Books: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1569 70
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John Lothrop Motley >> The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1569 70
The unfortunate gentleman was now kept in still closer confinement in his
lonely tower. As all his adherents had been disposed of, he could no
longer entertain a hope of escape. In the autumn of this year (1568) it
was thought expedient by Alva to bring his case formally before the Blood
Council. Montigny had committed no crime, but he was one of that band of
popular, nobles whose deaths had been long decreed. Letters were
accordingly sent to Spain, empowering certain functionaries there to
institute that preliminary examination, which, as usual, was to be the
only trial vouchsafed. A long list of interrogatories was addressed to
him on February 7th, 1569, in his prison at Segovia. A week afterwards,
he was again visited by the alcalde, who read over to him the answers
which he had made on the first occasion, and required him to confirm
them. He was then directed to send his procuration to certain persons in
the Netherlands, whom he might wish to appear in his behalf. Montigny
complied by sending several names, with a clause of substitution. All
the persons thus appointed, however, declined to act, unless they could
be furnished with a copy of the procuration, and with a statement of the
articles of accusation. This was positively refused by the Blood
Council. Seeing no possibility of rendering service to their friend by
performing any part in this mockery of justice, they refused to accept
the procuration. They could not defend a case when not only the
testimony, but even the charges against the accused were kept secret.
An individual was accordingly appointed by government to appear in the
prisoner's behalf.
Thus the forms of justice were observed, and Montigny, a close prisoner
in the tower of Segovia, was put upon trial for his life in Brussels.
Certainly nothing could exceed the irony of such a process. The advocate
had never seen his client, thousands of miles away, and was allowed to
hold no communication with him by letter. The proceedings were
instituted by a summons, addressed by the Duke of Alva to Madame de
Montigny in Brussels. That unhappy lady could only appeal to the King.
"Convinced," she said, "that her husband was innocent of the charges
brought against him, she threw herself, overwhelmed and consumed by tears
and misery, at his Majesty's feet. She begged the King to remember the
past services of Montigny, her own youth, and that she had enjoyed his
company but four months. By all these considerations, and by the passion
of Jesus Christ, she adjured the monarch to pardon any faults which her
husband might have committed." The reader can easily judge how much
effect such a tender appeal was like to have upon the heart of Philip.
From that rock; thus feebly smitten, there flowed no fountain of mercy.
It was not more certain that Montigny's answers to the interrogatories
addressed to him had created a triumphant vindication of his course, than
that such vindication would be utterly powerless to save his life. The
charges preferred against him were similar to those which had brought
Egmont and Horn to the block, and it certainly created no ground of hope
for him, that he could prove himself even more innocent of suspicious
conduct than they had done. On the 4th March, 1570, accordingly, the
Duke of Alva pronounced sentence against him. The sentence declared that
his head should be cut off, and afterwards exposed to public view upon
the head of a pike. Upon the 18th March, 1570, the Duke addressed a
requisitory letter to the alcaldes, corregidors, and other judges of
Castile, empowering them to carry the sentence into execution.
On the arrival of this requisition there was a serious debate before the
King in council. It seemed to be the general opinion that there had been
almost severity enough in the Netherlands for the present. The spectacle
of the public execution of another distinguished personage, it was
thought, might now prove more irritating than salutary. The King was
of this opinion himself. It certainly did not occur to him or to his
advisers that this consideration should lead them to spare the life of
an innocent man. The doubts entertained as to the expediency of a fresh
murder were not allowed to benefit the prisoner, who, besides being a
loyal subject and a communicant of the ancient Church, was also clothed
in the white robes of an envoy, claiming not only justice but
hospitality, as the deputy of Philip's sister, Margaret of Parma.
These considerations probably never occurred to the mind of His Majesty.
In view, however, of the peculiar circumstances of the case, it was
unanimously agreed that there should be no more blood publicly shed.
Most of the councillors were in favor of slow poison. Montigny's meat
and drink, they said, should be daily drugged, so that he might die by
little and little. Philip, however, terminated these disquisitions by
deciding that the ends of justice would not thus be sufficiently
answered. The prisoner, he had resolved, should be regularly executed,
but the deed should be secret, and it should be publicly announced that
he had died of a fever.
