CHAPTER X
ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE
(July 10, 1584)
IT was said by one of the wild revolutionists of France, in extenuation of his incessant demands for the execution of a larger number of the nobility, that the tree of liberty, to grow vigorously, should be watered with plenty of blood. Alas! The history of the republics of the world, not only since the great French Revolution of 1789, but at all times, both ancient and modern, proves the justice of this assertion, but none furnishes a more convincing proof of it than the history of the Dutch Republic in its heroic struggle against the gigantic power of Spain and other monarchical nations. At the very threshold of that history stands the luminous figure of the great Prince of Orange, William the Silent,—warrior, statesman, orator, and patriot; whose assassination, closely following upon the murders of the night of St. Bartholomew, is but the first of the crimes committed against the illustrious men of the Dutch Republic—Olden Barnevelt, the brothers De Witt, and others.
The assassination of William of Orange is of a semi-political and semi-religious character. The revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule, of which the Prince of Orange was the principal figure, originated in religious conflicts between the Netherlanders—most of whom were Calvinists or Lutherans—and the bigoted King of Spain, Philip the Second, who was more Catholic than the Pope himself. It was one of the fixed ideas of Philip the Second, a perfect monomania, that in the immense empire over which he ruled, none but faithful believers in the Catholic faith should be tolerated, and that all heretics or dissidents should be exterminated with fire and sword. In the Pyrenean peninsula—for Portugal was at this time annexed to Spain—this idea was most radically carried out, and year after year the Inquisition, which flourished there as the first institution of the state, handed over thousands of victims, convicted or suspected of heresy, to a most cruel death at the stake for the purpose of purifying the spiritual atmosphere of the country. But when an effort was being made on the part of the King to introduce the same system of spiritual purification into the Netherlands, which he had inherited from his father, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and whose population was mostly of Germanic race, that effort met with a most stubborn and almost insuperable resistance.
Already, under Charles the Fifth, all attempts to smother the Protestant Reformation—which had entered the Netherlands both from Germany and France and which had immediately found many adherents—had failed. The Emperor, himself a Netherlander and familiar with the character of the people, had deemed it prudent to abolish the Inquisition (at least in name) and not to interfere too strongly with those personal rights of the inhabitants which their municipal or provincial statutes guaranteed to them. Moreover the Emperor had a very affable and popular way of dealing with the people, and he could do a great many things which no other ruler might have presumed to do. When Charles the Fifth abdicated in 1555, the grief of the people of the Netherlands was not only general, but sincere; they seemed to feel instinctively that the change which was to occur in the government was full of impending dangers and calamities for them. The personality of the new ruler fully justified these apprehensions. Philip the Second came to the Netherlands from England, where he had resided a short time as consort of Queen Mary, and his reputation for bigotry, fanaticism, and cruelty had preceded his arrival. Many of the acts of bloodshed and cruelty which were committed under that reign were more or less justly imputed to his influence, and his new subjects trembled at the prospects of similar scenes of persecution and despotism. No wonder that on the twenty-fifth of October, 1555, when the act of abdication was consummated at Brussels, and when the infirm Emperor, leaning upon the shoulder of Prince William of Orange, appeared before the representatives and high dignitaries of all the provinces constituting the Netherlands, and ceded the government to his son, who stood on his right side, a shudder passed through the high assembly. Many eyes passed apprehensively from the open and kindly countenance of the Emperor, then bathed in tears, to the sinister and cruel features of King Philip. What a contrast also between the majestic form and noble countenance of William of Orange and the small, feeble, narrow-chested son of Charles, who with distrustful eyes looked down upon this assemblage of nobles as if they were strangers or enemies, and whom not even the glitter of royalty could invest with dignity, although his features showed uncommon pride and haughtiness! The hopes of the people of the Low Countries rested upon the one; their fears were centred on the other.
Unquestionably it had been the Emperor’s intention to place William of Orange by the side of his son as chief adviser and protector; but the characters of the two were so different—the one broad, humane, manly; the other narrow, bigoted, timid—that it soon became manifest that a hearty coöperation of the two men for the welfare of the state was impossible. Moreover the aspirations and tendencies in regard to the government of the provinces which the two men entertained were absolutely conflicting, the Prince being in favor of liberal institutions and scrupulous observance of the guaranteed rights of the provinces, while the King was illiberal and despotic, without regard for the local customs and rights of the Netherlanders, anxious to concentrate all powers in his hands and to subordinate the whole government to his autocratic will.
These conflicting tendencies and these antipathies grew and became intensified as the months and years passed by; consequently, when Philip in 1559 left Brussels for Spain, he did not appoint the Prince of Orange Governor-General of the Netherlands, to which position he was clearly entitled, but conferred that honor with the title of regent upon his half-sister, Margaret, Duchess of Parma, who shared his own fanatical ideas. As her chief adviser he appointed Cardinal Granvella, a man of great sagacity and talent, but filled with animosity against the enemies of the Catholic Church, and in full though secret accord with the King concerning the necessity of wiping out the privileges of the “arrogant burghers of the Low Countries.” William of Orange was appointed Stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, and a member of the Council of State, a sort of cabinet for the Regent Duchess in which Cardinal Granvella was the leading spirit. Several other prominent noblemen of the Dutch provinces, Count Egmont, the conqueror of Gravelines, and Count Hoorn, were also members of the Council of State; but they were in a minority, and the Spanish or Cardinalistic party ruled its decisions absolutely. All of these decisions were hostile to the guaranteed rights of the Provinces; they interfered with freedom of conscience; they reintroduced the Spanish Inquisition under the disguise of creating new episcopal sees and attaching two inquisitors to each; and by establishing Spanish garrisons in the fortified towns they violated the constitutional right of the provinces that no foreign troops should be stationed there. The protests of the Prince of Orange and of Counts Egmont and Hoorn were of no avail, so these three distinguished members refused to attend the sessions of the Council of State.