Books: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555 59
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John Lothrop Motley >> The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555 59
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The court was organized during his residence at Brussels on the
Burgundian, not the Spanish model, but of the one hundred and fifty
persons who composed it, nine tenths of the whole were Spaniards; the
other fifteen or sixteen being of various nations, Flemings, Burgundians,
Italians, English, and Germans. Thus it is obvious how soon he
disregarded his father's precept and practice in this respect, and began
to lay the foundation of that renewed hatred to Spaniards which was soon
to become so intense, exuberant, and fatal throughout every class of
Netherlanders. He esteemed no nation but the Spanish, with Spaniards he
consorted, with Spaniards he counselled, through Spaniards he governed.
His council consisted of five or six Spanish grandees, the famous Ruy
Gomez, then Count of Melito, afterwards Prince of Eboli; the Duke of
Alva, the Count de Feria, the Duke of Franca Villa, Don Antonio Toledo,
and Don Juan Manrique de Lara. The "two columns," said Suriano, "which
sustain this great machine, are Ruy Gomez and Alva, and from their
councils depends the government of half the world." The two were ever
bitterly opposed to each other. Incessant were their bickerings, intense
their mutual hate, desperate and difficult the situation of any man,
whether foreigner or native, who had to transact business with the
government. If he had secured the favor of Gomez, he had already earned
the enmity of Alva. Was he protected by the Duke, he was sure to be cast
into outer darkness by the favorite.--Alva represented the war party,
Ruy Gomez the pacific polity more congenial to the heart of Philip.
The Bishop of Arras, who in the opinion of the envoys was worth them all
for his capacity and his experience, was then entirely in the background,
rarely entering the council except when summoned to give advice in
affairs of extraordinary delicacy or gravity. He was, however, to
reappear most signally in course of the events already preparing. The
Duke of Alva, also to play so tremendous a part in the yet unborn history
of the Netherlands, was not beloved by Philip. He was eclipsed at this
period by the superior influence of the favorite, and his sword,
moreover, became necessary in the Italian campaign which was impending.
It is remarkable that it was a common opinion even at that day that the
duke was naturally hesitating and timid. One would have thought that his
previous victories might have earned for him the reputation for courage
and skill which he most unquestionably deserved. The future was to
develop those other characteristics which were to make his name the
terror and wonder of the world.
The favorite, Ruy Gomez da Silva, Count de Melito, was the man upon whose
shoulders the great burthen of the state reposed. He was of a family
which was originally Portuguese. He had been brought up with the King,
although some eight years his senior, and their friendship dated from
earliest youth. It was said that Ruy Gomez, when a boy, had been
condemned to death for having struck Philip, who had come between him and
another page with whom he was quarrelling. The Prince threw himself
passionately at his father's feet, and implored forgiveness in behalf of
the culprit with such energy that the Emperor was graciously pleased to
spare the life of the future prime minister. The incident was said to
have laid the foundation of the remarkable affection which was supposed
to exist between the two, to an extent never witnessed before between
king and subject. Ruy Gomez was famous for his tact and complacency, and
omitted no opportunity of cementing the friendship thus auspiciously
commenced. He was said to have particularly charmed his master, upon one
occasion, by hypocritically throwing up his cards at a game of hazard
played for a large stake, and permitting him to win the game with a far
inferior hand. The King learning afterwards the true state of the case,
was charmed by the grace and self-denial manifested by the young
nobleman. The complacency which the favorite subsequently exhibited in
regard to the connexion which existed so long and so publicly between his
wife, the celebrated Princess Eboli, and Philip, placed his power upon an
impregnable basis, and secured it till his death.
