Books: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566

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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 10.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.

1855

1566 [CHAPTER VI.]

Francis Junius--His sermon at Culemburg House--The Compromise--
Portraits of Sainte Aldegonde, of Louis 'Nassau, of "Toison d'Or,"
of Charles Mansfeld--Sketch of the Compromise--Attitude of Orange--
His letter to the Duchess--Signers of the Compromise--Indiscretion
of the confederates--Espionage over Philip by Orange--
Dissatisfaction of the seigniors--Conduct of Egmont--Despair of the
people--Emigration to England--Its effects--The request--Meeting at
Breda and Hoogstraaten--Exaggerated statements concerning the
Request in the state council--Hesitation of the Duchess--Assembly of
notables--Debate concerning the Request and the inquisition--
Character of Brederode--Arrival of the petitioners in Brussels--
Presentation of the Request--Emotion of Margaret--Speech of
Brederode--Sketch of the Request--Memorable sarcasm of Berlaymont--
Deliberation in the state council--Apostille to the Request--Answer
to the Apostille--Reply of the Duchess--Speech of D'Esquerdes--
Response of Margaret--Memorable banquet at Culemburg House--Name of
"the beggars" adopted--Orange, Egmont, and Horn break up the riotous
meeting--Costume of "the beggars"--Brederode at Antwerp--Horrible
execution at Oudenardo--Similar cruelties throughout the provinces--
Project of "Moderation"--Religious views of Orange--His resignation
of all his offices not accepted--The "Moderation" characterized--
Egmont at Arras Debate on the "Moderation"--Vacillation of Egmont--
Mission of Montigny and Berghen to Spain--Instructions to the
envoys--Secret correspondence of Philip with the Pope concerning the
Netherland inquisition and the edicts--Field-preaching in the
provinces--Modet at Ghent--Other preachers characterized--Excitement
at Tournay--Peter Gabriel at Harlem--Field--preaching near Antwerp--
Embarrassment of the Regent--Excitement at Antwerp--Pensionary
Wesenbeck sent to Brussels--Orange at Antwerp--His patriotic course
--Misrepresentation of the Duchess--Intemperate zeal of Dr.
Rythovius--Meeting at St. Trond--Conference at Duffel--Louis of
Nassau deputed to the Regent--Unsatisfactory negotiations.

The most remarkable occurrence in the earlier part of the year 1556 was
the famous Compromise. This document, by which the signers pledged
themselves to oppose the inquisition, and to defend each other against
all consequences of such a resistance, was probably the work of Philip de
Marnix, Lord of Sainte Aldegonde. Much obscurity, however, rests upon
the origin of this league. Its foundations had already been laid in the
latter part of the preceding year. The nuptials of Parma with the
Portuguese princess had been the cause of much festivity, not only in
Brussels, but at Antwerp. The great commercial metropolis had celebrated
the occasion by a magnificent banquet. There had been triumphal arches,
wreaths of flowers, loyal speeches, generous sentiments, in the usual
profusion. The chief ornament of the dinner-table had been a magnificent
piece of confectionary, netting elaborately forth the mission of Count
Mansfeld with the fleet to Portugal to fetch the bride from her home,
with exquisitely finished figures in sugar--portraits, it is to be
presumed--of the principal personages as they appeared during the most
striking scenes of the history. At the very moment, however, of these
delectations, a meeting was held at Brussels of men whose minds were
occupied with sterner stuff than sugar-work. On the wedding-day of
Parma, Francis Junius, a dissenting minister then residing at Antwerp,
was invited to Brussels to preach a sermon in the house of Count
Culemburg, on the horse-market (now called Little Sablon), before
a small assembly of some twenty gentlemen.

This Francis Junius, born of a noble family in Bourges, was the pastor
of the secret French congregation of Huguenots at Antwerp. He was very
young, having arrived from Geneva, where he had been educated, to take
charge of the secret church, when but just turned of twenty years.
He was, however, already celebrated for his learning, his eloquence,
and his courage. Towards the end of 1565, it had already become known
that Junius was in secret understanding with Louis of Nassau, to prepare
an address to government on the subject of the inquisition and edicts.
Orders were given for his arrest.

