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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1573
+#21 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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+Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1573
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+Author: John Lothrop Motley
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+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4821]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 19, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1573 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 21.
+
+THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+1855
+
+
+
+1573  [CHAPTER IX.]
+
+     Position of Alva--Hatred entertained for him by elevated personages
+     --Quarrels between him and Medina Coeli--Departure of the latter--
+     Complaints to the King by each of the other--Attempts at
+     conciliation addressed by government to the people of the
+     Netherlands--Grotesque character of the address--Mutinous
+     demonstration of the Spanish troops--Secret overtures to Orange--
+     Obedience, with difficulty, restored by Alva--Commencement of the
+     siege of Alkmaar--Sanguinary menaces of the Duke--Encouraging and
+     enthusiastic language of the Prince--Preparations in Alkmaar for
+     defence--The first assault steadily repulsed--Refusal of the
+     soldiers to storm a second time--Expedition of the Carpenter-envoy--
+     Orders of the Prince to flood the country--The Carpenter's
+     despatches in the enemy's hands--Effect produced upon the Spaniards
+     --The siege raised--Negotiations of Count Louis with France--
+     Uneasiness and secret correspondence of the Duke--Convention with
+     the English government--Objects pursued by Orange--Cruelty of De la
+     Marck--His dismissal from office and subsequent death--Negotiations
+     with France--Altered tone of the French court with regard to the St.
+     Bartholomew--Ill effects of the crime upon the royal projects--
+     Hypocrisy of the Spanish government--Letter of Louis to Charles IX.
+     --Complaints of Charles IX.--Secret aspirations of that monarch and
+     of Philip--Intrigues concerning the Polish election--Renewed
+     negotiations between Schomberg and Count Louis, with consent of
+     Orange--Conditions prescribed by the Prince--Articles of secret
+     alliance--Remarkable letter of Count Louis to Charles IX.--
+     Responsible and isolated situation of Orange--The "Address" and the
+     "Epistle"--Religious sentiments of the Prince--Naval action on the
+     Zuyder Zee--Captivity of Bossu and of Saint Aldegonde--Odious
+     position of Alva--His unceasing cruelty--Execution of Uitenhoove--
+     Fraud practised by Alva upon his creditors--Arrival of Requesens,
+     the new Governor-General--Departure of Alva--Concluding remarks upon
+     his administration.
+
+For the sake of continuity in the narrative, the siege of Harlem has been
+related until its conclusion.  This great event constituted, moreover,
+the principal stuff in Netherland, history, up to the middle of the year
+1573.  A few loose threads must be now taken up before we can proceed
+farther.
+
+Alva had for some time felt himself in a false and uncomfortable
+position.  While he continued to be the object of a popular hatred as
+intense as ever glowed, he had gradually lost his hold upon those who,
+at the outset of his career, had been loudest and lowest in their
+demonstrations of respect.  "Believe me," wrote Secretary Albornoz to
+Secretary Cayas, "this people abhor our nation worse than they abhor the
+Devil.  As for the Duke of Alva, they foam at the mouth when they hear
+his name."  Viglius, although still maintaining smooth relations with the
+Governor, had been, in reality, long since estranged from him.  Even
+Aerschot, far whom the Duke had long maintained an intimacy half
+affectionate, half contemptuous, now began to treat him with a contumely
+which it was difficult for so proud a stomach to digest.
+
+But the main source of discomfort was doubtless the presence of Medina
+Coeli.  This was the perpetual thorn in his side, which no cunning could
+extract.  A successor who would not and could not succeed him, yet who
+attended him as his shadow and his evil genius--a confidential colleague
+who betrayed his confidence, mocked his projects, derided his authority,
+and yet complained of ill treatment--a rival who was neither compeer nor
+subaltern, and who affected to be his censor--a functionary of a purely
+anomalous character, sheltering himself under his abnegation of an
+authority which he had not dared to assume, and criticising measures
+which he was not competent to grasp;--such was the Duke of Medina Coeli
+in Alva's estimation.
+
+The bickering between the two Dukes became unceasing and disgraceful.
+Of course, each complained to the King, and each, according to his own
+account, was a martyr to the other's tyranny, but the meekness manifested
+by Alva; in all his relations with the new comer, was wonderful, if we
+are to believe the accounts furnished by himself and by his confidential
+secretary.  On the other hand, Medina Coeli wrote to the King,
+complaining of Alva in most unmitigated strains, and asserting that
+he was himself never allowed to see any despatches, nor to have the
+slightest information as to the policy of the government.  He reproached,
+the Duke with shrinking from personal participation in military
+operations, and begged the royal forgiveness if he withdrew from
+a scene where he felt himself to be superfluous.
+
+Accordingly, towards the end of November, he took his departure, without
+paying his respects.  The Governor complained to the King of this
+unceremonious proceeding, and assured His Majesty that never were
+courtesy and gentleness so ill requited as his had been by this ingrate
+and cankered Duke.  "He told me," said Alva, "that if I did not stay in
+the field, he would not remain with me in peaceful cities, and he asked
+me if I intended to march into Holland with the troops which were to
+winter there.  I answered, that I should go wherever it was necessary,
+even should I be obliged to swim through all the canals of Holland."
+After giving these details, the Duke added, with great appearance of
+candor and meekness, that he was certain Medina Coeli had only been
+influenced by extreme zeal for His Majesty's service, and that, finding,
+so little for him to do in the Netherlands, he had become dissatisfied
+with his position.
+
+Immediately after the fall of Harlem, another attempt was made by Alva to
+win back the allegiance of the other cities by proclamations.  It had
+become obvious to the Governor that so determined a resistance on the
+part of the first place besieged augured many long campaigns before the
+whole province could be subdued.  A circular was accordingly issued upon
+the 26th July from Utrecht, and published immediately afterwards in all
+the cities of the Netherlands.  It was a paper of singular character,
+commingling an affectation of almost ludicrous clemency, with honest and
+hearty brutality.  There was consequently something very grotesque about
+the document.  Philip, in the outset, was made to sustain towards his
+undutiful subjects the characters of the brooding hen and the prodigal's
+father; a range of impersonation hardly to be allowed him, even by the
+most abject flattery.  "Ye are well aware," thus ran the address, "that
+the King has, over and over again, manifested his willingness to receive
+his children, in however forlorn a condition the prodigals might return.
+His Majesty assures you once more that your sins, however black they may
+have been, shall be forgiven and forgotten in the plenitude of royal
+kindness, if you repent and return in season to his Majesty's embrace.
+Notwithstanding your manifold crimes, his Majesty still seeks, like a hen
+calling her chickens, to gather you all under the parental wing.  The
+King hereby warns you once more, therefore, to place yourselves in his
+royal hands, and not to wait for his rage, cruelty, and fury, and the
+approach of his army."
+
+The affectionate character of the address, already fading towards the end
+of the preamble, soon changes to bitterness.  The domestic maternal fowl
+dilates into the sanguinary dragon as the address proceeds.  "But if,"
+continues the monarch, "ye disregard these offers of mercy, receiving
+them with closed ears, as heretofore, then we warn you that there is no
+rigor, nor cruelty, however great, which you are not to expect by laying
+waste, starvation, and the sword, in such manner that nowhere shall
+remain a relic of that which at present exists, but his Majesty will
+strip bare and utterly depopulate the land, and cause it to be inhabited
+again by strangers; since otherwise his Majesty could not believe that
+the will of God and of his Majesty had been accomplished."
+
+It is almost superfluous to add that this circular remained fruitless.
+The royal wrath, thus blasphemously identifying itself with divine
+vengeance, inspired no terror, the royal blandishments no affection.
+
+The next point of attack was the city of Alkmaar, situate quite at the
+termination of the Peninsula, among the lagunes and redeemed prairies of
+North Holland.  The Prince of Orange had already provided it with a small
+garrison.  The city had been summoned to surrender by the middle of
+July, and had returned a bold refusal.--Meantime, the Spaniards had
+retired from before the walls, while the surrender and chastisement of
+Harlem occupied them during the next succeeding weeks.  The month of
+August, moreover, was mainly consumed by Alva in quelling a dangerous and
+protracted mutiny, which broke out among the Spanish soldiers at Harlem--
+between three and four thousand of them having been quartered upon the
+ill-fated population of that city.
+
+Unceasing misery was endured by the inhabitants at the hands of the
+ferocious Spaniards, flushed with victory, mutinous for long arrears of
+pay, and greedy for the booty which had been denied.  At times, however,
+the fury of the soldiery was more violently directed against their own
+commanders than against the enemy.  A project was even formed by the
+malcontent troops to deliver Harlem into the hands of Orange.  A party of
+them, disguised as Baltic merchants, waited upon the Prince at Delft, and
+were secretly admitted to his bedside before he had risen.  They declared
+to him that they were Spanish soldiers, who had compassion on his cause,
+were dissatisfied with their own government, and were ready, upon receipt
+of forty thousand guilders, to deliver the city into his hands.  The
+Prince took the matter into consideration, and promised to accept the
+offer if he could raise the required sum.  This, however, he found
+himself unable to do within the stipulated time, and thus, for want of so
+paltry a sum, the offer was of necessity declined.
+
+Various were the excesses committed by the insubordinate troops in every
+province in the Netherlands upon the long-suffering inhabitants.
+"Nothing," wrote Alva, "had given him so much pain during his forty years
+of service."  He avowed his determination to go to Amsterdam in order to
+offer himself as a hostage to the soldiery, if by so doing he could quell
+the mutiny.  He went to Amsterdam accordingly, where by his exertions,
+ably seconded by those of the Marquis Vitelli, and by the payment of
+thirty crowns to each soldier--fourteen on account of arrearages and
+sixteen as his share in the Harlem compensation money--the rebellion was
+appeased, and obedience restored.