This point having been settled; the King now set about the arrangement
of his plan with all that close attention to detail which marked his
character. The patient industry which, had God given him a human heart
and a love of right, might have made him a useful monarch, he now devoted
to a scheme of midnight murder with a tranquil sense of enjoyment which
seems almost incredible. There is no exaggeration in calling the deed
a murder, for it certainly was not sanctioned by any law, divine or
human, nor justified or excused by any of the circumstances which are
supposed to palliate homicide. Nor, when the elaborate and superfluous
luxury of arrangements made by Philip for the accomplishment of his
design is considered, can it be doubted that he found a positive pleasure
in his task. It would almost seem that he had become jealous of Alva's
achievements in the work of slaughter. He appeared willing to prove to
those immediately about him, that however capable might be the Viceroy of
conducting public executions on a grand and terrifying scale, there was
yet a certain delicacy of finish never attained by Alva in such business,
and which was all his Majesty's own. The King was resolved to make the
assassination of Montigny a masterpiece.
On the 17th August, 1570, he accordingly directed Don Eugenio de Peralta,
concierge of the fortress of Simancas, to repair to Segovia, and thence
to remove the Seigneur Montigny to Simancas. Here he was to be strictly
immured; yet was to be allowed at times to walk in the corridor adjoining
his chamber. On the 7th October following, the licentiate Don Alonzo de
Avellano, alcalde of Valladolid, was furnished with an order addressed by
the King to Don Eugenio de Peralta, requiring him to place the prisoner
in the hands of the said licentiate, who was charged with the execution
of Alva's sentence. This functionary had, moreover, been provided with a
minute letter of instructions, which had been drawn up according to the
King's directions, on the 1st October. In these royal instructions, it
was stated that, although the sentence was for a public execution, yet
the King had decided in favor of a private one within the walls of the
fortress. It was to be managed so that no one should suspect that
Montigny had been executed, but so that, on the contrary, it should be
universally said and believed that he had died a natural death. Very few
persons, all sworn and threatened into secrecy, were therefore to be
employed. Don Alonzo was to start immediately for Valladolid; which was
within two short leagues of Simancas. At that place he would communicate
with Don Eugenio, and arrange the mode, day, and hour of execution. He
would leave Valladolid on the evening before a holiday, late in the
afternoon, so as to arrive a little after dark at Simancas. He would
take with him a confidential notary, an executioner, and as few servants
as possible. Immediately upon his entrance to the fortress, he was to
communicate the sentence of death to Montigny, in presence of Don Eugenio
and of one or two other persons. He would then console him, in which
task he would be assisted by Don Eugenio. He would afterwards leave him
with the religious person who would be appointed for that purpose. That
night and the whole of the following day, which would be a festival, till
after midnight, would be allotted to Montigny, that he might have time to
confess, to receive the sacraments, to convert himself to God, and to
repent. Between one and two o'clock in the morning the execution was to
take place, in presence of the ecclesiastic, of Don Eugenio de Peralta,
of the notary, and of one or two other persons, who would be needed by
the executioner. The ecclesiastic was to be a wise and prudent person,
and to be informed how little confidence Montigny inspired in the article
of faith. If the prisoner should wish to make a will, it could not be
permitted. As all his property had been confiscated, he could dispose of
nothing. Should he, however, desire to make a memorial of the debts
which he would wish paid; he was to be allowed that liberty. It was,
however, to be stipulated that he was to make no allusion, in any
memorial or letter which he might write, to the execution which was about
to take place. He was to use the language of a man seriously ill, and
who feels himself at the point of death. By this infernal ingenuity it
was proposed to make the victim an accomplice in the plot, and to place a
false exculpation of his assassins in his dying lips. The execution
having been fulfilled, and the death having been announced with the
dissimulation prescribed, the burial was to take place in the church of
Saint Saviour, in Simancas. A moderate degree of pomp, such as befitted
a person of Montigny's quality, was to be allowed, and a decent tomb
erected. A grand mass was also to be celebrated, with a respectable
number, "say seven hundred," of lesser masses. As the servants of the
defunct were few in number, continued the frugal King, they might be
provided each with a suit of mourning. Having thus personally arranged
all the details of this secret work, from the reading of the sentence to
the burial of the prisoner; having settled not only the mode of his
departure from life, but of his passage through purgatory, the King
despatched the agent on his mission.