A certain painter of Brussels affected conversion to the new religion,
that he might gain admission to the congregation, and afterwards earn the
reward of the informer. He played his part so well that he was permitted
to attend many meetings, in the course of which he sketched the portrait
of the preacher, and delivered it to the Duchess Regent, together with
minute statements as to his residence and daily habits. Nevertheless,
with all this assistance, the government could not succeed in laying
hands on him. He escaped to Breda, and continued his labors in spite of
persecution. The man's courage may be estimated from the fact that he
preached on one occasion a sermon, advocating the doctrines of the
reformed Church with his usual eloquence, in a room overlooking the
market-place, where, at the very, instant, the execution by fire of
several heretics was taking place, while the light from the flames in
which the brethren of their Faith were burning, was flickering through
the glass windows of the conventicle. Such was the man who preached a
sermon in Culemburg Palace on Parma's wedding-day. The nobles who
listened to him were occupied with grave discourse after conclusion
of the religious exercises. Junius took no part in their conversation,
but in his presence it was resolved that a league against the "barbarous
and violent inquisition" should be formed, and, that the confederates
should mutually bind themselves both within and without the Netherlands
to this great purpose. Junius, in giving this explicit statement; has
not mentioned the names of the nobles before whom he preached. It may be
inferred that some of them were the more ardent and the more respectable
among the somewhat miscellaneous band by whom the Compromise was
afterwards signed.

At about the same epoch, Louis of Nassau, Nicolas de Hammes, and certain
other gentlemen met at the baths of Spa. At this secret assembly, the
foundations of the Compromise were definitely laid. A document was
afterwards drawn up, which was circulated for signatures in the early
part of 1566. It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that this memorable
paper was simultaneously signed and sworn to at any solemn scene like
that of the declaration of American Independence, or like some of the
subsequent transactions in the Netherland revolt, arranged purposely for
dramatic effect. Several copies of the Compromise were passed secretly
from hand to hand, and in the course of two months some two thousand
signatures had been obtained. The original copy bore but three names,
those of Brederode, Charles de Mansfeld, and Louis of Nassau.
The composition of the paper is usually ascribed to Sainte Aldegonde,
although the fact is not indisputable. At any rate, it is very certain
that he was one of the originators and main supporters of the famous
league. Sainte Aldegonde was one of the most accomplished men of his
age. He was of ancient nobility, as he proved by an abundance of
historical and heraldic evidence, in answer to a scurrilous pamphlet in
which he had been accused, among other delinquencies, of having sprung
from plebeian blood. Having established his "extraction from true and
ancient gentlemen of Savoy, paternally and maternally," he rebuked his
assailants in manly strain. "Even had it been that I was without
nobility of birth," said he, "I should be none the less or more a
virtuous or honest man; nor can any one reproach me with having failed
in the point of honor or duty. What greater folly than to boast of the
virtue or gallantry of others, as do many nobles who, having neither a
grain of virtue in their souls nor a drop of wisdom in their brains, are
entirely useless to their country! Yet there are such men, who, because
their ancestors have done some valorous deed, think themselves fit to
direct the machinery of a whole country, having from their youth learned
nothing but to dance and to spin like weathercocks with their heads as
well as their heels." Certainly Sainte Aldegonde had learned other
lessons than these. He was one of the many-sided men who recalled
the symmetry of antique patriots. He was a poet of much vigor and
imagination; a prose writer whose style was surpassed by that of none
of his contemporaries, a diplomatist in whose tact and delicacy William
of Orange afterwards reposed in the most difficult and important
negotiations, an orator whose discourses on many great public occasions
attracted the attention of Europe, a soldier whose bravery was to be
attested afterwards on many a well-fought field, a theologian so skilful
in the polemics of divinity, that, as it will hereafter appear, he was
more than a match for a bench of bishops upon their own ground, and a
scholar so accomplished, that, besides speaking and writing the classical
and several modern languages with facility, he had also translated for
popular use the Psalms of David into vernacular verse, and at a very late
period of his life was requested by the states-general of the republic
to translate all the Scriptures, a work, the fulfilment of which was
prevented by his death. A passionate foe to the inquisition and to all
the abuses of the ancient Church, an ardent defender of civil liberty,
it must be admitted that he partook also of the tyrannical spirit of
Calvinism. He never rose to the lofty heights to which the spirit of the
great founder of the commonwealth was destined to soar, but denounced the
great principle of religious liberty for all consciences as godless.
He was now twenty-eight years of age, having been born in the same year
with his friend Louis of Nassau. His device, "Repos ailleurs," finely
typified the restless, agitated and laborious life to which he was
destined.

