Books: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566
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John Lothrop Motley >> The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566
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Thus, so long as this great statesman could remain in the metropolis,
his temperate firmness prevented the explosion which had so long been
expected. His own government of Holland and Zeland, too, especially
demanded his care. The field-preaching had spread in that region with
prodigious rapidity. Armed assemblages, utterly beyond the power of the
civil authorities, were taking place daily in the neighborhood of
Amsterdam. Yet the Duchess could not allow him to visit his government
in the north. If he could be spared from Antwerp for a day, it was
necessary that he should aid her in a fresh complication with the
confederated nobles in the very midst, therefore, of his Antwerp labors,
he had been obliged, by Margaret's orders, to meet a committee at Duffel.
For in this same eventful month of July a great meeting was held by the
members of the Compromise at St. Trond, in the bishopric of Liege. They
came together on the thirteenth of the month, and remained assembled till
the beginning of August. It was a wild, tumultuous convention, numbering
some fifteen hundred cavaliers, each with his esquires and armed
attendants; a larger and more important gathering than had yet been held.
Brederode and Count Louis were the chieftains of the assembly, which, as
may be supposed from its composition and numbers, was likely to be
neither very orderly in its demonstrations nor wholesome in its results.
It was an ill-timed movement. The convention was too large for
deliberation, too riotous to inspire confidence. The nobles quartered
themselves every where in the taverns and the farm-houses of the
neighborhood, while large numbers encamped upon the open fields. There
was a constant din of revelry and uproar, mingled with wordy warfare, and
an occasional crossing of swords. It seemed rather like a congress of
ancient, savage Batavians, assembled in Teutonic fashion to choose a king
amid hoarse shouting, deep drinking, and the clash of spear and shield,
than a meeting for a lofty and earnest purpose, by their civilized
descendants. A crowd of spectators, landlopers, mendicants, daily
aggregated themselves to the aristocratic assembly, joining, with natural
unction, in the incessant shout of "Vivent les gueux!" It was impossible
that so soon after their baptism the self-styled beggars should repudiate
all connection with the time-honored fraternity in which they had
enrolled themselves.
The confederates discussed--if an exchange of vociferations could be
called discussion--principally two points: whether, in case they obtained
the original objects of their petition, they should pause or move still
further onward; and whether they should insist upon receiving some pledge
from the government, that no vengeance should be taken upon them for
their previous proceedings. Upon both questions, there was much
vehemence of argument and great difference of opinion. They, moreover,
took two very rash and very grave resolutions--to guarantee the people
against all violence on account of their creeds, and to engage a force of
German soldiery, four thousand horse and forty companies of infantry by,
"wart geld" or retaining wages. It was evident that these gentlemen were
disposed to go fast and far. If they had been ready in the spring to
receive their baptism of wine, the "beggars" were now eager for the
baptism of blood. At the same time it must be observed that the levies
which they proposed, not to make, but to have at command, were purely for
defence. In case the King, as it was thought probable, should visit the
Netherlands with fire and sword, then there would be a nucleus of
resistance already formed.
Upon the 18th July, the Prince of Orange, at the earnest request of the
Regent, met a committee of the confederated nobles at Duffel. Count
Egmont was associated with him in this duty. The conference was not very
satisfactory. The deputies from St. Trend, consisting of Brederode,
Culemburg, and others, exchanged with the two seigniors the old
arguments. It was urged upon the confederates, that they had made
themselves responsible for the public tranquillity so long as the Regent
should hold to her promise; that, as the Duchess had sent two
distinguished envoys to Madrid, in order to accomplish, if possible, the
wishes of the nobles, it was their duty to redeem their own pledges; that
armed assemblages ought to be suppressed by their efforts rather than
encouraged by their, example; and that, if they now exerted themselves
zealously to check, the tumults, the Duchess was ready to declare, in her
own-name and that of his Majesty, that the presentation of the Request
had been beneficial.
