From this state of humiliation she was at last relieved by the return of her secretary, Machiavelli, who brought with him despatches from Ruy Gomez, Philip's favorite minister. He informed the duchess that the king, though, reluctantly, had at last acceded to her request, and allowed her to resign the government of the provinces. In token of his satisfaction with her conduct, his majesty had raised the pension which she had hitherto enjoyed, of eight thousand florins, to fourteen thousand, to be paid her yearly during the{337} remainder of her life. This letter was dated on the sixth of October.[1038] Margaret soon after received one, dated four days later, from Philip himself, of much the same tenor with that of his minister. The king, in a few words, intimated the regret he felt at his sister's retirement from office, and the sense he entertained of the services she had rendered him by her long and faithful administration.[1039]

The increase of the pension showed no very extravagant estimate of these services; and the parsimonious tribute which, after his long silence, he now, in a few brief sentences, paid to her deserts, too plainly intimated, that all she had done had failed to excite even a feeling of gratitude in the bosom of her brother.[1040] At the same time with the letter to Margaret came a commission to the duke of Alva, investing him with the title of regent and governor-general, together with all the powers that had been possessed by his predecessor.[1041]

Margaret made only one request of Philip previous to her departure. This he denied her. Her father, Charles the Fifth, at the time of his abdication, had called the states-general together, and taken leave of them in a farewell address, which was still cherished as a legacy by his subjects. Margaret would have imitated his example. The grandeur of the spectacle pleased her imagination; and she was influenced, no doubt, by the honest desire of manifesting, in the hour of separation, some feelings of a kindly nature for the people over whom she had ruled for so many years.

But Philip, as we have seen, had no relish for these meetings of the states. He had no idea of consenting to them on an emergency no more pressing than the present. Margaret was obliged, therefore, to relinquish the pageant, and to content herself with taking leave of the people by letters addressed to the principal cities of the provinces. In these she briefly touched on the difficulties which had lain in her path, and on the satisfaction which she felt at having, at length, brought the country to a state of tranquillity and order. She besought them to remain always constant in the faith in which they had been nurtured, as well as in their loyalty to a prince so benign and merciful as the king, her brother. In so doing the blessing of Heaven would rest upon them; and for her own part, she would ever be found ready to use her good offices in their behalf.[1042]

She proved her sincerity by a letter written to Philip, before her departure, in which she invoked his mercy in behalf of his Flemish subjects. "Mercy," she said, "was a divine attribute. The greater the power possessed by a monarch, the nearer he approached the Deity, and the more should he strive to imitate the divine clemency and compassion.[1043] His royal predecessors had{338} contented themselves with punishing the leaders of sedition, while they spared the masses who repented. Any other course would confound the good with the bad, and bring such calamities on the country as his majesty could not fail to appreciate."[1044]—Well had it been for the fair fame of Margaret, if her counsels had always been guided by such wise and magnanimous sentiments.

The tidings of the regent's abdication were received with dismay throughout the provinces. All the errors of her government, her acts of duplicity, the excessive rigor with which she had of late visited offences,—all were forgotten in the regret felt for her departure. Men thought only of the prosperity which the country had enjoyed under her rule, the confidence which in earlier years she had bestowed on the friends of the people, the generous manner in which she had interposed, on more than one occasion, to mitigate the hard policy of the court of Madrid. And as they turned from these more brilliant passages of her history, their hearts were filled with dismay while they looked gloomily into the future.

