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John Lothrop Motley >> The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1560 61
His relations with Orange were longer in changing from friendship to open
hostility. In the Prince the Cardinal met his match. He found himself
confronted by an intellect as subtle, an experience as fertile in
expedients, a temper as even, and a disposition sometimes as haughty as
his own. He never affected to undervalue the mind of Orange. "'Tis a
man of profound genius, vast ambition--dangerous, acute, politic," he
wrote to the King at a very early period. The original relations between
himself and the Prince bad been very amicable. It hardly needed the
prelate's great penetration to be aware that the friendship of so exalted
a personage as the youthful heir to the principality of Orange, and to
the vast possessions of the Chalons-Nassau house in Burgundy and the
Netherlands, would be advantageous to the ambitious son of the Burgundian
Councillor Granvelle. The young man was the favorite of the Emperor from
boyhood; his high rank, and his remarkable talents marked him
indisputably for one of the foremost men of the coming reign. Therefore
it was politic in Perrenot to seize every opportunity of making himself
useful to the Prince. He busied himself with securing, so far as it
might be necessary to secure, the succession of William to his cousin's
principality. It seems somewhat ludicrous for a merit to be made not
only for Granvelle but for the Emperor, that the Prince should have been
allowed to take an inheritance which the will of Rene de Nassau most
unequivocally conferred, and which no living creature disputed. Yet,
because some of the crown lawyers had propounded the dogma that "the son
Of a heretic ought not to succeed," it was gravely stated as an immense
act of clemency upon the part of Charles the Fifth that he had not
confiscated the whole of the young Prince's heritage. In return
Granvelle's brother Jerome had obtained the governorship of the youth,
upon whose majority he had received an honorable military appointment
from his attached pupil. The prelate had afterwards recommended the
marriage with the Count de Buren's heiress, and had used his influence
with the Emperor to overcome certain objections entertained by Charles,
that the Prince, by this great accession of wealth, might be growing too
powerful. On the other hand, there were always many poor relations and
dependents of Granvelle, eager to be benefitted by Orange's patronage,
who lived in the Prince's household, or received handsome appointments
from his generosity. Thus, there had been great intimacy, founded upon
various benefits mutually conferred; for it could hardly be asserted that
the debt of friendship was wholly upon one side.
When Orange arrived in Brussels from a journey, he would go to the
bishop's before alighting at his own house. When the churchman visited
the Prince, he entered his bed-chamber without ceremony before he had
risen; for it was William's custom, through life, to receive intimate
acquaintances, and even to attend to important negotiations of state,
while still in bed.
The show of this intimacy had lasted longer than its substance.
Granvelle was the most politic of men, and the Prince had not served
his apprenticeship at the court of Charles the Fifth to lay himself bare
prematurely to the criticism or the animosity of the Cardinal with the
recklessness of Horn and Egmont. An explosion came at last, however, and
very soon after an exceedingly amicable correspondence between the two
upon the subject of an edict of religious amnesty which Orange was
preparing for his principality, and which Granvelle had recommended him
not to make too lenient. A few weeks after this, the Antwerp magistracy
was to be renewed. The Prince, as hereditary burgrave of that city,
was entitled to a large share of the appointing power in these political
arrangements, which at the moment were of great importance. The citizens
of Antwerp were in a state of excitement on the subject of the new
bishops. They openly, and in the event, successfully resisted the
installation of the new prelate for whom their city had been constituted
a diocese. The Prince was known to be opposed to the measure, and to the
whole system of ecclesiastical persecution. When the nominations for the
new magistracy came before the Regent, she disposed of the whole matter
in the secret consulta, without the knowledge, and in a manner opposed to
the views of Orange. He was then furnished with a list of the new
magistrates, and was informed that he had been selected as commissioner
along with Count Aremberg, to see that the appointments were carried into
effect. The indignation of the Prince was extreme. He had already taken
offence at some insolent expressions upon this topic, which the Cardinal
had permitted himself. He now sent back the commission to the Duchess,
adding, it was said, that he was not her lackey, and that she might send
some one else with her errands. The words were repeated in the state
council. There was a violent altercation--Orange vehemently resenting
his appointment merely to carry out decisions in which he claimed an
original voice. His ancestors, he said, had often changed the whole of
the Antwerp magistracy by their own authority. It was a little too much
that this matter, as well as every other state affair, should be
controlled by the secret committee of which the Cardinal was the chief.
