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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 22.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

By John Lothrop Motley

1855

ADMINISTRATION OF THE GRAND COMMANDER

PART IV.

1573-74 [CHAPTER I.]

Previous career of Requesens--Philip's passion for detail--Apparent
and real purposes of government--Universal desire for peace--
Correspondence of leading royalists with Orange--Bankruptcy of the
exchequer at Alva's departures--Expensive nature of the war--
Pretence of mildness on the part of the Commander--His private
views--Distress of Mondragon at Middelburg--Crippled condition of
Holland--Orange's secret negotiations with France--St. Aldegonde's
views in captivity--Expedition to relieve Middelburg--Counter
preparations of Orange--Defeat of the expedition--Capitulation of
Mondragon--Plans of Orange and his brothers--An army under Count
Louis crosses the Rhine--Measures taken by Requesens--Manoeuvres of
Avila and of Louis--The two armies in face at Mook--Battle of Mook-
heath--Overthrow and death of Count Louis--The phantom battle--
Character of Louis of Nassau--Painful uncertainty as to his fate--
Periodical mutinies of the Spanish troops characterized--Mutiny
after the battle of Mook--Antwerp attacked and occupied,--Insolent
and oppressive conduct of the mutineers--Offers of Requesens
refused--Mutiny in the citadel--Exploits of Salvatierra--Terms of
composition--Soldiers' feast on the mere--Successful expedition of
Admiral Boisot

The horrors of Alva's administration had caused men to look back with
fondness upon the milder and more vacillating tyranny of the Duchess
Margaret. From the same cause the advent of the Grand Commander was
hailed with pleasure and with a momentary gleam of hope. At any rate,
it was a relief that the man in whom an almost impossible perfection of
cruelty seemed embodied was at last to be withdrawn. it was certain that
his successor, however ambitious of following in Alva's footsteps, would
never be able to rival the intensity and the unswerving directness of
purpose which it had been permitted to the Duke's nature to attain. The
new Governor-General was, doubtless, human, and it had been long since
the Netherlanders imagined anything in common between themselves and the
late Viceroy.

Apart from this hope, however, there was little encouragement to be
derived from anything positively known of the new functionary, or the
policy which he was to represent. Don Luis de Requesens and Cuniga,
Grand Commander of Castile and late Governor of Milan, was a man of
mediocre abilities, who possessed a reputation for moderation and
sagacity which he hardly deserved. His military prowess had been chiefly
displayed in the bloody and barren battle of Lepanto, where his conduct
and counsel were supposed to have contributed, in some measure, to the
victorious result. His administration at Milan had been characterized
as firm and moderate. Nevertheless, his character was regarded with
anything but favorable eyes in the Netherlands. Men told each other of
his broken faith to the Moors in Granada, and of his unpopularity in
Milan, where, notwithstanding his boasted moderation, he had, in reality,
so oppressed the people as to gain their deadly hatred. They complained,
too, that it was an insult to send, as Governor-General of the provinces,
not a prince of the blood, as used to be the case, but a simple
"gentleman of cloak and sword."

Any person, however, who represented the royal authority in the provinces
was under historical disadvantage. He was literally no more than an
actor, hardly even that. It was Philip's policy and pride to direct all
the machinery of his extensive empire, and to pull every string himself.
His puppets, however magnificently attired, moved only in obedience to
his impulse, and spoke no syllable but with his voice. Upon the table in
his cabinet was arranged all the business of his various realms, even to
the most minute particulars.

Plans, petty or vast, affecting the interests of empires and ages,
or bounded within the narrow limits of trivial and evanescent detail,
encumbered his memory and consumed his time. His ambition to do all the
work of his kingdoms was aided by an inconceivable greediness for labor.
He loved the routine of business, as some monarchs have loved war,
as others have loved pleasure. The object, alike paltry and impossible,
of this ambition, bespoke the narrow mind. His estates were regarded by
him as private property; measures affecting the temporal and eternal
interests of millions were regarded as domestic affairs, and the eye of
the master was considered the only one which could duly superintend these
estates and those interests. Much incapacity to govern was revealed in
this inordinate passion to administer. His mind, constantly fatigued by
petty labors, was never enabled to survey his wide domains from the
height of majesty.

