PROTESTANT SUCCESSES
Holland and Zeeland became henceforth the centre of resistance. These provinces had not taken an important share in the life of the Low Countries during the Middle Ages. Their prosperity was of comparatively recent date and mainly due to their merchant fleet, which brought to Antwerp wood and corn from the Baltic and wine from Bordeaux. Their sailors had ventured as far as Madeira and the Azores, and, on being stopped by Charles V from reaching America by the Southern route, had endeavoured to find a route to India by the North. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Amsterdam had become the great corn market, Middleburg the centre of the French wine trade, and the shipyards of Vere, Goes and Arnemuyden were among the most active in Northern Europe. The influx of capital resulting from trade and shipping was used to reclaim marshes, to build fresh dikes and to increase considerably the cultivated area. Nowhere else, according to Guicciardini, was prosperity so general or did the traveller meet such "clean and agreeable houses and such smiling and well cared for country." Economically speaking, the Northern provinces were only beginning to feel the benefit of the advantages of their position, already so manifest in Antwerp. They were, so to speak, in a stage of formation, and far more ready to cut loose the links of tradition with an obscure past and to throw themselves into some great adventure in which they might try their strength.
They occupied, besides, a safer situation than the South, controlling the outlets of three great streams and the adjoining seas, among low-lying lands which, as a last resort, could be flooded in order to stop the advance of an enemy or cut off his retreat. This situation adapted itself remarkably well to a defensive strategy by land and an aggressive strategy by sea. The small number of inhabitants and the small forces available rendered any offensive by land against the Spanish armies extremely dangerous, so that the Southern provinces, exposed on all sides to invasion, were left to shift for themselves. It so happened that the Prince of Orange, the principal leader of the opposition, had, as governor of Holland and Zeeland, acquired a great popularity in the country, which was considerably increased by his conversion to Calvinism. He had been made "Stadhouder" of his provinces and had found great resources in the confiscation of ecclesiastical property.
The next campaign (1572-73) affords an excellent example of the strength of Orange's position. He was finally able to compel the duke to raise the siege of Alkmaar, in spite of his overwhelming superiority in numbers and of the striking successes which had marked his progress from Malines to Zutphen, to Naarden and to Harlem. The Spanish retreat, in October 1573, coincided with a naval defeat off Enkhuizen. Alba, discouraged, left the Low Countries in December and was replaced by a Spanish aristocrat, Louis de Zuniga y Requesens.
REQUESENS
Philip was at last resigned to make some concessions, but remained adamant with regard to religion. Thanks to the victory won by the Spaniards at Mook, where Louis of Nassau lost his life, Requesens was able to grant some of the claims of the States General without losing prestige. He proclaimed a general amnesty, suppressed the taxes of 10 per cent. and 5 per cent., and induced the Council of Troubles not to pronounce any more death sentences. He would not, however, dismiss the Spanish troops, and the North having refused to negotiate, the Spaniards laid siege to Leyden. In 1575 Maximilian offered his mediation, and a congress was held at Breda between the representatives of Philip and of the Prince of Orange. The religious question, however, proved a stumbling-block, Philip maintaining Catholicism as the only State religion and the prince asking for a guarantee with regard to the preservation of liberty of conscience.
After the death of Requesens, on March 15, 1576, the administration was taken over by the Council of State, including the moderate Catholics, Mansfeld, Berlaymont and Viglius. They hastened to suppress the Council of Troubles, but were unable to disband the Spanish army, in spite of the insistence of the provincial States, owing to the lack of funds for their arrears of pay. At the beginning of July some Spanish units took Alost, which became the centre of pillaging expeditions. These excesses and the increasing danger of the situation brought about a reconciliation between Orange and the Belgian nobles, and once more the dream of a common country came within reach of realization. The States of Brabant proscribed the Spanish soldiers and called the citizens to arms. The members of the Council of State were arrested and the States General assembled. In spite of the irregularity of such procedure, all the provinces sent their representatives with the sole exception of Luxemburg. Philip was still proclaimed "sovereign lord and natural prince," but the command of the national troops was given to the Belgian nobles, and Orange was asked to help in reducing the rebellious soldiery and in besieging the citadels of Ghent and Antwerp. While the delegates of the Stadhouder and of the States conferred in Ghent, news reached them of the terrible excesses committed, on November 4th, by the Spanish soldiers in Antwerp, during the course of which seven thousand people lost their lives. These riots are remembered as the "Spanish Fury."
PACIFICATION OF GHENT
Deplorable though they were, they would not have been too heavy a price to pay if national unity could have been maintained. Never did it seem nearer at hand. With fresh memories of Alba's régime and the wholesale executions of the Council of Blood, under the direct influence of the terrible news from Antwerp, the Belgian Catholics were never more ready to wipe off old grievances, to forget the sacrileges of the Iconoclasts, the massacre of Gorcum and the persecution of those of their faith in the North. The Pacification of Ghent was signed on November 8th. The seventeen provinces allied themselves into a confederation, promised to render each other mutual help, to expel the Spanish armies, to suppress the placards and the ordinances of the Duke of Alba and to proclaim a general amnesty. Liberty of conscience, however, was only proclaimed in fifteen provinces. Calvinism remained the only religion permitted in Holland and Zeeland. It is true that the pre-eminent situation of Catholicism was recognized and that the Protestants were not allowed any public manifestations outside Holland and Zeeland, but if we take into account the fact that, all over the country, the Catholics were far more numerous than their rivals, this last clause of the Pacification of Ghent shows that the Calvinists were bent on exacting all the advantages of the situation they had so heroically conquered and that the moderates of the Southern provinces still found themselves placed between the hammer of Spanish domination and the anvil of Calvinist sectarianism.
The Prince of Orange cannot be held entirely responsible for missing this unique opportunity of concluding with his compatriots a fair and liberal compact. His correspondence shows that he had hard work to reconcile his partisans even to such one-sided religious conclusions as those expressed in the Pacification of Ghent, and that in many instances he had to resign himself to being led in order to be allowed to lead.