Louis XI of France, however, on the ground that the Salic law was applicable in this case, took possession of Burgundy, and cast longing eyes on the Netherlands as well. In this hour of danger, the estates of all the provinces came together at Ghent, when the lady Mary voluntarily restored all the privileges and rights that her father and grandfather had annulled. She even went further, and granted the “Groot Privilegie,” which conferred such extensive authority upon the estates that under its clauses despotism or even misgovernment would be impossible, for no taxes could be imposed and no war undertaken without their consent, and edicts of the sovereign were to be invalid if they conflicted with the privileges of the towns. Only natives of the particular province could be appointed to offices in any of them, thus a native of Brabant or Namur could not fill an office in Flanders or Holland. Persons charged with crime were to be brought to trial speedily, and no citizen could be arbitrarily imprisoned by the ruler. A more liberal constitution could hardly have been imagined at that time nor indeed even at present.
The estates were then ready to support the lady Mary, they acknowledged her as their sovereign, and with their approval she married Maximilian of Hapsburg, son of the German emperor. Five years later she was killed by a fall from her horse, leaving a son, Philippe by name, then four years of age, as heir to her sovereignty of the Netherlands. Maximilian claimed to act as regent and guardian of his son, and was accepted as such by all of the provinces subject to Burgundy except Flanders, which he got possession of by force. He disowned the “Great Privilege,” as did his son Philippe, when in 1494 at seventeen years of age he assumed the government.
In 1496 Philippe married Joanna, eldest daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Her sister Catherine was destined at a later date to play an important part in English history as the spouse of King Henry the Eighth. From the union of Philippe and Joanna was born in the year 1500 a son, who as the emperor Charles V was the most powerful monarch in Europe. From his mother he inherited the sovereignty of Spain, of portions of Italy, and of the greater part of the New World, with the title of king, from his father he inherited the sovereignty of all the Netherlands except Gelderland, Utrecht, the Frisian provinces, and Liege, with the titles of count and duke, and by election of the German princes he became the head of the Holy Roman Empire, with the title of emperor. His father Philippe died in 1506, and the Netherlands became the first portion of his vast inheritance that fell to him. To those provinces that had been dependencies of Burgundy, he was able to add Friesland in 1524, Utrecht and Overyssel in 1528, and Groningen and Drenthe in 1536, all obtained by cession after long civil war, when the bishop of Utrecht, who was unable to protect himself from the duke of Gelderland, resigned his temporal authority. In 1543 he conquered Gelderland, and in the following year he compelled the king of France, to whom his father Philippe had done homage for Flanders and Artois, to renounce the suzerainty of those provinces, so that the entire country, Liege only excepted, came under his undisputed sovereignty. In this manner the provinces became united with Spain under one ruler, though their governments remained distinct.
Under Charles just as much or as little freedom as he pleased was left to the people of the Netherlands, for he regarded his edicts as superior in authority to all charters or customs, and he inflicted terrible vengeance upon the city of Ghent, his own birthplace, for daring to resist the payment of an amount of money that he arbitrarily demanded. He professed to regard the provinces with favour, but he drew largely upon their resources to enable him to carry on wars in which they had no interest whatever.
And now another factor came into play, which tended very greatly to increase the bitterness of the people at the diminution of freedom. The reformation had commenced, and its principles were spreading in the Netherlands. Charles, who regarded schism as even more criminal than rebellion, attempted to stamp out the new teaching, and for this purpose introduced the inquisition. His sister Mary, dowager queen of Hungary, acted as regent of the country for twenty-five years, and carried out his instructions in letter and in spirit. Many thousands of people perished by various forms of death, but wretched as the condition of the unhappy Netherlanders was, a still darker day was about to dawn upon them.
It is generally affirmed that there were seventeen distinct provinces at this time, but in fact the number seventeen was derived from the titles of the sovereign and the accidental circumstance that there were seventeen separate estates present at the abdication of Charles V,[17] though these did not correspond exactly with the titles. For instance, one of the titles was count of Zutphen, but Zutphen had for centuries been part of Gelderland; another of the titles was marquis of Anvers or Antwerp, but Antwerp was a city of Brabant. On the other hand Lille with Douai and Orchies, though cities of Flanders, had separate estates, but did not furnish a title, the same was the case with Valenciennes, a city of Hainaut, while Mechlin, in the very heart of Brabant, had separate estates and furnished the title lord of Malines or Mechlin.