Addresses poured in upon her from all quarters. The different cities vied with one another in expressions of regret for her departure, while they invoked the blessings of Heaven on her remaining days. More than one of the provinces gave substantial evidence of their good-will by liberal donatives. Brabant voted her the sum of twenty-five thousand florins, and Flanders, thirty thousand.[1045] The neighboring princes, and among them Elizabeth of England, joined with the people of the Netherlands in professions of respect for the regent, as well as of regret that she was to relinquish the government.[1046]

Cheered by these assurances of the consideration in which she was held both at home and abroad, Margaret quitted Brussels at the close of December, 1567. She was attended to the borders of Brabant by Alva, and thence conducted to Germany, by Count Mansfeldt and an escort of Flemish nobles.[1047] There bidding adieu to all that remained of her former state, she pursued her journey quietly to Italy. For some time she continued with her husband in his ducal residence at Parma. But, wherever lay the fault, it was Margaret's misfortune to taste but little of the sweets of domestic intercourse. Soon afterwards she removed to Naples, and there permanently established her abode on estates which had been granted her by the crown. Many years later, when her son, Alexander Farnese, was called to the government of the Netherlands, she quitted her retirement to take part with him in the direction of public affairs. It was but for a moment; and her present departure from the Netherlands may be regarded as the close of her political existence.

The government of Margaret continued from the autumn of 1559 to the end of 1567, a period of eight years. It was a stormy and most eventful period; for it was then that the minds of men were agitated to their utmost depths by the new doctrines which gave birth to the revolution. Margaret's regency, indeed, may be said to have furnished the opening scenes of that great drama. The inhabitants of the Low Countries were accustomed to the sway of a{339} woman. Margaret was the third of her line that had been intrusted with the regency. In qualifications for the office she was probably not inferior to her predecessors. Her long residence in Italy had made her acquainted with the principles of government in a country where political science was more carefully studied than in any other quarter of Europe. She was habitually industrious; and her robust frame was capable of any amount of labor. If she was too masculine in her nature to allow of the softer qualities of her sex, she was, on the other hand, exempt from the fondness for pleasure and from most of the frivolities which belonged to the women of the voluptuous clime in which she had lived. She was stanch in her devotion to the Catholic faith; and her loyalty was such, that, from the moment of assuming the government, she acknowledged no stronger motive than that of conformity to the will of her sovereign. She was fond of power; and she well knew that, with Philip, absolute conformity to his will was the only condition on which it was to be held.

With her natural good sense, and the general moderation of her views, she would, doubtless, have ruled over the land as prosperously as her predecessors, had the times been like theirs. But, unhappily for her, the times had greatly changed. Still Margaret, living on the theatre of action, and feeling the pressure of circumstances, would have gone far to conform to the change. But unfortunately she represented a prince, dwelling at a distance, who knew no change himself, allowed no concessions to others,—whose conservative policy rested wholly on the past.

It was unfortunate for Margaret, that she never fully possessed the confidence of Philip. Whether from distrust of her more accommodating temper, or of her capacity for government, he gave a larger share of it, at the outset, to Granvelle than to her. If the regent could have been blind to this, her eyes would soon have been opened to the fact by the rivals who hated the minister. It was not long before she hated him too. But the removal of Granvelle did not establish her in her brother's confidence. It rather increased his distrust, by the necessity it imposed on her of throwing herself into the arms of the opposite party, the friends of the people. From this moment Philip's confidence was more heartily bestowed on the duke of Alva, even on the banished Granvelle, than on the regent. Her letters remained too often unanswered. The answers, when they did come, furnished only dark and mysterious hints of the course to be pursued. She was left to work out the problem of government by herself, sure for every blunder to be called to a strict account. Rumors of the speedy coming of the king suggested the idea that her own dominion was transitory, soon to be superseded by that of a higher power.

Under these disadvantages she might well have lost all reliance on herself. She was not even supplied with the means of carrying out her own schemes. She was left without money, without arms, without the power to pardon,—more important, with a brave and generous race, than the power to punish. Thus, destitute of resources, without the confidence of her employer, with the people stoutly demanding concessions on the one side, with the sovereign sternly refusing them on the other, it is little to say that Margaret was in a false position: her position was deplorable. She ought not to have remained in it a day after she found that she could not hold it with honor. But Margaret was too covetous of power readily to resign it. Her misunderstanding with her husband made her, moreover, somewhat dependent on her brother.