Granvelle, on his side, was also in a rage. He flung from the council-
chamber, summoned the Chancellor of Brabant, and demanded, amid bitter
execrations against Orange, what common and obscure gentleman there might
be, whom he could appoint to execute the commission thus refused by the
Prince and by Aremberg. He vowed that in all important matters he would,
on future occasions, make use of nobles less inflated by pride, and more
tractable than such grand seignors. The chancellor tried in vain to
appease the churchman's wrath, representing that the city of Antwerp
would be highly offended at the turn things were taking, and offering his
services to induce the withdrawal, on the part of the Prince, of the
language which had given so much offence. The Cardinal was inexorable
and peremptory. "I will have nothing to do with the Prince, Master
Chancellor," said he, "and these are matters which concern you not."
Thus the conversation ended, and thus began the open state of hostilities
between the great nobles and the Cardinal, which had been brooding so
long.
On the 23rd July, 1561, a few weeks after the scenes lately described,
the Count of Egmont and the Prince of Orange addressed a joint letter to
the King. They reminded him in this despatch that, they had originally
been reluctant to take office in the state council, on account of their
previous experience of the manner in which business had been conducted
during the administration of the Duke of Savoy. They had feared that
important matters of state might be transacted without their concurrence.
The King had, however, assured them, when in Zeland, that all affairs
would be uniformly treated in full council. If the contrary should ever
prove the case, he had desired them to give him information to that
effect, that he might instantly apply the remedy. They accordingly now
gave him that information. They were consulted upon small matters:
momentous affairs were decided upon in their absence. Still they would
not even now have complained had not Cardinal Granvelle declared that all
the members of the state council were to be held responsible for its
measures, whether they were present at its decisions or not. Not liking
such responsibility, they requested the King either to accept their
resignation or to give orders that all affairs should be communicated
to the whole board and deliberated upon by all the councillors.
In a private letter, written some weeks later (August 15), Egmont begged
secretary Erasso to assure the King that their joint letter had not been
dictated by passion, but by zeal for his service. It was impossible,
he said, to imagine the insolence of the Cardinal, nor to form an idea
of the absolute authority which he arrogated.
In truth, Granvelle, with all his keenness, could not see that Orange,
Egmont, Berghen, Montigny and the rest, were no longer pages and young
captains of cavalry, while he was the politician and the statesman.
By six or seven years the senior of Egmont, and by sixteen years of
Orange, he did not divest himself of the superciliousness of superior
wisdom, not unjust nor so irritating when they had all been boys.
In his deportment towards them, and in the whole tone of his private
correspondence with Philip, there was revealed, almost in spite of
himself, an affectation of authority, against which Egmont rebelled and
which the Prince was not the man to acknowledge. Philip answered the
letter of the two nobles in his usual procrastinating manner. The Count
of Horn, who was about leaving Spain (whither he had accompanied the
King) for the Netherlands, would be entrusted with the resolution which
he should think proper to take upon the subject suggested. In the mean
time, he assured them that he did not doubt their zeal in his service.
As to Count Horn, Granvelle had already prejudiced the King against him.
Horn and the Cardinal had never been friends. A brother of the prelate
had been an aspirant for the hand of the Admiral's sister, and had been
somewhat contemptuously rejected. Horn, a bold, vehement, and not very
good-tempered personage, had long kept no terms with Granvelle, and did
not pretend a friendship which he had never felt. Granvelle had just
written to instruct the King that Horn was opposed bitterly to that
measure which was nearest the King's heart--the new bishoprics. He had
been using strong language, according to the Cardinal, in opposition to
the scheme, while still in Spain. He therefore advised that his Majesty,
concealing, of course, the source of the information, and speaking as it
were out of the royal mind itself, should expostulate with the Admiral
upon the subject. Thus prompted, Philip was in no gracious humor when
he received Count Horn, then about to leave Madrid for the Netherlands,
and to take with him the King's promised answer to the communication of
Orange and Egmont. His Majesty had rarely been known to exhibit so much
anger towards any person as he manifested upon that occasion. After a
few words from the Admiral, in which he expressed his sympathy with the
other Netherland nobles, and his aversion to Granvelle, in general terms,
and in reply to Philip's interrogatories, the King fiercely interrupted
him: "What! miserable man!" he vociferated, "you all complain of this
Cardinal, and always in vague language. Not one of you, in spite of all
my questions, can give me a single reason for your dissatisfaction."