The nobles replied that the pledges had become a farce, that the Regent
was playing them false, that persecution was as fierce as ever, that the
"Moderation" was a mockery, that the letters recommending "modesty and
discretion" to the inquisitors had been mere waste paper, that a price
had been set upon the heads of the preachers as if they had been wild
beasts, that there were constant threats of invasions from Spain, that
the convocation of the states-general had been illegally deferred, that
the people had been driven to despair, and that it was the conduct of
government, not of the confederates, which had caused the Reformers to
throw off previous restraint and to come boldly forth by tens of
thousands into the fields, not to defy their King, but to worship their
God.
Such, in brief, was the conference of Duffel. In conclusion, a paper was
drawn up which Brederode carried back to the convention, and which it was
proposed to submit to the Duchess for her approval. At the end of the
month, Louis of Nassau was accordingly sent to Brussels, accompanied by
twelve associates, who were familiarly called his twelve apostles. Here
he laid before her Highness in council a statement, embodying the views
of the confederates. In this paper they asserted that they were ever
ready to mount and ride against a foreign foe, but that they would never
draw a sword against their innocent countrymen. They maintained that
their past conduct deserved commendation, and that in requiring letters
of safe conduct in the names both of the Duchess and of the Fleece-
knights, they were governed not by a disposition to ask for pardon,
but by a reluctance without such guarantees to enter into stipulations
touching the public tranquillity. If, however, they should be assured
that the intentions of the Regent were amicable and that there was no
design to take vengeance for the past--if, moreover, she were willing
to confide in the counsels of Horn, Egmont, and Orange, and to take no
important measure without their concurrence--if, above all, she would
convoke the states-general, then, and then only, were the confederates
willing to exert their energies to preserve peace, to restrain popular
impetuosity and banish universal despair.
So far Louis of Nassau and his twelve apostles. It must be confessed
that, whatever might be thought of the justice, there could be but one
opinion as to the boldness of these views. The Duchess was furious. If
the language held in April had been considered audacious, certainly this
new request was, in her own words, "still more bitter to the taste and
more difficult of digestion." She therefore answered in a very
unsatisfactory, haughty and ambiguous manner, reserving decision upon
their propositions till they had been discussed by the state council, and
intimating that they would also be laid before the Knights of the Fleece,
who were to hold a meeting upon the 26th of August.
There was some further conversation without any result. Esquerdes
complained that the confederates were the mark of constant calumny, and
demanded that the slanderers should be confronted with them and punished.
"I understand perfectly well," interrupted Margaret, "you wish to take
justice into your own hands and to be King yourself." It was further
intimated by these reckless gentlemen, that if they should be driven by
violence into measures of self-protection, they had already secured
friends in a certain country. The Duchess, probably astonished at the
frankness of this statement, is said to have demanded further
explanations. The confederates replied by observing that they had
resources both in the provinces and in Germany. The state council
decided that to accept the propositions of the confederates would be to
establish a triumvirate at once, and the Duchess wrote to her brother
distinctly advising against the acceptance of the proposal. The assembly
at St. Trond was then dissolved, having made violent demonstrations which
were not followed by beneficial results, and having laid itself open to
various suspicions, most of which were ill-founded, while some of them
were just.
Before giving the reader a brief account of the open and the secret
policy pursued by the government at Brussels and Madrid, in consequence
of these transactions, it is now necessary to allude to a startling
series of events, which at this point added to the complications of the
times, and exercised a fatal influence upon the situation of the
commonwealth.
1566 [CHAPTER VII.]
Ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands--The image-breaking--
Description of Antwerp Cathedral--Ceremony of the Ommegang--
Precursory disturbances--Iconoclasts at Antwerp--Incidents of the
image--breaking in various cities--Events at Tournay--Preaching of
Wille--Disturbance by a little boy--Churches sacked at Tournay--
Disinterment of Duke Adolphus of Gueldres--Iconoclasts defeated and
massacred at Anchin--Bartholomew's Day at Valenciennes--General
characteristics of the image-breaking--Testimony of contemporaries
as to the honesty of the rioters--Consternation of the Duchess--
Projected flight to Mons--Advice of Horn and other seigniors--
Accord of 25th August.