At last came the Compromise and the league. Margaret's eyes seemed now to be first opened to the direction of the course she was taking. This was followed by the explosion of the iconoclasts. The shock fully awoke her from her delusion. She was as zealous for the Catholic Church as Philip{340} himself; and she saw with horror that it was trembling to its foundations. A complete change seemed to take place in her convictions,—in her very nature. She repudiated all those with whom she had hitherto acted. She embraced, as heartily as he could desire, the stern policy of Philip. She proscribed, she persecuted, she punished,—and that with an excess of rigor that does little honor to her memory. It was too late. The distrust of Philip was not to be removed by this tardy compliance with his wishes. A successor was already appointed; and at the very moment when she flattered herself that the tranquillity of the country and her own authority were established on a permanent basis, the duke of Alva was on his march across the mountains.

Yet it was fortunate for Margaret's reputation that she was succeeded in the government by a man like Alva. The darkest spots on her administration became light when brought into comparison with his reign of terror. From this point of view it has been criticized by the writers of her own time and those of later ages.[1048] And in this way, probably, as the student who ponders the events of her history may infer, a more favorable judgment has been passed upon her actions than would be warranted by a calm and deliberate scrutiny.

CHAPTER III.

In the beginning of 1568, Philip, if we may trust the historians, resorted to a very extraordinary measure for justifying to the world his rigorous proceedings against the Netherlands. He submitted the case to the Inquisition at Madrid; and that ghostly tribunal, after duly considering the evidence derived from the information of the king and of the inquisitors in the Netherlands, came to the following decision. All who had been guilty of heresy, apostasy, or sedition, and all, moreover, who, though professing themselves good Catholics, had offered no resistance to these, were, with the exception of a few specified individuals, thereby convicted of treason in the highest degree.[1049]

This sweeping judgment was followed by a royal edict, dated on the same day, the sixteenth of February, in which, after reciting the language of the Inquisition, the whole nation, with the exception above stated, was sentenced, without distinction of sex or age, to the penalties of treason,—death and confiscation of property; and this, the decree went on to say, "without any hope{341} of grace whatever, that it might serve for an example and a warning to all future time!"[1050]

It is difficult to give credit to a story so monstrous, repeated though it has been by successive writers without the least distrust of its correctness. Not that anything can be too monstrous to be believed of the Inquisition. But it is not easy to believe that a sagacious prince like Philip the Second, however willing he might be to shelter himself under the mantle of the Holy Office, could have lent himself to an act as impolitic as it was absurd; one that, confounding the innocent with the guilty, would drive both to desperation,—would incite the former, from a sense of injury, to take up rebellion, by which there was nothing more to lose, and the latter to persist in it, since there was nothing more to hope.[1051]

The messenger who brought to Margaret the royal permission to resign the regency delivered to Alva his commission as captain-general of the Netherlands. This would place the duke, as Philip wrote to him, beyond the control of the council of finance, in the important matter of the confiscations.[1052] It raised him, indeed, not only above that council, but above every other council in the country. It gave him an authority not less than that of the sovereign himself. And Alva prepared to stretch this to an extent greater than any sovereign of the Netherlands had ever ventured on. The time had now come to put his terrible machinery into operation. The regent was gone, who, if she could not curb, might at least criticize his actions. The prisons were full; the processes were completed. Nothing remained but to pass sentence and to execute.

On the fourth of January, 1568, we find eighty-four persons sentenced to death at Valenciennes, on the charge of having taken part in the late movements,—religious or political.[1053] On the twentieth of February, ninety-five persons were arraigned before the Council of Blood, and thirty-seven capitally convicted.[1054] On the twentieth of March thirty-five more were condemned.[1055] The governor's emissaries were out in every direction. "I heard that preaching was going on at Antwerp," he writes to Philip; "and I sent my own provost there, for I cannot trust the authorities. He arrested a good number of heretics. They will never attend another such meeting. The magistrates complain that the interference of the provost was a violation of their privileges. The magistrates may as well take it patiently."[1056] The pleasant manner in which the duke talks over the fate of his victims{342} with his master may remind one of the similar dialogues between Petit André and Louis the Eleventh, in "Quentin Durward."