+
+There was now leisure for the General to devote his whole energies
+against the little city of Alkmaar.  On that bank and shoal, the extreme
+verge of habitable earth, the spirit of Holland's Freedom stood at bay.
+The grey towers of Egmont Castle and of Egmont Abbey rose between the
+city and the sea, and there the troops sent by the Prince of Orange were
+quartered during the very brief period in which the citizens wavered as
+to receiving them.  The die was soon cast, however, and the Prince's
+garrison admitted.  The Spaniards advanced, burned the village of Egmont
+to the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st of
+August Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally to
+invest Allanaar.  In a few days this had been so thoroughly accomplished
+that, in Alva's language, "it was impossible for a sparrow to enter or
+go out of the city."  The odds were somewhat unequal.  Sixteen thousand
+veteran troops constituted the besieging force.  Within the city were a
+garrison of eight hundred soldiers, together with thirteen hundred
+burghers, capable of bearing arms.  The rest of the population consisted
+of a very few refugees, besides the women and children.  Two thousand one
+hundred able-bodied men, of whom only about one-third were soldiers, to
+resist sixteen thousand regulars.
+
+Nor was there any doubt as to the fate which was reserved for them,
+should they succumb.  The Duke was vociferous at the ingratitude with
+which his clemency had hitherto been requited.  He complained bitterly of
+the ill success which had attended his monitory circulars; reproached
+himself with incredible vehemence, for his previous mildness, and
+protested that, after having executed only twenty-three hundred persons
+at the surrender of Harlem, besides a few additional burghers since, he
+had met with no correspondent demonstrations of affection.  He promised
+himself, however, an ample compensation for all this ingratitude, in the
+wholesale vengeance which he purposed to wreak upon Alkmaar.  Already he
+gloated in anticipation over the havoc which would soon be let loose
+within those walls.  Such ravings, if invented by the pen of fiction,
+would seem a puerile caricature; proceeding, authentically, from his own,
+--they still appear almost too exaggerated for belief.  "If I take
+Alkmaar," he wrote to Philip, "I am resolved not to leave a single
+creature alive; the knife shall be put to every throat.  Since the
+example of Harlem has proved of no use, perhaps an example of cruelty
+will bring the other cities to their senses."
+
+He took occasion also to read a lecture to the party of conciliation in
+Madrid, whose counsels, as he believed, his sovereign was beginning to
+heed.  Nothing, he maintained, could be more senseless than the idea of
+pardon and clemency.  This had been sufficiently proved by recent events.
+It was easy for people at a distance to talk about gentleness, but those
+upon the spot knew better.  Gentleness had produced nothing, so far;
+violence alone could succeed in future.  "Let your Majesty," he said, "be
+disabused of the impression, that with kindness anything can he done with
+these people.  Already have matters reached such a point that many of
+those born in the country, who have hitherto advocated clemency, are now
+undeceived, and acknowledge--their mistake.  They are of opinion that not
+a living soul should be left in Alkmaar, but that every individual should
+be put to the sword."  At the same time he took occasion, even in these
+ferocious letters, which seem dripping with blood, to commend his own
+natural benignity of disposition.  "Your Majesty may be certain," he
+said, "that no man on earth desires the path of clemency more than I do,
+notwithstanding my particular hatred for heretics and traitors."  It was
+therefore with regret that he saw himself obliged to take the opposite
+course, and to stifle all his gentler sentiments.
+
+Upon Diedrich Sonoy, Lieutenant-Governor for Orange in the province of
+North Holland, devolved the immediate responsibility of defending this
+part of the country.  As the storm rolled slowly up from the south, even
+that experienced officer became uneasy at the unequal conflict impending.
+He despatched a letter to his chief, giving a gloomy picture of his
+position.  All looked instinctively towards the Prince, as to a God in
+their time of danger; all felt as if upon his genius and fortitude
+depended the whole welfare of the fatherland.  It was hoped, too, that
+some resource had been provided in a secret foreign alliance.  "If your
+princely grace," wrote Sonoy, "have made a contract for assistance with
+any powerful potentate, it is of the highest importance that it should be
+known to all the cities, in order to put an end to the emigration, and to
+console the people in their affliction."
+
+The answer, of the Prince was full of lofty enthusiasm.  He reprimanded
+with gentle but earnest eloquence the despondency and little faith of his
+lieutenant and other adherents.  He had not expected, he said, that they
+would have so soon forgotten their manly courage.  They seemed to
+consider the whole fate of the country attached to the city of Harlem.
+He took God to witness that--he had spared no pains, and would willingly
+have spared no drop of his blood to save that devoted city.  "But as,
+notwithstanding our efforts," he continued, "it has pleased God Almighty
+to dispose of Harlem according to His divine will, shall we, therefore,
+deny and deride His holy word?  Has the strong arm of the Lord thereby
+grown weaker?  Has his Church therefore come to caught?  You ask if I
+have entered into a firm treaty with any great king or potentate, to
+which I answer, that before I ever took up the cause of the oppressed
+Christians in these provinces, I had entered into a close alliance with
+the King of kings; and I am firmly convinced that all who put their trust
+in Him shall be saved by His almighty hand.  The God of armies will raise
+up armies for us to do battle with our enemies sad His own."  In
+conclusion, he stated his preparations for attacking the enemy by sea as
+well as by land, and encouraged his lieutenant and the citizens of the
+northern quarter to maintain a bold front before the advancing foe.
+
+And now, with the dismantled and desolate Harlem before their eyes, a
+prophetic phantom, perhaps, of their own imminent fate, did the handful
+of people shut up within Alkmaar prepare for the worst.  Their main hope
+lay in the friendly sea.  The vast sluices called the Zyp, through which
+an inundation of the whole northern province could be very soon effected,
+were but a few miles distant.  By opening these gates, and by piercing a
+few dykes, the ocean might be made to fight for them.  To obtain this
+result, however, the consent of the inhabitants was requisite, as the
+destruction of all the standing crops would be inevitable.  The city was
+so closely invested, that it was a matter of life and death to venture
+forth, and it was difficult, therefore, to find an envoy for this
+hazardous mission.  At last, a carpenter in the city, Peter Van der Mey
+by name, undertook the adventure, and was entrusted with letters to
+Sonoy, to the Prince of Orange, and to the leading personages, in several
+cities of the province: These papers were enclosed in a hollow walking-
+staff, carefully made fast at the top.
+
+Affairs soon approached a crisis within the beleaguered city.  Daily
+skirmishes, without decisive result; had taken place outside the walls.
+At last, on the 18th of September, after a steady cannonade of nearly
+twelve hours, Don Frederic, at three in the afternoon, ordered an
+assault.  Notwithstanding his seven months' experience at Harlem, he
+still believed it certain that he should carry Alkmaar by storm.  The
+attack took place at once upon the Frisian gate and upon the red tower on
+the opposite side.  Two choice regiments, recently arrived from Lombardy;
+led the onset, rending the air with their shouts, and confident of an
+easy victory.  They were sustained by what seemed an overwhelming force
+of disciplined troops.  Yet never, even in the recent history of Harlem,
+had an attack been received by more dauntless breasts.  Every living man
+was on the walls.  The storming parties were assailed with cannon, with
+musketry, with pistols.  Boiling water, pitch and oil, molten lead, and
+unslaked lime, were poured upon them every moment.  Hundreds of tarred
+and burning hoops were skilfully quoited around the necks of the
+soldiers, who struggled in vain to extricate themselves from these fiery
+ruffs, while as fast as any of the invaders planted foot upon the breach,
+they were confronted face to face with sword and dagger by the burghers,
+who hurled them headlong into the moat below.
+
+Thrice was the attack renewed with ever-increasing rage--thrice repulsed
+with unflinching fortitude.  The storm continued four hours long.  During
+all that period, not one of the defenders left his post, till he dropped
+from it dead or wounded.  The women and children, unscared by the balls
+flying in every direction, or by the hand-to-hand conflicts on the
+ramparts; passed steadily to and fro from the arsenals to the
+fortifications, constantly supplying their fathers, husbands, and
+brothers with powder and ball.  Thus, every human being in the city that
+could walk had become a soldier.  At last darkness fell upon the scene.
+The trumpet of recal was sounded, and the Spaniards, utterly discomfited,
+retired from the walls, leaving at least one thousand dead in the
+trenches, while only thirteen burghers and twenty-four of the garrison
+lost their lives.  Thus was Alkmaar preserved for a little longer--thus
+a large and well-appointed army signally defeated by a handful of men
+fighting for their firesides and altars.  Ensign Solis, who had mounted
+the breach for an instant, and miraculously escaped with life, after
+having been hurled from the battlements, reported that he had seen
+"neither helmet nor harness," as he looked down into the city: only some
+plain-looking people, generally dressed like fishermen.  Yet these plain-
+looking fishermen had defeated the veterans of Alva.
+
+The citizens felt encouraged by the results of that day's work.
+Moreover, they already possessed such information concerning the
+condition of affairs in the camp of the enemy as gave them additional
+confidence.  A Spaniard, named Jeronimo, had been taken prisoner and
+brought into the city.  On receiving a promise of pardon, he had revealed
+many secrets concerning the position and intentions of the besieging
+army.  It is painful to add that the prisoner, notwithstanding his
+disclosures and the promise under which they had been made, was
+treacherously executed.  He begged hard for his life as he was led to the
+gallows, offering fresh revelations, which, however, after the ample
+communications already made, were esteemed superfluous.  Finding this of
+no avail, he promised his captors, with perfect simplicity, to go down on
+his knees and worship the Devil precisely as they did, if by so doing he
+might obtain mercy.  It may be supposed that such a proposition was not
+likely to gain additional favor for him in the eyes of these rigid
+Calvinists, and the poor wretch was accordingly hanged.