In Alva, certainly, he had employed an unquestionable reality; but Alva,
by a fortunate coincidence of character, had seemed his second self. He
was now gone, however, and although the royal purpose had not altered,
the royal circumstances were changed. The moment had arrived when it was
thought that the mask and cothurn might again be assumed with effect;
when a grave and conventional personage might decorously make his
appearance to perform an interlude of clemency and moderation with
satisfactory results. Accordingly, the Great Commander, heralded by
rumors of amnesty, was commissioned to assume the government which Alva
had been permitted to resign.

It had been industriously circulated that a change of policy was
intended. It was even supposed by the more sanguine that the Duke had
retired in disgrace. A show of coldness was manifested towards him on
his return by the King, while Vargas, who had accompanied the Governor,
was peremptorily forbidden to appear within five leagues of the court.
The more discerning, however, perceived much affectation in this apparent
displeasure. Saint Goard, the keen observer of Philip's moods and
measures, wrote to his sovereign that he had narrowly observed the
countenances of both Philip and Alva; that he had informed himself as
thoroughly as possible with regard to the course of policy intended;
that he had arrived at the conclusion that the royal chagrin was but
dissimulation, intended to dispose the Netherlanders to thoughts of an
impossible peace, and that he considered the present merely a breathing
time, in which still more active preparations might be made for crushing
the rebellion. It was now evident to the world that the revolt had
reached a stage in which it could be terminated only by absolute
conquest or concession.

To conquer the people of the provinces, except by extermination,
seemed difficult--to judge by the seven years of execution, sieges
and campaigns, which had now passed without a definite result. It was,
therefore, thought expedient to employ concession. The new Governor
accordingly, in case the Netherlanders would abandon every object for
which they had been so heroically contending, was empowered to concede
a pardon. It was expressly enjoined upon him, however, that no
conciliatory measures should be adopted in which the King's absolute
supremacy, and the total prohibition of every form of worship but the
Roman Catholic, were not assumed as a basis. Now, as the people had been
contending at least ten years long for constitutional rights against
prerogative, and at least seven for liberty of conscience against
papistry, it was easy to foretell how much effect any negotiations
thus commenced were likely to produce.

Yet, no doubt, in the Netherlands there was a most earnest longing for
peace. The Catholic portion of the population were desirous of a
reconciliation with their brethren of the new religion. The universal
vengeance which had descended upon heresy had not struck the heretics
only. It was difficult to find a fireside, Protestant or Catholic, which
had not been made desolate by execution, banishment, or confiscation.
The common people and the grand seigniors were alike weary of the war.
Not only Aerschot and Viglius, but Noircarmes and Berlaymont, were
desirous that peace should be at last compassed upon liberal terms,
and the Prince of Orange fully and unconditionally pardoned. Even the
Spanish commanders had become disgusted with the monotonous butchery
which had stained their swords. Julian Romero; the fierce and
unscrupulous soldier upon whose head rested the guilt of the Naarden
massacre, addressed several letters to William of Orange, full of
courtesy, and good wishes for a speedy termination of the war, and for an
entire reconciliation of the Prince with his sovereign. Noircarmes also
opened a correspondence with the great leader of the revolt; and offered
to do all in his power to restore peace and prosperity to the country.
The Prince answered the courtesy of the Spaniard with equal, but barren,
courtesy; for it was obvious that no definite result could be derived
from such informal negotiations. To Noircarmes he responded in terms of
gentle but grave rebuke, expressing deep regret that a Netherland noble
of such eminence, with so many others of rank and authority, should so
long have supported the King in his tyranny. He, however, expressed his
satisfaction that their eyes, however late, had opened to the enormous
iniquity which had been practised in the country, and he accepted the
offers of friendship as frankly as they had been made. Not long
afterwards, the Prince furnished his correspondent with a proof of his
sincerity, by forwarding to him two letters which had been intercepted;
from certain agents of government to Alva, in which Noircarmes and others
who had so long supported the King against their own country, were spoken
of in terms of menace and distrust. The Prince accordingly warned his
new correspondent that, in spite of all the proofs of uncompromising
loyalty which he had exhibited, he was yet moving upon a dark and
slippery-pathway, and might, even like Egmont and Horn, find a scaffold-
as the end and the reward of his career. So profound was that abyss of
dissimulation which constituted the royal policy, towards the
Netherlands, that the most unscrupulous partisans of government could
only see doubt and danger with regard to their future destiny, and
were sometimes only saved by an opportune death from disgrace and
the hangman's hands.

