The conduct of Alva's soldiers underwent an ominous change. Instead of the discipline observed on the march, they now indulged in the most reckless licence. "One hears everywhere," writes a Fleming of the time, "of the oppressions of the Spaniards. Confiscation is going on to the right and left. If{323} a man has anything to lose, they set him down at once as a heretic."[971] If the writer may be thought to have borrowed something from his fears,[972] it cannot be doubted that the panic was general in the country. Men emigrated by thousands and tens of thousands, carrying with them to other lands the arts and manufactures which had so long been the boast and the source of prosperity of the Netherlands.[973] Those who remained were filled with a dismal apprehension,—a boding of coming evil, as they beheld the heavens darkening around them, and the signs of the tempest at hand.
A still deeper gloom lay upon Brussels, once the gayest city in the Netherlands,—now the residence of Alva. All business was suspended. Places of public resort were unfrequented. The streets were silent and deserted. Several of the nobles and wealthier citizens had gone to their estates in the country, to watch there the aspect of events.[974] Most of the courtiers who remained—the gilded insects that loved the sunshine—had left the regent's palace, and gone to pay their homage to her rival at Culemborg House. There everything went merrily as in the gayest time of Brussels. For the duke strove, by brilliant entertainments and festivities, to amuse the nobles and dissipate the gloom of the capital.[975]
In all this Alva had a deeper motive than met the public eye. He was carrying out the policy which he had recommended to Philip. By courteous and conciliatory manners he hoped to draw around him the great nobles, especially such as had been at all mixed up with the late revolutionary movements. Of these, Egmont was still at Brussels; but Hoorne had withdrawn to his estates at Weert.[976] Hoogstraten was in Germany with the prince of{324} Orange. As to the latter, Alva, as he wrote to the king, could not flatter himself with the hope of his return.[977]
The duke and his son Ferdinand both wrote to Count Hoorne in the most friendly terms, inviting him to come to Brussels.[978] But this distrustful nobleman still kept aloof. Alva, in a conversation with the count's secretary, expressed the warmest solicitude for the health of his master. He had always been his friend, he said, and had seen with infinite regret that the count's services were no better appreciated by the king.[979] But Philip was a good prince, and if slow to recompense, the count would find him not ungrateful. Could the duke but see the count, he had that to say which would content him. He would find he was not forgotten by his friends.[980] This last assurance had a terrible significance. Hoorne yielded at length to an invitation couched in terms so flattering. With Hoogstraten, Alva was not so fortunate. His good genius, or the counsel of Orange, saved him from the snare, and kept him in Germany.[981]
Having nothing further to gain by delay, Alva determined to proceed at once to the execution of his scheme. On the ninth of September the council of state was summoned to meet at Culemborg House. Egmont and Hoorne were present; and two or three of the officers, among them Paciotti, the engineer, were invited to discuss a plan of fortification for some of the Flemish cities. In the mean time, strong guards had been posted at all the avenues of the house, and cavalry drawn together from the country and established in the suburbs.
The duke prolonged the meeting until information was privately communicated to him of the arrest of Backerzele, Egmont's secretary, and Van Stralen, the burgomaster of Antwerp. The former was a person of great political sagacity, and deep in the confidence of Egmont; the latter, the friend of Orange, with whom he was still in constant correspondence. The arrest of Backerzele, who resided in Brussels, was made without difficulty, and possession was taken of his papers. Van Stralen was surrounded by a body of horse, as he was driving out of Antwerp in his carriage; and both of the unfortunate gentlemen were brought prisoners to Culemborg House.
