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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 20.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

By John Lothrop Motley

1855

1572-73 [CHAPTER VIII.]

Affairs in Holland and Zealand--Siege of Tergoes by the patriots--
Importance of the place--Difficulty of relieving it--Its position--
Audacious plan for sending succor across the "Drowned Land"--
Brilliant and successful expedition of Mondragon--The siege raised--
Horrible sack of Zutphen--Base conduct of Count Van den Berg--
Refusal of Naarden to surrender--Subsequent unsuccessful deputation
to make terms with Don Frederic--Don Frederic before Naarden--
Treachery of Romero--The Spaniards admitted--General massacre of the
garrison and burghers--The city burned to the ground--Warm reception
of Orange in Holland--Secret negotiations with the Estates--
Desperate character of the struggle between Spain and the provinces
--Don Frederic in Amsterdam--Plans for reducing Holland--Skirmish on
the ice at Amsterdam--Preparation in Harlem for the expected siege--
Description of the city--Early operations--Complete investment--
Numbers of besiegers and besieged--Mutual barbarities--Determined
repulse of the first assault--Failure of Batenburg's expedition--
Cruelties in city and camp--Mining and countermining--Second assault
victoriously repelled--Suffering and disease in Harlem--Disposition
of Don Frederic to retire--Memorable rebuke by Alva--Efforts of
Orange to relieve the place--Sonoy's expedition--Exploit of John
Haring--Cruel execution of prisoners on both sides--Quiryn Dirkzoon
and his family put to death in the city--Fleets upon the lake--
Defeat of the patriot armada--Dreadful suffering and starvation in
the city--Parley with the besiegers--Despair of the city--Appeal to
Orange--Expedition under Batenburg to relieve the city--His defeat
and death--Desperate condition of Harlem--Its surrender at
discretion--Sanguinary executions--General massacre--Expense of the
victory in blood and money--Joy of Philip at the news.

While thus Brabant and Flanders were scourged back to the chains which
they had so recently broken, the affairs of the Prince of Orange were not
improving in Zealand. Never was a twelvemonth so marked by contradictory
fortune, never were the promises of a spring followed by such blight and
disappointment in autumn than in the memorable year 1572. On the island
of Walcheren, Middelburg and Arnemuyde still held for the King--Campveer
and Flushing for the Prince of Orange. On the island of South Bevelaad,
the city of Goes or Tergoes was still stoutly defended by a small
garrison of Spanish troops. As long as the place held out, the city of
Middelburg could be maintained. Should that important city fall, the
Spaniards would lose all hold upon Walcheren and the province of Zealand.

Jerome de 't Zeraerts, a brave, faithful, but singularly unlucky officer,
commanded for the Prince in Walcheren. He had attempted by various
hastily planned expeditions to give employment to his turbulent soldiery,
but fortune had refused to smile upon his efforts. He had laid siege to
Middelburg and failed. He had attempted Tergoes and had been compelled
ingloriously to retreat. The citizens of Flushing, on his return, had
shut the gates of the town in his face, and far several days refused to
admit him or his troops. To retrieve this disgrace, which had sprung
rather from the insubordination of his followers and the dislike which
they bore his person than from any want of courage or conduct on his
part, he now assembled a force of seven thousand men, marched again to
Tergoes, and upon the 26th of August laid siege to the place in forma.
The garrison was very insufficient, and although they conducted
themselves with great bravery, it was soon evident that unless reinforced
they must yield. With their overthrow it was obvious that the Spaniards
would lose the important maritime province of Zealand, and the Duke
accordingly ordered D'Avila, who commanded in Antwerp, to throw succor
into Tergoes without delay. Attempts were made, by sea and by land, to
this effect, but were all unsuccessful. The Zealanders commanded the
waters with their fleet,--and were too much at home among those gulfs and
shallows not to be more than a match for their enemies. Baffled in their
attempt to relieve the town by water or by land, the Spaniards conceived
an amphibious scheme. Their plan led to one of the most brilliant feats
of arms which distinguishes the history of this war.