Such, then, were the sentiments of many eminent personages, even among
the most devoted loyalists. All longed for peace; many even definitely
expected it, upon the arrival of the Great Commander. Moreover, that
functionary discovered, at his first glance into the disorderly state of
the exchequer, that at least a short respite was desirable before
proceeding with the interminable measures of hostility against the
rebellion. If any man had been ever disposed to give Alva credit for
administrative ability, such delusion must have vanished at the spectacle
of confusion and bankruptcy which presented, itself at the termination of
his government. He resolutely declined to give his successor any
information whatever as to his financial position. So far from
furnishing a detailed statement, such as might naturally be expected
upon so momentous an occasion, he informed the Grand Commander that even
a sketch was entirely out of the question, and would require more time
and labor than he could then afford. He took his departure, accordingly,
leaving Requesens in profound ignorance as to his past accounts; an
ignorance in which it is probable that the Duke himself shared to the
fullest extent. His enemies stoutly maintained that, however loosely his
accounts had been kept, he had been very careful to make no mistakes
against himself, and that he had retired full of wealth, if not of honor,
from his long and terrible administration. His own letters, on the
contrary, accused the King of ingratitude, in permitting an old soldier
to ruin himself, not only in health but in fortune, for want of proper
recompense during an arduous administration. At any rate it is very
certain that the rebellion had already been an expensive matter to the
Crown. The army in the Netherlands numbered more than sixty-two thousand
men, eight thousand being Spaniards, the rest Walloons and Germans.
Forty millions of dollars had already been sunk, and it seemed probable
that it would require nearly the whole annual produce of the American
mines to sustain the war. The transatlantic gold and silver, disinterred
from the depths where they had been buried for ages, were employed, not
to expand the current of a healthy, life-giving commerce, but to be
melted into blood. The sweat and the tortures of the King's pagan
subjects in the primeval forests of the New World, were made subsidiary
to the extermination of his Netherland people, and the destruction of an
ancient civilization. To this end had Columbus discovered a hemisphere
for Castile and Aragon, and the new Indies revealed their hidden
treasures?

Forty millions of ducats had been spent. Six and a half millions of
arrearages were due to the army, while its current expenses were six
hundred thousand a month. The military expenses alone of the Netherlands
were accordingly more than seven millions of dollars yearly, and the
mines of the New World produced, during the half century of Philip's
reign, an average of only eleven. Against this constantly increasing
deficit, there was not a stiver in the exchequer, nor the means of
raising one. The tenth penny had been long virtually extinct, and was
soon to be formally abolished. Confiscation had ceased to afford a
permanent revenue, and the estates obstinately refused to grant a dollar.
Such was the condition to which the unrelenting tyranny and the financial
experiments of Alva had reduced the country.

It was, therefore, obvious to Requesens that it would be useful at the
moment to hold out hopes of pardon and reconciliation. He saw, what he
had not at first comprehended, and what few bigoted supporters of
absolutism in any age have ever comprehended, that national enthusiasm,
when profound and general, makes a rebellion more expensive to the despot
than to the insurgents. "Before my arrival," wrote the Grand Commander
to his sovereign, "I did not understand how the rebels could maintain
such considerable fleets, while your Majesty could not support a single
one. It appears, however, that men who are fighting for their lives,
their firesides, their property, and their false religion, for their own
cause, in short, are contented to receive rations only, without receiving
pay." The moral which the new Governor drew from his correct diagnosis
of the prevailing disorder was, not that this national enthusiasm should
be respected, but that it should be deceived. He deceived no one but
himself, however. He censured Noircarmes and Romero for their
intermeddling, but held out hopes of a general pacification. He
repudiated the idea of any reconciliation between the King and the Prince
of Orange, but proposed at the same time a settlement of the revolt.
He had not yet learned that the revolt and William of Orange were one.
Although the Prince himself had repeatedly offered to withdraw for ever
from the country, if his absence would expedite a settlement satisfactory
to the provinces, there was not a patriot in the Netherlands who could
contemplate his departure without despair. Moreover, they all knew
better than did Requesens, the inevitable result of the pacific measures
which had been daily foreshadowed.