+
+The day following the assault, a fresh cannonade was opened upon the
+city.  Seven hundred shots having been discharged, the attack was
+ordered.  It was in vain: neither threats nor entreaties could induce the
+Spaniards, hitherto so indomitable, to mount the breach.  The place
+seemed to their imagination protected by more than mortal powers;
+otherwise how was it possible that a few half-starved fishermen could
+already have so triumphantly overthrown the time-honored legions of
+Spain.  It was thought, no doubt, that the Devil, whom they worshipped,
+would continue to protect his children.  Neither the entreaties nor the
+menaces of Don Frederic were of any avail.  Several soldiers allowed
+themselves to be run through the body by their own officers, rather than
+advance to the walls; and the assault was accordingly postponed to an
+indefinite period.
+
+Meantime, as Governor Sonoy had opened many of the dykes, the land in the
+neighbourhood of the camp was becoming plashy, although as yet the
+threatened inundation had not taken place.  The soldiers were already
+very uncomfortable and very refractory.  The carpenter-envoy had not been
+idle, having, upon the 26th September, arrived at Sonoy's quarters,
+bearing letters from the Prince of Orange.  These despatches gave
+distinct directions to Sonoy to flood the countlv at all risks; rather
+than allow Alkmaar to, fall into the enemy's hands.  The dykes and
+sluices were to be protected by a strong guard, lest the peasants, in
+order to save their crops, should repair or close them in the night-time.
+The letters of Orange were copied, and, together with fresh
+communications from Sonoy, delivered to the carpenter.  A note on the
+margin of the Prince's letter, directed the citizens to kindle four
+beacon fires in specified places, as soon as it should prove necessary to
+resort to extreme measures.  When that moment should arrive, it was
+solemnly promised that an inundation should be created which should sweep
+the whole Spanish army into the sea.  The work had, in fact, been
+commenced.  The Zyp and other sluices had already been opened, and a vast
+body of water, driven by a strong north-west wind, had rushed in from the
+ocean.  It needed only that two great dykes should be pierced to render
+the deluge and the desolation complete.  The harvests were doomed to
+destruction, and a frightful loss of property rendered inevitable, but,
+at any rate, the Spaniards, if this last measure were taken, must fly or
+perish to a man.
+
+This decisive blow having been thus ordered and promised; the carpenter
+set forth towards the city.  He was, however, not so successful in
+accomplishing his entrance unmolested, as he had been in effecting his
+departure.  He narrowly escaped with his life in passing through the
+enemy's lines, and while occupied in saving himself was so unlucky, or,
+as it proved, so fortunate, as to lose the stick in which his despatches
+were enclosed.  He made good his entrance into the city, where, byword of
+mouth, he encouraged his fellow-burghers as to the intentions of the
+Prince and Sonoy.  In the meantime his letters were laid before the
+general of the besieging army.  The resolution taken by Orange, of which
+Don Frederic was thus unintentionally made aware, to flood the country
+far and near, rather than fail to protect Alkmaar, made a profound
+impression upon his mind.  It was obvious that he was dealing with a
+determined leader and with desperate men.  His attempt to carry the place
+by storm had signally failed, and he could not deceive himself as to the
+temper and disposition of his troops ever since that repulse.  When it
+should become known that they were threatened with submersion in the
+ocean, in addition to all the other horrors of war, he had reason to
+believe that they would retire ignominiously from that remote and
+desolate sand hook, where, by remaining, they could only find a watery
+grave.  These views having been discussed in a council of officers, the
+result was reached that sufficient had been already accomplished for the
+glory of Spanish arms.  Neither honor nor loyalty, it was thought,
+required that sixteen thousand soldiers should be sacrificed in a
+contest, not with man but with the ocean.
+
+On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted seven
+weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in Amsterdam.
+Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both themselves and
+their foes in a common catastrophe the Hollanders had at last compelled
+their haughty enemy to fly from a position which he had so insolently
+assumed.
+
+These public transactions and military operations were not the only
+important events which affected the fate of Holland and its sister
+provinces at this juncture.  The secret  relations which had already been
+renewed between Louis of Nassau, as plenipotentiary of his brother and
+the French court, had for some time excited great uneasiness in the mind
+of Alva.  Count Louis was known to be as skilful a negotiator as he was
+valiant and accomplished as a soldier.  His frankness and boldness
+created confidence.  The "brave spirit in the loyal breast" inspired all
+his dealing; his experience and quick perception of character prevented
+his becoming a dupe of even the most adroit politicians, while his truth
+of purpose made him incapable either of overreaching an ally or of
+betraying a trust.  His career indicated that diplomacy might be
+sometimes successful, even although founded upon sincerity.
+
+Alva secretly expressed to his sovereign much suspicion of France.  He
+reminded him that Charles IX.; during the early part of the preceding
+year, had given the assurance that he was secretly dealing with Louis of
+Nassau, only that he might induce the Count to pass over to Philip's
+service.  At the same time Charles had been doing all he could to succor
+Moos, and had written the memorable letter which had fallen into Alva's
+hands on the capture of Genlis, and which expressed such a fixed
+determination to inflict a deadly blow upon the King, whom the writer was
+thus endeavouring to cajole.  All this the Governor recalled to the
+recollection of his sovereign.  In view of this increasing repugnance of
+the English court, Alva recommended that fair words should be employed;
+hinting, however, that it would be by no means necessary for his master
+to consider himself very strictly bound by any such pledges to Elizabeth,
+if they should happen to become inconveniently pressing.  "A monarch's
+promises," he delicately suggested, "were not to be considered so sacred
+as those of humbler mortals.  Not that the King should directly violate
+his word, but at the same time," continued the Duke, "I have thought all
+my life, and I have learned it from the Emperor, your Majesty's father,
+that the negotiations of kings depend upon different principles from
+those of us private gentlemen who walk the world; and in this manner I
+always observed that your Majesty's father, who was, so great a gentleman
+and so powerful a prince, conducted his affairs."  The Governor took
+occasion, likewise, to express his regrets at the awkward manner in which
+the Ridolfi scheme had been managed.  Had he been consulted at an earlier
+day, the affair could have been treated much more delicately; as it was,
+there could be little doubt but that the discovery of the plot had
+prejudiced the mind of Elizabeth against Spain.  "From that dust,"
+concluded the Duke, "has resulted all this dirt."  It could hardly be
+matter of surprise, either to Philip or his Viceroy, that the discovery
+by Elizabeth of a plot upon their parts to take her life and place the
+crown upon the head of her hated rival, should have engendered unamiable
+feelings in her bosom towards them.  For the moment, however, Alva's
+negotiations were apparently successful.
+
+On the first of May, 1573, the articles of convention between England and
+Spain, with regard to the Netherland difficulty, had been formally
+published in Brussels.  The Duke, in communicating the termination of
+these arrangements, quietly recommended his master thenceforth to take
+the English ministry into his pay.  In particular he advised his Majesty
+to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh, "who held the kingdom in
+his hand; for it has always been my opinion," he continued, "that it was
+an excellent practice for princes to give pensions to the ministers of
+other potentates, and to keep those at home who took bribes from nobody."
+
+On the other hand, the negotiations of Orange with the English court were
+not yet successful, and he still found it almost impossible to raise the
+requisite funds for carrying on the war.  Certainly, his private letters
+showed that neither he nor his brothers were self-seekers in their
+negotiations.  "You know;" said he in a letter to his brothers, "that my
+intention has never been to seek my private advantage.  I have only
+aspired for the liberty of the country, in conscience and in polity,
+which foreigners have sought to oppress.  I have no other articles to
+propose, save that religion, reformed according to the Word of God,
+should be permitted, that then the commonwealth should be restored to its
+ancient liberty, and, to that end, that the Spaniards and other soldiery
+should be compelled to retire."
+
+The restoration of civil and religious liberty, the, establishment of the
+great principle of toleration in matters of conscience, constituted the
+purpose to which his days and nights were devoted, his princely fortune
+sacrificed, his life-blood risked.  At the same time, his enforcement of
+toleration to both religions excited calumny against him among the
+bigoted adherents of both.  By the Catholics he was accused of having
+instigated the excesses which he had done everything in his power to
+repress.  The enormities of De la Marck, which had inspired the Prince's
+indignation, were even laid at the door of him who had risked his life to
+prevent and to chastise them.  De la Marck had, indeed, more than
+counterbalanced his great service in the taking of Brill, by his
+subsequent cruelties.  At last, Father Cornelius Musius, pastor of Saint
+Agatha, at the age of seventy-two, a man highly esteemed by the Prince of
+Orange, had been put to torture and death by this barbarian, under
+circumstances of great atrocity.  The horrid deed cost the Prince many
+tears, aroused the indignation of the estates of Holland, and produced
+the dismission of the perpetrator from their service.  It was considered
+expedient, however, in view of his past services, his powerful
+connexions, and his troublesome character, that he should be induced
+peaceably to leave the country.
+
+It was long before the Prince and the estates could succeed in ridding
+themselves of this encumbrance.  He created several riots in different
+parts of the province, and boasted, that he had many fine ships of war
+and three thousand men devoted to him, by whose assistance he could make
+the estates "dance after his pipe."  At the beginning of the following
+year (1574), he was at last compelled to leave the provinces, which he
+never again troubled with his presence.  Some years afterwards, he died
+of the bite of a mad dog; an end not inappropriate to a man of so rabid a
+disposition.
+
+While the Prince was thus steadily striving for a lofty and generous
+purpose, he was, of course, represented by his implacable enemies as a
+man playing a game which, unfortunately for himself, was a losing one.
+"That poor prince," said Granvelle, "has been ill advised.  I doubt now
+whether he will ever be able to make his peace, and I think we shall
+rather try to get rid of him and his brother as if they were Turks.  The
+marriage with the daughter of Maurice, 'unde mala et quia ipse talis',
+and his brothers have done him much harm.  So have Schwendi and German
+intimacies.  I saw it all very plainly, but he did not choose to believe
+me."