What would be termed provinces to-day were the duchies of Gelderland, Brabant, Limburg, and Luxemburg, the counties of Holland, Zeeland, Flanders, Namur or Namen, Hainaut or Henegouwen, and Artois, and the lordships of Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen with Drenthe, Overyssel, and Mechlin or Malines.[18] To make seventeen, the county of Zutphen and the marquisate of Antwerp must be added if titles alone are considered, or if states present at the abdication of Charles V be taken as a guide, Lille with Douai and Orchies and Tournai with the Tournaisis[19] must be included. Only five of these—Holland, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, and Overyssel—remain on the map to-day as they were in the middle of the sixteenth century. Of them all, Brabant was the most important at that time, Flanders came next, and Holland, soon to take the leading place, was regarded as only the third.[20]
On the 25th of October 1555 in presence of the estates of seventeen provinces assembled at Brussels, the emperor Charles the Fifth, worn out with disease and infirmity, abdicated the sovereignty, and his son Philippe became ruler in his stead. The change was all for the worse. Charles had been a despot, it is true, but he was by birth a Netherlander, he spoke the language of the people, and took an interest in their commerce and their manufactures; Philippe was a Spaniard, ignorant of Flemish (i.e. Dutch) and of French, and without a particle of sympathy with them in any particular.
For the first four years of his reign Philippe resided in the Netherlands, though he appointed the duke of Savoy regent of the country. They were years of war between Spain and France, and the Netherlands were obliged to aid their sovereign very largely with money and with men. Under the count of Egmont as their general, the combined Spanish and Flemish forces won the great battles of Saint Quentin and Gravelines, but the French were compensated by taking Calais from the English, for Queen Mary Tudor had provoked attack by giving assistance in the war to her husband King Philippe.
Peace having been concluded, in 1559 the king prepared to return to Spain, where his surroundings would be much more congenial. He appointed Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of the emperor Charles the Fifth and consequently his own half sister, regent of the Netherlands, but all real authority was confided to the bishop of Arras, afterwards widely known as Cardinal Granvelle. This man was a staunch absolutist in politics, and could be depended upon to carry out the king’s wishes to the utmost of his ability. And the dearest wish of the king was to extirpate the new doctrines in religion, which he clearly saw would tend to produce a far more liberal system of government than he approved of. Among the appointments made before he left was that of William prince of Orange to be stadholder of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, but subject to the authority of the duchess of Parma, who was to be guided by the bishop of Arras.
Against the entreaties and protests of the estates, Philippe left in the Netherlands four thousand Spanish soldiers, the most highly disciplined troops in Europe at that time.
Previous to this date, excepting the sovereign bishop of Liege,[21] whose territory was independent and therefore not then included in the provinces, there had only been four bishops in the whole of the Netherlands: one in Utrecht in what is now the kingdom of Holland, one at Tournai in the present kingdom of Belgium, and two at Arras and Cambrai in territory since annexed to France. Philippe obtained from the pope a bull increasing the number to three archbishops and fifteen bishops, of whom one archbishop at Utrecht and six bishops at Haarlem, Middelburg, Leeuwarden, Groningen, Deventer, and ’s Hertogenbosch, were to be stationed in the northern provinces, now the kingdom of Holland. Each was to have inquisitors serving under him.
These measures gave intense dissatisfaction to the whole body of the people, nobles, burghers, and artisans alike. There was not a single Protestant noble in the country at the time, and the great majority of the people were still adherents of the Roman church, but Catholics and Calvinists alike were opposed to persecution in matters of faith and to the erection of ecclesiastical power upon the ruins of civil liberty. Still the king[22] would not yield, and the people were as yet indisposed to resist in arms. Perhaps they did not know their own strength, and over-estimated that opposed to them. There was no such thing either as political union among them. Seventeen states jealous of each other, and each important state containing rival towns, presented to a despot a field that could be easily worked. Still greater suffering was needed before the people could unite against the murderous hand that was raised to crush them.
After a time the Spanish soldiers, who were needed elsewhere, were withdrawn, but matters went on no better afterwards. The whole hatred of the country was turned against Cardinal Granvelle, who was believed to be the instigator of all the evil, and at length the duchess Margaret grew to detest him also, so that Philippe was obliged to recall him. He left the Netherlands in March 1564, and after a short period of retirement, was employed by the king in still higher offices.