The Scheld, flowing past the city of Antwerp and separating the provinces
of Flanders and Brabant, opens wide its two arms in nearly opposite
directions, before it joins the sea. Between these two arms lie the
isles of Zealand, half floating upon, half submerged by the waves. The
town of Tergoes was the chief city of South Beveland, the most important
part of this archipelago, but South Beveland had not always been an
island. Fifty years before, a tempest, one of the most violent recorded
in the stormy annals of that exposed country, had overthrown all
barriers, the waters of the German Ocean, lashed by a succession of north
winds, having been driven upon the low coast of Zealand more rapidly than
they could be carried off through the narrow straits of Dover. The dykes
of the island had burst, the ocean had swept over the land, hundreds of
villages had been overwhelmed, and a tract of country torn from the
province and buried for ever beneath the sea. This "Drowned Land," as it
is called, now separated the island from the main. At low tide it was,
however, possible for experienced pilots to ford the estuary, which had
usurped the place of the land. The average depth was between four and
five feet at low water, while the tide rose and fell at least ten feet;
the bottom was muddy and treacherous, and it was moreover traversed by
three living streams or channels; always much too deep to be fordable.

Captain Plomaert, a Fleming of great experience and bravery,
warmly attached to the King's cause, conceived the plan of sending
reinforcements across this drowned district to the city of Tergoes.
Accompanied by two peasants of the country, well acquainted with the
track, he twice accomplished the dangerous and difficult passage;
which, from dry land to dry land, was nearly ten English miles in length.
Having thus satisfied himself as to the possibility of the enterprise,
he laid his plan before the Spanish colonel, Mondragon. That courageous
veteran eagerly embraced the proposal, examined the ground, and after
consultation with Sancho Avila, resolved in person to lead an expedition
along the path suggested by Plomaert. Three thousand picked men, a
thousand from each nation,--Spaniards, Walloons, and Germans, were
speedily and secretly assembled at Bergen op Zoom, from the neighbourhood
of which city, at a place called Aggier, it was necessary that the
expedition should set forth. A quantity of sacks were provided, in which
a supply of, biscuit and of powder was placed, one to be carried by each
soldier upon his head. Although it was already late in the autumn, the
weather was propitious; the troops, not yet informed: as to the secret
enterprise for which they had been selected, were all ready assembled at
the edge of the water, and Mondragon, who, notwithstanding his age, had
resolved upon heading the hazardous expedition, now briefly, on the
evening of the 20th October, explained to them the nature of the service.
His statement of the dangers which they were about to encounter, rather
inflamed than diminished their ardor. Their enthusiasm became unbounded,
as he described the importance of the city which they were about to save,
and alluded to the glory which would be won by those who thus
courageously came forward to its rescue. The time of about half ebb-tide
having arrived, the veteran,--preceded only by the guides and Plomaert,
plunged gaily into the waves, followed by his army, almost in single
file. The water was never lowed khan the breast, often higher than the
shoulder. The distance to the island, three and a half leagues at least,
was to be accomplished within at most, six hours, or the rising tide
would overwhelm them for ever. And thus, across the quaking and
uncertain slime, which often refused them a footing, that adventurous
band, five hours long, pursued their midnight march, sometimes swimming
for their lives, and always struggling with the waves which every instant
threatened to engulph them.

Before the tide had risen to more than half-flood, before the day had
dawned, the army set foot on dry land again, at the village of Irseken.
Of the whole three thousand, only nine unlucky individuals had been
drowned; so much had courage and discipline availed in that dark and
perilous passage through the very bottom of the sea. The Duke of Alva
might well pronounce it one of the most brilliant and original
achievements in the annals of war. The beacon fires were immediately
lighted upon the shore; as agreed upon, to inform Sancho d'Avila, who was
anxiously awaiting the result at Bergen op Zoom, of the safe arrival of
the troops. A brief repose was then allowed. At the approach of
daylight, they set forth from Irseken, which lay about four leagues from
Tergoes. The news that a Spanish army had thus arisen from the depths of
the sea, flew before them as they marched. The besieging force commanded
the water with their fleet, the land with their army; yet had these
indomitable Spaniards found a path which was neither land nor water, and
had thus stolen upon them in the silence of night. A panic preceded them
as they fell upon a foe much superior in number to their own force. It
was impossible for 't Zeraerts to induce his soldiers to offer
resistance. The patriot army fled precipitately and ignominiously to
their ships, hotly pursued by the Spaniards, who overtook and destroyed
the whole of their rearguard before they could embark. This done, the
gallant little garrison which had so successfully held the city, was
reinforced with the courageous veterans who had come to their relief.
his audacious project thus brilliantly accomplished, the "good old
Mondragon," as his soldiers called him, returned to the province of
Brabant.