The proceedings in Ghent may show the course pursued in the other cities. Commissioners were sent to that capital, to ferret out the suspected. No than a hundred and forty-seven were summoned before the council at Brussels. Their names were cried about the streets, and posted up in placards on the public buildings. Among them were many noble and wealthy individuals. The officers were particularly instructed to ascertain the wealth of the parties. Most of the accused contrived to make their escape. They preferred flight to the chance of an acquittal by the bloody tribunal,—though flight involved certain banishment and confiscation of property. Eighteen only answered the summons by repairing to Brussels. They were all arrested on the same day, at their lodgings, and, without exception, were sentenced to death! Five or six of the principal were beheaded. The rest perished on the gallows.[1057]

Impatient of what seemed to him a too tardy method of following up his game, the duke determined on a bolder movement, and laid his plans for driving a goodly number of victims into the toils at once. He fixed on Ash Wednesday for the time,—the beginning of Lent, when men, after the Carnival was past, would be gathered soberly in their own dwellings.[1058] The officers of justice entered their premises at dead of night; and no less than five hundred citizens were dragged from their beds and hurried off to prison.[1059] They all received sentence of death![1060] "I have reiterated the sentence again and again," he writes to Philip, "for they torment me with inquiries whether in this or that case it might not be commuted for banishment. They weary me of my life with their importunities."[1061] He was not too weary, however, to go on with the bloody work; for in the same letter we find him reckoning{343} that three hundred heads more must fall before it will be time to talk of a general pardon.[1062]

It was common, says an old chronicler, to see thirty or forty persons arrested at once. The wealthier burghers might be seen, with their arms pinioned behind them, dragged at the horse's tail to the place of execution.[1063] The poorer sort were not even summoned to take their trial in Brussels. Their cases were despatched at once, and they were hung up, without further delay, in the city or in the suburbs.[1064]

Brandt, in his History of the Reformation, has collected many particulars respecting the persecution, especially in his own province of Holland, during that "reign of terror." Men of lower consideration, when dragged to prison, were often cruelly tortured on the rack, to extort confessions, implicating themselves or their friends. The modes of death adjudged by the bloody tribunal were various. Some were beheaded with the sword,—a distinction reserved, as it would seem, for persons of condition. Some were sentenced to the gibbet, and others to the stake.[1065] This last punishment, the most dreadful of all, was confined to the greater offenders against religion. But it seems to have been left much to the caprice of the judges, sometimes even of the brutal soldiery who superintended the executions. At least we find the Spanish soldiers, on one occasion, in their righteous indignation, throwing into the flames an unhappy Protestant preacher whom the court had sentenced to the gallows.[1066]

The soldiers of Alva were many of them veterans who had borne arms against the Protestants under Charles the Fifth,—comrades of the men who at that very time were hunting down the natives of the New World, and slaughtering them by thousands in the name of religion. With them the sum and substance of religion were comprised in a blind faith in the Romish Church, and in uncompromising hostility to the heretic. The life of the heretic was the most acceptable sacrifice that could be offered to Jehovah. With hearts thus seared by fanaticism, and made callous by long familiarity with human suffering, they were the very ministers to do the bidding of such a master as the duke of Alva.

