By the end of April the
Roman Catholic churches were repaired and embellished more splendidly
than ever, while all the Protestant places of worship were pulled down,
and every vestige of the proscribed belief obliterated in the seventeen
provinces.  The populace, whose sympathies are generally with the
successful party, was now as active in accelerating the ruin of the
unfortunate as a short time before it had been furiously zealous in its
cause; in Ghent a large and beautiful church which the Calvinists had
erected was attacked, and in less than an hour had wholly disappeared.
From the beams of the roofless churches gibbets were erected for those
who had profaned the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholics.  The places of
execution were filled with corpses, the prisons with condemned victims,
the high roads with fugitives.  Innumerable were the victims of this
year of murder; in the smallest towns fifty at least, in several of the
larger as many as three hundred, were put to death, while no account was
kept of the numbers in the open country who fell into the hands of the
provost-marshal and were immediately strung up as miscreants, without
trial and without mercy.

The regent was still in Antwerp when ambassadors presented themselves
from the Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemberg, and Baden
to intercede for their fugitive brethren in the faith.  The expelled
preachers of the Augsburg Confession had claimed the rights assured to
them by the religious peace of the Germans, in which Brabant, as part of
the empire, participated, and had thrown themselves on the protection of
those princes.  The arrival of the foreign ministers alarmed the regent,
and she vainly endeavored to prevent their entrance into Antwerp; under
the guise, however, of showing them marks of honor, she continued to
keep them closely watched lest they should encourage the malcontents in
any attempts against the peace of the town.  From the high tone which
they most unreasonably adopted towards the regent it might almost be
inferred that they were little in earnest in their demand.  "It was but
reasonable," they said, "that the Confession of Augsburg, as the only
one which met the spirit of the gospel, should be the ruling faith in
the Netherlands; but to persecute it by such cruel edicts as were in
force was positively unnatural and could not be allowed.  They therefore
required of the regent, in the name of religion, not to treat the people
entrusted to her rule with such severity."  She replied through the Count
of Staremberg, her minister for German affairs, that such an exordium
deserved no answer at all.  From the sympathy which the German princes
had shown for the Belgian fugitives it was clear that they gave less
credit to the letters of the king, in explanation of his measures, than
to the reports of a few worthless wretches who, in the desecrated
churches, had left behind them a worthier memorial of their acts and
characters.  It would far more become them to leave to the King of Spain
the care of his own subjects, and abandon the attempt to foster a spirit
of rebellion in foreign countries, from which they would reap neither
honor nor profit.  The ambassadors left Antwerp in a few days without
having effected anything.  The Saxon minister, indeed, in a private
interview with the regent even assured her that his master had most
reluctantly taken this step.

The German ambassadors had not quitted Antwerp when intelligence from
Holland completed the triumph of the regent.  From fear of Count Megen
Count Brederode had deserted his town of Viane, and with the aid of the
Protestants inhabitants had succeeded in throwing himself into
Amsterdam, where his arrival caused great alarm to the city magistrate,
who had previously found difficulty in preventing a revolt, while it
revived the courage of the Protestants.  Here Brederode's adherents
increased daily, and many noblemen flocked to him from Utrecht,
Friesland, and Groningen, whence the victorious arms of Megen and
Aremberg had driven them.  Under various disguises they found means to
steal into the city, where they gathered round Brederode, and served him
as a strong body-guard.  The regent, apprehensive of a new outbreak,
sent one of her private secretaries, Jacob de la Torre, to the council
of Amsterdam, and ordered them to get rid of Count Brederode on any
terms and at any risk.  Neither the magistrate nor de la Torre himself,
who visited Brederode in person to acquaint him with the will of the
duchess, could prevail upon him to depart.  The secretary was even
surprised in his own chamber by a party of Brederode's followers, and
deprived of all his papers, and would, perhaps, have lost his life also
if he had not contrived to make his escape.  Brederode remained in
Amsterdam a full month after this occurrence, a powerless idol of the
Protestants, and an oppressive burden to the Roman Catholics; while his
fine army, which he had left in Viane, reinforced by many fugitives from
the southern provinces, gave Count Megen enough to do without attempting
to harass the Protestants in their flight.  At last Brederode resolved
to follow the example of Orange, and, yielding to necessity, abandon a
desperate cause.  He informed the town council that he was willing to
leave Amsterdam if they would enable him to do so by furnishing him with
the pecuniary means.  Glad to get quit of him, they hastened to borrow
the money on the security of the town council.  Brederode quitted
Amsterdam the same night, and was conveyed in a gunboat as far as Vlie,
from whence he fortunately escaped to Embden.  Fate treated him more
mildly than the majority of those he had implicated in his foolhardy
enterprise; he died the year after, 1568, at one of his castles in
Germany, from the effects of drinking, by which he sought ultimately to
drown his grief and disappoint ments.  His widow, Countess of Moers in
her own right, was remarried to the Prince Palatine, Frederick III.  The
Protestant cause lost but little by his demise; the work which he had
commenced, as it had not been kept alive by him, so it did not die with
him.

