Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
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The alarm and indignation of the people of Antwerp knew no bounds.
Their suspicions at first fell on the duke of Anjou and the French
party; but the truth was soon discovered; and the rapid recovery
of the Prince of Orange from his desperate wound set everything
once more to rights. But a premature report of his death flew
rapidly abroad; and he had anticipated proofs of his importance
in the eyes of all Europe, in the frantic delight of the base,
and the deep affliction of the good. Within three months, William
was able to accompany the duke of Anjou in his visits to Ghent,
Bruges, and the other chief towns of Flanders; in each of which the
ceremony of inauguration was repeated. Several military exploits
now took place, and various towns fell into the hands of the
opposing parties; changing masters with a rapidity, as well as a
previous endurance of suffering, that must have carried confusion
and change on the contending principles of allegiance into the
hearts and heads of the harassed inhabitants.
The duke of Anjou, intemperate, inconstant, and unprincipled,
saw that his authority was but the shadow of power, compared to
the deep-fixed practices of despotism which governed the other
nations of Europe. The French officers, who formed his suite and
possessed all his confidence, had no difficulty in raising his
discontent into treason against the people with whom he had made
a solemn compact. The result of their councils was a deep-laid
plot against Flemish liberty; and its execution was ere-long
attempted. He sent secret orders to the governors of Dunkirk,
Bruges, Termonde, and other towns, to seize on and hold them
in his name; reserving for himself the infamy of the enterprise
against Antwerp. To prepare for its execution, he caused his
numerous army of French and Swiss to approach the city; and they
were encamped in the neighborhood, at a place called Borgerhout.
On the 17th of January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier
than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review
his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his
guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second
drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal
for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had
fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers,
"Courage, courage! the town is ours!" The guard at the gate was
all soon despatched; and the French troops, which waited outside
to the number of three thousand, rushed quickly in, furiously
shouting the war-cry, "Town taken! town taken! kill! kill!" The
astonished but intrepid citizens, recovering from their confusion,
instantly flew to arms. All differences in religion or politics
were forgotten in the common danger to their freedom. Catholics
and Protestants, men and women, rushed alike to the conflict.
The ancient spirit of Flanders seemed to animate all. Workmen,
armed with the instruments of their various trades, started from
their shops and flung themselves upon the enemy. A baker sprang
from the cellar where he was kneading his dough, and with his
oven shovel struck a French dragoon to the ground. Those who
had firearms, after expending their bullets, took from their
pouches and pockets pieces of money, which they bent between
their teeth, and used for charging their arquebuses. The French
were driven successively from the streets and ramparts, and the
cannons planted on the latter were immediately turned against
the reinforcements which attempted to enter the town. The French
were everywhere beaten; the duke of Anjou saved himself by flight,
and reached Termonde, after the perilous necessity of passing
through a large tract of inundated country. His loss in this
base enterprise amounted to one thousand five hundred; while
that of the citizens did not exceed eighty men. The attempts
simultaneously made on the other towns succeeded at Dunkirk and
Termonde; but all the others failed.
The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly
great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled
and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between
the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the
former from excess, and the latter from execration. The disgraced
and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as
they were hypocritical; and his brother, the king of France, sent
a special envoy to intercede for him. But it was the influence of
William that screened the culprit from public reprobation and
ruin, and regained for him the place and power which he might
easily have secured for himself, had he not prized the welfare
of his country far above all objects of private advantage. A new
treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station,
with renewed security against any future treachery on his part. He
in the meantime retired to France, to let the public indignation
subside; but before he could assume sufficient confidence again to
face the country he had so basely injured his worthless existence
was suddenly terminated, some thought by poison--the common solution
of all such doubtful questions in those days--in the month of June
in the following year. He expired in his twenty-ninth year.
A disgusting proof of public ingratitude and want of judgment
was previously furnished by the conduct of the people of Antwerp
against him who had been so often their deliverer from such various
dangers. Unable to comprehend the greatness of his mind, they
openly accused the Prince of Orange of having joined with the
French for their subjugation, and of having concealed a body
of that detested nation in the citadel. The populace rushed to
the place, and having minutely examined it, were convinced of
their own absurdity and the prince's innocence. He scorned to
demand their punishment for such an outrageous calumny; but he was
not the less afflicted at it. He took the resolution of quitting
Flanders, as it turned out, forever; and he retired into Zealand,
where he was better known and consequently better trusted.