As soon as these tidings were conveyed to Alva, he broke up the meeting of the council. Then, entering into conversation with Egmont, he strolled with him through the adjoining rooms, in one of which was a small body of soldiers. As the two nobles entered the apartment, Sancho Davila, the captain of the duke's guard, went up to Egmont, and in the king's name demanded his sword, telling him at the same time he was his prisoner.[982] The{325} count, astounded by the proceeding, and seeing himself surrounded by soldiers, made no attempt at resistance, but calmly, and with much dignity in his manner, gave up his sword, saying at the same time, "It has done the king service more than once."[983] And well might he say so; for with that sword he had won the fields of Gravelines and St. Quentin.[984]
Hoorne fell into a similar ambuscade, in another part of the palace, whither he was drawn while conversing with the duke's son Ferdinand de Toledo, who, according to his father's account, had the whole merit of arranging this little drama.[985] Neither did the admiral make any resistance; but, on learning Egmont's fate, yielded himself up, saying "he had no right to expect to fare better than his friend."[986]
It now became a question as to the disposal of the prisoners. Culemborg House was clearly no fitting place for their confinement. Alva caused several castles in the neighborhood of Brussels to be examined, but they were judged insecure. He finally decided on Ghent. The strong fortress of this city was held by one of Egmont's own partisans; but an order was obtained from the count requiring him to deliver up the keys into the hands of Ulloa, one of Alva's most trusted captains, who, at the head of a corps of Spanish veterans, marched to Ghent, and relieved the Walloon garrison of their charge. Ulloa gave proof of his vigilance, immediately on his arrival, by seizing a heavy wagon loaded with valuables belonging to Egmont, as it was leaving the castle gate.[987]
Having completed these arrangements, the duke lost no time in sending the two lords, under a strong military escort, to Ghent. Two companies of mounted arquebusiers rode in the front. A regiment of Spanish infantry, which formed the centre, guarded the prisoners; one of whom, Egmont, was borne in a litter carried by mules, while Hoorne was in his own carriage. The rear was brought up by three companies of light horse.
Under this strong guard the unfortunate nobles were conducted through the province where Egmont had lately ruled "with an authority," writes Alva's secretary, "greater even than that of the king."[988] But no attempt was made at a rescue; and as the procession entered the gates of Ghent, where Egmont's popularity was equal to his power, the people gazed in stupefied silence on the stern array that was conducting their lord to the place of his confinement.[989]{326}
The arrest of Egmont and Hoorne was known, in a few hours after it took place, to every inhabitant of Brussels; and the tidings soon spread to the furthest parts of the country. "The imprisonment of the lords," writes Alva to the king, "has caused no disturbance. The tranquillity is such that your majesty would hardly credit it."[990] True; but the tranquillity was that of a man stunned by a heavy blow. If murmurs were not loud, however, they were deep. Men mourned over the credulity of the two counts, who had so blindly fallen into the snare, and congratulated one another on the forecast of the prince of Orange, who might one day have the power to avenge them.[991] The event gave a new spur to emigration. In the space of a few weeks no loss than twenty thousand persons are said to have fled the country.[992] And the exiles were not altogether drawn from the humbler ranks; for no one, however high, could feel secure when he saw the blow aimed at men like Egmont and Hoorne, the former of whom, if he had given some cause of distrust, had long since made his peace with the government.
Count Mansfeldt made haste to send his son out of the country, lest the sympathy he had once shown for the confederates, notwithstanding his recent change of opinion, might draw on him the vengeance of Alva. The old count, whose own loyalty could not be impeached, boldly complained of the arrest of the lords as an infringement on the rights of the Toison d'Or, which body alone had cognizance of the causes that concerned their order, intimating, at the same time, his intention to summon a meeting of the members. But he was silenced by Alva, who plainly told him, that, if the chevaliers of the order did meet, and said so much as the credo, he would bring them to a heavy reckoning for it. As to the rights of the Toison, his majesty has pronounced on them, said the duke, and nothing remains for you but to submit.[993]
The arrest and imprisonment of the two highest nobles in the land, members of the council of state, and that without any communication with her, was an affront to the regent which she could not brook. It was in vain that Alva excused it by saying it had been done by the order of the king, who wished to spare his sister the unpopularity which must attach to such a proceeding. Margaret made no reply. She did not complain. She was too deeply wounded to complain. But she wrote to Philip, asking him to consider "whether it could be advantageous to him, or decorous for her, whom he did not disdain to call his sister, that she should remain longer in a place of which the authority was so much abridged, or rather annihilated."[994] She sent her secretary, Machiavelli, with her despatches, requesting an immediate reply from Philip, and adding that, if it were delayed, she should take silence for assent, and forthwith leave the country.