The government of the duchess Margaret was corrupt, though perhaps not more so than that of some other administrations of the time. Offices were sold to the highest bidder by her secretary, and she as well as he profited by such transactions. Under such circumstances the courts of law were venal, and judgment in civil cases was usually in favour of him who had the longest purse. A man who had to pay a large sum of money for his office was obliged to try to recover his capital by some means, and as that could not be done honestly, he was open to receive bribes. In the great agony caused by the inquisition, however, this evil was hardly considered as one of importance, and is only casually referred to by the chroniclers of the time.
The great number of persons burnt, buried alive, and strangled by the inquisitors had the opposite effect to that which King Philippe intended. Instead of stamping out the reformation, its doctrines were spreading more rapidly month after month, until mass meetings of thousands of people were openly held in the fields outside the towns to listen to the preaching of some earnest and eloquent reformer. The men on such occasions usually went armed and determined to defend their pastors and themselves, but if need should be, they were ready to face death in its most appalling forms for the sake of what they believed to be truth.
Another effect of the inquisition was to destroy the material prosperity of the country. Flanders had long been the leading cloth manufactory of Europe, it was there that wool, imported chiefly from England, was converted by spinning wheels and handlooms into the choicest cloths. Nowhere else were spinning, weaving, dyeing, and pressing so well understood or so skilfully practised as in the Flemish towns. But now persecution drove those industrious artisans out of the country. They fled to England, where Queen Elizabeth permitted them to settle, and it was they who in East Anglia gave to the country that adopted and protected them the preëminence in woollen manufactures which she retains to this day. A very few years later, instead of exporting raw wool and importing cloth, England was sending to Flanders the products of Anglo-Flemish looms. This was not the only industry that persecution drove from the provinces to other lands, but it was the most important.
All parties in politics and in religion find it necessary to adopt an expressive name, under which their adherents can rally, and it was at this time that the opponents of despotic government took to themselves the renowned title of Beggars, that was to be heard as a war cry on land and sea long years afterwards. On the 8th of April 1566 three hundred gentlemen presented a petition to the duchess Margaret, when a member of her council spoke of them as beggars. That evening at a banquet Count Brederode proposed that the title should be adopted, which was enthusiastically agreed to by those present, and quickly spread over the provinces. At first it had no religious signification, for both Catholics and Protestants who favoured the preservation of constitutional rights termed themselves Gueux, but in course of time it was applied almost exclusively to the adherents of the reformed or Calvinistic faith.
In such circumstances as those in which the Netherlands were then placed, excesses are usually committed by the most fanatical section of the suffering party, and it was so in this instance. In August 1566 a disorderly mob took possession of the great cathedral of Antwerp, one of the most beautiful and stately buildings in Europe, threw down all the statues in it, broke the stained glass windows, demolished the ornaments of every kind, and generally wrecked the interior of the edifice. Only a few hundred men were actually engaged in the work of destruction, but many thousands looked on with indifference, and many more with satisfaction, accounting the decorations of the cathedral as symbols of the terrible inquisition. This example was followed throughout the southern provinces, and a great number of churches were treated in the same manner as Antwerp cathedral had been. Yet there was not a single instance of violence offered to any individual, or of plunder of any article whatever. The gold and silver implements of the churches were battered and made useless, but were then thrown on the floors and left.
The fury of Philippe was now thoroughly aroused, and means were forwarded to the regent Margaret to raise a body of troops and suppress disorder. The most powerful of the southern nobles ranged themselves on the side of despotism. On the 13th of March 1567 a body of three thousand Beggars who were posted near Antwerp was utterly annihilated, and on the 23rd of the same month the ancient city of Valenciennes, which had defied the government, was taken and reduced to submission. The factions in Antwerp were ready to spring at each other’s throats, but were induced by the prince of Orange to keep the peace. The regent Margaret agreed to conditions which gave the Protestants some protection, but her word was not to be depended upon, and much less was that of King Philippe, who was the very incarnation of deceit and treachery. For a few weeks now there was an appearance of calm, but it was only the prelude to the most terrible storm that ever swept over any portion of modern Europe.
Ten thousand veteran Spanish troops, the most highly disciplined and best armed soldiers in the world, were sent by Philippe as the nucleus of a powerful army to subjugate the Netherlands. At their head was the bloodthirsty duke of Alva, then sixty years of age, whose life had been spent in war, and who was the most skilful strategist of his day. Alva! what a curse rests upon his name in all countries where men set a value upon justice and freedom! As pitiless as Tshaka in South Africa, as treacherous as Dingan, he stands out in the history of the Netherlands as a cold-blooded murderer, a malignant fiend in human form. His commission as the king’s captain-general was issued on the 31st of January 1567, and his instructions were in keeping with his disposition and character.