+
+Ill-starred, worse counselled William of Orange!  Had he but taken the
+friendly Cardinal's advice, kept his hand from German marriages and his
+feet from conventicles--had he assisted his sovereign in burning heretics
+and hunting rebels, it would not then have become necessary "to treat him
+like a Turk."  This is unquestionable.  It is equally so that there would
+have been one great lamp the less in that strait and difficult pathway
+which leads to the temple of true glory.
+
+The main reliance of Orange was upon the secret negotiations which his
+brother Louis was then renewing with the French government.  The Prince
+had felt an almost insurmountable repugnance towards entertaining any
+relation with that blood-stained court, since the massacre of Saint
+Bartholomew.  But a new face had recently been put upon that transaction.
+Instead of glorying, in their crime, the King and his mother now assumed
+a tone of compunction, and averred that the deed had been unpremeditated;
+that it had been the result of a panic or an ecstasy of fear inspired by
+the suddenly discovered designs of the Huguenots; and that, in the
+instinct of self-preservation, the King, with his family and immediate
+friends, had plunged into a crime which they now bitterly lamented.  The
+French envoys at the different courts of Europe were directed to impress
+this view upon the minds of the monarchs to whom they were accredited.
+It was certainly a very different instruction from that which they had at
+first received.  Their cue had originally been to claim a full meed of
+praise and thanksgiving in behalf of their sovereign for his meritorious
+exploit.  The salvos of artillery, the illuminations and rejoicings, the
+solemn processions and masses by which the auspicious event had been
+celebrated, mere yet fresh in the memory of men.  The ambassadors were
+sufficiently embarrassed by the distinct and determined approbation which
+they had recently expressed.  Although the King, by formal proclamation,
+had assumed the whole responsibility, as he had notoriously been one of
+the chief perpetrators of the deed, his agents were now to stultify
+themselves and their monarch by representing, as a deplorable act of
+frenzy, the massacre which they had already extolled to the echo as a
+skilfully executed and entirely commendable achievement.
+
+To humble the power of Spain, to obtain the hand of Queen Elizabeth for
+the Duke d'Alencon, to establish an insidious kind of protectorate over
+the Protestant princes of Germany, to obtain the throne of Poland for the
+Duke of Anjou, and even to obtain the imperial crown for the house of
+Valois--all these cherished projects seemed dashed to the ground by the
+Paris massacre and the abhorrence which it had created.  Charles and
+Catharine were not slow to discover the false position in which they had
+placed themselves, while the Spanish jocularity at the immense error
+committed by France was visible enough through the assumed mask of holy
+horror.
+
+Philip and Alva listened with mischievous joy to the howl of execration
+which swept through Christendom upon every wind.  They rejoiced as
+heartily in the humiliation of the malefactors as they did in the
+perpetration of the crime.  "Your Majesty," wrote Louis of Nassau, very
+bluntly, to King Charles, "sees how the Spaniard, your mortal enemy,
+feasts himself full with the desolation of your affairs; how he laughs,
+to-split his sides, at your misfortunes.  This massacre has enabled him
+to weaken your Majesty more than he could have done by a war of thirty
+years."
+
+Before the year had revolved, Charles had become thoroughly convinced of
+the fatal impression produced by the event.  Bitter and almost abject
+were his whinings at the Catholic King's desertion of his cause.
+"He knows well," wrote Charles to Saint Goard,  "that if he can terminate
+these troubles and leave me alone in the dance, he will have leisure and
+means to establish his authority, not only in the Netherlands but
+elsewhere; and that he will render himself more grand and formidable than
+he has ever been.  This is the return they render for the good received
+from me, which is such as every one knows."
+
+Gaspar de Schomberg, the adroit and honorable agent of Charles in
+Germany, had at a very early day warned his royal master of the ill
+effect of the massacre upon all the schemes which he had been pursuing,
+and especially upon those which referred to the crowns of the Empire and
+of Poland.  The first project was destined to be soon abandoned.  It was
+reserved neither for Charles nor Philip to divert the succession in
+Germany from the numerous offspring of Maximilian; yet it is instructive
+to observe the unprincipled avidity with which the prize was sought by
+both.  Each was willing to effect its purchase by abjuring what were
+supposed his most cherished principles.  Philip of Spain, whose mission
+was to extirpate heresy throughout his realms, and who, in pursuance of
+that mission, had already perpetrated more crimes, and waded more deeply
+in the blood of his subjects, than monarch had often done before; Philip,
+for whom his apologists have never found any defence, save that he
+believed it his duty to God rather to depopulate his territories than to
+permit a single heretic within their limits--now entered into secret
+negotiations with the princes of the Empire.  He pledged himself, if they
+would confer the crown upon him, that he would withdraw the Spaniards
+from the Netherlands; that he would tolerate in those provinces the
+exercise of the Reformed religion; that he would recognize their union
+with the rest of the German Empire, and their consequent claim to the
+benefits of the Passau treaty; that he would restore the Prince of Orange
+"and all his accomplices" to their former possessions, dignities, and
+condition; and that he would cause to be observed, throughout every realm
+incorporated with the Empire, all the edicts and ordinances which had
+been constructed to secure religious freedom in Germany.  In brief,
+Philip was willing, in case the crown of Charlemagne should be promised
+him, to undo the work of his life, to reinstate the arch-rebel whom he
+had hunted and proscribed, and to bow before that Reformation whose
+disciples he had so long burned, and butchered.  So much extent and no
+more had that religious, conviction by which he had for years had the
+effrontery to excuse the enormities practised in the Netherlands.  God
+would never forgive him so long as one heretic remained unburned in the
+provinces; yet give him the Imperial sceptre, and every heretic, without
+forswearing his heresy, should be purged with hyssop and become whiter
+than snow.
+
+Charles IX., too, although it was not possible for him to recal to life
+the countless victims of the Parisian wedding, was yet ready to explain
+those murders to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind.  This had
+become strictly necessary.  Although the accession of either his Most
+Christian or Most Catholic Majesty to the throne of the Caesars was a
+most improbable event, yet the humbler elective, throne actually vacant
+was indirectly in the gift of the same powers.  It was possible that the
+crown of Poland might be secured for the Duke of Anjou.  That key unlocks
+the complicated policy of this and the succeeding year.  The Polish
+election is the clue to the labyrinthian intrigues and royal
+tergiversations during the period of the interregnum.  Sigismund
+Augustus, last of the Jagellons, had died on the 7th July; 1572.  The
+prominent candidates to succeed him were the Archduke Ernest, son of
+the Emperor, and Henry of Anjou.  The Prince of Orange was not forgotten.
+A strong party were in favor of compassing his election, as the most
+signal triumph which Protestantism could gain, but his ambition had not
+been excited by the prospect of such a prize.  His own work required all
+the energies of all his life.  His influence, however, was powerful, and
+eagerly sought by the partisans of Anjou.  The Lutherans and Moravians in
+Poland were numerous, the Protestant party there and in Germany holding
+the whole balance of the election in their hands.
+
+It was difficult for the Prince to overcome his repugnance to the very
+name of the man whose crime had at once made France desolate, and
+blighted the fair prospects under which he and his brother had, the year
+before, entered the Netherlands.  Nevertheless; he was willing to listen
+to the statements by which the King and his ministers endeavoured, not
+entirely without success, to remove from their reputations, if not from
+their souls; the guilt of deep design.  It was something, that the
+murderers now affected to expiate their offence in sackcloth and ashes--
+it was something that, by favoring the pretensions of Anjou, and by
+listening with indulgence to the repentance of Charles, the siege of
+Rochelle could be terminated, the Huguenots restored to freedom of
+conscience, and an alliance with a powerful nation established, by aid of
+which the Netherlands might once more lift their heads.  The French
+government, deeply hostile to Spain, both from passion and policy,
+was capable of rendering much assistance to the revolted provinces.
+"I entreat you most humbly, my good master," wrote Schomberg to Charles
+IX., "to beware of allowing the electors to take into their heads that
+you are favoring the affairs of the King of Spain in any manner
+whatsoever.  Commit against him no act of open hostility, if you think
+that imprudent; but look sharp! if you do not wish to be thrown clean out
+of your saddle.  I should split with rage if I should see you, in
+consequence of the wicked calumnies of your enemies, fail to secure the
+prize."
+
+Orange was induced, therefore, to accept, however distrustfully, the
+expression of a repentance which was to be accompanied with healing
+measures.  He allowed his brother Louis to resume negotiations with
+Schomberg, in Germany.  He drew up and transmitted to him the outlines
+of a treaty which he was willing to make with Charles.  The main
+conditions of this arrangement illustrated the disinterested character
+of the man.  He stipulated that the King of France should immediately
+make peace with his subjects, declaring expressly that he had been abused
+by those, who, under pretext of his service, had sought their own profit
+at the price of ruin to the crown and people.  The King should make
+religion free.  The edict to that effect should be confirmed by all the
+parliaments and estates of the kingdom, and such confirmations should be
+distributed without reserve or deceit among all the princes of Germany.
+If his Majesty were not inclined to make war for the liberation of the
+Netherlands, he was to furnish the Prince of Orange with one hundred
+thousand crowns at once, and every three months with another hundred
+thousand.  The Prince was to have liberty to raise one thousand cavalry
+and seven thousand infantry in France.  Every city or town in the
+provinces which should be conquered by his arms, except in Holland or
+Zealand, should be placed under the sceptre, and in the hands of the King
+of France.  The provinces of Holland and Zealand should also be placed
+under his protection, but should be governed by their own gentlemen and
+citizens.  Perfect religious liberty and maintenance of the ancient
+constitutions, privileges, and charters were to be guaranteed "without
+any cavilling whatsoever."  The Prince of Orange, or the estates of
+Holland or Zealand, were to reimburse his Christian Majesty for the sums
+which he was to advance.  In this last clause was the only mention which
+the Prince made of himself, excepting in the stipulation that he was to
+be allowed a levy of troops in France.  His only personal claims were
+to enlist soldiers to fight the battles of freedom, and to pay their
+expense, if it should not be provided for by the estates.  At nearly
+the same period, he furnished his secret envoys, Luinbres and Doctor
+Taijaert, who were to proceed to Paris, with similar instructions.