That other distinguished leader of the newly-formed league, Count Louis,
was a true knight of the olden time, the very mirror of chivalry.
Gentle, generous, pious; making use, in his tent before the battle,
of the prayers which his mother sent him from the home of his childhood,
--yet fiery in the field as an ancient crusader--doing the work of
general and soldier with desperate valor and against any numbers--
cheerful and steadfast under all reverses, witty and jocund in social
intercourse, animating with his unceasing spirits the graver and more
foreboding soul of his brother; he was the man to whom the eyes of the
most ardent among the Netherland Reformers were turned at this early
epoch, the trusty staff upon which the great Prince of Orange was to lean
till it was broken. As gay as Brederode, he was unstained by his vices,
and exercised a boundless influence over that reckless personage, who
often protested that he would "die a poor soldier at his feet." The
career of Louis was destined to be short, if reckoned by years, but if
by events, it was to attain almost a patriarchal length. At the age of
nineteen he had taken part in the battle of St. Quentin, and when once
the war of freedom opened, his sword was never to be sheathed. His days
were filled with life, and when he fell into his bloody but unknown
grave, he was to leave a name as distinguished for heroic valor and
untiring energy as for spotless integrity. He was small of stature, but
well formed; athletic in all knightly exercises, with agreeable features,
a dark laughing eye, close-clipped brown hair, and a peaked beard.

"Golden Fleece," as Nicholas de Hammes was universally denominated, was
the illegitimate scion of a noble house. He was one of the most active
of the early adherents to the league, kept the lists of signers in his
possession, and scoured the country daily to procure new confederates.
At the public preachings of the reformed religion, which soon after this
epoch broke forth throughout the Netherlands as by a common impulse, he
made himself conspicuous. He was accused of wearing, on such occasions,
the ensigns of the Fleece about his neck, in order to induce ignorant
people to believe that they might themselves legally follow, when they
perceived a member of that illustrious fraternity to be leading the way.
As De Hammer was only an official or servant of that Order, but not a
companion, the seduction of the lieges by such false pretenses was
reckoned among the most heinous of his offences. He was fierce in his
hostility to the government, and one of those fiery spirits whose
premature zeal was prejudicial to the cause of liberty, and disheartening
to the cautious patriotism of Orange. He was for smiting at once the
gigantic atrocity of the Spanish dominion, without waiting for the
forging of the weapons by which the blows were to be dealt. He forgot
that men and money were as necessary as wrath, in a contest with the most
tremendous despotism of the world. "They wish," he wrote to Count Louis,
"that we should meet these hungry wolves with remonstrances, using gentle
words, while they are burning and cutting off heads.--Be it so then. Let
us take the pen let them take the sword. For them deeds, for us words.
We shall weep, they will laugh. The Lord be praised for all; but I can
not write this without tears." This nervous language painted the
situation and the character of the writer.

As for Charles Mansfeld, he soon fell away from the league which he had
embraced originally with excessive ardor.

By the influence of the leaders many signatures were obtained during the
first two months of the year. The language of the document was such that
patriotic Catholics could sign it as honestly as Protestants. It
inveighed bitterly against the tyranny of "a heap of strangers," who,
influenced only by private avarice and ambition, were making use of an
affected zeal for the Catholic religion, to persuade the King into a
violation of his oaths. It denounced the refusal to mitigate the
severity of the edicts. It declared the inquisition, which it seemed
the intention of government to fix permanently upon them, as "iniquitous,
contrary to all laws, human and divine, surpassing the greatest barbarism
which was ever practised by tyrants, and as redounding to the dishonor of
God and to the total desolation of the country." The signers protested,
therefore, that "having a due regard to their duties as faithful vassals
of his Majesty, and especially, as noblemen--and in order not to be
deprived of their estates and their lives by those who, under pretext
of religion, wished to enrich themselves by plunder and murder," they had
bound themselves to each other by holy covenant and solemn oath to resist
the inquisition. They mutually promised to oppose it in every shape,
open or covert, under whatever mask, it might assume, whether bearing the
name of inquisition, placard, or edict, "and to extirpate and eradicate
the thing in any form, as the mother of all iniquity and disorder." They
protested before God and man, that they would attempt nothing to the
dishonor of the Lord or to the diminution of the King's grandeur,
majesty, or dominion. They declared, on the contrary, an honest purpose
to "maintain the monarch in his estate, and to suppress all seditious,
tumults, monopolies, and factions." They engaged to preserve their
confederation, thus formed, forever inviolable, and to permit none of
its members to be persecuted in any manner, in body or goods, by any
proceeding founded on the inquisition, the edicts, or the present league.