The little army, which in his disgraceful flight he had deserted, was
bold and valiant, and had a few resolute leaders.  It disbanded, indeed,
as soon as he, to whom it looked for pay, had fled; but hunger and
courage kept its parts together some time longer.  One body, under
command of Dietrich of Battenburgh, marched to Amsterdam in the hope of
carrying that town; but Count Megen hastened with thirteen companies of
excellent troops to its relief, and compelled the rebels to give up the
attempt.  Contenting themselves with plundering the neighboring
cloisters, among which the abbey of Egmont in particular was hardly
dealt with, they turned off towards Waaterland, where they hoped the
numerous swamps would protect them from pursuit.  But thither Count
Megen followed them, and compelled them in all haste to seek safety in
the Zuyderzee.  The brothers Van Battenburg, and two Friesan nobles,
Beima and Galama, with a hundred and twenty men and the booty they had
taken from the monasteries, embarked near the town of Hoorne, intending
to cross to Friesland, but through the treachery of the steersman, who
ran the vessel on a sand-bank near Harlingen, they fell into the hands
of one of Aremberg's captains, who took them all prisoners.  The Count
of Aremberg immediately pronounced sentence upon all the captives of
plebeian rank, but sent his noble prisoners to the regent, who caused
seven of them to be beheaded.  Seven others of the most noble, including
the brothers Van Battenburg and some Frieslanders, all in the bloom of
youth, were reserved for the Duke of Alva, to enable him to signalize
the commencement of his administration by a deed which was in every way
worthy of him.  The troops in four other vessels which set sail from
Medenhlick, and were pursued by Count Megen in small boats, were more
successful.  A contrary wind had forced them out of their course and
driven them ashore on the coast of Gueldres, where they all got safe to
land; crossing the Rhine, near Heusen, they fortunately escaped into
Cleves, where they tore their flags in pieces and dispersed.  In North
Holland Count Megen overtook some squadrons who had lingered too long in
plundering the cloisters, and completely overpowered them.  He
afterwards formed a junction with Noircarmes and garrisoned Amsterdam.
The Duke Erich of Brunswick also surprised three companies, the last
remains of the army of the Gueux, near Viane, where they were
endeavoring to take a battery, routed them and captured their leader,
Rennesse, who was shortly afterwards beheaded at the castle of
Freudenburg, in Utrecht.  Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane,
he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it
with the garrison on the first alarm.  He immediately razed the
fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town
without defences.  All the originators of the league were now dispersed;
Brederode and Louis of Nassau had fled to Germany, and Counts
Hogstraten, Bergen, and Kuilemberg had followed their example.
Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an
ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on
the field of battle.  Those of the confederates who had escaped the
sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but
their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became
at last a terrible reality.