The appointment of the Grand Commander was in truth a desperate attempt
to deceive the Netherlanders. He approved distinctly and heartily of
Alva's policy, but wrote to the King that it was desirable to amuse the
people with the idea of another and a milder scheme. He affected to
believe, and perhaps really did believe, that the nation would accept the
destruction of all their institutions, provided that penitent heretics
were allowed to be reconciled to the Mother Church, and obstinate ones
permitted to go into perpetual exile, taking with them a small portion of
their worldly goods. For being willing to make this last and almost
incredible concession, he begged pardon sincerely of the King. If
censurable, he ought not, he thought, to be too severely blamed, for his
loyalty was known. The world was aware how often he had risked his life
for his Majesty, and how gladly and how many more times he was ready to
risk it in future. In his opinion, religion had, after all, but very
little to do with the troubles, and so he confidentially informed his
sovereign. Egmont and Horn had died Catholics, the people did not rise
to assist the Prince's invasion in 1568, and the new religion was only a
lever by which a few artful demagogues had attempted to overthrow the
King's authority.

Such views as these revealed the measures of the new Governor's capacity.
The people had really refused to rise in 1568, not because they were
without sympathy for Orange, but because they were paralyzed by their
fear of Alva. Since those days, however, the new religion had increased
and multiplied everywhere, in the blood which had rained upon it. It was
now difficult to find a Catholic in Holland and Zealand, who was not a
government agent. The Prince had been a moderate Catholic, in the
opening scenes of the rebellion, while he came forward as the champion
of liberty for all forms of Christianity. He had now become a convert to
the new religion without receding an inch from his position in favor of
universal toleration. The new religion was, therefore, not an instrument
devised by a faction, but had expanded into the atmosphere of the
people's daily life. Individuals might be executed for claiming to
breathe it, but it was itself impalpable to the attacks of despotism.
Yet the Grand Commander persuaded himself that religion had little or
nothing to do with the state of the Netherlands. Nothing more was
necessary, he thought; or affected to think, in order to restore
tranquillity, than once more to spread the net of a general amnesty.

The Duke of Alva knew better. That functionary, with whom, before his
departure from the provinces, Requesens had been commanded to confer,
distinctly stated his opinion that there was no use of talking about
pardon. Brutally, but candidly, he maintained that there was nothing to
be done but to continue the process of extermination. It was necessary,
he said, to reduce the country to a dead level of unresisting misery;
before an act of oblivion could be securely laid down as the foundation
of a new and permanent order of society. He had already given his advice
to his Majesty, that every town in the country should be burned to the
ground, except those which could be permanently occupied by the royal
troops. The King, however, in his access of clemency at the appointment
of a new administration, instructed the Grand Commander not to resort to
this measure unless it should become strictly necessary.--Such were the
opposite opinions of the old and new governors with regard to the pardon.
The learned Viglius sided with Alva, although manifestly against his
will. "It is both the Duke's opinion and my own," wrote the Commander,
"that Viglius does not dare to express his real opinion, and that he is
secretly desirous of an arrangement with the rebels." With a good deal
of inconsistency, the Governor was offended, not only with those who
opposed his plans, but with those who favored them. He was angry
with Viglius, who, at least nominally, disapproved of the pardon,
and with Noircarmes, Aerschot, and others, who manifested a wish for
a pacification. Of the chief characteristic ascribed to the people by
Julius Caesar, namely, that they forgot neither favors nor injuries, the
second half only, in the Grand Commander's opinion, had been retained.
Not only did they never forget injuries, but their memory, said he,
was so good, that they recollected many which they had never received.