In the midst of the consequent confusion in the former of these
provinces, the prince of Parma, with indefatigable vigor, made
himself master of town after town; and turned his particular
attention to the creation of a naval force, which was greatly
favored by the possession of Dunkirk, Nieuport, and Gravelines.
Native treachery was not idle in this time of tumult and confusion.
The count of Renneberg, governor of Friesland and Groningen,
had set the basest example, and gone over to the Spaniards. The
prince of Chimay, son of the duke of Arschot, and governor of
Bruges, yielded to the persuasions of his father, and gave up
the place to the prince of Parma. Hembyse also, amply confirming
the bad opinion in which the Prince of Orange always held him,
returned to Ghent, where he regained a great portion of his former
influence, and immediately commenced a correspondence with the
prince of Parma, offering to deliver up both Ghent and Termonde.
An attempt was consequently made by the Spaniards to surprise
the former town; but the citizens were prepared for this, having
intercepted some of the letters of Hembyse; and the traitor was
seized, tried, condemned, and executed on the 4th of August, 1584.
He was upward of seventy years of age. Ryhove, his celebrated
colleague, died in Holland some years later.
But the fate of so insignificant a person as Hembyse passed almost
unnoticed, in the agitation caused by an event which shortly
preceded his death.
From the moment of their abandonment by the duke of Anjou, the
United Provinces considered themselves independent; and although
they consented to renew his authority over the country at large,
at the solicitation of the Prince of Orange, they were resolved
to confirm the influence of the latter over their particular
interests, which they were now sensible could acquire stability
only by that means. The death of Anjou left them without a sovereign;
and they did not hesitate in the choice which they were now called
upon to make. On whom, indeed, could they fix but William of
Nassau, without the utmost injustice to him, and the deepest
injury to themselves? To whom could they turn, in preference to
him who had given consistency to the early explosion of their
despair; to him who first gave the country political existence,
then nursed it into freedom, and now beheld it in the vigor and
prime of independence? He had seen the necessity, but certainly
overrated the value, of foreign support, to enable the new state
to cope with the tremendous tyranny from which it had broken.
He had tried successively Germany, England and France. From the
first and the last of these powers he had received two governors,
to whom he cheerfully resigned the title. The incapacity of both,
and the treachery of the latter, proved to the states that their
only chance for safety was in the consolidation of William's
authority; and they contemplated the noblest reward which a grateful
nation could bestow on a glorious liberator. And is it to be
believed that he who for twenty years had sacrificed his repose,
lavished his fortune, and risked his life, for the public cause,
now aimed at absolute dominion, or coveted a despotism which
all his actions prove him to have abhorred? Defeated bigotry
has put forward such vapid accusations. He has been also held
responsible for the early cruelties which, it is notorious, he
used every means to avert, and frequently punished. But while
these revolting acts can only be viewed in the light of reprisals
against the bloodiest persecution that ever existed, by exasperated
men driven to vengeance by a bad example, not one single act of
cruelty or bad faith has ever been made good against William,
who may be safely pronounced one of the wisest and best men that
history has held up as examples to the species.
The authority of one author has been produced to prove that,
during the lifetime of his brother Louis, offers were made to
him by France of the sovereignty of the northern provinces, on
condition of the southern being joined to the French crown. That
he ever accepted those offers is without proof; that he never
acted on them is certain. But he might have been justified in
purchasing freedom for those states which had so well earned
it, at the price even of a qualified independence under another
power, to the exclusion of those which had never heartily struggled
against Spain. The best evidence, however, of William's real views
is to be found in the Capitulation, as it is called; that is to
say, the act which was on the point of being executed between him
and the states, when a base fanatic, instigated by a bloody tyrant,
put a period to his splendid career. This capitulation exists at
full length, but was never formally executed. Its conditions
are founded on the same principles, and conceived in nearly the
same terms, as those accepted by the duke of Anjou; and the whole
compact is one of the most thoroughly liberal that history has
on record. The prince repaired to Delft for the ceremony of his
inauguration, the price of his long labors; but there, instead
of anticipated dignity, he met the sudden stroke of death.