After the capture of Mons and the sack of Mechlin, the Duke of Alva had
taken his way to Nimwegen, having despatched his son, Don Frederic, to
reduce the northern and eastern country, which was only too ready to
submit to the conqueror. Very little resistance was made by any of the
cities which had so recently, and--with such enthusiasm, embraced the
cause of Orange. Zutphen attempted a feeble opposition to the entrance
of the King's troops, and received a dreadful chastisement in
consequence. Alva sent orders to his son to leave not a single man alive
in the city, and to burn every house to the ground. The Duke's command
was almost literally obeyed. Don Frederic entered Zutphen, and without a
moment's warning put the whole garrison to the sword. The citizens next
fell a defenceless, prey; some being, stabbed in the streets, some hanged
on the trees which decorated the city, some stripped stark naked; and
turned out into the fields to freeze to death in the wintry night. As
the work of death became too fatiguing for the butchers, five hundred
innocent burghers were tied two and two, back to back, and drowned like
dogs in the river Yssel. A few stragglers who had contrived to elude
pursuit at first, were afterwards taken from their hiding places and hung
upon the gallows by the feet, some of which victims suffered four days
and nights of agony before death came to their relief. It is superfluous
to add that the outrages upon women were no less universal in Zutphen
than they had been in every city captured or occupied by the Spanish
troops. These horrors continued till scarcely chastity or life remained,
throughout the miserable city.

This attack and massacre had been so suddenly executed, that assistance
would hardly have been possible, even had there been disposition to
render it. There was; however, no such disposition. The whole country
was already cowering again, except the provinces of Holland and Zealand.
No one dared approach, even to learn what had occurred within the walls
of the town, for days after its doom had been accomplished. "A wail of
agony was heard above Zutphen last Sunday," wrote Count Nieuwenar,
"a sound as of a mighty massacre, but we know not what has taken place."

Count Van, den Bergh, another brother-in-law of Orange, proved himself
signally unworthy of the illustrious race to which he was allied. He
had, in the earlier part of the year, received the homage of the cities
of Gelderland and Overyssel, on behalf of the patriot Prince. He now
basely abandoned the field where he had endeavoured to gather laurels
while the sun of success had been shining. Having written from Kampen,
whither he had retired, that he meant to hold the city to the last gasp,
he immediately afterwards fled secretly and precipitately from the
country. In his flight he was plundered by his own people, while his
wife, Mary of Nassau, then far advanced in pregnancy, was left behind,
disguised as a peasant girl, in an obscure village.

With the flight of Van den Bergh, all the cities which, under his
guidance, had raised the standard of Orange, deserted the cause at once.
Friesland too, where Robles obtained a victory over six thousand
patriots, again submitted to the yoke. But if the ancient heart of the
free Frisians was beating thus feebly, there was still spirit left among
their brethren on the other side of the Zuyder Zee. It was not while
William of Orange was within her borders, nor while her sister provinces
had proved recreant to him, that Holland would follow their base example.
No rebellion being left, except in the north-western extremities of the
Netherlands, Don Frederic was ordered to proceed from Zutphen to
Amsterdam, thence to undertake the conquest of Holland. The little city
of Naarden, on the coast of the Zuyder Zee, lay in his path, and had not
yet formally submitted. On the 22nd of November a company of one hundred
troopers was sent to the city gates to demand its surrender. The small
garrison which had been left by the Prince was not disposed to resist,
but the spirit of the burghers was stouter than, their walls. They
answered the summons by a declaration that they had thus far held the
city for the King and the Prince of Orange, and, with God's help, would
continue so to do. As the horsemen departed with this reply, a lunatic,
called Adrian Krankhoeft, mounted the ramparts and, discharged a
culverine among them. No man was injured, but the words of defiance,
and the shot fired by a madman's hand, were destined to be fearfully
answered.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the place, which was at best far from
strong, and ill provided with arms, ammunition, or soldiers, despatched
importunate messages to Sonoy, and to ether patriot generals nearest to
them, soliciting reinforcements. Their messengers came back almost empty
handed. They brought a little powder and a great many promises, but not
a single man-at-arms, not a ducat, not a piece of artillery. The most
influential commanders, moreover, advised an honorable capitulation, if
it were still possible.