The cruelty of the persecutors was met by an indomitable courage on the part of their victims. Most of the offences were, in some way or other, connected with religion. The accused were preachers, or had aided and comforted the preachers, or had attended their services, or joined the consistories, or afforded evidence, in some form, that they had espoused the damnable doctrines of heresy. It is precisely in such a case, where men are called to suffer for conscience' sake, that they are prepared to endure all,—to die in defence of their opinions. The storm of persecution fell on persons of every condition; men and women, the young, the old, the infirm and helpless. But the weaker the party, the more did the spirit rise to endure his sufferings. Many affecting instances are recorded of persons who, with no support but their trust in heaven, displayed the most heroic fortitude in the presence of{344} their judges, and, by the boldness with which they asserted their opinions, seemed even to court the crown of martyrdom. On the scaffold and at the stake this intrepid spirit did not desert them; and the testimony they bore to the truth of the cause for which they suffered had such an effect on the bystanders, that it was found necessary to silence them. A cruel device for more effectually accomplishing this was employed by the officials. The tip of the tongue was seared with a red-hot iron, and the swollen member then compressed between two plates of metal screwed fast together. Thus gagged, the groans of the wretched sufferer found vent in strange sounds, that excited the brutal merriment of his tormentors.[1067]

But it is needless to dwell longer on the miseries endured by the people of the Netherlands in this season of trial. Yet, if the cruelties perpetrated in the name of religion are most degrading to humanity, they must be allowed to have called forth the most sublime spectacle which humanity can present,—that of the martyr offering up his life on the altar of principle.

It is difficult—in fact, from the data in my possession, not possible—to calculate the number of those who fell by the hand of the executioner in this dismal persecution.[1068] The number, doubtless, was not great as compared with the population of the country,—not so great as we may find left, almost every year of our lives, on a single battle-field. When the forms of legal proceedings are maintained, the movements of justice—if the name can be so profaned—are comparatively tardy. It is only, as in the French Revolution, when thousands are swept down by the cannon, or whole cargoes of wretched victims are plunged at once into the waters, that death moves on with the gigantic stride of pestilence and war.

But the amount of suffering from such a persecution is not to be estimated merely by the number of those who have actually suffered death, when the fear of death hung like a naked sword over every man's head. Alva had expressed to Philip the wish that every man, as he lay down at night, or as he rose in the morning, "might feel that his house, at any hour, might fall and crush him!"[1069] This humane wish was accomplished. Those who escaped death had to fear a fate scarcely less dreadful, in banishment and confiscation of property. The persecution very soon took this direction; and persecution when prompted by avarice is even more odious than when it springs from{345} fanaticism, which, however degrading in itself, is but the perversion of the religious principle.

Sentence of perpetual exile and confiscation was pronounced at once against all who fled the country.[1070] Even the dead were not spared; as is shown by the process instituted against the marquis of Bergen, for the confiscation of his estates on the charge of treason. That nobleman had gone with Montigny, as the reader may remember, on his mission to Madrid, where he had recently died,—more fortunate than his companion, who survived for a darker destiny. The duke's emissaries were everywhere active in making inventories of the property of the suspected parties. "I am going to arrest some of the richest and worst offenders," writes Alva to his master, "and bring them to a pecuniary composition."[1071] He shall next proceed, he says, against the delinquent cities. In this way a round sum will flow into his majesty's coffers.[1072] The victims of this class were so numerous, that we find a single sentence of the council sometimes comprehending eighty or a hundred individuals. One before me, in fewer words than are taken up by the names of the parties, dooms no less than a hundred and thirty-five inhabitants of Amsterdam to confiscation and exile.[1073]

One may imagine the distress brought on this once flourishing country by this wholesale proscription; for besides the parties directly interested, there was a host of others incidentally affected,—hospitals and charitable establishments, widows and helpless orphans, now reduced to want by the failure of the sources which supplied them with their ordinary subsistence.[1074] Slow and sparing must have been the justice doled out to such impotent creditors, when they preferred their claims to a tribunal like the Council of Blood! The effect was soon visible in the decay of trade and the rapid depopulation of the towns. Notwithstanding the dreadful penalties denounced against fugitives, great numbers, especially from the border states, contrived to make their escape. The neighboring districts of Germany opened their arms to the wanderers; and many a wretched exile from the northern provinces, flying across the frozen waters of the Zuyder Zee, found refuge within the hospitable walls of Embden.[1075] Even in an inland city like Ghent, half the houses, if we may credit the historian, were abandoned.[1076] Not a family was there, he says, but some of its members had tasted the bitterness of exile or of death.[1077] "The fury of persecution," writes the prince of Orange, "spreads such horror throughout the nation, that thousands, and among them some of{346} the principal Papists, have fled a country where tyranny seems to be directed against all, without distinction of faith."[1078]