With this the royal wrath boiled over in such unequivocal terms that
the Admiral changed color, and was so confused with indignation and
astonishment, that he was scarcely able to find his way out of the room.
This was the commencement of Granvelle's long mortal combat with Egmont,
Horn, and Orange. This was the first answer which the seignors were to
receive to their remonstrances against the churchman's arrogance. Philip
was enraged that any opposition should be made to his coercive measures,
particularly to the new bishoprics, the "holy work" which the Cardinal
was ready, to "consecrate his fortune and his blood" to advance.
Granvelle fed his master's anger by constant communications as to the
efforts made by distinguished individuals to delay the execution of the
scheme. Assonville had informed him, he wrote, that much complaint had
been made on the subject by several gentlemen, at a supper of Count
Egmont's. It was said that the King ought to have consulted them all,
and the state councillors especially. The present nominees to the new
episcopates were good enough, but it would be found, they said, that very
improper personages would be afterwards appointed. The estates ought not
to permit the execution of the scheme. In short, continued Granvelle,
"there is the same kind of talk which brought about the recall of the
Spanish troops." A few months later, he wrote to inform Philip that a
petition against the new bishoprics was about to be drawn up by "the two
lords.". They had two motives; according to the Cardinal, for this step
--first, to let the King know that he could do nothing without their
permission; secondly, because in the states' assembly they were then the
cocks of the walk. They did not choose, therefore, that in the clerical
branch of the estates any body should be above the abbots, whom they
could frighten into doing whatever they chose. At the end, of the year,
Granvelle again wrote to instruct his sovereign how to reply to the
letter which was about to be addressed to him by the Prince of Orange and
the Marquis Berghen on the subject of the bishoprics. They would tell
him, he said, that the incorporation of the Brabant abbeys into the new
bishoprics was contrary to the constitution of the "joyful entrance."
Philip was, however, to make answer that he had consulted the
universities, and those learned in the laws, and had satisfied himself
that it was entirely constitutional. He was therefore advised to send
his command that the Prince and Marquis should use all their influence to
promote the success of the measure. Thus fortified, the King was enabled
not only to deal with the petition of the nobles, but also with the
deputies from the estates of Brabant, who arrived about this time at
Madrid. To these envoys, who asked for the appointment of royal
commissioners, with whom they might treat on the subject of the
bishoprics, the abbeys, and the "joyful entrance," the King answered
proudly, "that in matters which concerned the service of God, he was his
own commissioner." He afterwards, accordingly, recited to them, with
great accuracy, the lesson which he had privately received from the
ubiquitous Cardinal. Philip was determined that no remonstrance from
great nobles or from private citizens should interfere with the thorough
execution of the grand scheme on which he was resolved, and of which the
new bishoprics formed an important part. Opposition irritated him more
and more, till his hatred of the opponents became deadly; but it, at the
same time, confirmed him in his purpose. "'Tis no time to temporize," he
wrote to Granvelle; "we must inflict chastisement with full rigor and
severity. These rascals can only be made to do right through fear, and
not always even by that means."
At the same time, the royal finances did not admit of any very active
measures, at the moment, to enforce obedience to a policy which was
already so bitterly opposed. A rough estimate, made in the King's own
handwriting, of the resources and obligations of his exchequer, a kind of
balance sheet for the, years 1560 and 1561, drawn up much in the same
manner as that in which a simple individual would make a note of his
income and expenditure, gave but a dismal picture of his pecuniary,
condition. It served to show how intelligent a financier is despotism,
and how little available are the resources of a mighty empire when
regarded merely as private property, particularly when the owner chances
to have the vanity of attending to all details himself: "Twenty millions
of ducats," began the memorandum, "will be required to disengage my
revenues. But of this," added the King, with whimsical pathos for an
account-book, "we will not speak at present, as the matter is so entirely
impossible." He then proceeded to enter the various items of expense
which were to be met during the two years; such as so many millions due
to the Fuggers (the Rothschilds of the sixteenth century), so many to
merchants in Flanders, Seville, and other places, so much for Prince
Doria's galleys, so much for three years' pay due to his guards, so much
for his household expenditure, so much for the, tuition of Don Carlos,
and Don Juan d'Austria, so much for salaries of ambassadors and
councillors--mixing personal and state expenses, petty items and great
loans, in one singular jumble, but arriving at a total demand upon his
purse of ten million nine hundred and ninety thousand ducats.