The Netherlands possessed an extraordinary number of churches and
monasteries. Their exquisite architecture and elaborate decoration had
been the earliest indication of intellectual culture displayed in the
country. In the vast number of cities, towns, and villages which were
crowded upon that narrow territory, there had been, from circumstances
operating throughout Christendom, a great accumulation of ecclesiastical
wealth. The same causes can never exist again which at an early day
covered the soil of Europe with those magnificent creations of Christian
art. It was in these anonymous but entirely original achievements that
Gothic genius; awaking from its long sleep of the dark ages, first
expressed itself. The early poetry of the German races was hewn and
chiselled in atone. Around the steadfast principle of devotion then so
firmly rooted in the soil, clustered the graceful and vigorous emanations
of the newly-awakened mind. All that science could invent, all that art
could embody, all that mechanical ingenuity could dare, all that wealth
could lavish, whatever there was of human energy which was panting for
pacific utterance, wherever there stirred the vital principle which
instinctively strove to create and to adorn at an epoch when vulgar
violence and destructiveness were the general tendencies of humanity, all
gathered around these magnificent temples, as their aspiring pinnacles at
last pierced the mist which had so long brooded over the world.
There were many hundreds of churches, more or less remarkable, in the
Netherlands. Although a severe criticism might regret to find in these
particular productions of the great Germanic school a development of that
practical tendency which distinguished the Batavian and Flemish
branches,--although it might recognize a departure from that mystic
principle which, in its efforts to symbolize the strivings of humanity
towards the infinite object of worship above, had somewhat disregarded
the wants of the worshippers below,--although the spaces might be too
wide and the intercolumniations too empty, except for the convenience
of congregations; yet there were, nevertheless, many ecclesiastical
masterpieces, which could be regarded as very brilliant manifestations
of the Batavian and Belgic mind during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Many were filled with paintings from a school which had
precedence in time and merit over its sister nurseries of art in Germany.
All were peopled with statues. All were filled with profusely-adorned
chapels, for the churches had been enriched generation after generation
by wealthy penitence, which had thus purchased absolution for crime and
smoothed a pathway to heaven.
And now, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there
raged a storm by which all these treasures were destroyed. Nearly every
one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for the
purpose of plunder, but of destruction. Hardly a province or a town
escaped. Art must forever weep over this bereavement; Humanity must
regret that the reforming is thus always ready to degenerate into the
destructive principle; but it is impossible to censure very severely the
spirit which prompted the brutal, but not ferocious deed. Those statues,
associated as they were with the remorseless persecution which had so
long desolated the provinces, had ceased to be images. They had grown
human and hateful, so that the people arose and devoted them to
indiscriminate massacre.
No doubt the iconoclastic fury is to be regretted; for such treasures
can scarcely be renewed. The age for building and decorating great
cathedrals is past. Certainly, our own age, practical and benevolent, if
less poetical, should occupy itself with the present, and project itself
into the future. It should render glory to God rather by causing wealth
to fertilize the lowest valleys of humanity, than by rearing gorgeous
temples where paupers are to kneel. To clothe the naked, redeem the
criminal, feed the hungry, less by alms and homilies than by preventive
institutions and beneficent legislation; above all, by the diffusion of
national education, to lift a race upon a level of culture hardly
attained by a class in earlier times, is as lofty a task as to accumulate
piles of ecclesiastical splendor.
It would be tedious to recount in detail the events which characterized
the remarkable image-breaking in the Netherlands. As Antwerp was the
central point in these transactions, and as there was more wealth and
magnificence in the great cathedral of that city than in any church of
northern Europe, it is necessary to give a rapid outline of the events
which occurred there. From its exhibition in that place the spirit every
where will best be shown.