The royal program was faithfully enacted. Don Alonzo arrived at
Valladolid; and made his arrangements with Don Eugenio. It was agreed
that a paper, prepared by royal authority, and brought by Don Alonzo from
Madrid, should be thrown into the corridor of Montigny's prison. This
paper, written in Latin, ran as follows:
"In the night, as I understand, there will be no chance for your
escape. In the daytime there will be many; for you are then in
charge of a single gouty guardian, no match in strength or speed for
so vigorous a man as you. Make your escape from the 8th to the 12th
of October, at any hour you can, and take the road contiguous to the
castle gate through which you entered. You will find Robert and
John, who will be ready with horses, and with everything necessary.
May God favor your undertaking.--R. D. M."
The letter, thus designedly thrown into the corridor by one confederate,
was soon afterwards picked up by the other, who immediately taxed
Montigny with an attempt to escape. Notwithstanding the vehement
protestations of innocence naturally made by the prisoner, his pretended
project was made the pretext for a still closer imprisonment in the
"Bishop's Tower." A letter, written at Madrid, by Philip's orders, had
been brought by Don Alonzo to Simancas, narrating by anticipation these
circumstances, precisely as they had now occurred. It moreover stated
that Montigny, in consequence of his close confinement, had fallen
grievously ill, and that he would receive all the attention compatible
with his safe keeping. This letter, according to previous orders, was
now signed by Don Eugenio de Peralta, dated 10th October, 1570; and
publicly despatched to Philip. It was thus formally established that
Montigny was seriously ill. A physician, thoroughly instructed and sworn
to secrecy, was now ostentatiously admitted to the tower, bringing with
him a vast quantity of drugs. He duly circulated among the townspeople,
on his return, his opinion that the illustrious prisoner was afflicted
with a disorder from which it was almost impossible that he should
recover. Thus, thanks to Philip's masterly precautions, not a person in
Madrid or Simancas was ignorant that Montigny was dying of a fever, with
the single exception of the patient himself.
On Saturday, the 14th of October, at nightfall, Don Alonzo de Avellano,
accompanied by the prescribed individuals, including Fray Hernando del,
Castillo, an ecclesiastic of high reputation, made their appearance at
the prison of Simancas. At ten in the evening the announcement of the
sentence was made to Montigny. He was visibly agitated at the sudden
intelligence, for it was entirely unexpected by him. He had, on the
contrary, hoped much from the intercession of, the Queen, whose arrival
he had already learned. He soon recovered himself, however, and
requested to be left alone with the ecclesiastic. All the night and the
following day were passed in holy offices. He conducted himself with
great moderation, courage, and tranquillity. He protested his entire
innocence of any complicity with the Prince of Orange, or of any disloyal
designs or sentiments at any period of his life. He drew up a memorial,
expressing his strong attachment to every point of the Catholic faith,
from which he had never for an instant swerved. His whole demeanor was
noble, submissive, and Christian. "In every essential," said Fray
Hernando, "he conducted himself so well that we who remain may bear him
envy." He wrote a paper of instructions concerning his faithful and
bereaved dependents. He placed his signet ring, attached to a small gold
chain, in the hands of the ecclesiastic, to be by him transmitted to his
wife. Another ring, set with turquois, he sent to his mother-in-law, the
Princess Espinoy, from whom he had received it. About an hour after
midnight, on the morning, therefore, of the 16th of October, Fray
Hernando gave notice that the prisoner was ready to die. The alcalde Don
Alonzo then entered, accompanied by the executioner and the notary. The
sentence of Alva was now again recited, the alcalde adding that the King,
"out of his clemency and benignity," had substituted a secret for a
public execution. Montigny admitted that the judgment would be just and
the punishment lenient, if it were conceded that the charges against him
were true. His enemies, however, while he had been thus immured, had
possessed the power to accuse him as they listed. He ceased to speak,
and the executioner then came forward and strangled him. The alcalde,
the notary, and the executioner then immediately started for Valladolid,
so that no person next morning knew that they had been that night at
Simancas, nor could guess the dark deed which they had then and there
accomplished. The terrible, secret they were forbidden, on pain of
death, to reveal.
Montigny, immediately after his death, was clothed in the habit of Saint
Francis, in order to conceal the marks of strangulation. In the course
of the day the body was deposited, according to the King's previous
orders, in the church of Saint Saviour. Don Eugenio de Peralta, who
superintended the interment, uncovered the face of the defunct to prove
his identity, which was instantly recognised by many sorrowing servants.