On the 10th of July, as he left his dining-room, and while he
placed his foot on the first step of the great stair leading to
the upper apartments of his house, a man named Balthazar Gerard
(who, like the former assassin, waited for him at the moment of
convivial relaxation), discharged a pistol at his body. Three
balls entered it. He fell into the arms of an attendant, and
cried out faintly, in the French language, "God pity me! I am
sadly wounded--God have mercy on my soul, and on this unfortunate
nation!" His sister, the countess of Swartzenberg, who now hastened
to his side, asked him in German if he did not recommend his
soul to God? He answered, "Yes," in the same language, but with
a feeble voice. He was carried into the dining-room, where he
immediately expired. His sister closed his eyes; his wife, too,
was on the spot--Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny,
and widow of the gallant count of Teligny, both of whom were also
murdered almost in her sight, in the frightful massacre of St.
Bartholomew. We may not enter on a description of the afflicting
scene which followed; but the mind is pleased in picturing the
bold solemnity with which Prince Maurice, then eighteen years
of age, swore--not vengeance or hatred against his father's
murderers--but that he would faithfully and religiously follow
the glorious example he had given him.
Whoever would really enjoy the spirit of historical details should
never omit an opportunity of seeing places rendered memorable by
associations connected with the deeds, and especially with the
death, of great men; the spot, for instance, where William was
assassinated at Delft; the old staircase he was just on the point
of ascending; the narrow pass between that and the dining-hall
whence he came out, of scarcely sufficient extent for the murderer
to held forth his arm and his pistol, two and a half feet long.
This weapon, and its fellow, are both preserved in the museum
of The Hague, together with two of the fatal bullets, and the
very clothes which the victim wore. The leathern doublet, pierced
by the balls and burned by the powder, lies beside the other
parts of the dress, the simple gravity of which, in fashion and
color, irresistibly brings the wise, great man before us, and
adds a hundred-fold to the interest excited by a recital of his
murder.
There is but one important feature in the character of William
which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances
of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the
same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall
despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate,
indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When
he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated
into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought
up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his
profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His
whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian
principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and
that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of
the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal
toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as
subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious
liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down
his life. His assassin was taken alive, and four days afterward
executed with terrible circumstances of cruelty, which he bore
as a martyr might have borne them. He was a native of Burgundy,
and had for some months lingered near his victim, and insinuated
himself into his confidence by a feigned attachment to liberty,
and an apparent zeal for the reformed faith. He was nevertheless
a bigoted Catholic and, by his own confession, he had communicated
his design to, and received encouragement to its execution from,
more than one minister of the sect to which he belonged. But his
avowal criminated a more important accomplice, and one whose
character stands so high in history that it behooves us to examine
thoroughly the truth of the accusation, and the nature of the
collateral proofs by which it is supported. Most writers on this
question have leaned to the side which all would wish to adopt,
for the honor of human nature and the integrity of a celebrated
name. But an original letter exists in the archives of Brussels,
from the prince of Parma himself to Philip of Spain, in which he
admits that Balthazar Gerard had communicated to him his intention
of murdering the Prince of Orange some months before the deed was
done; and he mixes phrases of compassion for "the poor man" (the
murderer) and of praise for the act; which, if the document be
really authentic, sinks Alexander of Parma as low as the wretch
with whom he sympathized.
CHAPTER XIII
TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA
A.D. 1584--1592
The death of William of Nassau not only closes the scene of his
individual career, but throws a deep gloom over the history of a
revolution that was sealed by so great a sacrifice. The animation
of the story seems suspended. Its events lose for a time their
excitement. The last act of the political drama is performed. The
great hero of the tragedy is no more. The other most memorable
actors have one by one passed away. A whole generation has fallen
in the contest; and it is with exhausted interest, and feelings
less intense, that we resume the details of war and blood, which
seem no longer sanctified by the grander movements of heroism.
The stirring impulse of slavery breaking its chains yields to
the colder inspiration of independence maintaining its rights.
The men we have now to depict were born free; and the deeds they
did were those of stern resolve rather than of frantic despair.