The nucleus or advance guard of the army was assembled in Italy, and marched by way of Mont Cenis and through Savoy, Burgundy, and Lorraine to Thionville, then a town of the Netherlands, now included in France. In August 1567 it crossed the border, and continued its march to Brussels, meeting with no opposition on the way. Alva at once placed garrisons in the principal towns, and commenced the erection of fortresses to overawe them, the principal of which was the famous citadel of Antwerp. He sent letters to the different cities, signed by the king, commanding them to render absolute obedience to him. The next step was the arrest and close confinement of as many of the nobles as he could get hold of who had at any time opposed any arbitrary act of the sovereign. The counts Egmont and Hoorn were entrapped by letters to them from the king, praising their conduct and declaring his confidence in them. Conscious of having done no wrong, and lulled into a feeling of security by these assurances from Philippe, they placed themselves in the power of Alva, and found themselves his prisoners.
Then was established that murderous mockery of a tribunal, known as the Council of Blood. It was composed of a number of creatures of Alva, some of whom were Flemish nobles of the worst type ready to pour out the blood of their countrymen at his bidding, others Spaniards of the same character. It dispensed with legal formalities, and made nought of charters and privileges. The whole population of the Netherlands was at its mercy. Its agents sent in lists of names, and with hardly a pretence of examination, men, scores of men at a time, were sentenced to confiscation of all their property and death on the scaffold. This infamous Council of Blood met for the first time on the 20th of September 1567 in an apartment of Alva’s residence in Brussels. His intention was to crush out all opposition to absolutism, to exterminate all adherents of the reformed religion, and to raise a large revenue by confiscation of property.
Everyone who valued freedom and could flee from the provinces did so now without delay. The neighbouring German states were crowded with refugees, and in many Flemish and Dutch towns industry entirely ceased, for artisans and mechanics had abandoned them in despair. It is highly probable that the larger number of those so-called Germans who settled in South Africa in later years were really descendants of Netherlanders who left their fatherland at this time.
Margaret of Parma was nominally regent still, but on the 9th of December 1567 she resigned, and the monster Alva became governor-general of the provinces.
The prince of Orange, his brothers Louis and Adolf of Nassau, Count Hoogstraaten, and several other nobles of less note had retired into Germany before the arrival of the Spanish troops. Alva confiscated their property in the Netherlands, but they had possessions beyond the border which he could not reach. They had been faithful subjects of Philippe to this time, though they had striven by peaceful means to preserve the constitutions of the provinces, but now they could not look calmly on while the very life was being trampled out of their country. In April 1568 Orange engaged troops in Germany, and sent three small armies into the Netherlands in hope that the people would rise in a body and assist to drive the Spaniards out. But he was disappointed. The people were for the moment completely cowed. Two of his armies were utterly annihilated by the disciplined Spanish troops, and though the third, commanded by his brother Louis, gained a victory at Heiligerlee, near Winschoten, in the province of Groningen, it led to no substantial result. Count Adolf of Nassau fell in this battle. So the war for freedom began, a war that was carried on without intermission for forty-one years.
Alva with an overpowering force marched against Count Louis, and on the 21st of July 1568 attacked him at Jemmingen, a village on the left bank of the Ems near its entrance into the Dollart, within the German border. It was not so much a battle as a slaughter that followed. Of ten thousand men under his command, the count lost seven thousand slain, and with difficulty made his escape from the disastrous field while the remainder were scattering in every direction. Alva then proceeded to Utrecht, where he reviewed an army of thirty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry, a force that he believed sufficient to overawe the whole of the northern provinces.
Early in October the prince of Orange invaded Brabant from Germany with thirty thousand men, of whom nine thousand were cavalry. Many of these were undisciplined refugees, but some were trained German soldiers. Several smaller bands joined the prince subsequently, though not a city opened its gates to him, so great was the terror that Alva inspired. The difficulty of providing food for such a number of men for any length of time was insurmountable, and the Spanish general therefore did not choose to risk an engagement, but watched his opponent closely. On one occasion, on the 20th of October, he was able to cut off a rearguard of three thousand men under Count Hoogstraaten, and nearly exterminated them. Hoogstraaten himself escaped, but died of a wound a few days afterwards. The prince of Orange, disappointed in his expectation of a general rising, and without a single stronghold as a base of operations, was obliged to retreat to Germany and disband his troops. He had spent all the money he could raise, and was heavily in debt. Nothing could have been gloomier than the prospect then before him, but he still cherished hope and trusted in God. He had passed through different stages of religious belief, but did not openly join the Calvinist church until October 1573.