To meet this expenditure he painfully enumerated the funds upon which he
could reckon for the two years. His ordinary rents and taxes being all
deeply pledged, he could only calculate from that source upon two hundred
thousand ducats. The Indian revenue, so called, was nearly spent; still
it might yield him four hundred and twenty thousand ducats. The
quicksilver mines would produce something, but so little as hardly to
require mentioning. As to the other mines, they were equally unworthy of
notice, being so very uncertain, and not doing as well as they were wont.
The licences accorded by the crown to carry slaves to America were put
down at fifty thousand ducats for the two years. The product of the
"crozada" and "cuarta," or money paid to him in small sums by
individuals, with the permission of his Holiness, for the liberty of
abstaining from the Church fasts, was estimated at five hundred thousand
ducats. These and a few more meagre items only sufficed to stretch his
income to a total of one million three hundred and thirty thousand far
the two years, against an expenditure calculated at near eleven millions.
"Thus, there are nine millions, less three thousand ducats, deficient,"
he concluded ruefully (and making a mistake in his figures in his own
favor of six hundred and sixty-three thousand besides), "which I may look
for in the sky, or try to raise by inventions already exhausted."
Thus, the man who owned all America and half of Europe could only raise a
million ducats a year from his estates. The possessor of all Peru and
Mexico could reckon on "nothing worth mentioning" from his mines, and
derived a precarious income mainly from permissions granted his subjects
to carry on the slave-trade and to eat meat on Fridays. This was
certainly a gloomy condition of affairs for a monarch on the threshold of
a war which was to outlast his own life and that of his children; a war
in which the mere army expenses were to be half a million florins
monthly, in which about seventy per cent. of the annual disbursements was
to be regularly embezzled or appropriated by the hands through which it
passed, and in which for every four men on paper, enrolled and paid for,
only one, according to the average, was brought into the field.
Granvelle, on the other hand, gave his master but little consolation from
the aspect of financial affairs in the provinces. He assured him that
"the government was often in such embarrassment as not to know where to
look for ten ducats." He complained bitterly that the states would
meddle with the administration of money matters, and were slow in the
granting of subsidies. The Cardinal felt especially outraged by the
interference of these bodies with the disbursement of the sums which
they voted. It has been seen that the states had already compelled the
government to withdraw the troops, much to the regret of Granvelle.
They continued, however, to be intractable on the subject of supplies.
"These are very vile things," he wrote to Philip, "this authority which
they assume, this audacity with which they say whatever they think
proper; and these impudent conditions which they affix to every
proposition for subsidies." The Cardinal protested that he had in vain
attempted to convince them of their error, but that they remained
perverse.
It was probably at this time that the plan for debasing the coin,
suggested to Philip some time before by a skilful chemist named Malen,
and always much approved of both by himself and Ruy Gomez, recurred to
his mind. "Another and an extraordinary source of revenue, although
perhaps not a very honorable one," wrote Suriano, "has hitherto been kept
secret; and on account of differences of opinion between the King and his
confessor, has been discontinued." This source of revenue, it seemed,
was found in "a certain powder, of which one ounce mixed with six ounces
of quicksilver would make six ounces of silver." The composition was
said to stand the test of the hammer, but not of the fire. Partly in
consequence of theological scruples and partly on account of opposition
from the states, a project formed by the King to pay his army with this
kind of silver was reluctantly abandoned. The invention, however, was so
very agreeable to the King, and the inventor had received such liberal
rewards, that it was supposed, according to the envoy, that in time of
scarcity his Majesty would make use of such coin without reluctance.
It is necessary, before concluding this chapter, which relates the
events of the years 1560 and 1561, to allude to an important affair
which occupied much attention during the whole of this period. This
is the celebrated marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Princess
Anna of Saxony. By many superficial writers; a moving cause of the great
Netherland revolt was found in the connexion of the great chieftain with
this distinguished Lutheran house. One must have studied the characters
and the times to very little purpose, however, to believe it possible
that much influence could be exerted on the mind of William of Orange by
such natures as those of Anna of Saxony, or of her uncle the Elector
Augustus, surnamed "the Pious."