Yet in a financial point of view the results did not keep pace with Alva's wishes. Notwithstanding the large amount of the confiscations, the proceeds, as he complains to Philip, were absorbed in so many ways, especially by the peculation of his agents, that he doubted whether the expense would not come to more than the profits![1079] He was equally dissatisfied with the conduct of other functionaries. The commissioners sent into the provinces, instead of using their efforts to detect the guilty, seemed disposed, he said, rather to conceal them. Even the members of the Council of Troubles manifested so much apathy in their vocation, as to give him more annoyance than the delinquents themselves![1080] The only person who showed any zeal in the service was Vargas. He was worth all the others of the council put together.[1081] The duke might have excepted from this sweeping condemnation Hessels, the lawyer of Ghent, if the rumors concerning him were true. This worthy councillor, it is said, would sometimes fall asleep in his chair, worn out by the fatigue of trying causes and signing death-warrants. In this state, when suddenly called on to pronounce the doom of the prisoner, he would cry out, half awake, and rubbing his eyes, "Ad patibulum! Ad patibulum!"—"To the gallows! To the gallows!"[1082]

But Vargas was after the duke's own heart. Alva was never weary of commending his follower to the king. He besought Philip to interpose in his behalf, and cause three suits which had been brought against that functionary to be suspended during his absence from Spain. The king accordingly addressed the judge on the subject. But the magistrate (his name should have been preserved) had the independence to reply, that "justice must take its course, and could not be suspended from favor to any one." "Nor would I have it so," answered Philip, (it is the king who tells it;) "I would do only what is possible to save the interests of Vargas from suffering by his absence." In conclusion he tells the duke, that Vargas should give no heed to what is said of the suits, since he must be assured, after the letter he has received under the royal hand, that his sovereign fully approves his conduct.[1083] But if Vargas, by his unscrupulous devotion to the cause, won the confidence of his employers, he incurred, on the other hand, the unmitigated hatred of the people,—a hatred deeper, it would almost seem, than even that which attached to Alva; owing perhaps to the circumstance that, as the instrument{347} for the execution of the duke's measures, Vargas was brought more immediately in contact with the people than the duke himself.

As we have already seen, many, especially of those who dwelt in the border provinces, escaped the storm of persecution by voluntary exile. The suspected parties would seem to have received, not unfrequently, kindly intimations from the local magistrates of the fate that menaced them.[1084] Others, who lived in the interior, were driven to more desperate courses. They banded together in considerable numbers, under the name of the "wild Gueux,"—"Gueux sauvages,"—and took refuge in the forests, particularly of West Flanders. Thence they sallied forth, fell upon unsuspecting travellers, especially the monks and ecclesiastics, whom they robbed, and sometimes murdered. Occasionally they were so bold as to invade the monasteries and churches, stripping them of their rich ornaments, their plate and other valuables, when, loaded with booty, they hurried back to their fastnesses. The evil proceeded to such a length, that the governor-general was obliged to order out a strong force to exterminate the banditti, while at the same time he published an edict, declaring that every district should be held responsible for the damage done to property within its limits by these marauders.[1085]

It might be supposed that, under the general feeling of resentment provoked by Alva's cruel policy, his life would have been in constant danger from the hand of the assassin. Once, indeed, he had nearly fallen a victim to a conspiracy headed by two brothers, men of good family in Flanders, who formed a plan to kill him while attending mass at an abbey in the neighborhood of Brussels.[1086] But Alva was not destined to fall by the hand of violence.