At the present moment he occupied the three posts of valet, state
councillor, and finance minister. He dressed and undressed his master,
read or talked him to sleep, called him in the morning, admitted those
who were to have private audiences, and superintended all the
arrangements of the household. The rest of the day was devoted to the
enormous correspondence and affairs of administration which devolved upon
him as first minister of state and treasury. He was very ignorant. He
had no experience or acquirement in the arts either of war or peace, and
his early education had been limited. Like his master, he spoke no
tongue but Spanish, and he had no literature. He had prepossessing
manners, a fluent tongue, a winning and benevolent disposition. His
natural capacity for affairs was considerable, and his tact was so
perfect that he could converse face to face with statesmen; doctors, and
generals upon campaigns, theology, or jurisprudence, without betraying
any remarkable deficiency. He was very industrious, endeavoring to make
up by hard study for his lack of general knowledge, and to sustain with
credit the burthen of his daily functions. At the same time, by the
King's desire, he appeared constantly at the frequent banquets,
masquerades, tourneys and festivities, for which Brussels at that epoch
was remarkable. It was no wonder that his cheek was pale, and that he
seemed dying of overwork. He discharged his duties cheerfully, however,
for in the service of Philip he knew no rest. "After God," said
Badovaro, "he knows no object save the felicity of his master." He was
already, as a matter of course, very rich, having been endowed by Philip
with property to the amount of twenty-six thousand dollars yearly, [at
values of 1855] and the tide of his fortunes was still at the flood.
Such were the two men, the master and the favorite, to whose hands the
destinies of the Netherlands were now entrusted.
The Queen of Hungary had resigned the office of Regent of the
Netherlands, as has been seen, on the occasion of the Emperor's
abdication. She was a woman of masculine character, a great huntress
before the Lord, a celebrated horsewoman, a worthy descendant of the Lady
Mary of Burgundy. Notwithstanding all the fine phrases exchanged between
herself and the eloquent Maas, at the great ceremony of the 25th of
October, she was, in reality, much detested in the provinces, and she
repaid their aversion with abhorrence. "I could not live among these
people," she wrote to the Emperor, but a few weeks before the abdication,
"even as a private person, for it would be impossible for me to do my
duty towards God and my prince. As to governing them, I take God to
witness that the task is so abhorrent to me, that I would rather earn my
daily bread by labor than attempt it." She added, that a woman of fifty
years of age, who had served during twenty-five of them, had a right to
repose, and that she was moreover "too old to recommence and learn her A,
B, C." The Emperor, who had always respected her for the fidelity with
which she had carried out his designs, knew that it was hopeless to
oppose her retreat. As for Philip, he hated his aunt, and she hated him-
-although, both at the epoch of the abdication and subsequently, he was
desirous that she should administer the government.
The new Regent was to be the Duke of Savoy. This wandering and
adventurous potentate had attached himself to Philip's fortunes, and had
been received by the King with as much favor as he had ever enjoyed at
the hands of the Emperor. Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, then about twenty-
six or seven years of age, was the son of the late unfortunate duke, by
Donna Beatrice of Portugal, sister of the Empress. He was the nephew of
Charles, and first cousin to Philip. The partiality of the Emperor for
his mother was well known, but the fidelity with which the family had
followed the imperial cause had been productive of nothing but disaster
to the duke. He had been ruined in fortune, stripped of all his
dignities and possessions. His son's only inheritance was his sword.
The young Prince of Piedmont, as he was commonly called in his youth;
sought the camp of the Emperor, and was received with distinguished
favor. He rose rapidly in the military service. Acting always upon his
favorite motto, "Spoliatis arma supersunt," he had determined, if
possible, to carve his way to glory, to wealth, and even to his
hereditary estates, by his sword alone. War was not only his passion,
but his trade. Every one of his campaigns was a speculation, and he had
long derived a satisfactory income by purchasing distinguished prisoners
of war at a low price from the soldiers who had captured them, and were
ignorant of their rank, and by ransoming them afterwards at an immense
advance. This sort of traffic in men was frequent in that age, and was
considered perfectly honorable. Marshal Strozzi, Count Mansfeld, and
other professional soldiers, derived their main income from the system.
They were naturally inclined, therefore, to look impatiently upon a state
of peace as an unnatural condition of affairs which cut off all the
profits of their particular branch of industry, and condemned them both
to idleness and poverty. The Duke of Savoy had become one of the most
experienced and successful commanders of the age, and an especial
favorite with the Emperor. He had served with Alva in the campaigns
against the Protestants of Germany, and in other important fields. War
being his element, he considered peace as undesirable, although he could
recognize its existence. A truce he held, however, to be a senseless
parodox, unworthy of the slightest regard. An armistice, such as was
concluded on the February following the abdication, was, in his opinion,
only to be turned to account by dealing insidious and unsuspected blows
at the enemy, some portion of whose population might repose confidence in
the plighted faith of monarchs and plenipotentiaries. He had a show of
reason for his political and military morality, for he only chose to
execute the evil which had been practised upon himself. His father had
been beggared, his mother had died of spite and despair, he had himself
been reduced from the rank of a sovereign to that of a mercenary soldier,
by spoliations made in time of truce. He was reputed a man of very
decided abilities, and was distinguished for headlong bravery. His
rashness and personal daring were thought the only drawbacks to his high
character as a commander. He had many accomplishments. He spoke Latin,
French, Spanish, and Italian with equal fluency, was celebrated for his
attachment to the fine arts, and wrote much and with great elegance.