The Prince had become a widower in 1558, at the age of twenty-five.
Granvelle, who was said to have been influential in arranging his first
marriage, now proposed to him, after the year of mourning had expired,
an alliance with Mademoiselle Renee, daughter of the Duchess de Lorraine,
and granddaughter of Christiern the Third of Denmark, and his wife
Isabella, sister of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Such a connexion,
not only with the royal house of Spain but with that of France--for,
the young Duke of Lorraine, brother of the lady, had espoused the
daughter of Henry the considered highly desirable by the Prince. Philip
and the Duchess Margaret of Parma both approved, or pretended to approve,
the match. At the same time the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, mother of
the intended bride, was a candidate, and a very urgent one, for the
Regency of the Netherlands. Being a woman of restless ambition, and
intriguing character, she naturally saw in a man of William's station
and talents a most desirable ally in her present and future schemes.
On the other hand, Philip--who had made open protestation of his desire
to connect the Prince thus closely with his own blood, and had warmly
recommended the match to the young lady's mother--soon afterwards, while
walking one day with the Prince in the park at Brussels, announced to him
that the Duchess of Lorraine had declined his proposals. Such a result
astonished the Prince, who was on the best of terms with the mother, and
had been urging her appointment to the Regency with all his-influence,
having entirely withdrawn his own claims to that office. No satisfactory
explanation was ever given of this singular conclusion to a courtship,
begun with the apparent consent of all parties. It was hinted that the
young lady did not fancy the Prince; but, as it was not known that a word
had ever been exchanged between them, as the Prince, in appearance and
reputation, was one of the most brilliant cavaliers of the age, and as
the approval of the bride was not usually a matter of primary consequence
in such marriages of state, the mystery seemed to require a further
solution. The Prince suspected Granvelle and the King, who were believed
to have held mature and secret deliberation together, of insincerity.
The Bishop was said to have expressed the opinion, that although the
friendship he bore the Prince would induce him to urge the marriage,
yet his duty to his master made him think it questionable whether it
were right to advance a personage already placed so high by birth,
wealth, and popularity, still higher by so near an alliance with his
Majesty's family. The King, in consequence, secretly instructed the
Duchess of Lorraine to decline the proposal, while at the same time he
continued openly to advocate the connexion. The Prince is said to have
discovered this double dealing, and to have found in it the only
reasonable explanation of the whole transaction. Moreover, the Duchess
of Lorraine, finding herself equally duped, and her own ambitious scheme
equally foiled by her unscrupulous cousin--who now, to the surprise of
every one, appointed Margaret of Parma to be Regent, with the Bishop for
her prime minister--had as little reason to be satisfied with the
combinations of royal and ecclesiastical intrigue as the Prince of Orange
himself. Soon after this unsatisfactory mystification, William turned
his attentions to Germany. Anna of Saxony, daughter of the celebrated
Elector Maurice, lived at the court of her uncle, the Elector Augustus.
A musket-ball, perhaps a traitorous one, in an obscure action with Albert
of Brandenbourg, had closed the adventurous career of her father seven
years before. The young lady, who was thought to have inherited much of
his restless, stormy character, was sixteen years of age. She was far
from handsome, was somewhat deformed, and limped. Her marriage-portion
was deemed, for the times, an ample one; she had seventy thousand rix
dollars in hand, and the reversion of thirty thousand on the death of
John Frederic the Second, who had married her mother after the death of
Maurice. Her rank was accounted far higher in Germany than that of
William of Nassau, and in this respect, rather than for pecuniary
considerations, the marriage seemed a desirable one for him. The man
who held the great Nassau-Chalons property, together with the heritage
of Count Maximilian de Buren, could hardly have been tempted by 100,000
thalers. His own provision for the children who might spring from the
proposed marriage was to be a settlement of seventy thousand florins
annually. The fortune which permitted of such liberality was not one to
be very materially increased by a dowry which might seem enormous to
many of the pauper princes of Germany. "The bride's portion," says a
contemporary, "after all, scarcely paid for the banquets and magnificent
festivals which celebrated the marriage. When the wedding was paid for,
there was not a thaler remaining of the whole sum." Nothing, then, could
be more puerile than to accuse the Prince of mercenary motives in seeking
this alliance; an accusation, however, which did not fail to be brought.