The duke of Alva was entirely resigned to the proposed departure of Margaret. However slight the restraint her presence might impose on his conduct, it exacted more deference than was convenient, and compelled him to{327} consult appearances. Now that he had shown his hand, he was willing to play it out boldly to the end. His first step, after the arrest of the lords, was to organize that memorable tribunal for inquiring into the troubles of the country, which has no parallel in history save the revolutionary tribunal of the French republic. The duke did not shrink from assuming the sole responsibility of his measures. He said, "it was better for the king to postpone his visit to the Netherlands, so that his ministers might bear alone the odium of these rigorous acts. When these had been performed, he might come like a gracious prince, dispensing promises and pardon."[995]
This admirable coolness must be referred in part to Alva's consciousness that his policy would receive the unqualified sanction of his master. Indeed, his correspondence shows that all he had done in the Low Countries was in accordance with a plan preconcerted with Philip. The arrest of the Flemish lords, accordingly, gave entire satisfaction at the court of Madrid, where it was looked on as the first great step in the measures of redress. It gave equal contentment to the court of Rome, where it was believed that the root of heresy was to be reached only by the axe of the executioner. Yet there was one person at that court of more penetration than those around him, the old statesman, Granvelle, who, when informed of the arrest of Egmont and Hoorne, inquired if the duke had "also drawn into his net the Silent one,"—as the prince of Orange was popularly called. On being answered in the negative, "Then," said the cardinal, "if he has not caught him, he has caught nothing."[996]
CHAPTER II.
CRUEL POLICY OF ALVA.
The Council of Blood.—Its Organization.—General Prosecutions.—Civil War in France.—Departure of Margaret.—Her administration reviewed.
1567.
"Thank God," writes the duke of Alva to his sovereign, on the twenty-fourth of October, "all is tranquil in the Low Countries."[997] It was the same sentiment he had uttered a few weeks before. All was indeed tranquil. Silence reigned throughout the land. Yet it might have spoken more eloquently to the heart than the murmurs of discontent, or the loudest tumult of insurrection. "They say many are leaving the country," he writes in another despatch. "It is hardly worth while to arrest them. The repose of the nation is not to be brought about by cutting off the heads of those who are led astray by others."[998]{328}
Yet in less than a week after this, we find a royal ordinance, declaring that, "whereas his majesty is averse to use rigor towards those who have taken part in the late rebellion; and would rather deal with them in all gentleness and mercy,[999] it is forbidden to any one to leave the land, or to send off his effects, without obtaining a license from the authorities, under pain of being regarded as having taken part in the late troubles, and of being dealt with accordingly. All masters and owners of vessels, who shall aid such persons in their flight, shall incur the same penalties."[1000] The penalties denounced in this spirit of "gentleness and mercy," were death and confiscation of property.
That the law was not a dead letter was soon shown by the arrest of ten of the principal merchants of Tournay, as they were preparing to fly to foreign parts, and by the immediate confiscation of their estates.[1001] Yet Alva would have persuaded the world that he, as well as his master, was influenced only by sentiments of humanity. To the Spanish ambassador at Rome he wrote, soon after the seizure of the Flemish lords: "I might have arrested more; but the king is averse to shedding the blood of his people. I have the same disposition myself.[1002] I am pained to the bottom of my soul by the necessity of the measure."
But now that the great nobles had come into the snare, it was hardly necessary to keep up the affectation of lenity; and it was not long before he threw away the mask altogether. The arm of justice—of vengeance—was openly raised to strike down all who had offended by taking part in the late disturbances.