Thus baffled, the burghers of the little city found their proud position
quite untenable. They accordingly, on the 1st of December, despatched
the burgomaster and a senator to Amersfoort, to make terms, if possible,
with Don Frederic. When these envoys reached the place, they were
refused admission to the general's presence. The army had already been
ordered to move forward to Naarden, and they were directed to accompany
the advance guard, and to expect their reply at the gates of their own
city. This command was sufficiently ominous. The impression which it
made upon them was confirmed by the warning voices of their friends in
Amersfoort, who entreated them not to return to Naarden. The advice was
not lost upon one of the two envoys. After they had advanced a little
distance on their journey, the burgomaster Laurentszoon slid privately
out of the sledge in which they were travelling, leaving his cloak behind
him. "Adieu; I think I will not venture back to Naarden at present,"
said he, calmly, as he abandoned his companion to his fate. The other,
who could not so easily desert his children, his wife, and his fellow-
citizens, in the hour of danger, went forward as calmly to share in their
impending doom.

The army reached Bussem, half a league distant from Naarden, in the
evening. Here Don Frederic established his head quarters, and proceeded
to invest the city. Senator Gerrit was then directed to return to
Naarden and to bring out a more numerous deputation on the following
morning, duly empowered to surrender the place. The envoy accordingly
returned next day, accompanied by Lambert Hortensius, rector of a Latin
academy, together with four other citizens. Before this deputation had
reached Bussem, they were met by Julian Romero, who informed them that he
was commissioned to treat with them on the part of Don Frederic. He
demanded the keys of the city, and gave the deputation a solemn pledge
that the lives and property of all the inhabitants should be sacredly
respected. To attest this assurance Don Julian gave his hand three
several times to Lambert Hortensius. A soldier's word thus plighted,
the commissioners, without exchanging any written documents, surrendered
the keys, and immediately afterwards accompanied Romero into the city,
who was soon followed by five or six hundred musketeers.

To give these guests a hospitable reception, all the housewives of the
city at once set about preparations for a sumptuous feast, to which the
Spaniards did ample justice, while the colonel and his officers were
entertained by Senator Gerrit at his own house. As soon as this
conviviality had come to an end, Romero, accompanied by his host, walked
into the square. The great bell had been meantime ringing, and the
citizens had been summoned to assemble in the Gast Huis Church, then used
as a town hall. In the course of a few minutes five hundred had entered
the building, and stood quietly awaiting whatever measures might be
offered for their deliberation. Suddenly a priest, who had been pacing
to and fro before the church door, entered the building, and bade them
all prepare for death; but the announcement, the preparation, and the
death, were simultaneous. The door was flung open, and a band of armed
Spaniards rushed across the sacred threshold. They fired a single volley
upon the defenceless herd, and then sprang in upon them with sword and
dagger. A yell of despair arose as the miserable victims saw how
hopelessly they were engaged, and beheld the ferocious faces of their
butchers. The carnage within that narrow apace was compact and rapid.
Within a few minutes all were despatched, and among them Senator Gerrit,
from whose table the Spanish commander had but just risen. The church
was then set on fire, and the dead and dying were consumed to ashes
together.