The next morning the second letter, prepared by Philip long before, and
brought by Don Alonzo de Avellano to Simancas, received the date of 17th
October, 1570, together with the signature of Don Eugenio de Peralta,
keeper of Simancas fortress, and was then publicly despatched to the
King. It stated that, notwithstanding the care given to the Seigneur de
Montigny in his severe illness by the physicians who had attended him, he
had continued to grow worse and worse until the previous morning between
three and four o'clock, when he had expired. The Fray Hernando del
Castillo, who had accidentally happened to be at Simancas, had performed
the holy offices, at the request of the deceased, who had died in so
catholic a frame of mind, that great hopes might be entertained of his
salvation. Although he possessed no property, yet his burial had been
conducted very respectably.
On the 3rd of November, 1570, these two letters, ostensibly written by
Don Eugenio de Peralta, were transmitted by Philip to the Duke of Alva.
They were to serve as evidence of the statement which the Governor-
General was now instructed to make, that the Seigneur de Montigny had
died a natural death in the fortress of Simancas. By the same courier,
the King likewise forwarded a secret memoir, containing the exact history
of the dark transaction, from which memoir the foregoing account has been
prepared. At the same time the Duke was instructed publicly to exhibit
the lying letters of Don Eugenio de Peralta, as containing an authentic
statement of the affair. The King observed, moreover, in his letter,
that there was not a person in Spain who doubted that Montigny had died
of a fever. He added that if the sentiments of the deceased nobleman had
been at all in conformity with his external manifestations, according to
the accounts received of his last moments, it was to be hoped that God
would have mercy upon his soul. The secretary who copied the letter,
took the liberty of adding, however, to this paragraph the suggestion,
that "if Montigny were really a heretic, the devil, who always assists
his children in such moments, would hardly have failed him in his dying
hour." Philip, displeased with this flippancy, caused the passage to be
erased. He even gave vent to his royal indignation in a marginal note,
to the effect that we should always express favorable judgments
concerning the dead--a pious sentiment always dearer to writing masters
than to historians. It seemed never to have occurred however to this
remarkable moralist, that it was quite as reprehensible to strangle an
innocent man as to speak ill of him after his decease.
Thus perished Baron Montigny, four years after his arrival in Madrid as
Duchess Margaret's ambassador, and three years after the death of his
fellow-envoy Marquis Berghen. No apology is necessary for so detailed an
account of this dark and secret tragedy. The great transactions of a
reign are sometimes paltry things; great battles and great treaties,
after vast consumption of life and of breath, often leave the world where
they found it. The events which occupy many of the statelier pages of
history, and which have most lived in the mouths of men, frequently
contain but commonplace lessons of philosophy. It is perhaps otherwise
when, by the resuscitation of secret documents, over which the dust of
three centuries has gathered, we are enabled to study the internal
working of a system of perfect tyranny. Liberal institutions, republican
or constitutional governments, move in the daylight; we see their mode of
operation, feel the jar of their wheels, and are often needlessly alarmed
at their apparent tendencies. The reverse of the picture is not always
so easily attainable. When, therefore, we find a careful portrait of a
consummate tyrant, painted by his own hand, it is worth our while to
pause for a moment, that we may carefully peruse the lineaments.
Certainly, we shall afterwards not love liberty the less.
Towards the end of the year 1570, still another and a terrible misfortune
descended upon the Netherlands. It was now the hand of God which smote
the unhappy country, already so tortured by the cruelty of war. An
inundation, more tremendous than any which had yet been recorded in those
annals so prolific in such catastrophes, now swept the whole coast from
Flanders to Friesland. Not the memorable deluge of the thirteenth
century, out of which the Zuyder Zee was born; not that in which the
waters of the Dollart had closed for ever over the villages and churches
of Groningen; not one of those perpetually recurring floods by which the
inhabitants of the Netherlands, year after year, were recalled to an
anxious remembrance of the watery chaos out of which their fatherland had
been created, and into which it was in daily danger of resolving itself
again, had excited so much terror and caused so much destruction. A
continued and violent gale from the north-west had long been sweeping the
Atlantic waters into the North Sea, and had now piled them upon the
fragile coasts of the provinces. The dykes, tasked beyond their
strength, burst in every direction. The cities of Flanders, to a
considerable distance inland, were suddenly invaded by the waters of the
ocean. The whole narrow peninsula of North Holland was in imminent
danger of being swept away for ever. Between Amsterdam and Meyden, the
great Diemer dyke was broken through in twelve places. The Hand-bos, a
bulwark formed of oaken piles, fastened with metal clamps, moored with
iron anchors, and secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces
like packthread. The "Sleeper," a dyke thus called, because it was
usually left in repose by the elements, except in great emergencies,
alone held firm, and prevented the consummation of the catastrophe.