The first campaign in the war of freedom had thus terminated entirely in favour of the Spaniards.
On the 5th of June of this year 1568 an event took place which more than all the blood of humble citizens that had been shed drew the attention of civilised Europe to what was transpiring in the Netherlands. This was the death on the scaffold in the great square of Brussels of the counts Egmont and Hoorn, who had been condemned by the Council of Blood for having been somewhat dilatory in upholding despotism. They were both earnest Catholics, and Egmont in particular had rendered great services to the king. He was the general who had won the victories of Saint Quentin and Gravelines. But the death of these prominent noblemen was resolved upon by Philippe, because it would strike terror into all classes, and would prove that the least hesitation to carry out any of his wishes would meet with the most terrible punishment. All their possessions were confiscated. Their death had no effect upon the patriotic cause, except for the horror which it created abroad, as they were not the men to throw in their lot with William of Orange in resistance to tyranny.
The baron Montigny, brother of Count Hoorn, had been sent with the marquis Berghen to Madrid in May 1566 by the regent Margaret of Parma to represent to Philippe the ruin which the inquisition was bringing upon the Netherlands and the difficulty caused by it to her administration. They were instructed to suggest its abolition and the modification of the king’s edicts. Both of these noblemen were devout Catholics, and were most faithful subjects of their sovereign. They might have reasoned that if his sister and representative was compelled by force of circumstances to pause in the deadly work, they could not be blamed for acting under her instructions. The king received them apparently in a friendly manner. But they were not permitted to return, and after a time were placed in confinement. Berghen died, it was reported of home sickness, but many believed by violent means. Montigny was kept a prisoner more than four years, was then in his absence condemned to death by the Council of Blood for favouring heresy, and on the 16th of October 1570 was strangled privately by order of the king.
An awful calamity, but not by the hand of man, overtook the Northern Netherlands in the year 1570. In a gale of tremendous violence on the first and second of November of this year the sea was driven high upon the coast, the dykes burst in many places, and the waters poured over the land. Fully a hundred thousand persons were drowned, and property to an immense amount was destroyed.
And now came another trouble. Alva had been disappointed in his expectations of an abundant revenue from the confiscation of property, for much as he gathered by that means, the cost of maintenance of his army and the charges of his administration were so enormous that his treasury was always empty, and creditors had become clamorous. To remedy this defect, he imposed taxes of one per cent of the value of all property in the country, to be paid only once, of five per cent transfer duty on all land and houses sold thereafter, and of ten per cent on every movable article that should be sold. This last tax was regarded by the people as equivalent to a prohibition to carry on trade of any kind, it affected every one, and in many of the towns the shops as well as the wholesale stores, even the breweries, the butcheries, and the bakeries were closed. The streets swarmed with mendicants, and riots were only suppressed by military force. If he had tried to compel the people to take part with William of Orange, the governor-general could not have devised a more efficient plan.
Many of the men who had been obliged to leave their homes had turned to the sea for refuge. Legitimate commerce could not absorb them all, even if it had been flourishing as formerly, and so in their desperate condition they became buccaneers. The prince of Orange took advantage of this, and issued a commission to a reckless fugitive noble named William de la Marck to act as his admiral and attack Spanish ships wherever he could find them. De la Marck was a distant relative of Egmont, and had sworn not to clip his hair or beard till he had avenged the count’s death. In March 1572 he was lying at anchor at Dover with a fleet of twenty-four vessels, when by order of Queen Elizabeth all supplies of provisions were refused to him. He was then compelled to do something desperate at once, or starve, so he resolved to sail to Enkhuizen, and try to get possession of that port. The wind failed him, however, so on the 1st of April he put into the Maas and anchored in front of Brill (Brielle), a walled and fortified town on the island of Voorne. The Spanish garrison had just been sent to Utrecht. The Sea Beggars were only a few hundred in number, but Pieter Koppelstok, who was sent by De la Marck to demand the surrender of the town, when questioned as to their strength replied about five thousand. The authorities and adherents of the government fled in fear, and the half-famished rovers battered in the gates and took possession of the place. This was the beginning of the second campaign against the Spaniards.