The existing tribunals were not considered as competent to this work. The regular forms of procedure were too dilatory, and the judges themselves would hardly be found subservient enough to the will of Alva. He created, therefore, a new tribunal, with extraordinary powers, for the sole purpose of investigating the causes of the late disorders, and for bringing the authors to punishment. It was called originally the "Council of his Excellency." The name was soon changed for that of the "Council of Tumults." But the tribunal is better known in history by the terrible name it received from the people, of the "Council of Blood."[1003]
It was composed of twelve judges, "the most learned, upright men, and of the purest lives"—if we may take the duke's word for it—that were to be found in the country.[1004] Among them were Noircarmes and Barlaimont, both members of the council of state. The latter was a proud noble, of one of the most ancient families in the land, inflexible in his character, and stanch in his{329} devotion to the crown. Besides these there were the presidents of the councils of Artois and Flanders, the chancellor of Gueldres, and several jurists of repute in the country. But the persons of most consideration in the body were two lawyers who had come in the duke's train from Castile. One of these, the doctor Del Rio, though born in Bruges, was of Spanish extraction. His most prominent trait seems to have been unlimited subserviency to the will of his employer.[1005] The other, Juan de Vargas, was to play the most conspicuous part in the bloody drama that followed. He was a Spaniard, and had held a place in the council of the Indies. His character was infamous; and he was said to have defrauded an orphan ward of her patrimony.[1006] When he left Spain, two criminal prosecutions are reported to have been hanging over him. This only made him the more dependent on Alva's protection. He was a man of great energy of character, unwearied in application to business, unscrupulous in the service of his employer, ready at any price to sacrifice to his own interest, not only every generous impulse, but the common feelings of humanity. Such, at least, are the dark colors in which he is portrayed by the writers of a nation which held him in detestation. Yet his very vices made him so convenient to the duke, that the latter soon bestowed on him more of his confidence than on any other of his followers;[1007] and in his correspondence with Philip we perpetually find him commending Vargas to the monarch's favor, and contrasting his "activity, altogether juvenile," with the apathy of others of the council.[1008] As Vargas was unacquainted with Flemish, the proceedings of the court were conducted, for his benefit, in Latin.[1009] Yet he was such a bungler, even in this language, that his blunders furnished infinite merriment to the people of Flanders, who took some revenge for their wrongs in the ridicule of their oppressor.
As the new court had cognizance of all cases, civil as well as criminal, which grew out of the late disorders, the amount of business soon pressed on them so heavily, that it was found expedient to distribute it into several departments among the different members. Two of the body had especial charge of the processes of the prince of Orange, his brother Louis, Hoogstraten, Culemborg, and the rest of William's noble companions in exile. To Vargas and Del Rio was intrusted the trial of the Counts Egmont and Hoorne. And two others, Blasere and Hessels, had the most burdensome and important charge of all such causes as came from the provinces.[1010]
The latter of these two worthies was destined to occupy a place second only to that of Vargas on the bloody roll of persecution. He was a native of Ghent, of sufficient eminence in his profession to fill the office of attorney-general of his province under Charles the Fifth. In that capacity he enforced the edicts with so much rigor as to make himself odious to his countrymen. In the new career now opened to him, he found a still wider field for his mischievous talents, and he entered on the duties of his office with such hearty zeal as soon roused general indignation in the people, who at a later day took terrible vengeance on their oppressor.[1011]{330}
As soon as the Council of Troubles was organized, commissioners were despatched into the provinces to hunt out the suspected parties. All who had officiated as preachers, or had harbored or aided them, who had joined the consistories, who had assisted in defacing or destroying the Catholic churches or in building the Protestant, who had subscribed the Compromise, or who, in short, had taken an active part in the late disorders, were to be arrested as guilty of treason. In the hunt after victims informations were invited from every source. Wives were encouraged to depose against husbands, children against parents. The prisons were soon full to overflowing, and the provincial and the local magistrates were busy in filing informations of the different cases, which were forwarded to the court at Brussels. When deemed of sufficient importance, the further examination of a case was reserved for the council itself. But for the most part the local authorities, or a commission sent expressly for the purpose, were authorized to try the cause, proceeding even to a definitive sentence, which, with the grounds of it, they were to lay before the Council of Troubles. The process was then revised by the committee for the provinces, who submitted the result of their examination to Vargas and Del Rio. The latter were alone empowered to vote in the matter; and their sentence, prepared in writing, was laid before the duke, who reserved to himself the right of a final decision. This he did, as he wrote to Philip, that he might not come too much under the direction of the council. "Your majesty well knows," he concludes, "that gentlemen of the law are unwilling to decide anything except upon evidence, while measures of state policy are not to be regulated by the laws."[1012]
It might be supposed that the different judges to whom the prisoner's case was thus separately submitted for examination, would have afforded an additional guaranty for his security. But quite the contrary; it only multiplied the chances of his conviction. When the provincial committee presented their report to Vargas and Del Rio,—to whom a Spanish jurist, auditor of the chancery of Valladolid, named Roda, was afterwards added,—if it proposed sentence of death, these judges declared it "was right, and that there was no necessity of reviewing the process." If, on the contrary, a lower penalty was recommended, the worthy ministers of the law were in the habit of returning the process, ordering the committee, with bitter imprecations, to revise it more carefully![1013]
As confiscation was one of the most frequent as well as momentous penalties adjudged by the Council of Blood, it necessarily involved a large number of civil actions; for the estate thus forfeited was often burdened with heavy claims on it by other parties. These were all to be established before the council. One may readily comprehend how small was the chance of justice before such a tribunal, where the creditor was one of the parties, and the crown the other. Even if the suit was decided in favor of the{331} creditor, it was usually so long protracted, and attended with such ruinous expense, that it would have been better for him never to have urged it.[1014]
The jurisdiction of the court, within the limits assigned to it, wholly superseded that of the great court of Mechlin, as well as of every other tribunal, provincial or municipal, in the country. Its decisions were final. By the law of the land, established by repeated royal charters in the provinces, no man in the Netherlands could be tried by any but a native judge. But of the present court, one member was a native of Burgundy, and two were Spaniards.