Inflamed but not satiated, the Spaniards then rushed into the streets,
thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled of their contents,
and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then struck
dead as their reward. The town was then fired in every direction, that
the skulking citizens might be forced from their hiding-places. As fast
as they came forth they were put to death by their impatient foes. Some
were pierced with rapiers, some were chopped to pieces with axes, some
were surrounded in the blazing streets by troops of laughing soldiers,
intoxicated, not with wine but with blood, who tossed them to and fro
with their lances, and derived a wild amusement from their dying agonies.
Those who attempted resistance were crimped alive like fishes, and left
to gasp themselves to death in lingering torture. The soldiers becoming
more and more insane, as the foul work went on, opened the veins of some
of their victims, and drank their blood as if it were wine. Some of the
burghers were for a time spared, that they might witness the violation of
their wives and daughters, and were then butchered in company with these
still more unfortunate victims. Miracles of brutality were accomplished.
Neither church nor hearth was sacred: Men were slain, women outraged at
the altars, in the streets, in their blazing homes. The life of Lambert
Hortensius was spared, out of regard to his learning and genius, but he
hardly could thank his foes for the boon, for they struck his only son
dead, and tore his heart out before his father's eyes. Hardly any man or
woman survived, except by accident. A body of some hundred burghers made
their escape across the snow into the open country. They were, however,
overtaken, stripped stark naked, and hung upon the trees by the feet, to
freeze, or to perish by a more lingering death. Most of them soon died,
but twenty, who happened to be wealthy, succeeded, after enduring much
torture, in purchasing their lives of their inhuman persecutors. The
principal burgomaster, Heinrich Lambertszoon, was less fortunate. Known
to be affluent, he was tortured by exposing the soles of his feet to a
fire until they were almost consumed. On promise that his life should be
spared, he then agreed to pay a heavy ransom; but hardly had he furnished
the stipulated sum when, by express order of Don Frederic himself, he was
hanged in his own doorway, and his dissevered limbs afterwards nailed to
the gates of the city.

Nearly all the inhabitants of Naarden, soldiers and citizens, were thus
destroyed; and now Don Frederic issued peremptory orders that no one, on
pain of death, should give lodging or food to any fugitive. He likewise
forbade to the dead all that could now be forbidden them--a grave. Three
weeks long did these unburied bodies pollute the streets, nor could the
few wretched women who still cowered within such houses as had escaped
the flames ever wave from their lurking-places without treading upon the
festering remains of what had been their husbands, their fathers, or
their brethren. Such was the express command of him whom the flatterers
called the "most divine genius ever known." Shortly afterwards came
an order to dismantle the fortifications, which had certainly proved
sufficiently feeble in the hour of need, and to raze what was left of
the city from the surface of the earth. The work was faithfully
accomplished, and for a longtime Naarden ceased to exist.

Alva wrote, with his usual complacency in such cases, to his sovereign,
that "they had cut the throats of the burghers and all the garrison, and
that they had not left a mother's son alive." The statement was almost
literally correct, nor was the cant with which these bloodhounds
commented upon their crimes less odious than their guilt. "It was a
permission of God," said the Duke, "that these people should have
undertaken to defend a city, which was so weak that no other persons
would have attempted such a thing." Nor was the reflection of Mendoza
less pious. "The sack of Naarden," said that really brave and
accomplished cavalier, "was a chastisement which must be believed to have
taken place by express permission of a Divine Providence; a punishment
for having been the first of the Holland towns in which heresy built
its nest, whence it has taken flight to all the neighboring cities."

It is not without reluctance, but still with a stern determination, that
the historian--should faithfully record these transactions. To extenuate
would be base; to exaggerate impossible. It is good that the world
should not forget how much wrong has been endured by a single harmless
nation at the hands of despotism, and in the sacred name of God. There
have been tongues and pens enough to narrate the excesses of the people,
bursting from time to time out of slavery into madness. It is good, too,
that those crimes should be remembered, and freshly pondered; but it is
equally wholesome to study the opposite picture. Tyranny, ever young and
ever old, constantly reproducing herself with the same stony features,
with the same imposing mask which she has worn through all the ages,
can never be too minutely examined, especially when she paints her own
portrait, and when the secret history of her guilt is furnished by the
confessions of her lovers. The perusal of her traits will not make us
love popular liberty the less.

The history of Alva's administration in the Netherlands is one of those
pictures which strike us almost dumb with wonder. Why has the Almighty
suffered such crimes to be perpetrated in His sacred name? Was it
necessary that many generations should wade through this blood in order
to acquire for their descendants the blessings of civil and religious
freedom? Was it necessary that an Alva should ravage a peaceful nation
with sword and flame--that desolation should be spread over a happy land,
in order that the pure and heroic character of a William of Orange should
stand forth more conspicuously, like an antique statue of spotless marble
against a stormy sky?

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