It could not be expected that the Sea Beggars, after their wrongs and their sufferings, would act very gently with their opponents, but the ferocity which they displayed on this occasion cannot be excused or passed lightly over. They broke all the altars, statues, and ornaments in the churches, dressed themselves in clerical robes, and barbarously put to death thirteen priests and monks who had not been able to make their escape. A Spanish force was sent from Utrecht to recover Brill, but was beaten off with considerable loss. De la Marck was then of opinion that the place should be abandoned, but Captain Treslong, whose father had once been governor of the town, induced him to continue to hold it and to rally the patriots around him there, who quickly came in and joined him.
As soon as intelligence of the repulse of the Spaniards from Brill reached Flushing (Vlissingen), that important town declared for the prince of Orange, and sent to De la Marck to beg for assistance. Two hundred Sea Beggars, all in clerical garments, were thereupon forwarded in three vessels, and quickly reached their destination. Here also an act of inexcusable barbarity took place. The engineer who had constructed the citadel of Antwerp, Pacheco by name, had just arrived in Flushing to erect a fortress there. He was seized and at once hanged with two other Spanish officers. With the town half the island of Walcheren went over to the patriot cause, and very shortly a strong force of Beggars, aided by some French soldiers and English volunteers, assembled there to protect it.
The example thus set was speedily followed by most of the towns that were not overawed by powerful Spanish garrisons in the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland. Amsterdam, Middelburg, Goes, Arnemuide, Utrecht, and a few others were too strongly garrisoned to be able to rise. In some of the towns the change was made without bloodshed, in others the most barbarous cruelties were practised on both sides, for passion had taken the place of reason and charity. The revolted towns declared that they remained faithful to King Philippe as count of Holland, etc., that the ancient charters conferring rights and privileges were restored, that there was perfect freedom for both the Roman Catholic and Reformed religions, that they accepted the prince of Orange as stadholder for the sovereign of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and that they repudiated the duke of Alva, the inquisition, and the tax on commerce.
Other successes awaited the patriot cause. On the 24th of May 1572 Count Louis of Nassau with a small band obtained possession of the important town of Mons in Hainaut. And on the 10th of June a richly laden Spanish fleet from Lisbon arrived at Flushing and cast anchor, being unaware of what had occurred there. Most of the ships were captured, a thousand Spanish soldiers on board were made prisoners, five hundred thousand crowns of gold sent by Philippe for his army chest and a large quantity of ammunition became prize to the Beggars, and much spice and other valuable merchandise was secured.
On the 15th of July the estates of Holland, consisting of the nobles and deputies from eight cities, met at Dordrecht. The prince of Orange was in Germany, where he had engaged an army of fifteen thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry, besides three thousand refugee Walloons. The estates adopted measures for raising all the money that they could to pay these troops for three months, and Orange then entered the southern provinces. His first object was to relieve Mons, which was besieged by a strong Spanish army, and to effect a junction with Admiral Coligny, who with the approval of the king of France was to aid him with ten thousand Huguenots. After crossing the border, town after town opened its gates to him, and received the garrisons he placed in them. Everything looked bright before him, when suddenly, without the slightest warning, a thunderbolt fell which utterly destroyed his hopes and those of the patriot party.
A contingent of Huguenots was cut to pieces when attempting to enter Mons, but the main body under Coligny was believed to be ready to advance, when tidings were received of the fearful Massacre of Saint Bartholomew on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of August 1572. The treacherous Charles IX of France, by an act of savage cruelty without parallel in a Christian state, had betrayed the cause it was his interest to favour, and had murdered a hundred thousand of his Protestant subjects. Admiral Coligny was among the victims. Orange realised at once that his cause was shattered, his German troops had not been fully paid, and were almost mutinous, so he was obliged to retire and disband them. The towns that had welcomed him now hastened to disown him, and returned to their obedience to Alva. On the 20th of September Mons capitulated on honourable terms, which were not, however, faithfully observed by the conquerors, and all the southern provinces were again under the Spanish yoke.