It might be supposed that a tribunal with such enormous powers, which involved so gross an outrage on the constitutional rights and long-established usages of the nation, would at least have been sanctioned by some warrant from the crown. It could pretend to nothing of the kind,—not even a written commission from the duke of Alva, the man who created it. By his voice alone he gave it an existence. The ceremony of induction into office was performed by the new member placing his hands between those of the duke, and swearing to remain true to the faith; to decide in all cases according to his sincere conviction; finally, to keep secret all the doings of the council, and to denounce any one who disclosed them.[1015] A tribunal clothed with such unbounded power, and conducted on a plan so repugnant to all principles of justice, fell nothing short, in its atrocity, of that inquisition so much dreaded in the Netherlands.
Alva, in order to be the better able to attend the council, appointed his own palace for the place of meeting. At first the sittings were held morning and afternoon, lasting sometimes seven hours in a day.[1016] There was a general attendance of the members, the duke presiding in person. After a few months, as he was drawn to a distance by more pressing affairs, he resigned his place to Vargas. Barlaimont and Noircarmes, disgusted with the atrocious character of the proceedings, soon absented themselves from the meetings. The more respectable of the members imitated their example. One of the body, a Burgundian, a follower of Granvelle, having criticised the proceedings somewhat too freely, had leave to withdraw to his own province;[1017] till at length only three or four councillors remained,—Vargas, Del Rio, Hessels, and his colleague,—on whom the despatch of the momentous business wholly devolved. To some of the processes we find not more than{332} three names subscribed. The duke was as indifferent to forms, as he was to the rights of the nation.[1018]
It soon became apparent, that, as in most proscriptions, wealth was the mark at which persecution was mainly directed. At least, if it did not actually form a ground of accusation, it greatly enhanced the chances of a conviction. The commissioners sent to the provinces received written instructions to ascertain the exact amount of property belonging to the suspected parties. The expense incident to the maintenance of so many officials, as well as of a large military force, pressed heavily on the government; and Alva soon found it necessary to ask for support from Madrid. It was in vain he attempted to obtain a loan from the merchants. "They refuse," he writes; "to advance a real on the security of the confiscations, till they see how the game we have begun is likely to prosper!"[1019]
In another letter to Philip, dated on the twenty-fourth of October, Alva, expressing his regret at the necessity of demanding supplies, says that the Low Countries ought to maintain themselves, and be no tax upon Spain. He is constantly thwarted by the duchess, and by the council of finance, in his appropriation of the confiscated property. Could he only manage things in his own way, he would answer for it that the Flemish cities, uncertain and anxious as to their fate, would readily acquiesce in the fair means of raising a revenue proposed by the king.[1020] The ambitious general, eager to secure the sole authority to himself, artfully touched on the topic which would be most likely to operate with his master. In a note on this passage, in his own handwriting, Philip remarked that this was but just; but as he feared that supplies would never be raised with the consent of the states, Alva must devise some expedient by which their consent in the matter might be dispensed with, and communicate it privately to him.[1021] This pregnant thought he soon after develops more fully in a letter to the duke.[1022]—It is edifying to observe the cool manner in which the king and his general discuss the best{333} means for filching a revenue from the pockets of the good people of the Netherlands.
Margaret,—whose name now rarely appears,—scandalized by the plan avowed of wholesale persecution, and satisfied that blood enough had been shed already, would fain have urged her brother to grant a general pardon. But to this the duke strongly objected. "He would have every man," he wrote to Philip, "feel that any day his house might fall about his ears.[1023] Thus private individuals would be induced to pay larger sums by way of composition for their offences."