The Church of Our Lady, which Philip had so recently converted into a
cathedral, dated from the year 1124, although it may be more fairly
considered a work of the fourteenth century. Its college of canons had
been founded in another locality by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Brabantine
hero, who so romantically incarnates the religious poetry of his age, who
first mounted the walls of redeemed Jerusalem, and was its first
Christian monarch, but who refused to accept a golden diadem on the spot
where the Saviour had been crowned with thorns; the Fleming who lived and
was the epic which the great Italian, centuries afterwards; translated
into immortal verse, is thus fitly associated with the beautiful
architectural poem which was to grace his ancestral realms. The body of
the church, the interior and graceful perspectives of which were not
liable to the reproach brought against many Netherland churches, of
assimilating themselves already to the municipal palaces which they were
to suggest--was completed in the fourteenth century. The beautiful
facade, with its tower, was not completed till the year 1518. The
exquisite and daring spire, the gigantic stem upon which the consummate
flower of this architectural creation was to be at last unfolded, was a
plant of a whole century's growth. Rising to a height of nearly five
hundred feet, over a church of as many feet in length, it worthily
represented the upward tendency of Gothic architecture. Externally and
internally the cathedral was a true expression of the Christian principle
of devotion. Amid its vast accumulation of imagery, its endless
ornaments, its multiplicity of episodes, its infinite variety of details,
the central, maternal principle was ever visible. Every thing pointed
upwards, from the spire in the clouds to the arch which enshrined the
smallest sculptured saint in the chapels below. It was a sanctuary, not
like pagan temples, to enclose a visible deity, but an edifice where
mortals might worship an unseen Being in the realms above.
The church, placed in the centre of the city, with the noisy streets of
the busiest metropolis in Europe eddying around its walls, was a sacred
island in the tumultuous main. Through the perpetual twilight, tall
columnar trunks in thick profusion grew from a floor chequered with
prismatic lights and sepulchral shadows. Each shaft of the petrified
forest rose to a preternatural height, their many branches intermingling
in the space above, to form an impenetrable canopy. Foliage, flowers and
fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins and
chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegetation and the fantastic
zoology of a fresher or fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate
the serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies
or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through
the forest, now the full diapason of the storm and now the gentle cadence
of the evening breeze.
Internally, the whole church was rich beyond expression. All that
opulent devotion and inventive ingenuity could devise, in wood, bronze,
marble, silver, gold, precious jewelry, or blazing sacramental furniture,
had been profusely lavished. The penitential tears of centuries had
incrusted the whole interior with their glittering stalactites. Divided
into five naves, with external rows of chapels, but separated by no
screens or partitions, the great temple forming an imposing whole, the
effect was the more impressive, the vistas almost infinite in appearance.
The wealthy citizens, the twenty-seven guilds, the six military
associations, the rhythmical colleges, besides many other secular or
religious sodalities, had each their own chapels and altars. Tombs
adorned with the effigies of mailed crusaders and pious dames covered the
floor, tattered banners hung in the air, the escutcheons of the Golden
Fleece, an order typical of Flemish industry, but of which Emperors and
Kings were proud to be the chevaliers, decorated the columns. The vast
and beautifully-painted windows glowed with scriptural scenes, antique
portraits, homely allegories, painted in those brilliant and forgotten
colors which Art has not ceased to deplore. The daylight melting into
gloom or colored with fantastic brilliancy, priests in effulgent robes
chanting in unknown language, the sublime breathing of choral music, the
suffocating odors of myrrh and spikenard, suggestive of the oriental
scenery and imagery of Holy Writ, all combined to bewilder and exalt the
senses. The highest and humblest seemed to find themselves upon the same
level within those sacred precincts, where even the bloodstained criminal
was secure, and the arm of secular justice was paralyzed.
But the work of degeneration had commenced. The atmosphere of the
cathedral was no longer holy in the eyes of increasing multitudes.
Better the sanguinary rites of Belgic Druids, better the yell of
slaughtered victims from the "wild wood without mercy" of the pagan
forefathers of the nation, than this fantastic intermingling of divine
music, glowing colors, gorgeous ceremonies, with all the burning,
beheading and strangling work which had characterized the system of
human sacrifice for the past half-century.
Such was the church of Notre Dame at Antwerp. Thus indifferent or
hostile towards the architectural treasure were the inhabitants of a
city, where in a previous age the whole population would have risked
their lives to defend what they esteemed the pride and garland of their
metropolis.