Alva had reinforced his army very largely with German mercenaries, the same class of men that Orange had raised his forces from, and he had enlisted a great many Walloons. He was without money to pay either them or his Spanish veterans. He gave them instead the city of Mechlin to plunder for three days, the Spaniards to have it for the first day, the Germans for the second, and the Walloons for the third. Mechlin was almost entirely a Catholic city, but it had welcomed the prince of Orange, and had received a garrison from him. This was to be its punishment by Alva. The horrors of the sack of the doomed city cannot be fully told, but they can be imagined. The Spaniards knew that the richest spoil would be found in the churches, and they resolved not to leave it for others. In their lust for spoil the churches, the monasteries, and the convents of Mechlin were treated by these Catholics as the cathedral of Antwerp had been by the fanatic Protestants. Then the citizens were tortured and murdered, and nameless horrors were perpetrated upon females, until the first day ended. On the second day the Germans, and on the third the debased Walloons, followed in the sack of Mechlin, leaving it desolate, plundered, and utterly forlorn. Such was Alva’s punishment of a disobedient city.
The tide of fortune was now setting as strong against the patriot cause as it had been in its favour during the earlier months of the year. On the 26th of August the Beggars laid siege to Goes in Zeeland, which was defended by a Spanish garrison, but must have fallen if it had not been relieved on the 21st of October by an army that had made a wonderful march through shallow water. The besiegers were then obliged to flee, but they were pursued, and their rearguard was completely destroyed.
Alva now sent a strong army under his son Don Frederic de Toledo to reduce the northern provinces to subjection. Don Frederic directed his march to Gelderland, where the town of Zutphen attempted to resist him. It was easily taken, however, when all its adult male inhabitants were put to the sword, and most of its buildings were destroyed by fire. The whole of the provinces east and south of the Zuider Zee now submitted to Alva, only Holland and Zeeland still holding out, and even of these the largest towns—Amsterdam and Middelburg—were occupied by Spanish garrisons. There was no national army in existence, and each town was politically isolated from all the others, a condition of things which made defence extremely difficult.
Don Frederic now marched towards North Holland, meeting no opposition until he reached the little town of Naarden, on the shore of the Zuider Zee, south-east of Amsterdam. Naarden offered a feeble resistance, but on a verbal promise from General Julian Romero that life and property would be spared, it surrendered. Every man in the place and nearly every woman was put to death, and the little town was set on fire and razed to the ground.
A more memorable siege than any which had yet taken place was that of the town of Haarlem. On the 11th of December 1572 Haarlem was beleaguered by an army of thirty thousand Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons, commanded by Don Frederic de Toledo. The duke of Alva had his headquarters in the neighbouring city of Amsterdam, whence supplies of provisions, ammunition, and whatever else was needed could be forwarded to the camps without delay. Within the walls of the town were only four thousand fighting men, so that the Spanish commander could reasonably hope that a few days would suffice for its reduction. But the people of Haarlem were stouthearted as ever were Greeks in the olden time, they hated the Spanish yoke as that of the foul fiend, and they had made up their minds to resist to the very last. Assault after assault was made upon their walls, and whenever a breach was effected the enemy came storming upon it, but only to be beaten back. In the night the breaches were repaired, the women and children assisting in the work. A band of three hundred women, led by the widow Kenau Hasselaer, did as much and as splendid service fighting in the breaches and on the walls as any men could have done. The children too did what they could by carrying powder and food from place to place.
So month after month passed away, and heroic Haarlem still held out. The prince of Orange from Delft used almost superhuman exertions to get men together and to throw reinforcements and provisions into the beleaguered town, but they all failed in getting through the encircling bands. At last food, even of the most disgusting kind, entirely failed, and when many had died of actual starvation, those who could no longer fight from weakness submitted on a promise of lenient treatment. It was on the 12th of July 1573, seven months and two days after the commencement of the siege, that Haarlem fell. The promise of lenity was kept by the plunder of the town being commuted for a sum of money to be paid in four instalments, so that the horrors which Mechlin had witnessed were spared to Haarlem, but two thousand three hundred of the inhabitants were put to death after the surrender. The besiegers had paid dearly for the town, for they had lost no fewer than twelve thousand men in combat or by disease in those seven months of desperate fighting.
Alkmaar, a small though important town in North Holland, was then summoned to submit, but declined to do so. The prince of Orange had managed to obtain eight hundred soldiers, who were sent to assist the burghers, thirteen hundred in number, to defend it. On the 21st of August 1573 Don Frederic de Toledo invested the town with sixteen thousand veteran troops, and immediately began to attempt to batter down part of the wall. On three occasions breaches were made, and storming parties tried to effect an entrance, but were driven back by boiling oil, tarred and burning hoops, and other missiles of the kind being thrown upon them. The soldiers then refused to storm again, and the only course left was to wait for famine to do its work. But some letters of the prince of Orange fell into Don Frederic’s hands, from which he learned that the dykes were to be cut and the land flooded, when he resolved to raise the siege rather than risk the loss of his whole army by drowning. On the 8th of October the people of Alkmaar had the happiness of seeing from their walls the Spanish army with all its appurtenances in full retreat towards Amsterdam.