As the result of the confiscations, owing to the drains upon them above alluded to, proved less than he expected, the duke, somewhat later, proposed a tax of one per cent. on all property, personal and real. But to this some of the council had the courage to object, as a thing not likely to be relished by the states. "That depends," said Alva, "on the way in which they are approached." He had as little love for the states-general as his master, and looked on applications to them for money as something derogatory to the crown. "I would take care to ask for it," he said, "as I did when I wanted money to build the citadel of Antwerp,—in such a way that they should not care to refuse it."[1024]
The most perfect harmony seems to have subsisted between the king and Alva in their operations for destroying the liberties of the nation,—so perfect, indeed, that it could have been the result only of some previous plan, concerted probably while the duke was in Castile. The details of the execution were doubtless left, as they arose, to Alva's discretion. But they so entirely received the royal sanction,—as is abundantly shown by the correspondence,—that Philip may be said to have made every act of his general his own. And not unfrequently we find the monarch improving on the hints of his correspondent by some additional suggestion.[1025] Whatever evils grew out of the male-administration of the duke of Alva, the responsibility for the measures rests ultimately on the head of Philip.
One of the early acts of the new council was to issue a summons to the prince of Orange, and to each of the noble exiles in his company, to present themselves at Brussels, and answer the charges against them. In the summons addressed to William, he was accused of having early encouraged a spirit of disaffection in the nation; of bringing the Inquisition into contempt; of promoting the confederacy of the nobles, and opening his own palace of Breda for their discussions; of authorizing the exercise of the reformed religion in Antwerp; in fine, of being at the bottom of the troubles, civil and religious, which had so long distracted the land. He was required, therefore, under pain of confiscation of his property and perpetual exile, to present himself before the council at Brussels within the space of six weeks, and answer{334} the charges against him. This summons was proclaimed by the public crier, both in Brussels and in William's own city of Breda; and a placard containing it was affixed to the door of the principal church in each of those places.[1026]
Alva followed up this act by another, which excited general indignation through the country. He caused the count of Buren, William's eldest son, then a lad pursuing his studies at Louvain, to be removed from the university, and sent to Spain. His tutor and several of his domestics were allowed to accompany him. But the duke advised the king to get rid of these attendants as speedily as possible, and fill their places with Spaniards.[1027] This unwarrantable act appears to have originated with Granvelle, who recommends it in one of his letters from Rome.[1028] The object, no doubt, was to secure some guaranty for the father's obedience, as well as to insure the loyalty of the heir of the house of Nassau, and to retain him in the Catholic faith. In the last object the plan succeeded. The youth was kindly treated by Philip; and his long residence in Spain nourished in him so strong an attachment to both Church and crown, that he was ever after divorced from the great cause in which his father and his countrymen were embarked.
The prince of Orange published to the world his sense of the injury done to him by this high-handed proceeding of the duke of Alva; and the university of Louvain boldly sent a committee to the council to remonstrate on the violation of their privileges. Vargas listened to them with a smile of contempt, and, as he dismissed the deputation, exclaimed, "Non curamus vestros privilegios,"—an exclamation long remembered for its bad Latin as well as for its insolence.[1029]
It may well be believed that neither William nor his friends obeyed the summons of the Council of Blood. The prince, in a reply which was printed and circulated abroad, denied the authority of Alva to try him. As a knight of the Golden Fleece, he had a right to be tried by his peers; as a citizen of Brabant, by his countrymen. He was not bound to present himself before an incompetent tribunal,—one, moreover, which had his avowed personal enemy at its head.[1030]
The prince, during his residence in Germany, experienced all those alleviations of his misfortunes which the sympathy and support of powerful friends could afford. Among these the most deserving of notice was William the Wise, a worthy son of the famous old landgrave of Hesse who so stoutly maintained the Protestant cause against Charles the Fifth. He and the elector of Saxony, both kinsmen of William's wife, offered to provide an establishment for the prince, while he remained in Germany, which, if it was not on the magnificent scale to which he had been used in the Netherlands, was still not unsuited to the dignity of his rank.[1031]
The little court of William received every day fresh accessions from those who fled from persecution in the Netherlands. They brought with them appeals to him from his countrymen to interpose in their behalf. The hour{335} had not yet come. But still he was not idle. He was earnestly endeavoring to interest the German princes in the cause, was strengthening his own resources, and steadily, though silently, making preparation for the great struggle with the oppressors of his country.