Such had been Philibert of Savoy, the pauper nephew of the powerful
Emperor, the adventurous and vagrant cousin of the lofty Philip, a prince
without a people, a duke without a dukedom; with no hope but in warfare,
with no revenue but rapine; the image, in person, of a bold and manly
soldier, small, but graceful and athletic, martial in bearing, "wearing
his sword under his arm like a corporal," because an internal malady made
a belt inconvenient, and ready to turn to swift account every chance
which a new series of campaigns might open to him. With his new salary
as governor, his pensions, and the remains of his possessions in Nice and
Piedmont, he had now the splendid annual income of one hundred thousand
crowns, and was sure to spend it all.
It had been the desire of Charles to smooth the commencement of Philip's
path. He had for this purpose made a vigorous effort to undo, as it
were, the whole work of his reign, to suspend the operation of his whole
political system. The Emperor and conqueror, who had been warring all
his lifetime, had attempted, as the last act of his reign, to improvise
a peace. But it was not so easy to arrange a pacification of Europe as
dramatically as he desired, in order that he might gather his robes about
him, and allow the curtain to fall upon his eventful history in a grand
hush of decorum and quiet. During the autumn and winter of 1555,
hostilities had been virtually suspended, and languid negotiations
ensued. For several months armies confronted each other without
engaging, and diplomatists fenced among themselves without any palpable
result. At last the peace commissioners, who had been assembled at
Vaucelles since the beginning of the year 1556, signed a treaty of truce
rather than of peace, upon the 5th of February. It was to be an
armistice of five years, both by land and sea, for France, Spain,
Flanders, and Italy, throughout all the dominions of the French and
Spanish monarchs. The Pope was expressly included in the truce, which
was signed on the part of France by Admiral Coligny and Sebastian
l'Aubespine; on that of Spain, by Count de Lalain, Philibert de
Bruxelles, Simon Renard, and Jean Baptiste Sciceio, a jurisconsult of
Cremona. During the precious month of December, however, the Pope had
concluded with the French monarch a treaty, by which this solemn
armistice was rendered an egregious farce. While Henry's
plenipotentiaries had been plighting their faith to those of Philip,
it had been arranged that France should sustain, by subsidies and armies,
the scheme upon which Paul was bent, to drive the Spaniards entirely out
of the Italian peninsula. The king was to aid the pontiff, and, in
return, was to carve thrones for his own younger children out of the
confiscated realms of Philip. When was France ever slow to sweep upon
Italy with such a hope? How could the ever-glowing rivalry of Valois and
Habsburg fail to burst into a general conflagration, while the venerable
vicegerent of Christ stood thus beside them with his fan in his hand?
For a brief breathing space, however, the news of the pacification
occasioned much joy in the provinces. They rejoiced even in a temporary
cessation of that long series of campaigns from which they could
certainly derive no advantage, and in which their part was to furnish
money, soldiers, and battlefields, without prospect of benefit from any
victory, however brilliant, or any treaty, however elaborate.
Manufacturing, agricultural and commercial provinces, filled to the full
with industrial life, could not but be injured by being converted into
perpetual camps. All was joy in the Netherlands, while at Antwerp, the
great commercial metropolis of the provinces and of Europe, the rapture
was unbounded. Oxen were roasted whole in the public squares; the
streets, soon to be empurpled with the best blood of her citizens, ran
red with wine; a hundred triumphal arches adorned the pathway of Philip
as he came thither; and a profusion of flowers, although it was February,
were strewn before his feet. Such was his greeting in the light-hearted
city, but the countenance was more than usually sullen with which the
sovereign received these demonstrations of pleasure. It was thought by
many that Philip had been really disappointed in the conclusion of the
armistice, that he was inspired with a spark of that martial ambition for
which his panegyrists gave him credit, and that knowing full well the
improbability of a long suspension of hostilities, he was even eager for
the chance of conquest which their resumption would afford him. The
secret treaty of the Pope was of course not so secret but that the hollow
intention of the contracting parties to the truce of Vaucelles were
thoroughly suspected; intentions which certainly went far to justify the
maxims and the practice of the new governor-general of the Netherlands
upon the subject of armistices.