We may well believe that wise and temperate men, like Viglius, condemned the duke's proceedings as no less impolitic than cruel. That this veteran councillor did so is apparent from his confidential letters, though he was too prudent to expose himself to Alva's enmity by openly avowing it.[1087] There were others, however,—the princes of Germany, in particular,—who had no such reasons for dissembling, and who carried their remonstrances to a higher tribunal than that of the governor-general.

On the second of March, 1568, the Emperor Maximilian, in the name of the electors, addressed a letter to Philip, in behalf of his oppressed subjects in the Netherlands. He reminded the king that he had already more than once, and in most affectionate terms, interceded with him for a milder and more merciful policy towards his Flemish subjects. He entreated his royal kinsman to reflect whether it were not better to insure the tranquillity of the state by winning the hearts of his people, than by excessive rigor to drive them to extremity. And he concluded by intimating that, as a member of the Germanic body, the Netherlands had a right to be dealt with in that spirit of clemency which was conformable to the constitutions of the empire.[1088]

Although neither the arguments nor the importunity of Maximilian had power to shake the constancy of Philip, he did not refuse to enter into some explanation, if not vindication, of his conduct. "What I have done," he replied, "has been for the repose of the provinces, and for the defence of the{348} Catholic faith. If I had respected justice less, I should have despatched the whole business in a single day. No one acquainted with the state of affairs will find reason to censure my severity. Nor would I do otherwise than I have done, though I should risk the sovereignty of the Netherlands,—no, though the world should fall in ruins around me!"[1089]—Such a reply effectually closed the correspondence.

The wretched people of the Netherlands, meanwhile, now looked to the prince of Orange as the only refuge left them, under Providence. Those who fled the country, especially persons of higher condition, gathered round his little court at Dillemburg, where they were eagerly devising plans for the best means of restoring freedom to their country. They brought with them repeated invitations from their countrymen to William that he would take up arms in their defence. The Protestants of Antwerp, in particular, promised that, if he would raise funds by coining his plate, they would agree to pay him double the value of it.[1090]

William had no wish nearer his heart than that of assuming the enterprise. But he knew the difficulties that lay in the way, and, like a wise man, he was not disposed to enter on it till he saw the means of carrying it through successfully. To the citizens of Antwerp he answered, that not only would he devote his plate, but his person and all that he possessed, most willingly, for the freedom of religion and of his country.[1091] But the expenses of raising a force were great,—at the very least, six hundred thousand florins; nor could he now undertake to procure that amount, unless some of the principal merchants, whom he named, would consent to remain with him as security.[1092]

In the mean time he was carrying on an extensive correspondence with the German princes, with the leaders of the Huguenot party in France, and even with the English government,—endeavoring to propitiate them to the cause, as one in which every Protestant had an interest. From the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse he received assurances of aid. Considerable sums seem to have been secretly remitted from the principal towns in the Low Countries; while Culemborg, Hoogstraten, Louis of Nassau, and the other great lords who shared his exile, contributed as largely as their dilapidated fortunes would allow.[1093] The prince himself parted with his most precious effects, pawning his jewels, and sending his plate to the mint,—"the fit ornaments of a palace," exclaims an old writer, "but yielding little for the necessities of war."[1094]{349}

By these sacrifices a considerable force was assembled before the end of April, consisting of the most irregular and incongruous materials. There were German mercenaries, who had no interest in the cause beyond their pay; Huguenots from France, who brought into the field a hatred of the Roman Catholics which made them little welcome, even as allies, to a large portion of the Netherlands; and, lastly, exiles from the Netherlands,—the only men worthy of the struggle,—who held life cheap in comparison with the great cause to which they devoted it. But these, however strong in their patriotism, were for the most part simple burghers untrained to arms, and ill fitted to cope with the hardy veterans of Castile.