+
+The indefatigable exertions of Schomberg, and the almost passionate
+explanations on the part of the court of France, at length produced their
+effect.  "You will constantly assure the princes," wrote the Duke of
+Anjou to Schomberg, "that the things written, to you concerning that
+which had happened in this kingdom are true; that the events occurred
+suddenly, without having been in any manner premeditated; that neither
+the King nor myself have ever had any intelligence with, the King of
+Spain, against those of the religion, and that all is utter imposture
+which is daily said on this subject to the princes."
+
+Count Louis required peremptorily, however, that the royal repentance
+should bring forth the fruit of salvation for the remaining victims.  Out
+of the nettles of these dangerous intrigues his fearless hand plucked the
+"flower of safety" for his down-trodden cause.  He demanded not words,
+but deeds, or at least pledges.  He maintained with the agents of Charles
+and with the monarch himself the same hardy scepticism which was
+manifested by the Huguenot deputies in their conferences with Catharine
+de Medicis.  "Is the word of a king," said the dowager to the
+commissioners, who were insisting upon guarantees, "is the word of a king
+not sufficient?"--"No, madam," replied one of them, "by Saint
+Bartholomew, no!"  Count Louis told Schomberg roundly, and repeated it
+many times, that he must have in a very few days a categorical response,
+"not to consist in words alone, but in deeds, and that he could not, and
+would not, risk for ever the honor of his brother, nor the property;
+blood, and life of those poor people who favored the cause."
+
+On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis,
+which lasted seven or eight hours.  In that interview the enterprises of
+the Count, "which," said Schomberg, "are assuredly grand and beautiful,"
+were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly in
+the hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitely
+agreed upon.  These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate over
+Holland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over the
+other places to be acquired in the Netherlands.  They were in strict
+accordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange.  Liberty
+of worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipal
+charters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part of
+France, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principal
+features.
+
+Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willing
+to use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown of
+Poland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with the
+agent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal.  This
+remarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of the
+writer's frank and fearless character.  "Thus diddest thou" has rarely
+been addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones: The letter
+painted the favorable position in which the king had been placed
+previously to the fatal summer of 1572.  The Queen of England was then
+most amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closer
+connexion with his family.  The German princes were desirous to elect
+him King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so
+fruitlessly contended.  The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the
+tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his
+arms.  All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification.
+How changed the picture now!  Who now did reverence to a King so criminal
+and so fallen?  "Your Majesty to-day," said Louis, earnestly and plainly,
+"is near to ruin.  The State, crumbling on every side and almost
+abandoned, is a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more
+so, because your Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars
+previously made, endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now so
+destitute, not only of nobility and soldiery but of that which
+constitutes the strongest column of the throne, the love and good wishes
+of the lieges, that your Majesty resembles an ancient building propped
+up, day after, day, with piles, but which it will be impossible long to
+prevent from falling to the earth."  Certainly, here were wholesome
+truths told in straightforward style.
+
+The Count proceeded to remind the King of the joy which the "Spaniard,
+his mortal enemy," had conceived from the desolation of his affairs,
+being assured that he should, by the troubles in France, be enabled to
+accomplish his own purposes without striking a blow.  This, he observed,
+had been the secret of the courtesy with which the writer himself had
+been treated by the Duke of Alva at the surrender of Mons.  Louis assured
+the King, in continuation, that if he persevered in these oppressive
+courses towards his subjects of the new religion, there was no hope for
+him, and that his two brothers would, to no purpose, take their departure
+for England, and, for Poland, leaving him with a difficult and dangerous
+war upon his hands.  So long as he maintained a hostile attitude towards
+the Protestants in his own kingdom, his fair words would produce no
+effect elsewhere.  "We are beginning to be vexed," said the Count, "with
+the manner of negotiation practised by France.  Men do not proceed
+roundly to business there, but angle with their dissimulation as with a
+hook."
+
+He bluntly reminded the King of the deceit which he had practised towards
+the Admiral--a sufficient reason why no reliance could in future be
+placed upon his word.  Signal vengeance on those concerned in the
+attempted assassination of that great man had been promised, in the royal
+letters to the Prince of Orange, just before St. Bartholomew.  "Two days
+afterwards," said Louis, "your Majesty took that vengeance, but in rather
+ill fashion."  It was certain that the King was surrounded by men who
+desired to work his ruin, and who, for their own purposes, would cause
+him to bathe still deeper than he had done before in the blood of his
+subjects.  This ruin his Majesty could still avert; by making peace in
+his kingdom, and by ceasing to torment his poor subjects of the
+religion.
+
+In conclusion, the Count, with a few simple but eloquent phrases,
+alluded to the impossibility of chaining men's thoughts.  The soul,
+being immortal, was beyond the reach of kings.  Conscience was not to be
+conquered, nor the religious spirit imprisoned.  This had been discovered
+by the Emperor Charles, who had taken all the cities and great personages
+of Germany captive, but who had nevertheless been unable to take religion
+captive.  "That is a sentiment," said Louis, "deeply rooted in the hearts
+of men, which is not to be plucked out by force of arms.  Let your
+majesty, therefore not be deceived by the flattery of those who, like bad
+physicians, keep their patients in ignorance of their disease, whence
+comes their ruin."
+
+It would be impossible, without insight into these private and most
+important transactions, to penetrate the heart of the mystery which
+enwrapped at this period the relations of the great powers with each
+other.  Enough has been seen to silence for ever the plea, often entered
+in behalf of religious tyranny, that the tyrant acts in obedience to a
+sincere conviction of duty; that, in performing his deeds of darkness,
+he believes himself to be accomplishing the will of Heaven.  Here we have
+seen Philip, offering to restore the Prince of Orange, and to establish
+freedom of religion in the Netherlands, if by such promises he can lay
+hold of the Imperial diadem.  Here also we have Charles IX. and his
+mother--their hands reeking with the heretic-blood of St. Bartholomew--
+making formal engagements with heretics to protect heresy everywhere,
+if by such pledges the crown of the Jagellons and the hand of Elizabeth
+can be secured.
+
+While Louis was thus busily engaged in Germany, Orange was usually
+established at Delft.  He felt the want of his brother daily, for the
+solitude of the Prince, in the midst of such fiery trials, amounted
+almost to desolation.  Not often have circumstances invested an
+individual with so much responsibility and so little power.  He was
+regarded as the protector and father of the country, but from his own
+brains and his own resources he was to furnish himself with the means of
+fulfilling those high functions.  He was anxious thoroughly to discharge
+the duties of a dictatorship without grasping any more of its power than
+was indispensable to his purpose.  But he was alone on that little
+isthmus, in single combat with the great Spanish monarchy.  It was to him
+that all eyes turned, during the infinite horrors of the Harlem sieges
+and in the more prosperous leaguer of Alkmaar.  What he could do he did.
+He devised every possible means to succor Harlem, and was only restrained
+from going personally to its rescue by the tears of the whole population
+of Holland.  By his decision and the spirit which he diffused through the
+country, the people were lifted to a pitch of heroism by which Alkmaar
+was saved.  Yet, during all this harassing period, he had no one to lean
+upon but himself.  "Our affairs are in pretty good; condition in Holland
+and Zealand," he wrote, "if I only had some aid.  'Tis impossible for me
+to support alone so many labors, and the weight of such great affairs as
+come upon me hourly--financial, military, political.  I have no one to
+help me, not a single man, wherefore I leave you to suppose in what
+trouble I find myself."
+
+For it was not alone the battles and sieges which furnished him with
+occupation and filled him with anxiety.  Alone, he directed in secret the
+politics of the country, and, powerless and outlawed though he seemed,
+was in daily correspondence not only with the estates of Holland and
+Zealand, whose deliberations he guided, but with the principal
+governments of Europe.  The estates of the Netherlands, moreover, had
+been formally assembled by Alva in September, at Brussels, to devise ways
+and means for continuing the struggle.  It seemed to the Prince a good
+opportunity to make an appeal to the patriotism of the whole country.
+He furnished the province of Holland, accordingly, with the outlines of
+an address which was forthwith despatched in their own and his name, to
+the general assembly of the Netherlands.  The document was a nervous and
+rapid review of the course of late events in the provinces, with a cogent
+statement of the reasons which should influence them all to unite in the
+common cause against the common enemy.  It referred to the old affection
+and true-heartedness with which they had formerly regarded each other,
+and to the certainty that the inquisition would be for ever established
+in the land, upon the ruins of all their ancient institutions, unless
+they now united to overthrow it for ever.  It demanded of the people,
+thus assembled through their representatives, how they could endure the
+tyranny, murders, and extortions of the Duke of Alva.  The princes of
+Flanders, Burgundy, Brabant, or Holland, had never made war or peace,
+coined money, or exacted a stiver from the people without the consent of
+the estates.  How could the nation now consent to the daily impositions
+which were practised?  Had Amsterdam and Middelburg remained true; had
+those important cities not allowed themselves to be seduced from the
+cause of freedom, the northern provinces would have been impregnable.