Philip, understanding his position, was revolving renewed military
projects while his subjects were ringing merry bells and lighting
bonfires in the Netherlands. These schemes, which were to be carried out
in the immediate future, caused, however, a temporary delay in the great
purpose to which he was to devote his life.
The Emperor had always desired to regard the Netherlands as a whole, and
he hated the antiquated charters and obstinate privileges which
interfered with his ideas of symmetry. Two great machines, the court of
Mechlin and the inquisition, would effectually simplify and assimilate
all these irregular and heterogeneous rights. The civil tribunal was to
annihilate all diversities in their laws by a general cassation of their
constitutions, and the ecclesiastical court was to burn out all
differences in their religious faith. Between two such millstones it was
thought that the Netherlands might be crushed into uniformity. Philip
succeeded to these traditions. The father had never sufficient leisure
to carry out all his schemes, but it seemed probable that the son would
be a worthy successor, at least in all which concerned the religious part
of his system. One of the earliest measures of his reign was to re-enact
the dread edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop
of Arras who represented to him the expediency of making use of the
popularity of his father's name, to sustain the horrible system resolved
upon. As Charles was the author of the edict, it could be always argued
that nothing new was introduced; that burning, hanging, and drowning for
religious differences constituted a part of the national institutions;
that they had received the sanction of the wise Emperor, and had been
sustained by the sagacity of past generations. Nothing could have been
more subtle, as the event proved, than this advice. Innumerable were the
appeals made in subsequent years, upon this subject, to the patriotism
and the conservative sentiments of the Netherlanders. Repeatedly they
were summoned to maintain the inquisition, on the ground that it had been
submitted to by their ancestors, and that no change had been made by
Philip, who desired only to maintain church and crown in the authority
which they had enjoyed in the days of his father of very laudable
memory.
Nevertheless, the King's military plans seemed to interfere for the
moment with this cherished object. He seemed to swerve, at starting,
from pursuing the goal which he was only to abandon with life. The edict
of 1550 was re-enacted and confirmed, and all office-holders were
commanded faithfully to enforce it upon pain of immediate dismissal.
Nevertheless, it was not vigorously carried into effect any where.
It was openly resisted in Holland, its proclamation was flatly refused
in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. It was strange that such
disobedience should be tolerated, but the King wanted money. He was
willing to refrain for a season from exasperating the provinces by fresh
religious persecution at the moment when he was endeavoring to extort
every penny which it was possible to wring from their purses.
The joy, therefore, with which the pacification had been hailed by the
people was far from an agreeable spectacle to the King. The provinces
would expect that the forces which had been maintained at their expense
during the war would be disbanded, whereas he had no intention of
disbanding them. As the truce was sure to be temporary, he had no
disposition to diminish his available resources for a war which might be
renewed at any moment. To maintain the existing military establishment
in the Netherlands, a large sum of money was required, for the pay was
very much in arrear. The king had made a statement to the provincial
estates upon this subject, but the matter was kept secret during the
negotiations with France. The way had thus been paved for the "Request"
or "Bede," which he now made to the estates assembled at Brussels, in the
spring of 1556. It was to consist of a tax of one per cent. (the
hundredth penny) upon all real estate, and of two per cent. upon all
merchandise; to be collected in three payments. The request, in so far
as the imposition of the proposed tax was concerned, was refused by
Flanders, Brabant, Holland, and all the other important provinces, but
as usual, a moderate, even a generous, commutation in money was offered
by the estates. This was finally accepted by Philip, after he had become
convinced that at this moment, when he was contemplating a war with
France, it would be extremely impolitic to insist upon the tax. The
publication of the truce in Italy had been long delayed, and the first
infractions which it suffered were committed in that country. The arts
of politicians; the schemes of individual ambition, united with the
short-lived military ardor of Philip to place the monarch in an eminently
false position, that of hostility to the Pope. As was unavoidable, the
secret treaty of December acted as an immediate dissolvent to the truce
of February.