It will be seen therefore, that the Compromise was in its origin,
a covenant of nobles. It was directed against the foreign influence
by which the Netherlands were exclusively governed, and against the
inquisition, whether papal, episcopal, or by edict. There is no doubt
that the country was controlled entirely by Spanish masters, and that
the intention was to reduce the ancient liberty of the Netherlands into
subjection to a junta of foreigners sitting at Madrid. Nothing more
legitimate could be imagined than a constitutional resistance to such a
policy.

The Prince of Orange had not been consulted as to the formation of the
league. It was sufficiently obvious to its founders that his cautious
mind would find much to censure in the movement. His sentiments with
regard to the inquisition and the edicts were certainly known to all men.
In the beginning of this year, too, he had addressed a remarkable letter
to the Duchess, in answer to her written commands to cause the Council of
Trent, the inquisition, and the edicts, in accordance with the recent
commands of the King, to be published and enforced throughout his
government. Although his advice on the subject had not been asked,
he expressed his sense of obligation to speak his mind on the subject,
preferring the hazard of being censured for his remonstrance, to that
of incurring the suspicion of connivance at the desolation of the land
by his silence. He left the question of reformation in ecclesiastical
morals untouched, as not belonging to his vocation: As to the
inquisition, he most distinctly informed her highness that the hope
which still lingered in the popular mind of escaping the permanent
establishment of that institution, had alone prevented the utter
depopulation of the country, with entire subversion of its commercial
and manufacturing industry. With regard to the edicts, he temperately
but forcibly expressed the opinion that it was very hard to enforce those
placards now in their rigor, when the people were exasperated, and the
misery universal, inasmuch as they had frequently been modified on former
occasions. The King, he said, could gain nothing but difficulty for
himself, and would be sure to lose the affection of his subjects by
renewing the edicts, strengthening the inquisition, and proceeding to
fresh executions, at a time when the people, moved by the example of
their neighbors, were naturally inclined to novelty. Moreover, when by
reason of the daily increasing prices of grain a famine was impending
over the land, no worse moment could be chosen to enforce such a policy.
In conclusion, he observed that he was at all times desirous to obey the
commands of his Majesty and her Highness, and to discharge the duties of
"a good Christian." The use of the latter term is remarkable, as marking
an epoch in the history of the Prince's mind. A year before he would
have said a good Catholic, but it was during this year that his mind
began to be thoroughly pervaded by religious doubt, and that the great
question of the Reformation forced itself, not only as a political, but
as a moral problem upon him, which he felt that he could not much longer
neglect instead of solving.

Such were the opinions of Orange. He could not, however, safely
entrust the sacred interests of a commonwealth to such hands as those
of Brederode--however deeply that enthusiastic personage might drink
the health of "Younker William," as he affectionately denominated the
Prince--or to "Golden Fleece," or to Charles Mansfeld, or to that younger
wild boar of Ardennes, Robert de la Marck. In his brother and in Sainte
Aldegonde he had confidence, but he did not exercise over them that
control which he afterwards acquired. His conduct towards the
confederacy was imitated in the main by the other great nobles.
The covenanters never expected to obtain the signatures of such men
as Orange, Egmont, Horn, Meghen, Berghen, or Montigny, nor were those
eminent personages ever accused of having signed the Compromise, although
some of them were afterwards charged with having protected those who did
affix their names to the document. The confederates were originally
found among the lesser nobles. Of these some were sincere Catholics,
who loved the ancient Church but hated the inquisition; some were fierce
Calvinists or determined Lutherans; some were troublous and adventurous
spirits, men of broken fortunes, extravagant habits, and boundless
desires, who no doubt thought that the broad lands of the Church, with
their stately abbeys; would furnish much more fitting homes and revenues
for gallant gentlemen than for lazy monks. All were young, few had any
prudence or conduct, and the history of the league more than justified
the disapprobation of Orange. The nobles thus banded together, achieved
little by their confederacy. They disgraced a great cause by their
orgies, almost ruined it by their inefficiency, and when the rope of sand
which they had twisted fell asunder, the people had gained nothing and
the gentry had almost lost the confidence of the nation. These remarks
apply to the mass of the confederates and to some of the leaders. Louis
of Nassau and Sainte Aldegonde were ever honored and trusted as they
deserved.