The present picture may be as instructive as the last, but it is
less thrilling. Passion gives place to reason; and that which
wore the air of fierce romance is superseded by what bears the
stamp of calm reality.
The consternation caused by the news of William's death soon
yielded to the firmness natural to a people inured to suffering
and calamity. The United Provinces rejected at once the overtures
made by the prince of Parma to induce them to obedience. They
seemed proud to show that their fate did not depend on that of
one man. He therefore turned his attention to the most effective
means of obtaining results by force which he found it impossible
to secure by persuasion. He proceeded vigorously to the reduction
of the chief towns of Flanders, the conquest of which would give
him possession of the entire province, no army now remaining
to oppose him in the field. He soon obliged Ypres and Termonde
to surrender; and Ghent, forced by famine, at length yielded on
reasonable terms. The most severe was the utter abolition of
the reformed religion; by which a large portion of the population
was driven to the alternative of exile; and they passed over
in crowds to Holland and Zealand, not half of the inhabitants
remaining behind. Mechlin, and finally Brussels, worn out by
a fruitless resistance, followed the example of the rest; and
thus, within a year after the death of William of Nassau, the
power of Spain was again established in the whole province of
Flanders, and the others which comprise what is in modern days
generally denominated Belgium.
But these domestic victories of the prince of Parma were barren
in any of those results which humanity would love to see in the
train of conquest. The reconciled provinces presented the most
deplorable spectacle. The chief towns were almost depopulated. The
inhabitants had in a great measure fallen victims to war, pestilence
and famine. Little inducement existed to replace by marriage the
ravages caused by death, for few men wished to propagate a race
which divine wrath seemed to have marked for persecution. The
thousands of villages which had covered the face of the country
were absolutely abandoned to the wolves, which had so rapidly
increased that they attacked not merely cattle and children,
but grown-up persons. The dogs, driven abroad by hunger, had
become as ferocious as other beasts of prey, and joined in large
packs to hunt down brutes and men. Neither fields, nor woods, nor
roads, were now to be distinguished by any visible limits. All
was an entangled mass of trees, weeds, and grass. The prices of
the necessaries of life were so high that people of rank, after
selling everything to buy bread, were obliged to have recourse
to open beggary in the streets of the great towns.
From this frightful picture, and the numerous details which
imagination may readily supply, we gladly turn to the contrast
afforded by the northern states. Those we have just described
have a feeble hold upon our sympathies; we cannot pronounce their
sufferings to be unmerited. The want of firmness or enlightenment,
which preferred such an existence to the risk of entire destruction,
only heightens the glory of the people whose unyielding energy
and courage gained them so proud a place among the independent
nations of Europe.
The murder of William seemed to carry to the United Provinces
conviction of the weakness as well as the atrocity of Spain;
and the indecent joy excited among the royalists added to their
courage. An immediate council was created, composed of eighteen
members, at the head of which was unanimously placed Prince Maurice
of Nassau (who even then gave striking indications of talent and
prudence); his elder brother, the count of Beuren, now Prince
of Orange, being still kept captive in Spain. Count Hohenloe
was appointed lieutenant-general; and several other measures
were promptly adopted to consolidate the power of the infant
republic. The whole of its forces amounted but to five thousand
five hundred men. The prince of Parma had eighty thousand at
his command. With such means of carrying on his conquests, he
sat down regularly before Antwerp, and commenced the operations
of one of the most celebrated among the many memorable sieges of
those times. He completely surrounded the city with troops; placing
a large portion of his army on the left bank of the Scheldt, the
other on the right; and causing to be attacked at the same time
the two strong forts of Liefkinshoek and Lillo. Repulsed on the
latter important point, his only hope of gaining the command of
the navigation of the river, on which the success of the siege
depended, was by throwing a bridge across the stream. Neither
its great rapidity, nor its immense width, nor the want of wood
and workmen, could deter him from this vast undertaking. He was
assisted, if not guided, in all his projects on the occasion, by
Barroccio, a celebrated Italian engineer sent to him by Philip;
and the merit of all that was done ought fairly to be, at least,
divided between the general and the engineer. If enterprise and
perseverance belonged to the first, science and skill were the
portion of the latter. They first caused two strong forts to
be erected at opposite sides of the river; and adding to their
resources by every possible means, they threw forward a pier
on each side of, and far into, the stream. The stakes, driven
firmly into the bed of the river and cemented with masses of
earth and stones, were at a proper height covered with planks
and defended by parapets. These estoccades, as they were called,
reduced the river to half its original breadth; and the cannon with
which they were mounted rendered the passage extremely dangerous
to hostile vessels. But to fill up this strait a considerable
number of boats were fastened together by chain-hooks and anchors;
and being manned and armed with cannon, they were moored in the
interval between the estoccades. During these operations, a canal
was cut between the Moer and Calloo; by which means a communication
was formed with Ghent, which insured a supply of ammunition and
provisions. The works of the bridge, which was two thousand four
hundred feet in length, were constructed with such strength and
solidity that they braved the winds, the floods, and the ice
of the whole winter.