+"'Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed," said the
+appeal.  "Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, but
+from yourselves--from Netherland cities?  Whence his ships, supplies,
+money, weapons, soldiers?  From the Netherland people.  Why has poor
+Netherland thus become degenerate and bastard?  Whither has fled the
+noble spirit of our brave forefathers, that never brooked the tyranny of
+foreign nations, nor suffered a stranger even to hold office within our
+borders?  If the little province of Holland can thus hold at bay the
+power of Spain, what could not all the Netherlands--Brabant, Flanders,
+Friesland, and the rest united accomplish?"  In conclusion, the estates-
+general were earnestly adjured to come forward like brothers in blood,
+and join hands with Holland, that together they might rescue the
+fatherland and restore its ancient prosperity and bloom.
+
+At almost the same time the Prince drew up and put in circulation one of
+the most vigorous and impassioned productions which ever came from his
+pen.  It was entitled, an "Epistle, in form of supplication, to his royal
+Majesty of Spain, from the Prince of Orange and the estates of Holland
+and Zealand."  The document produced a profound impression throughout
+Christendom.  It was a loyal appeal to the monarch's loyalty--a demand
+that the land-privileges should be restored, and the Duke of Alva
+removed.  It contained a startling picture of his atrocities and the
+nation's misery, and, with a few energetic strokes, demolished the
+pretence that these sorrows had been caused by the people's guilt.  In
+this connexion the Prince alluded to those acts of condemnation which the
+Governor-General had promulgated under the name of pardons, and treated
+with scorn the hypothesis that any crimes had been committed for Alva to
+forgive.  "We take God and your Majesty to witness," said the epistle,
+"that if we have done such misdeeds as are charged in the pardon, we
+neither desire nor deserve the pardon.  Like the most abject creatures
+which crawl the earth, we will be content to atone for our misdeeds with
+our lives.  We will not murmur, O merciful King, if we be seized one
+after another, and torn limb from limb, if it can be proved that we have
+committed the crimes of which we have been accused."
+
+After having thus set forth the tyranny of the government and the
+innocence of the people, the Prince, in his own name and that of the
+estates, announced the determination at which they had arrived.  "The
+tyrant," he continued, "would rather stain every river and brook with our
+blood, and hang our bodies upon every tree in the country, than not feed
+to the full his vengeance, and steep himself to the lips in our misery.
+Therefore we have taken up arms against the Duke of Alva and his
+adherents, to free ourselves, our wives and children, from his blood-
+thirsty hands.  If he prove too strong nor us, we will rather die an
+honorable death and leave a praiseworthy fame, than bend our necks, and
+reduce our dear fatherland to such slavery.  Herein are all our cities
+pledged to each other to stand every siege, to dare the utmost, to endure
+every possible misery, yea, rather to set fire to all our homes, and be
+consumed with them into ashes together, than ever submit to the decrees
+of this cruel tyrant."
+
+These were brave words, and destined to be bravely fulfilled, as the life
+and death of the writer and the records of his country proved, from
+generation unto generation.  If we seek for the mainspring of the energy
+which thus sustained the Prince in the unequal conflict to which he had
+devoted his life, we shall find it in the one pervading principle of his
+nature--confidence in God.  He was the champion of the political rights
+of his country, but before all he was the defender of its religion.
+Liberty of conscience for his people was his first object.  To establish
+Luther's axiom, that thoughts are toll-free, was his determination.  The
+Peace of Passau, and far more than the Peace of Passau, was the goal for
+which he was striving.  Freedom of worship for all denominations,
+toleration for all forms of faith, this was the great good in his
+philosophy.  For himself, he had now become a member of the Calvinist,
+or Reformed Church, having delayed for a time his public adhesion to
+this communion, in order not to give offence to the Lutherans and to
+the Emperor.  He was never a dogmatist, however, and he sought in
+Christianity for that which unites rather than for that which separates
+Christians.  In the course of October he publicly joined the church at
+Dort.
+
+The happy termination of the siege of Alkmaar was followed, three
+days afterwards, by another signal success on the part of the patriots.
+Count Bossu, who had constructed or collected a considerable fleet
+at Amsterdam, had, early in October, sailed into the Zuyder Zee,
+notwithstanding the sunken wrecks and other obstructions by which the
+patriots had endeavored to render the passage of the Y impracticable.
+The patriots of North Holland had, however, not been idle, and a fleet
+of five-and-twenty vessels, under Admiral Dirkzoon, was soon cruising in
+the same waters.  A few skirmishes took place, but Bossu's ships, which
+were larger, and provided with heavier cannon, were apparently not
+inclined for the close quarters which the patriots sought.  The Spanish
+Admiral, Hollander as he was, knew the mettle of his countrymen in a
+close encounter at sea, and preferred to trust to the calibre of his
+cannon.  On the 11th October, however, the whole patriot fleet, favored
+by a strong easterly, breeze, bore down upon the Spanish armada, which,
+numbering now thirty sail of all denominations, was lying off and on in
+the neighbourhood of Horn and Enkhuyzen.  After a short and general
+engagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation,
+closely pursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels.  Five of the King's
+ships were eventually taken, the rest effected their escape.  Only the
+Admiral remained, who scorned to yield, although his forces had thus
+basely deserted him.  His ship, the "Inquisition,"--for such was her
+insolent appellation, was far the largest and best manned of both the
+fleets.  Most of the enemy had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, but
+four vessels of inferior size had attacked the "Inquisition" at the
+commencement of the action.  Of these, one had soon been silenced, while
+the other three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides and
+prow.  The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe and
+savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of the
+ships was entirely abandoned.  No scientific gunnery, no military or
+naval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict.  It was a
+life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard and
+Netherlander met, whether on land or water.  Bossu and his men, armed in
+bullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield and sword on the deck of
+the "Inquisition," ready to repel all attempts to board.  The Hollander,
+as usual, attacked with pitch hoops, boiling oil, and molten lead.
+Repeatedly they effected their entrance to the Admiral's ship, and as
+often they were repulsed and slain in heaps, or hurled into the sea.
+The battle began at three in the afternoon, and continued without
+intermission through the whole night.  The vessels, drifting together,
+struck on the shoal called the Nek, near Wydeness.  In the heat of the
+action the occurrence was hardly heeded.  In the morning twilight, John
+Haring, of Horn, the hero who had kept one thousand soldiers at bay upon
+the Diemer dyke, clambered on board the "Inquisition" and hauled her
+colors down.  The gallant but premature achievement cost him his life.
+He was shot through the body and died on the deck of the ship, which was
+not quite ready to strike her flag.  In the course of the forenoon,
+however, it became obvious to Bossu that further resistance was idle.
+The ships were aground near a hostile coast, his own fleet was hopelessly
+dispersed, three quarters of his crew were dead or disabled, while the
+vessels with which he was engaged were constantly recruited by boats from
+the shore, which brought fresh men and ammunition, and removed their
+killed and wounded.  At eleven o'clock, Admiral Bossu surrendered, and
+with three hundred prisoners was carried into Holland.  Bossu was himself
+imprisoned at Horn, in which city he was received, on his arrival, with
+great demonstrations of popular hatred.  The massacre of Rotterdam, due
+to his cruelty and treachery, had not yet been forgotten or forgiven.
+
+This victory, following so hard upon the triumph at Alkmaar, was
+as gratifying to the patriots as it was galling to Alva.  As his
+administration drew to a close, it was marked by disaster and disgrace on
+land and sea.  The brilliant exploits by which he had struck terror into
+the heart of the Netherlanders, at Jemmingen and in Brabant, had been
+effaced by the valor of a handful of Hollanders, without discipline or
+experience.  To the patriots, the opportune capture of so considerable
+a personage as the Admiral and Governor of the northern province was of
+great advantage.  Such of the hostages from Harlem as had not yet been
+executed, now escaped with their lives.  Moreover, Saint Aldegonde,
+the eloquent patriot and confidential friend of Orange, who was taken
+prisoner a few weeks later, in an action at Maeslands-luis, was preserved
+from inevitable destruction by the same cause.  The Prince hastened to
+assure the Duke of Alva that the same measure would be dealt to Bossu as
+should be meted to Saint Aldegonde.  It was, therefore, impossible for
+the Governor-General to execute his prisoner, and he was obliged to
+submit to the vexation of seeing a leading rebel and heretic in his
+power, whom he dared not strike.  Both the distinguished prisoners
+eventually regained their liberty.
+
+The Duke was, doubtless, lower sunk in the estimation of all classes than
+he had ever been before, during his long and generally successful life.
+The reverses sustained by his army, the belief that his master had grown
+cold towards him, the certainty that his career in the Netherlands was
+closing without a satisfactory result, the natural weariness produced
+upon men's minds by the contemplation of so monotonous and unmitigated a
+tyranny during so many years, all contributed to diminish his reputation.
+He felt himself odious alike to princes and to plebeians.  With his
+cabinet councillors he had long been upon unsatisfactory terms.
+President Tisnacq had died early, in the summer, and Viglius, much
+against his will, had been induced, provisionally, to supply his place.
+But there was now hardly a pretence of friendship between the learned
+Frisian and the Governor.  Each cordially detested the other.  Alva was
+weary of Flemish and Frisian advisers, however subservient, and was
+anxious to fill the whole council with Spaniards of the Vargas stamp.
+He had forced Viglius once more into office, only that, by a little
+delay, he might expel him and every Netherlander at the same moment.
+"Till this ancient set of dogmatizers be removed," he wrote to Philip,
+"with Viglius, their chief, who teaches them all their lessons, nothing
+will go right.  'Tis of no use adding one or two Spaniards to fill
+vacancies; that is only pouring a flask of good wine into a hogshead
+of vinegar; it changes to vinegar likewise.  Your Majesty will soon be
+able to reorganize the council at a blow; so that Italians or Spaniards,
+as you choose, may entirely govern the country."
+
+Such being his private sentiments with regard to his confidential
+advisers, it may be supposed that his intercourse with his council during
+the year was not like to be amicable.  Moreover, he had kept himself, for
+the most part, at a distance from the seat of government.  During the
+military operations in Holland, his head-quarters had been at Amsterdam.