Although the language of the Compromise spoke of the leaguers as nobles,
yet the document was circulated among burghers and merchants also, many
of whom, according to the satirical remark of a Netherland Catholic, may,
have been influenced by the desire of writing their names in such
aristocratic company, and some of whom were destined to expiate such
vainglory upon the scaffold.

With such associates, therefore, the profound and anxious mind of
Orange could have little in common. Confidence expanding as the numbers
increased, their audacity and turbulence grew with the growth of the
league. The language at their wild banquets was as hot as the wine
which confused their heads; yet the Prince knew that there was rarely
a festival in which there did not sit some calm, temperate Spaniard,
watching with quiet eye and cool brain the extravagant demeanor, and
listening with composure to the dangerous avowals or bravados of these
revellers, with the purpose of transmitting a record of their language
or demonstrations, to the inmost sanctuary of Philip's cabinet at Madrid.
The Prince knew, too, that the King was very sincere in his determination
to maintain the inquisition, however dilatory his proceedings might
appear. He was well aware that an armed force might be expected ere
long to support the royal edicts. Already the Prince had organized that
system of espionage upon Philip, by which the champion of his country was
so long able to circumvent its despot. The King left letters carefully
locked in his desk at night, and unseen hands had forwarded copies of
them to William of Orange before the morning. He left memoranda in his
pockets on retiring to bed, and exact transcripts of those papers found
their way, likewise, ere he rose, to the same watchman in the
Netherlands. No doubt that an inclination for political intrigue was a
prominent characteristic of the Prince, and a blemish upon the purity of
his moral nature. Yet the dissimulating policy of his age he had
mastered only that he might accomplish the noblest purposes to which a
great and good man can devote his life-the protection of the liberty and
the religion of a whole people against foreign tyranny. His intrigue
served his country, not a narrow personal ambition, and it was only by
such arts that he became Philip's master, instead of falling at once,
like so many great personages, a blind and infatuated victim. No doubt
his purveyors of secret information were often destined fearfully to
atone for their contraband commerce, but they who trade in treason must
expect to pay the penalty of their traffic.

Although, therefore, the great nobles held themselves aloof from the
confederacy, yet many of them gave unequivocal signs of their dissent
from the policy adopted by government. Marquis Berghen wrote to the
Duchess; resigning his posts, on the ground of his inability to execute
the intention of the King in the matter of religion. Meghen replied to
the same summons by a similar letter. Egmont assured her that he would
have placed his offices in the King's hands in Spain, could he have
foreseen that his Majesty would form such resolutions as had now been
proclaimed. The sentiments of Orange were avowed in the letter to
which we have already alluded. His opinions were shared by Montigny,
Culemburg, and many others. The Duchess was almost reduced to
desperation. The condition of the country was frightful. The most
determined loyalists, such as Berlaymont, Viglius and Hopper, advised
her not to mention the name of inquisition in a conference which she was
obliged to hold with a deputation from Antwerp. She feared, all feared,
to pronounce the hated word. She wrote despairing letters to Philip,
describing the condition of the land and her own agony in the gloomiest
colors. Since the arrival of the royal orders, she said, things had gone
from bad to worse. The King had been ill advised. It was useless to
tell the people that the inquisition had always existed in the provinces.
They maintained that it was a novelty; that the institution was a more
rigorous one than the Spanish Inquisition, which, said Margaret, "was
most odious, as the King knew." It was utterly impossible to carry the
edicts into execution. Nearly all the governors of provinces had told
her plainly that they would not help to burn fifty or sixty thousand
Netherlanders. Thus bitterly did Margaret of Parma bewail the royal
decree; not that she had any sympathy for the victims, but because she
felt the increasing danger to the executioner. One of two things it was
now necessary to decide upon, concession or armed compulsion. Meantime,
while Philip was slowly and secretly making his levies, his sister, as
well as his people, was on the rack. Of all the seigniors, not one was
placed in so painful a position as Egmont. His military reputation and
his popularity made him too important a personage to be slighted, yet he
was deeply mortified at the lamentable mistake which he had committed.
He now averred that he would never take arms against the King, but that
he would go where man should never see him more.

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