Still the ocean poured in upon the land with terrible fury. Dort,
Rotterdam, and many other cities were, for a time, almost submerged.
Along the coast, fishing vessels, and even ships of larger size, were
floated up into the country, where they entangled themselves in groves
and orchards, or beat to pieces the roofs and walls of houses. The
destruction of life and of property was enormous throughout the maritime
provinces, but in Friesland the desolation was complete. There nearly
all the dykes and sluices were dashed to fragments; the country, far and-
wide, converted into an angry sea. The steeples and towers of inland
cities became islands of the ocean. Thousands of human beings were swept
out of existence in a few hours. Whole districts of territory, with all
their villages, farms, and churches, were rent from their places, borne
along by the force of the waves, sometimes to be lodged in another part
of the country, sometimes to be entirely engulfed. Multitudes of men,
women, children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were
struggling in the waves in every direction. Every boat, and every
article which could serve as a boat, were eagerly seized upon. Every
house was inundated; even the grave-yards gave up their dead. The living
infant in his cradle, and the long-buried corpse in his coffin, floated
side by side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. Everywhere,
upon the top of trees, upon the steeples of churches, human beings were
clustered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellow-men for
assistance. As the storm at last was subsiding, boats began to ply in
every direction, saving those who were still struggling in the water,
picking fugitives from roofs and tree-tops, and collecting the bodies of
those already drowned. Colonel Robles, Seigneur de Billy, formerly much
hated for his Spanish or Portuguese blood, made himself very active in
this humane work. By his exertions, and those of the troops belonging to
Groningen, many lives were rescued, and gratitude replaced the ancient
animosity. It was estimated that at least twenty thousand persons were
destroyed in the province of Friesland alone. Throughout the
Netherlands, one hundred thousand persons perished. The damage alone
to property, the number of animals engulfed in the sea, were almost
incalculable.
These events took place on the 1st and 2nd November, 1570. The former
happened to be the day of All Saints, and the Spaniards maintained loudly
that the vengeance of Heaven had descended upon the abode of heretics.
The Netherlanders looked upon the catastrophe as ominous of still
more terrible misfortunes in store for them. They seemed doomed to
destruction by God and man. An overwhelming tyranny had long been
chafing against their constitutional bulwarks, only to sweep over them at
last; and now the resistless ocean, impatient of man's feeble barriers,
had at last risen to reclaim his prey. Nature, as if disposed to put to
the blush the feeble cruelty of man, had thus wrought more havoc in a few
hours, than bigotry, however active, could effect in many years.
Nearly at the close of this year (1570) an incident occurred,
illustrating the ferocious courage so often engendered in civil
contests. On the western verge of the Isle of Bommel, stood the
castle of Lowestein. The island is not in the sea. It is the narrow
but important territory which is enclosed between the Meuse and the Waal.
The castle, placed in a slender hook, at the junction of the two rivers,
commanded the two cities of Gorcum and Dorcum, and the whole navigation
of the waters. One evening, towards the end of December, four monks,
wearing the cowls and robes of Mendicant Grey Friars, demanded
hospitality at the castle gate. They were at once ushered into the
presence of the commandant, a brother of President Tisnacq. He was
standing by the fire, conversing with his wife. The foremost monk
approaching him, asked whether the castle held for the Duke of Alva
or the Prince of Orange. The castellian replied that he recognized no
prince save Philip, King of Spain. Thereupon the monk, who was no other
than Herman de Ruyter, a drover by trade, and a warm partisan of Orange,
plucked a pistol from beneath his robe, and shot the commandant through
the head. The others, taking advantage of the sudden panic, overcame all
the resistance offered by the feeble garrison, and made themselves
masters of the place. In the course of the next day they introduced into
the castle four or five and twenty men, with which force they diligently
set themselves to fortify the place, and secure themselves in its
possession. A larger reinforcement which they had reckoned upon, was
detained by the floods and frosts, which, for the moment, had made the
roads and fivers alike impracticable.