+Here, as the year drew to its close, he had become as unpopular as in
+Brussels.  The time-serving and unpatriotic burghers, who, at the
+beginning of the spring, set up his bust in their houses, and would give
+large sums for his picture in little, now broke his images and tore his
+portraits from their walls, for it was evident that the power of his name
+was gone, both with prince and people.  Yet, certainly, those fierce
+demonstrations which had formerly surrounded his person with such an
+atmosphere of terror had not slackened or become less frequent than
+heretofore.  He continued to prove that he could be barbarous, both
+on a grand and a minute scale.  Even as in preceding years, he could
+ordain wholesale massacres with a breath, and superintend in person the
+executions of individuals.  This was illustrated, among other instances,
+by the cruel fate of Uitenhoove.  That unfortunate nobleman, who had been
+taken prisoner in the course of the summer, was accused of having been
+engaged in the capture of Brill, and was, therefore, condemned by the
+Duke to be roasted to death before a slow fire.  He was accordingly
+fastened by a chain, a few feet in length, to a stake, around which the
+fagots were lighted.  Here he was kept in slow torture for a long time,
+insulted by the gibes of the laughing Spaniards who surrounded him--until
+the executioner and his assistants, more humane than their superior,
+despatched the victim with their spears--a mitigation of punishment which
+was ill received by Alva.  The Governor had, however, no reason to remain
+longer in Amsterdam.  Harlem had fallen; Alkmaar was relieved; and
+Leyden--destined in its second siege to furnish so signal a chapter to
+the history of the war--was beleaguered, it was true, but, because known
+to be imperfectly supplied, was to be reduced by blockade rather than by
+active operations.  Don Francis Valdez was accordingly left in command of
+the siege, which, however, after no memorable occurrences, was raised,
+as will soon be related.
+
+The Duke had contracted in Amsterdam an enormous amount of debt,
+both public and private.  He accordingly, early in November, caused a
+proclamation to be made throughout the city by sound of trumpet, that all
+persons having demands upon him were to present their claims, in person,
+upon a specified day.  During the night preceding the day so appointed,
+the Duke and his train very noiselessly took their departure, without
+notice or beat of drum.  By this masterly generalship his unhappy
+creditors were foiled upon the very eve of their anticipated triumph;
+the heavy accounts which had been contracted on the faith of the King
+and the Governor, remained for the most part unpaid, and many opulent and
+respectable families were reduced to beggary.  Such was the consequence
+of the unlimited confidence which they had reposed in the honor of their
+tyrant.
+
+On the 17th of November, Don Luis de Requesens y Cuniga, Grand Commander
+of Saint Jago, the appointed successor of Alva, arrived in Brussels,
+where he was received with great rejoicings.  The Duke, on the same day,
+wrote to the King, "kissing his feet" for thus relieving him of his
+functions.  There was, of course, a profuse interchange of courtesy
+between the departing and the newly-arrived Governors.  Alva was willing
+to remain a little while, to assist his successor with his advice, but
+preferred that the Grand Commander should immediately assume the reins of
+office.  To this Requesens, after much respectful reluctance, at length
+consented.  On the 29th of November he accordingly took the oaths, at
+Brussels, as Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General, in presence of the
+Duke of Aerschot, Baron Berlaymont, the President of the Council, and
+other functionaries.
+
+On the 18th of December the Duke of Alva departed from the provinces
+for ever.  With his further career this history has no concern, and it is
+not desirable to enlarge upon the personal biography of one whose name
+certainly never excites pleasing emotions.  He had kept his bed for the
+greater part of the time during the last few weeks of his government--
+partly on account of his gout, partly to avoid being seen in his
+humiliation, but mainly, it was said, to escape the pressing demands
+of his creditors.  He expressed a fear of travelling homeward through
+France, on the ground that he might very probably receive a shot out of
+a window as he went by.  He complained pathetically that, after all his
+labors, he had not "gained the approbation of the King," while he had
+incurred "the malevolence and universal hatred of every individual in the
+country."  Mondoucet, to whom he made the observation, was of the same
+opinion; and informed his master that the Duke "had engendered such an
+extraordinary hatred in the hearts of all persons in the land, that they
+would have fireworks in honor of his departure if they dared."
+
+On his journey from the Netherlands, he is said to have boasted that he
+had caused eighteen thousand six hundred inhabitants of the provinces to
+be executed during the period of his government. The number of those who
+had perished by battle, siege, starvation, and massacre, defied
+computation.  The Duke was well received by his royal master, and
+remained in favor until a new adventure of Don Frederic brought father
+and son into disgrace.  Having deceived and abandoned a maid of honor,
+he suddenly espoused his cousins in order to avoid that reparation by
+marriage which was demanded for his offence.  In consequence, both the
+Duke and Don Frederic were imprisoned and banished, nor was Alva released
+till a general of experience was required for the conquest of Portugal.
+Thither, as it were with fetters on his legs, he went.  After having
+accomplished the military enterprise entrusted to him, he fell into a
+lingering fever, at the termination of which he was so much reduced that
+he was only kept alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breast.
+Such was the gentle second childhood of the man who had almost literally
+been drinking blood for seventy years.  He died on the 12th December,
+1582.
+
+The preceding pages have been written in vain, if an elaborate estimate
+be now required of his character.  His picture has been painted, as far
+as possible, by his own hand.  His deeds, which are not disputed, and his
+written words, illustrate his nature more fully than could be done by the
+most eloquent pen.  No attempt has been made to exaggerate his crimes,
+or to extenuate his superior qualities.  Virtues he had none, unless
+military excellence be deemed, as by the Romans, a virtue.  In war, both
+as a science and a practical art, he excelled all the generals who were
+opposed to him in the Netherlands, and he was inferior to no commander
+in the world during the long and belligerent period to which his life
+belonged.  Louis of Nassau possessed high reputation throughout Europe
+as a skilful and daring General.  With raw volunteers he had overthrown
+an army of Spanish regulars, led by a Netherland chieftain of fame and
+experience; but when Alva took the field in person the scene was totally
+changed.  The Duke dealt him such a blow at Jemmingen as would have
+disheartened for ever a less indomitable champion.  Never had a defeat
+been more absolute.  The patriot army was dashed out of existence, almost
+to a man, and its leader, naked and beggared, though not disheartened,
+sent back into Germany to construct his force and his schemes anew.
+
+Having thus flashed before the eyes of the country the full terrors of
+his name, and vindicated the ancient military renown of his nation, the
+Duke was at liberty to employ the consummate tactics, in which he could
+have given instruction to all the world, against his most formidable
+antagonist.  The country, paralyzed with fear, looked anxiously but
+supinely upon the scientific combat between the two great champions of
+Despotism and Protestantism which succeeded.  It was soon evident that
+the conflict could terminate in but one way.  The Prince had considerable
+military abilities, and enthusiastic courage; he lost none of his well-
+deserved reputation by the unfortunate issue of his campaign; he measured
+himself in arms with the great commander of the age, and defied him, day
+after day, in vain, to mortal combat; but it was equally certain that the
+Duke's quiet game was, played in the most masterly manner.  His positions
+and his encampments were taken with faultless judgment, his skirmishes
+wisely and coldly kept within the prescribed control, while the
+inevitable dissolution of the opposing force took place exactly as he had
+foreseen, and within the limits which he had predicted.  Nor in the
+disastrous commencement of the year 1572 did the Duke less signally
+manifest his military genius.  Assailed as he was at every point, with
+the soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he did
+not lose his firmness nor his perspicacity.  Certainly, if he had not
+been so soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on Saint
+Bartholomew's Day caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered the
+recent structure of Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might have
+been worse for his reputation.  With Mons safe, the Flemish frontier
+guarded; France faithful, and thirty thousand men under the Prince of
+Orange in Brabant, the heroic brothers might well believe that the Duke
+was "at their mercy."  The treason of Charles IX. "smote them as with a
+club," as the Prince exclaimed in the bitterness of his spirit.  Under
+the circumstances, his second campaign was a predestined failure, and
+Alva easily vanquished him by a renewed application of those dilatory
+arts which he so well understood.
+
+The Duke's military fame was unquestionable when he came to the
+provinces, and both in stricken fields and in long campaigns, he showed
+how thoroughly it had been deserved; yet he left the Netherlands a
+baffled man.  The Prince might be many times defeated, but he was not to
+be conquered.  As Alva penetrated into the heart of the ancient Batavian
+land he found himself overmatched as he had never been before, even by
+the most potent generals of his day.  More audacious, more inventive,
+more desperate than all the commanders of that or any other age, the
+spirit of national freedom, now taught the oppressor that it was
+invincible; except by annihilation.  The same lesson had been read in the
+same thickets by the Nervii to Julius Caesar, by the Batavians to the
+legions of Vespasian; and now a loftier and a purer flame than that which
+inspired the national struggles against Rome glowed within the breasts of
+the descendants of the same people, and inspired them with the strength
+which comes, from religious enthusiasm.  More experienced, more subtle,
+more politic than Hermann; more devoted, more patient, more magnanimous
+than Civilis, and equal to either in valor and determination, William of
+Orange was a worthy embodiment of the Christian, national resistance of
+the German race to a foreign tyranny.  Alva had entered the Netherlands
+to deal with them as with conquered provinces.  He found that the
+conquest was still to be made, and he left the land without having
+accomplished it.  Through the sea of blood, the Hollanders felt that they
+were passing to the promised land.  More royal soldiers fell during the
+seven months' siege of Harlem than the rebels had lost in the defeat of
+Jemmingen, and in the famous campaign of Brabant.  At Alkmaar the rolling
+waves of insolent conquest were stayed, and the tide then ebbed for ever.