Before completing his levies, the prince of Orange, at the suggestion of his friend, the landgrave of Hesse, prepared and published a document, known as his "Justification," in which he vindicated himself and his cause from the charges of Alva. He threw the original blame of the troubles on Granvelle, denied having planned or even promoted the confederacy of the nobles, and treated with scorn the charge of having, from motives of criminal ambition, fomented rebellion in a country where he had larger interests at stake than almost any other inhabitant. He touched on his own services, as well as those of his ancestors, and the ingratitude with which they had been requited by the throne. And in conclusion, he prayed that his majesty might at length open his eyes to the innocence of his persecuted subjects, and that it might be made apparent to the world that the wrongs inflicted on them had come from evil counsellors rather than himself.[1095]

The plan of the campaign was, to distract the duke's attention, and, if possible, create a general rising in the country, by assailing it on three several points at once. A Huguenot corps, under an adventurer named Cocqueville, was to operate against Artois. Hoogstraten, with the lord of Villers, and others of the banished nobles, were to penetrate the country in a central direction through Brabant. While William's brothers, the Counts Louis and Adolphus, at the head of a force, partly Flemish, partly German, were to carry the war over the northern borders, into Groningen; the prince himself, who established his head-quarters in the neighborhood of Cleves, was busy in assembling a force prepared to support any one of the divisions, as occasion might require.{350}

It was the latter part of April, before Hoogstraten and Louis took the field. The Huguenots ware still later; and William met with difficulties which greatly retarded the formation of his own corps. The great difficulty—one which threatened to defeat the enterprise at its commencement—was the want of money, equally felt in raising troops and in enforcing discipline among them when they were raised. "If you have any love for me," he writes to his friend, the "wise" landgrave of Hesse, "I beseech you to aid me privately with a sum sufficient to meet the pay of the troops for the first month. Without this I shall be in danger of failing in my engagements,—to me worse than death; to say nothing of the ruin which such a failure must bring on our credit and on the cause."[1096] We are constantly reminded, in the career of the prince of Orange, of the embarrassments under which our own Washington labored in the time of the Revolution, and of the patience and unconquerable spirit which enabled him to surmount them.

Little need be said of two of the expeditions, which were failures. Hoogstraten had scarcely crossed the frontier, towards the end of April, when he was met by Alva's trusty lieutenant, Sancho Davila, and beaten, with considerable loss. Villers and some others of the rebel lords, made prisoners, escaped the sword of the enemy in the field, to fall by that of the executioner in Brussels. Hoogstraten, with the remnant of his forces, made good his retreat, and effected a junction with the prince of Orange.[1097]

Cocqueville met with a worse fate. A detachment of French troops was sent against him by Charles the Ninth, who thus requited the service of the same kind he had lately received from the duke of Alva. On the approach of their countrymen, the Huguenots basely laid down their arms. Cocqueville and his principal officers were surrounded, made prisoners, and perished ignominiously on the scaffold.[1098]

The enterprise of Louis of Nassau was attended with different results. Yet after he had penetrated into Groningen, he was sorely embarrassed by the mutinous spirit of the German mercenaries. The province was defended by Count Aremberg, its governor, a brave old officer, who had studied the art of war under Charles the Fifth; one of those models of chivalry on whom the men of a younger generation are ambitious to form themselves. He had been employed on many distinguished services; and there were few men at the court of Brussels who enjoyed higher consideration under both Philip and his father. The strength of his forces lay in his Spanish infantry. He was deficient in cavalry, but was soon to be reinforced by a body of horse under Count Megen, who was a day's march in his rear.

Aremberg soon came in sight of Louis, who was less troubled by the presence of his enemy than by the disorderly conduct of his German soldiers, clamorous for their pay. Doubtful of his men, Louis declined to give battle to a foe so far superior to him in everything but numbers. He accordingly established himself in an uncommonly strong position, which the nature of the ground fortunately afforded. In his rear, protected by a thick wood, stood the convent of Heyligerlee, which gave its name to the battle. In front the land sloped towards an extensive morass. His infantry, on the left, was partly screened by a hill from the enemy's fire; and on the right he stationed his cavalry, under the command of his brother Adolphus, who was to fall on the enemy's flank, should they be hardy enough to give battle.{351}