Such was the inglorious end of the noble league, which in its beginning
awakened such fair hopes and promised to become a powerful protection
against oppression.  Unanimity was its strength, distrust and internal
dissension its ruin.  It brought to light and developed many rare and
beautiful virtues, but it wanted the most indispensable of all, prudence
and moderation, without which any undertaking must miscarry, and all the
fruits of the most laborious industry perish.  If its objects had been
as pure as it pretended, or even had they remained as pure as they
really were at its first establishment, it might have defied the
unfortunate combination of circumstances which prematurely overwhelmed
it, and even if unsuccessful it would still have deserved an honorable
mention in history.  But it is too evident that the confederate nobles,
whether directly or indirectly, took a greater share in the frantic
excesses of the Iconoclasts than comported with the dignity and
blamelessness of their confederation, and many among them openly
exchanged their own good cause for the mad enterprise of these worthless
vagabonds.  The restriction of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the
cruel inhumanity of the edicts must be laid to the credit of the league;
but this transient relief was dearly purchased, at the cost of so many
of the best and bravest citizens, who either lost their lives in the
field, or in exile carried their wealth and industry to another quarter
of the world; and of the presence of Alva and the Spanish arms.  Many,
too, of its peaceable citizens, who without its dangerous temptations
would never have been seduced from the ranks of peace and order, were
beguiled by the hope of success into the most culpable enterprises, and
by their failure plunged into ruin and misery.  But it cannot be denied
that the league atoned in some measure for these wrongs by positive
benefits.  It brought together and emboldened many whom a selfish
pusillanimity kept asunder and inactive; it diffused a salutary public
spirit amongst the Belgian people, which the oppression of the
government had almost entirely extinguished, and gave unanimity and a
common voice to the scattered members of the nation, the absence of
which alone makes despots bold.  The attempt, indeed, failed, and the
knots, too carelessly tied, were quickly unloosed; but it was through
such failures that the nation was eventually to attain to a firm and
lasting union, which should bid defiance to change.

The total destruction of the Geusen army quickly brought the Dutch towns
also back to their obedience, and in the provinces there remained not a
single place which had not submitted to the regent; but the increasing
emigration, both of the natives and the foreign residents, threatened
the country with depopulation.  In Amsterdam the crowd of fugitives was
so great that vessels were wanting to convey them across the North Sea
and the Zuyderzee, and that flourishing emporium beheld with dismay the
approaching downfall of its prosperity.  Alarmed at this general flight,
the regent hastened to write letters to all the towns, to encourage the
citizens to remain, and by fair promises to revive a hope of better and
milder measures.  In the king's name she promised to all who would
freely swear to obey the state and the church complete indemnity, and by
public proclamation invited the fugitives to trust to the royal clemency
and return to their homes.  She engaged also to relieve the nation from
the dreaded presence of a Spanish army, even if it were already on the
frontiers; nay, she went so far as to drop hints that, if necessary,
means might be found to prevent it by force from entering the provinces,
as she was fully determined not to relinquish to another the glory of a
peace which it had cost her so much labor to effect.  Few, however,
returned in reliance upon her word, and these few had cause to repent it
in the sequel; many thousands had already quitted the country, and
several thousands more quickly followed them.  Germany and England were
filled with Flemish emigrants, who, wherever they settled, retained
their usages and manners, and even their costume, unwilling to come to
the painful conclusion that they should never again see their native
land, and to give up all hopes of return.  Few carried with them any
remains of their former affluence; the greater portion had to beg their
way, and bestowed on their adopted country nothing but industrious skill
and honest citizens.

And now the regent hastened to report to the king tidings such as,
during her whole administration, she had never before been able to
gratify him with.  She announced to him that she had succeeded in
restoring quiet throughout the provinces, and that she thought herself
strong enough to maintain it.  The sects were extirpated, and the Roman
Catholic worship re-established in all its former splendor; the rebels
had either already met with, or were awaiting in prison, the punishment
they deserved; the towns were secured by adequate garrisons.  There was
therefore no necessity for sending Spanish troops into the Netherlands,
and nothing to justify their entrance.  Their arrival would tend to
destroy the existing repose, which it had cost so much to establish,
would check the much-desired revival of commerce and trade, and, while
it would involve the country in new expenses, would at the same time
deprive them of the only means of supporting them.  The mere rumor of
the approach of a Spanish army had stripped the country of many
thousands of its most valuable citizens; its actual appearance would
reduce it to a desert.  As there was no longer any enemy to subdue, or
rebellion to suppress, the people would see no motive for the march of
this army but punishment and revenge, and under this supposition its
arrival would neither be welcomed nor honored.  No longer excused by
necessity, this violent expedient would assume the odious aspect of
oppression, would exasperate the national mind afresh, drive the
Protestants to desperation, and arm their brethren in other countries in
their defence.  The regent, she said, had in the king's name promised
the nation it should be relieved from this foreign army, and to this
stipulation she was principally indebted for the present peace; she
could not therefore guarantee its long continuance if her pledge was not
faithfully fulfilled.  The Netherlands would receive him as their
sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but
he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them.
Let him come to enjoy the peace which she had bestowed on the country,
but not to destroy it afresh.




            ALVA'S ARMAMENT AND EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.