Another triumph for the patriot cause followed quickly, to Alva’s intense discomfiture. He had purchased some ships and built others at Amsterdam, until he had a fleet of thirty men-of-war, which he equipped in the most efficient manner known in those days. The largest carried thirty-two cannon, and was manned by one hundred and fifty seamen, besides having on board over two hundred veteran Spanish soldiers under the captains Alonzo de Conquera and Fernando Lopez. She was named the Inquisitie, and carried the flag of Admiral Maximilian de Henniu, count of Bossu. This fleet was intended by Alva to command the Zuider Zee, and was regarded by him as an invincible armada.
The Sea Beggars, to oppose this formidable armament, collected together twenty-four vessels of inferior size, which were placed under the command of a valiant seaman named Cornelis the son of Dirk, who was styled admiral of North Holland.
Bossu plundered and laid waste some villages along the coast, but at length the son of Dirk resolved boldly to attack him. He tried to keep the Sea Beggars at a distance and destroy them with his artillery, while they, who were but ill supplied with cannon or powder, were determined to grapple with his ships and fight him hand to hand. In the first and second days’ manœuvring they succeeded in this manner in overmastering one of his ships, when they made the officers prisoners, and put to death all the others on board. Then for more than a week the weather prevented anything further being done, and both parties remained inactive.
On the 11th of October 1573 the great battle took place. The Sea Beggars closed with their opponents, and after desperate fighting succeeded in sinking one of Bossu’s ships and overmastering five others. They had grappled with the Inquisitie herself, when the remainder of the fleet gave up the contest and set sail for Amsterdam, throwing their cannon overboard to enable them to pass some shoals. Night was setting in, and there were so many wounded in the patriot ships that it was considered imprudent to follow the fugitives. Four small vessels were made fast to Bossu’s ship. One was beaten off, but the other three clung to her like leeches. She drifted on a sandbank off Hoorn, but so fierce was the fighting that no one seemed to notice that they were no longer in motion. Bossu in a coat of mail stood on her deck and directed the soldiers, and the Sea Beggars scrambled up her sides and attacked like demons. Boats put out from Hoorn bringing volunteers to aid in the struggle, and taking the wounded ashore to be cared for. At short intervals for twenty-eight hours the hand to hand contest lasted on the deck of the Inquisitie, till only fourteen or fifteen men remained unwounded to defend her. Bossu could hold out no longer. He surrendered on condition that he and his officers should be honourably treated as captives, and that the soldiers and sailors should either be exchanged or pay only one month’s wages as ransom. The prisoners were taken to Hoorn, and were kept as hostages, which prevented the putting to death of many prominent patriots then in the power of the Spanish authorities.
Such was the first important battle on the sea won by the sturdy Hollanders, and it was to be a beginning of a series of victories which in later years shed deathless renown on them and the land they so bravely fought for. Surnames had not then come into common use for humble folk, and it is only as Cornelis the son of Dirk that the valiant admiral of North Holland can be mentioned in history.
The sanguinary government of Alva in the Netherlands now drew to its close. He had requested to be relieved, and the king was not unwilling to try if some one else could not manage affairs better, or at least without such constant demands upon the revenue of Spain. On the 17th of November 1573 his successor Don Luis de Requesens y Cuniga, Grand Commander of St. Iago, and recently governor of Milan, arrived in Brussels, and on the 29th of the same month assumed duty as governor and captain-general of the Netherlands.
The complete absence of honour or principle in Alva was illustrated by the manner in which he left Amsterdam. He was heavily in debt in that city both privately and for the government, so he called for all accounts to be sent in on a certain day, and during the preceding night departed stealthily. On the 18th of December he left the Netherlands, taking with him the curses of the unhappy people. It was reported, though perhaps incorrectly, that he boasted of having caused through his infamous Council of Blood eighteen thousand six hundred people to lose their lives at the stake or on the scaffold during the six years of his administration.[23] No wonder that successive generations of Netherlanders taught their children to regard him, not as a man, but as an absolute devil in human form, the incarnation of all that was false, and treacherous, and cruel.