On the whole, however, in the embarrassed condition of affairs, and while
waiting for further supplies, the Commander was secretly disposed to try
the effect of a pardon. The object was to deceive the people and to gain
time; for there was no intention of conceding liberty of conscience,
of withdrawing foreign troops, or of assembling the states-general.
It was, however, not possible to apply these hypocritical measures of
conciliation immediately. The war was in full career and could not be
arrested even in that wintry season. The patriots held Mondragon closely
besieged in Middelburg, the last point in the Isle of Walcheren which
held for the King. There was a considerable treasure in money and
merchandise shut up in that city; and, moreover, so deserving and
distinguished an officer as Mondragon could not be abandoned to his fate.
At the same time, famine was pressing him sorely, and, by the end of the
year, garrison and townspeople had nothing but rats, mice, dogs, cats,
and such repulsive substitutes for food, to support life withal.
It was necessary to take immediate measures to relieve the place.

On the other hand, the situation of the patriots was not very
encouraging. Their superiority on the sea was unquestionable, for the
Hollanders and Zealanders were the best sailors in the world, and they
asked of their country no payment for their blood, but thanks. The land
forces, however, were usually mercenaries, who were apt to mutiny at the
commencement of an action if, as was too often the case, their wages
could not be paid. Holland was entirely cut in twain by the loss of
Harlem and the leaguer of Leyden, no communication between the dissevered
portions being possible, except with difficulty and danger. The estates,
although they had done much for the cause, and were prepared to do much
more, were too apt to wrangle about economical details. They irritated
the Prince of Orange by huckstering about subsidies to a degree which his
proud and generous nature could hardly brook. He had strong hopes from
France. Louis of Nassau had held secret interviews with the Duke of
Alencon and the Duke of Anjou, now King of Poland, at Blamont. Alencon
had assured him secretly, affectionately, and warmly, that he would be as
sincere a friend to the cause as were his two royal brothers. The Count
had even received one hundred thousand livres in hand, as an earnest of
the favorable intentions of France, and was now busily engaged, at the
instance of the Prince, in levying an army in Germany for the relief of
Leyden and the rest of Holland, while William, on his part, was omitting
nothing, whether by representations to the estates or by secret foreign
missions and correspondence, to further the cause of the suffering
country.

At the same time, the Prince dreaded the effect--of the promised pardon.
He had reason to be distrustful of the general temper of the nation when
a man like Saint Aldegonde, the enlightened patriot and his own tried
friend, was influenced, by the discouraging and dangerous position in
which he found himself, to abandon the high ground upon which they had
both so long and so firmly stood: Saint Aldegonde had been held a strict
prisoner since his capture at Maeslandsluis, at the close of Alva's
administration.--It was, no doubt, a predicament attended with much keen
suffering and positive danger. It had hitherto been the uniform policy
of the government to kill all prisoners, of whatever rank. Accordingly,
some had been drowned, some had been hanged--some beheaded some poisoned
in their dungeons--all had been murdered. This had been Alva's course.
The Grand Commander also highly approved of the system, but the capture
of Count Bossu by the patriots had necessitated a suspension of such
rigor. It was certain that Bossu's head would fall as soon as Saint
Aldegonde's, the Prince having expressly warned the government of this
inevitable result. Notwithstanding that security, however, for his
eventual restoration to liberty, a Netherland rebel in a Spanish prison
could hardly feel himself at ease. There were so many foot-marks into
the cave and not a single one coming forth. Yet it was not singular,
however, that the Prince should read with regret the somewhat insincere
casuistry with which Saint Aldegonde sought to persuade himself and his
fellow-countrymen that a reconciliation with the monarch was desirable,
even upon unworthy terms. He was somewhat shocked that so valiant and
eloquent a supporter of the Reformation should coolly express his opinion
that the King would probably refuse liberty of conscience to the
Netherlanders, but would, no doubt, permit heretics to go into
banishment. "Perhaps, after we have gone into exile," added Saint
Aldegonde, almost with baseness, "God may give us an opportunity of doing
such good service to the King, that he will lend us a more favorable ear,
and, peradventure, permit our return to the country."

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