While these events were passing in the Netherlands, the neighboring monarchy of France was torn by those religious dissensions, which, at this period, agitated, in a greater or less degree, most of the states of Christendom. One half of the French nation was in arms against the other half. At the time of our history, the Huguenots had gained a temporary advantage; their combined forces were beleaguering the capital, in which the king and Catherine de Medicis, his mother, were then held prisoners. In this extremity, Catherine appealed to Margaret to send a body of troops to her assistance. The regent hesitated as to what course to take, and referred the matter to Alva. He did not hesitate. He knew Philip's disposition in regard to France, and had himself, probably, come to an understanding on the subject with the queen-mother in the famous interview at Bayonne. He proposed to send a body of three thousand horse to her relief. At the same time he wrote to Catherine, offering to leave the Low Countries, and march himself to her support with his whole strength, five thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot, all his Spanish veterans included, provided she would bring matters to an issue, and finish at once with the enemies of their religion. The duke felt how powerfully such a result would react on the Catholic cause in the Netherlands.
He besought Catherine to come to no terms with the rebels; above all, to make them no concessions. "Such concessions must, of necessity, be either spiritual or temporal. If spiritual, they would be opposed to the rights of God; if temporal, to the rights of the king. Better to reign over a ruined land, which yet remains true to its God and its king, than over one left unharmed for the benefit of the Devil and his followers the heretics."[1032] In this declaration, breathing the full spirit of religious and political absolutism, may be found the true key to the policy of Alva and of his master.
Philip heartily approved of the views taken by his general.[1033] As the great champion of Catholicism, he looked with the deepest interest on the religious struggle going forward in the neighboring kingdom, which exercised so direct an influence on the revolutionary movements in the Netherlands. He strongly encouraged the queen-mother to yield nothing to the heretics. "With his own person," he declared, "and with all that he possessed, he was ready to serve the French crown in its contests with the rebels."[1034] Philip's zeal in the cause was so well understood in France, that some of the Catholic leaders did not scruple to look to him, rather than to their own government, as the true head of their party.[1035]{336}
Catherine de Medicis did not discover the same uncompromising spirit, and had before this disgusted her royal son-in-law by the politic views which mingled with her religion. On the present occasion she did not profit by the brilliant offer made to her by Alva to come in person at the head of his army. She may have thought so formidable a presence might endanger the independence of the government. Roman Catholic as she was at heart, she preferred, with true Italian policy, balancing the rival factions against each other, to exterminating either of them altogether. The duke saw that Catherine was not disposed to strike at the root of the evil, and that the advantages to be secured by success would be only temporary. He contented himself, therefore, with despatching a smaller force, chiefly of Flemish troops, under Aremberg. Before the count reached Paris, the battle of St. Denis had been fought. Montmorenci fell; but the royal party was victorious. Catherine made a treaty with the discomfited Huguenots, as favorable to them as if they, not she, had won the fight. Alva, disgusted with the issue, ordered the speedy return of Aremberg, whose presence, moreover, was needed, on a more active theatre of operations.
During all this while Margaret's position afforded a pitiable contrast to the splendid elevation which she had occupied for so many years as head of the government. Not only had the actual power passed from her hands, but she felt that all her influence had gone with it. She hardly enjoyed even the right of remonstrance. In this position, she had the advantage of being more favorably situated for criticizing the conduct of the administration, than when she was herself at the head of it. She became more sensible of the wrongs of the people,—now that they were inflicted by other hands than her own. She did not refuse to intercede in their behalf. She deprecated the introduction of a garrison into the good city of Brussels. If this were necessary, she still besought the duke not to allow the loyal inhabitants to be burdened with the maintenance of the soldiers.[1036] But he turned a deaf ear to her petition. She urged that, after the chastisement already inflicted on the nation, the only way to restore quiet was by a general amnesty. The duke replied, that no amnesty could be so general but there must be some exceptions, and it would take time to determine who should be excepted. She recommended that the states be called together to vote the supplies. He evaded this also by saying it would be necessary first to decide on the amount of the subsidy to be raised.[1037] The regent felt that in all matters of real moment she had as little weight as any private individual in the country.