The Prince of Orange had been anxiously solicited by the Regent to attend
the conference at Duffel. After returning to Antwerp, he consented,
in consequence of the urgent entreaties of the senate, to delay his
departure until the 18th of August should be past. On the 13th of that
month he had agreed with the magistrates upon an ordinance, which was
accordingly published, and by which the preachings were restricted to the
fields. A deputation of merchants and others waited upon him with a
request to be permitted the exercises of the Reformed religion in the
city. This petition the Prince peremptorily refused, and the deputies,
as well as their constituents, acquiesced in the decision, "out of
especial regard and respect for his person." He, however, distinctly
informed the Duchess that it would be difficult or impossible to maintain
such a position long, and that his departure from the city would probably
be followed by an outbreak. He warned her that it was very imprudent for
him to leave Antwerp at that particular juncture. Nevertheless, the
meeting of the Fleece-knights seemed, in Margaret's opinion, imperatively
to require his presence in Brussels. She insisted by repeated letters
that he should leave Antwerp immediately.
Upon the 18th August, the great and time-honored ceremony of the Ommegang
occurred. Accordingly, the great procession, the principal object of
which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin,
issued as usual from the door of the cathedral. The image, bedizened and
effulgent, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of her adorers, followed by
the guilds, the military associations, the rhetoricians, the religious
sodalities, all in glittering costume, bearing blazoned banners, and
marching triumphantly through the streets with sound of trumpet and beat
of drum. The pageant, solemn but noisy, was exactly such a show as was
most fitted at that moment to irritate Protestant minds and to lead to
mischief. No violent explosion of ill-feeling, however, took place. The
procession was followed by a rabble rout of scoffers, but they confined
themselves to words and insulting gestures. The image was incessantly
saluted, as she was borne along--the streets, with sneers, imprecations,
and the rudest, ribaldry. "Mayken! Mayken!" (little Mary) "your hour
is come. 'Tis your last promenade. The city is tired of you." Such
were the greetings which the representative of the Holy Virgin received
from men grown weary of antiquated mummery. A few missiles were thrown
occasionally at the procession as it passed through the city, but no
damage was inflicted. When the image was at last restored to its place,
and the pageant brought to a somewhat hurried conclusion, there seemed
cause for congratulation that no tumult had occurred.
On the following morning there was a large crowd collected in front of
the cathedral. The image, instead of standing in the centre of the
church, where, upon all former occasions, it had been accustomed during
the week succeeding the ceremony to receive congratulatory, visits, was
now ignominiously placed behind an iron railing within the choir. It had
been deemed imprudent to leave it exposed to sacrilegious hands. The
precaution excited derision. Many vagabonds of dangerous appearance,
many idle apprentices and ragged urchins were hanging for a long time
about the imprisoned image, peeping through the railings, and indulging
in many a brutal jest. "Mayken! Mayken!" they cried; "art thou
terrified so soon? Hast flown to thy nest so early? Dost think thyself
beyond the reach of mischief? Beware, Mayken! thine hour is fast
approaching!" Others thronged around the balustrade, shouting "Vivent
les gueux!" and hoarsely commanding the image to join in the beggars'
cry. Then, leaving the spot, the mob roamed idly about the magnificent
church, sneering at the idols, execrating the gorgeous ornaments,
scoffing at crucifix and altar.
Presently one of the rabble, a ragged fellow of mechanical aspect, in a
tattered black doublet and an old straw hat, ascended the pulpit.
Opening a sacred volume which he found there, he began to deliver an
extemporaneous and coarse caricature of a monkish sermon. Some of the
bystanders applauded, some cried shame, some shouted "long live the
beggars!" some threw sticks and rubbish at the mountebank, some caught
him by the legs and strove to pull him from the place. He, on the other
hand, manfully maintained his ground, hurling back every missile,
struggling with his assailants, and continuing the while to pour forth a
malignant and obscene discourse. At last a young sailor, warm in the
Catholic Faith, and impulsive as mariners are prone to be, ascended the
pulpit from behind, sprang upon the mechanic, and flung him headlong down
the steps. The preacher grappled with his enemy as he fell, and both
came rolling to the ground. Neither was much injured, but a tumult
ensued. A pistol-shot was fired, and the sailor wounded in the arm.
Daggers were drawn, cudgels brandished, the bystanders taking part
generally against the sailor, while those who protected him were somewhat
bruised and belabored before they could convey him out of the church.
Nothing more, however, transpired that day, and the keepers of the
cathedral were enabled to expel the crowd and to close the doors for the
night.
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