+
+The accomplished soldier struggled hopelessly, with the wild and
+passionate hatred which his tyranny had provoked.  Neither his legions
+nor his consummate strategy availed him against an entirely desperate
+people.  As a military commander, therefore, he gained, upon the whole,
+no additional laurels during his long administration of the Netherlands.
+Of all the other attributes to be expected in a man appointed to deal
+with a free country, in a state of incipient rebellion, he manifested a
+signal deficiency.  As a financier, he exhibited a wonderful ignorance of
+the first principles of political economy.  No man before, ever gravely
+proposed to establish confiscation as a permanent source of revenue to
+the state; yet the annual product from the escheated property of
+slaughtered heretics was regularly relied upon, during his
+administration, to replenish the King's treasury, and to support
+the war of extermination against the King's subjects.  Nor did statesman
+ever before expect a vast income from the commerce of a nation devoted to
+almost universal massacre.  During the daily decimation of the people's
+lives, he thought a daily decimation of their industry possible.  His
+persecutions swept the land of those industrious classes which had made
+it the rich and prosperous commonwealth it had been so lately; while,
+at the same time, he found a "Peruvian mine," as he pretended, in the
+imposition of a tenth penny upon every one of its commercial
+transactions.  He thought that a people, crippled as this had been by the
+operations of the Blood Council; could pay ten per cent., not annually
+but daily; not upon its income, but upon its capital; not once only, but
+every time the value constituting the capital changed hands.  He had
+boasted that he should require no funds from Spain, but that, on the
+contrary, he should make annual remittances to the royal treasury at
+home, from the proceeds of his imposts and confiscations; yet,
+notwithstanding these resources, and notwithstanding twenty-five millions
+of gold in five years, sent by Philip from Madrid, the exchequer of the
+provinces was barren and bankrupt when his successor arrived.  Requesens
+found neither a penny in the public treasury nor the means of raising
+one.
+
+As an administrator of the civil and judicial affairs of the country,
+Alva at once reduced its institutions to a frightful simplicity.  In the
+place of the ancient laws of which the Netherlanders were so proud, he
+substituted the Blood Council.  This tribunal was even more arbitrary
+than the Inquisition.  Never was a simpler apparatus for tyranny devised,
+than this great labor-saving machine.  Never was so great a, quantity of
+murder and robbery achieved with such despatch and regularity.
+Sentences, executions, and confiscations, to an incredible extent, were
+turned out daily with appalling precision.  For this invention, Alva is
+alone responsible.  The tribunal and its councillors were the work and
+the creatures of his hand, and faithfully did they accomplish the dark
+purpose of their existence.  Nor can it be urged, in extenuation of the
+Governor's crimes, that he was but the blind and fanatically loyal slave
+of his sovereign.  A noble nature could not have contaminated itself with
+such slaughter-house work, but might have sought to mitigate the royal
+policy, without forswearing allegiance.  A nature less rigid than iron,
+would at least have manifested compunction, as it found itself converted
+into a fleshless instrument of massacre.  More decided than his master,
+however, he seemed, by his promptness, to rebuke the dilatory genius of
+Philip.  The King seemed, at times, to loiter over his work, teasing and
+tantalising his appetite for vengeance, before it should be gratified:
+Alva, rapid and brutal, scorned such epicureanism.  He strode with
+gigantic steps over haughty statutes and popular constitutions; crushing
+alike the magnates who claimed a bench of monarchs for their jury, and
+the ignoble artisans who could appeal only to the laws of their land.
+From the pompous and theatrical scaffolds of Egmont and Horn, to the
+nineteen halters prepared by Master Karl, to hang up the chief bakers and
+brewers of Brussels on their own thresholds--from the beheading of the
+twenty nobles on the Horse-market, in the opening of the Governor's
+career, to the roasting alive of Uitenhoove at its close-from the block
+on which fell the honored head of Antony Straalen, to the obscure chair
+in which the ancient gentlewoman of Amsterdam suffered death for an act
+of vicarious mercy--from one year's end to another's--from the most
+signal to the most squalid scenes of sacrifice, the eye and hand of the
+great master directed, without weariness, the task imposed by the
+sovereign.
+
+No doubt the work of almost indiscriminate massacre had been duly mapped
+out.  Not often in history has a governor arrived to administer the
+affairs of a province, where the whole population, three millions strong,
+had been formally sentenced to death.  As time wore on, however, he even
+surpassed the bloody instructions which he had received.  He waved aside
+the recommendations of the Blood Council to mercy; he dissuaded the
+monarch from attempting the path of clemency, which, for secret reasons,
+Philip was inclined at one period to attempt.  The Governor had, as he
+assured the King, been using gentleness in vain, and he was now
+determined to try what a little wholesome severity could effect.  These
+words were written immediately after the massacres at Harlem.
+
+With all the bloodshed at Mons, and Naarden, and Mechlin, and by the
+Council of Tumults, daily, for six years long, still crying from the
+ground, he taxed himself with a misplaced and foolish tenderness to the
+people.  He assured the King that when Alkmaar should be taken, he would,
+not spare a "living soul among its whole population;" and, as his parting
+advice, he recommended that every city in the Netherlands should be
+burned to the ground, except a few which could he occupied permanently by
+the royal troops.  On the whole, so finished a picture of a perfect and
+absolute tyranny has rarely been presented to mankind by history, as in
+Alva's administration of the Netherlands.
+
+The tens of thousands in those miserable provinces who fell victims to
+the gallows, the sword, the stake, the living grave, or to living
+banishment, have never been counted; for those statistics of barbarity
+are often effaced from human record.  Enough, however, is known, and
+enough has been recited in the preceding pages.  No mode in which human
+beings have ever caused their fellow-creatures to suffer, was omitted
+from daily practice.  Men, women, and children, old and young, nobles
+and paupers, opulent burghers, hospital patients, lunatics, dead bodies,
+all were indiscriminately made to furnish food for-the scaffold and the
+stake.  Men were tortured, beheaded, hanged by the neck and by the legs,
+burned before slow fires, pinched to death with red hot tongs, broken
+upon the wheel, starved, and flayed alive.  Their skins stripped from the
+living body, were stretched upon drums, to be beaten in the march of
+their brethren to the gallows.  The bodies of many who had died a natural
+death were exhumed, and their festering remains hanged upon the gibbet,
+on pretext that they had died without receiving the sacrament, but in
+reality that their property might become the legitimate prey of the
+treasury.  Marriages of long standing were dissolved by order of
+government, that rich heiresses might be married against their will to
+foreigners whom they abhorred.  Women and children were executed for the
+crime of assisting their fugitive husbands and parents with a penny in
+their utmost need, and even for consoling them with a letter, in their
+exile.  Such was the regular course of affairs as administered by the
+Blood Council.  The additional barbarities committed amid the sack and
+ruin of those blazing and starving cities, are almost beyond belief;
+unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women
+and children were violated by thousands; and whole populations burned and
+hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in its wanton
+ingenuity, could devise.  Such was the administration, of which Vargas
+affirmed, at its close, that too much mercy, "nimia misericordia," had
+been its ruin.
+
+Even Philip, inspired by secret views, became wearied of the Governor,
+who, at an early period, had already given offence by his arrogance.
+To commemorate his victories, the Viceroy had erected a colossal statue,
+not to his monarch, but to himself.  To proclaim the royal pardon, he had
+seated himself upon a golden throne.  Such insolent airs could be ill
+forgiven by the absolute King.  Too cautious to provoke an open rupture,
+he allowed the Governor, after he had done all his work, and more than
+all his work, to retire without disgrace, but without a triumph.  For the
+sins of that administration, master and servant are in equal measure
+responsible.
+
+The character of the Duke of Alva, so far as the Netherlands are
+concerned, seems almost like a caricature.  As a creation of fiction, it
+would seem grotesque: yet even that hardy, historical scepticism, which
+delights in reversing the judgment of centuries, and in re-establishing
+reputations long since degraded to the dust, must find it difficult to
+alter this man's position.  No historical decision is final; an appeal to
+a more remote posterity, founded upon more accurate evidence, is always
+valid; but when the verdict has been pronounced upon facts which are
+undisputed, and upon testimony from the criminal's lips, there is
+little chance of a reversal of the sentence.  It is an affectation
+of philosophical candor to extenuate vices which are not only avowed,
+but claimed as virtues.
+
+     [The time is past when it could be said that the cruelty of Alva, or
+     the enormities of his administration, have been exaggerated by party
+     violence.  Human invention is incapable of outstripping the truth
+     upon this subject.  To attempt the defence of either the man or his
+     measures at the present day is to convict oneself of an amount of
+     ignorance or of bigotry against which history and argument are alike
+     powerless.  The publication of the Duke's letters in the
+     correspondence of Simancas and in the Besancon papers, together with
+     that compact mass of horror, long before the world under the title
+     of "Sententien van Alva," in which a portion only of the sentences
+     of death and banishment pronounced by him during his reign, have
+     been copied from the official records--these in themselves would be
+     a sufficient justification of all the charges ever brought by the
+     most bitter contemporary of Holland or Flanders.  If the
+     investigator should remain sceptical, however, let him examine the
+     "Registre des Condamnes et Bannia a Cause des Troubles des Pays
+     Bas," in three, together with the Records of the "Conseil des
+     Troubles," in forty-three folio volumes, in the Royal Archives at
+     Brussels.  After going through all these chronicles of iniquity, the
+     most determined historic, doubter will probably throw up the case.]
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Advised his Majesty to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh
+Angle with their dissimulation as with a hook
+Luther's axiom, that thoughts are toll-free
+Only kept alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breast
+Scepticism, which delights in reversing the judgment of centuries
+So much responsibility and so little power
+Sometimes successful, even although founded upon sincerity
+We are beginning to be vexed
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1573 ***
+
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