Great was the indignation of Paul Caraffa, when that truce was first
communicated to him by the Cardinal de Tournon, on the part of the French
Government. Notwithstanding the protestations of France that the secret
league was still binding, the pontiff complained that he was likely to be
abandoned to his own resources, and to be left single-handed to contend
with the vast power of Spain.
Pope Paul IV., of the house of Caraffa, was, in position, the well-known
counterpart of the Emperor Charles. At the very moment when the
conqueror and autocrat was exchanging crown for cowl, and the proudest
throne of the universe for a cell, this aged monk, as weary of scientific
and religious seclusion as Charles of pomp and power, had abdicated his
scholastic pre-eminence, and exchanged his rosary for the keys and sword.
A pontifical Faustus, he had become disgusted with the results of a life
of study and abnegation, and immediately upon his election appeared to be
glowing with mundane passions, and inspired by the fiercest ambition of a
warrior. He had rushed from the cloister as eagerly as Charles had
sought it. He panted for the tempests of the great external world as
earnestly as the conqueror who had so long ridden upon the whirlwind of
human affairs sighed for a haven of repose. None of his predecessors
had been more despotic, more belligerent, more disposed to elevate and
strengthen the temporal power of Rome. In the inquisition he saw the
grand machine by which this purpose could be accomplished, and yet found
himself for a period the antagonist of Philip. The single circumstance
would have been sufficient, had other proofs been wanting, to make
manifest that the part which he had chosen to play was above his genius.
Had his capacity been at all commensurate with his ambition, he might
have deeply influenced the fate of the world; but fortunately no wizard's
charm came to the aid of Paul Caraffa, and the triple-crowned monk sat
upon the pontifical throne, a fierce, peevish, querulous, and quarrelsome
dotard; the prey and the tool of his vigorous enemies and his intriguing
relations. His hatred of Spain and Spaniards was unbounded. He raved at
them as "heretics, schismatics, accursed of God, the spawn of Jews and
Moors, the very dregs of the earth." To play upon such insane passions
was not difficult, and a skilful artist stood ever ready to strike the
chords thus vibrating with age and fury. The master spirit and principal
mischief-maker of the papal court was the well-known Cardinal Caraffa,
once a wild and dissolute soldier, nephew to the Pope. He inflamed the
anger of the pontiff by his representations, that the rival house of
Colonna, sustained by the Duke of Alva, now viceroy of Naples, and by the
whole Spanish power, thus relieved from the fear of French hostilities,
would be free to wreak its vengeance upon their family. It was
determined that the court of France should be held by the secret league.
Moreover, the Pope had been expressly included in the treaty of
Vaucelles, although the troops of Spain had already assumed a hostile
attitude in the south of Italy. The Cardinal was for immediately
proceeding to Paris, there to excite the sympathy of the French monarch
for the situation of himself and his uncle. An immediate rupture between
France and Spain, a re-kindling of the war flames from one end of Europe
to the other, were necessary to save the credit and the interests of the
Caraffas. Cardinal de Tournon, not desirous of so sudden a termination
to the pacific relations between his, country and Spain, succeeded in
detaining him a little longer in Rome.--He remained, but not in
idleness. The restless intriguer had already formed close relations with
the most important personage in France, Diana of Poitiers.--This
venerable courtesan, to the enjoyment of whose charms Henry had
succeeded, with the other regal possessions, on the death of his father,
was won by the flatteries of the wily Caraffa, and by the assiduities of
the Guise family. The best and most sagacious statesmen, the Constable,
and the Admiral, were in favor of peace, for they knew the condition of
the kingdom. The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine were for a
rupture, for they hoped to increase their family influence by war.
Coligny had signed the treaty of Vaucelles, and wished to maintain it,
but the influence of the Catholic party was in the ascendant. The result
was to embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against themselves.
The queen was as favorably inclined as the mistress to listen to Caraffa,
for Catherine de Medici was desirous that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi,
should have honorable and profitable employment in some fresh Italian
campaigns.
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