II
The duke of blood having quitted the country, Messires de Medina-Coeli and De Requesens governed it with less cruelty. Then the States General ruled them in the name of the king.
Meanwhile, the folk of Zealand and of Holland, most lucky by reason of the sea and their dykes, which are natural ramparts and fortresses to them, opened free temples to the God of free men; and the murderous Papists might sing their hymns beside them; and Monseigneur the Silent of Orange refrained from founding a royal dynasty of stadtholders.
The Belgian country was ravaged by the Walloons who were dissatisfied by the peace of Ghent, which, men said, was to quench all hatreds. And these Walloons, Pater-noster knechter, wearing upon their necks big black rosaries, of which there were found two thousand at Spienne in Hainaut, stealing oxen and horses by twelve hundred, two thousand at a time, choosing out the best, carrying off women and girls by field and by marsh; eating and never paying, these Walloons used to burn within their farmsteads the armed peasants that tried to prevent the fruit of their hard toil from being carried away.
And the common folk would say to one another: “Don Juan is soon to come with his Spaniards, and his Great Highness will come with his Frenchmen, not Huguenots but Papists: and the Silent, desiring to rule in peace over Holland, Zealand, Gueldre, Utrecht, Overyssel, cedes in a secret treaty the lands of Belgium, for Monsieur d’Anjou to make himself a king therein.”
Some of the commonalty were still confident. “The States,” said they, “have twenty thousand well-armed men, with plenty of cannon and good cavalry. They will repel all foreign soldiery.”
But the thoughtful ones said: “The States have twenty thousand men on paper, but not in the field; they lack cavalry and let their horses be stolen within a league of their camps by the Pater-noster knechten. They have no artillery, for while needing it at home, they decided to send one hundred cannon with powder and shot to Don Sebastian of Portugal; and no man knoweth whither has gone the two million crowns we have paid on four occasions by way of taxes and contributions; the citizens of Ghent and Brussels are arming, Ghent for the Reformation, and Brussels even as Ghent; at Brussels the women play the tambourine while their men toil at the ramparts. And Ghent the Bold is sending to Brussels the Gay powder and cannon, the which she lacketh for her defence against the Malcontents and the Spaniards.”
And man by man in the towns and the flat country, in ’t plat landt, sees that trust cannot be placed either in the lords or in many another. “And we citizens and common folk are sore at heart for that giving our money and ready to give our blood, we see that nothing goes forward for the good of the country of our sires. And the Belgian land is cowed and angered, having no trusty chiefs to give it the chance of battle and to give it victory, through great effort of arms all ready against the foes of liberty.”
And the thoughtful folk said among themselves:
“In the Peace of Ghent, the lords of Holland and of Belgium swore the abolishment of hate, mutual help between the Belgian Estates and the Estates of the Netherlands; declared the edicts null and void, the confiscations cancelled, peace between the two religions; promised to raze each and every column, trophy, inscription, and effigy set up by the Duke of Alba to our dishonour. But in the hearts of the chiefs the hatreds are still afoot; the nobles and the clergy foment division between the States of the Union; they receive money to pay soldiers, they keep it for their own gluttony; fifteen thousand law suits for the recovery of confiscated property are suspended; the Lutherans and Romans unite against the Calvinists; lawful heirs cannot succeed in driving the despoilers from out their inheritance; the duke’s statue is on the ground, but the image of the Inquisition is enshrined within their hearts.”