But it was otherwise determined in the council at Madrid.  The minister,
Granvella, who, even while absent himself, ruled the Spanish cabinet by
his adherents; the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor, Spinosa, and the Duke of
Alva, swayed respectively by hatred, a spirit of persecution, or private
interest, had outvoted the milder councils of the Prince Ruy Gomes of
Eboli, the Count of Feria, and the king's confessor, Fresneda.  The
insurrection, it was urged by the former, was indeed quelled for the
present, but only because the rebels were awed by the rumor of the
king's armed approach; it was to fear of punishment alone, and not to
sorrow for their crime, that the present calm was to be ascribed, and
it would soon again be broken if that feeling were allowed to subside.
In fact, the offences of the people fairly afforded the king the
opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his despotic views
with an appearance of justice.  The peaceable settlement for which the
regent took credit to herself was very far from according with his
wishes, which sought rather for a legitimate pretext to deprive the
provinces of their privileges, which were so obnoxious to his despotic
temper.

With an impenetrable dissimulation Philip had hitherto fostered the
general delusion that he was about to visit the provinces in person,
while all along nothing could have been more remote from his real
intentions.  Travelling at any time ill suited the methodical regularity
of his life, which moved with the precision of clockwork; and his narrow
and sluggish intellect was oppressed by the variety and multitude of
objects with which new scenes crowded it.  The difficulties and dangers
which would attend a journey to the Netherlands must, therefore, have
been peculiarly alarming to his natural timidity and love of ease.  Why
should he, who, in all that he did, was accustomed to consider himself
alone, and to make men accommodate themselves to his principles, not his
principles to men, undertake so perilous an expedition, when he could
see neither the advantage nor necessity of it.  Moreover, as it had ever
been to him an utter impossibility to separate, even for a moment, his
person from his royal dignity, which no prince ever guarded so
tenaciously and pedantically as himself, so the magnificence and
ceremony which in his mind were inseparably connected with such a
journey, and the expenses which, on this account, it would necessarily
occasion, were of themselves sufficient motives to account for his
indisposition to it, without its being at all requisite to call in the
aid of the influence of his favorite, Ruy Gomes, who is said to have
desired to separate his rival, the Duke of Alva, from the king.  Little,
however, as be seriously intended this journey, he still deemed it
advisable to keep up the expectation of it, as well with a view of
sustaining the courage of the loyal as of preventing a dangerous
combination of the disaffected, and stopping the further progress
of the rebels.

In order to carry on the deception as long as possible, Philip made
extensive preparations for his departure, and neglected nothing which
could be required for such an event.  He ordered ships to be fitted out,
appointed the officers and others to attend him.  To allay the suspicion
such warlike preparations might excite in all foreign courts, they were
informed through his ambassadors of his real design.  He applied to the
King of France for a passage for himself and attendants through that
kingdom, and consulted the Duke of Savoy as to the preferable route.  He
caused a list to be drawn up of all the towns and fortified places that
lay in his march, and directed all the intermediate distances to be
accurately laid down.  Orders were issued for taking a map and survey of
the whole extent of country between Savoy and Burgundy, the duke being
requested to furnish the requisite surveyors and scientific officers.
To such lengths was the deception carried that the regent was commanded
to hold eight vessels at least in readiness off Zealand, and to despatch
them to meet the king the instant she heard of his having sailed from
Spain; and these ships she actually got ready, and caused prayers to be
offered up in all the churches for the king's safety during the voyage,
though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his
chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the
storms at sea.  Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the
Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first
had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last
to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels with similar
apprehensions.  An attack of tertian ague, which about this time the
king suffered, or perhaps feigned, in Segovia, afforded a plausible
pretence for postponing his journey, while meantime the preparations for
it were carried on with the utmost activity.  At last, when the urgent
and repeated solicitations of his sister compelled him to make a
definite explanation of his plans, he gave orders that the Duke of Alva
should set out forthwith with an army, both to clear the way before him
of rebels, and to enhance the splendor of his own royal arrival.  He did
not yet venture to throw off the mask and announce the duke as his
substitute.  He had but too much reason to fear that the submission
which his Flemish nobles would cheerfully yield to their sovereign would
be refused to one of his servants, whose cruel character was well known,
and who, moreover, was detested as a foreigner and the enemy of their
constitution.  And, in fact, the universal belief that the king was soon
to follow, which long survived Alva's entrance into the country,
restrained the outbreak of disturbances which otherwise would assuredly
have been caused by the cruelties which marked the very opening of the
duke's government.