Windmills and Wooden Shoes

by Blair Jaekel

Even at this time, William, unbeknown to the people of Leyden, was appealing to the States to allow him to open the flood gates of Rotterdam and Schiedam and to pierce the dikes along the Meuse and the Yssel in order to inundate the country and give his fleet a fairway to the very watchtowers of Leyden. After much debate, his proposition for effecting the relief, although a most destructive one to the surrounding country, was accepted; bonds were issued by the States to help defray the expenses of the task, and patriotic Dutch housewives disposed of silver plate and jewelry as their contributions to the financial furtherance of the scheme.

It was not until some days after the Prince had supervised in person the unlocking of the gates at Schiedam and Rotterdam on August 3rd and the rupture of the dikes at sixteen different places along the Yssel, that the starving prisoners of Leyden commenced to grow impatient and appealed by letter to Orange, telling him that their bread was gone and that the supply of its only substitute, malt cakes, would last but four days longer. To their letters the Prince, having unfortunately and most untimely contracted the fever, answered reassuringly from his sick bed in Rotterdam to the effect that the dikes had been cut, that water was already pouring in over the land, and that as soon as its depth was sufficient to float the fleet an attempt at rescue would be made. The message was read by the Burgomaster, Van der Werf, to the people assembled in the market place, and the welcome news was received with great rejoicings.

Although the water about Leyden had by this time reached a depth of ten inches, the Spaniards, at first confused, later became confident that the thing could not be accomplished. When, from the lack of a breeze, the water failed to rise higher; and because of the inability of the prostrate Prince, which neither the besiegers nor besieged had heard of nor even imagined, curtailed additional attempts to flood the country; the Spaniards began to taunt the valiant citizens. “Go up to the tower, ye Beggars,” they cried, “go up to the tower and tell us if ye can see the ocean coming over the dry land to your relief.”

But the citizens did go up to the tower, and, after bravely having withstood the siege until early in September, by which time a gale of wind had risen and the Prince had recovered in a measure from his illness, they did see the ocean coming over the dry land to their relief, and with a vengeance. Not only that, but they also saw a welcome fleet of two hundred vessels coming in on the crest of the ocean; they saw this fleet come up from the south, steadily and undisputed, to within five miles of Leyden; they saw it demolish the Spanish forts—a navy of surgeons cauterizing the festering sores on the face of fair Holland. Then, to their consternation, they saw the gale die out and the waters recede, leaving the entire fleet stranded at North Aa, just beyond cannon’s shot of its goal.

Despair took the place of hope in the hearts of the besieged. They implored, and then threatened the life of Burgomaster Van der Werf if he refused to surrender to the Spaniards. He came out into the little square just opposite the old church of St. Pancras, waved his felt hat as a signal for silence, and delivered himself of a short but pithy address that turned despair into faith, animosity into pride, and fired the hearts of his countrymen with renewed patriotism. What he said on that occasion has gone down in history as one of the most superb proclamations ever uttered by a brave man for a national cause.

“What would ye, my friends?” he said. “Why do ye murmur that we do not break our vows and surrender the city to the Spaniards?—a fate more horrible than the agony which she now endures. I tell you that I have made an oath to hold the city, and may God give me strength to keep my oath! I can die but once; whether by your hands, the enemy’s, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me. Not so that of the city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall starve if not soon relieved; but starvation is preferable to the dishonored fate which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not. My life is at your disposal. Here is my sword; plunge it into my breast and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease your hunger, but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive.”

How the populace of Leyden, after listening to this, rushed to the ramparts with renewed courage engendered within them and hurled defiance in the teeth of the bloodthirsty Spaniards; how as many as 8,000 died in the streets from the plague alone, germinated by the foulness of the beleaguered city; how the frantic people stripped even the leaves from the trees to relieve their hunger and fought over the garbage pits for every possible morsel of food; how at last a violent equinoctial gale on the first two days of October filled the lowland with water and floated the stranded fleet; how this fleet sailed in between the trees and the chimney pots of submerged farmhouses, putting the Spaniards to flight as it advanced; and how, on the morning of the 3rd of October, the Dutch ships, under Admiral Boisot, paddled up the canals of Leyden while the stricken citizens gathered on the banks and tried to shout with wild delight, but could not on account of their emaciated condition—are all matters of historical fact that may be perused in detail in the pages of any authoritative work on the rise of the Dutch Republic.

It is also an historical fact that on the very next day after the relief of Leyden the gale shifted and blew with all its fury from the northeast, driving out the waters before it, so that within a few days the country was as it had been before and the labor of repairing the dikes commenced forthwith.

As a reward for the sufferings of the people of Leyden the city was granted an annual fair of ten days with exemption from taxes and the States caused the university to be established.

The University of Leyden doesn’t look much like our idea of a university, for the professors, except those in the department of medicine, teach their classes at home, the nine hundred students live in the town, and, as a result, dormitories and classrooms are things that may be dispensed with. The old “university building,” however, originally a nunnery, maintains in its connection one of the finest libraries in Holland.