The people of Antwerp at first laughed to scorn the whole of
these stupendous preparations; but when they found that the bridge
resisted the natural elements, by which they doubted not it would
have been destroyed, they began to tremble in the anticipation
of famine; yet they vigorously prepared for their defence, and
rejected the overtures made by the prince of Parma even at this
advanced stage of his proceedings. Ninety-seven pieces of cannon
now defended the bridge; besides which thirty large barges at
each side of the river guarded its extremities; and forty ships
of war formed a fleet of protection, constantly ready to meet any
attack from the besieged. They, seeing the Scheldt thus really
closed up, and all communication with Zealand impossible, felt
their whole safety to depend on the destruction of the bridge. The
states of Zealand now sent forward an expedition, which, joined
with some ships from Lillo, gave new courage to the besieged;
and everything was prepared for their great attempt. An Italian
engineer named Giambelli was at this time in Antwerp, and by
his talents had long protracted the defence. He has the chief
merit of being the inventor of those terrible fire-ships which
gained the title of "infernal machines"; and with some of these
formidable instruments and the Zealand fleet, the long-projected
attack was at length made.
Early on the night of the 4th of April, the prince of Parma and
his army were amazed by the spectacle of three huge masses of
flame floating down the river, accompanied by numerous lesser
appearances of a similar kind, and bearing directly against the
prodigious barrier, which had cost months of labor to him and
his troops, and immense sums of money to the state. The whole
surface of the Scheldt presented one sheet of fire; the country
all round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the
soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the
forts, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of
the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all.
Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the
three machines burst with a terrific noise before they reached
their intended mark, but time enough to offer a sample of their
nature. The prince of Parma, with numerous officers and soldiers
rushed to the bridge, to witness the effects of this explosion;
and just then a second and still larger fire-ship, having burst
through the flying bridge of boats, struck against one of the
estoccades. Alexander, unmindful of danger, used every exertion
of his authority to stimulate the sailors in their attempts to
clear away the monstrous machine which threatened destruction to
all within its reach. Happily for him, an ensign who was near,
forgetting in his general's peril all rules of discipline and
forms of ceremony, actually forced him from the estoccade. He had
not put his foot on the river bank when the machine blew up. The
effects were such as really baffle description. The bridge was burst
through; the estoccade was shattered almost to atoms, and, with all
that it supported--men, cannon, and the huge machinery employed
in the various works--dispersed in the air. The cruel marquis
of Roubais, many other officers, and eight hundred soldiers,
perished in all varieties of death--by flood, or flame, or the
horrid wounds from the missiles with which the terrible machine
was overcharged. Fragments of bodies and limbs were flung far
and wide; and many gallant soldiers were destroyed, without a
vestige of the human form being left to prove that they had ever
existed. The river, forced from its bed at either side, rushed
into the forts and drowned numbers of their garrisons; while
the ground far beyond shook as in an earthquake. The prince was
struck down by a beam, and lay for some time senseless, together
with two generals, Delvasto and Gajitani, both more seriously
wounded than he; and many of the soldiers were burned and mutilated
in the most frightful manner. Alexander soon recovered; and by
his presence of mind, humanity, and resolution, he endeavored
with incredible quickness to repair the mischief, and raised the
confidence of his army as high as ever. Had the Zealand fleet
come in time to the spot, the whole plan might have been crowned
with success; but by some want of concert, or accidental delay,
it did not appear; and consequently the beleaguered town received
no relief.