The King of Spain had from the first day of his accession known the powerful influence which the Prince of Orange exerted in the Netherlands. The Prince stood without a rival at the head of the nobility, and his eminent talents enhanced the authority which his illustrious birth had secured for him. The King was also informed by his special representatives—the Duchess Regent, Granvella, the Duke of Alva, Don John of Austria, and others—that this authority was steadily increasing, that the great mass of the people idolized the Prince, that his wish was a law for the burghers, and that practically the revolt, its failure or success, depended on him. The exalted character of the Prince precluded the very idea of winning him over to the other side by means of high distinctions or honors, much less by pecuniary bribes or corruption, and nothing remained therefore for the King to do, if he wanted to get rid of the dangerous popular leader, who held a number of the provinces entirely under his sway, than to place him beyond the pale of the law and to offer a high reward for his head. This method of removing rivals or enemies was not unusual in those days; and it should cause no surprise that the monarch who is, and very likely justly, suspected of having ordered the murder of his half-brother, Don Juan d’Austria, and also that of his own son, Don Carlos, was perfectly willing to adopt this method of getting rid of the Prince of Orange, who in his eyes was not only a rebel, but also a heretic, and as such deserved death a hundredfold. The price he put on the Prince’s head—twenty-five thousand ducats—showed sufficiently the importance he attached to his life, and how willing he was to tempt assassins by the enormous sum of the reward.
The King, who evidently had experience in such matters, had not miscalculated the temptation, for several attempts were made on the Prince’s life in consequence; but they always failed, and it would almost seem as if that life was under the special protection of Providence that it might carry out the plans predestined for it. In 1582, Juan Jaureguy, a young man in the employ of a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, and a religious fanatic, fired a pistol shot at the Prince which came very near killing him. The ball entered the head under the right ear, passed through the roof of the mouth, breaking several teeth, and came out under the left jaw-bone. For a while the Prince’s life was despaired of, but he finally rallied and recovered. His would-be assassin was immediately killed, and his accomplices, of whom there were several, were publicly strangled and quartered. In order to deter others from making attempts on the Prince’s life, the ghastly remains of these accomplices, one of them a Dominican monk, were nailed to the gates of Antwerp. The joy at the Prince’s recovery was general, and thanksgiving days, with divine service in the churches and public halls, were held in a number of the provinces. Unfortunately neither these public demonstrations of gratitude and delight, nor the terrible warnings addressed to assassins were sufficient to protect a life so valuable to his country and to the world.
Another assassin was more successful than Jaureguy. The scene of the murder, which took place on the tenth day of July, 1584, was the city of Delft in Holland. Shortly after the noon hour of that day a common-looking man, who had found access to the Prince’s residence for the purpose of securing a passport, approached the Prince as he came from the dining-hall and fired three shots at him, one passing through the stomach and causing his death after a very short while. The assassin was a man still young, less than thirty years of age. He was a Frenchman, Balthasar Gérard by name, who had come from his home in Franche-Comté or Burgundy to carry out his hellish design, which was inspired by religious fanaticism and encouraged by Jesuits of the College of Trèves. Through these he was introduced to the Duke of Parma, then Governor-General of the Netherlands, who promised him the royal reward in case of success, and other royal favors besides. Gérard had made his preparations for the murder with considerable circumspection; these preparations were very similar to those which Booth made for his escape after the murder of Abraham Lincoln, and just like Booth, Gérard stumbled and fell in making his escape and hurt himself, and this led to his arrest.
After having undergone the most terrible tortures, his joints having been wrenched and his body nearly roasted alive, he was executed in the most cruel manner imaginable. His right hand was burnt off with red-hot irons; the flesh was torn from half a dozen different parts of his body, which was then broken on the wheel. Gérard was still alive; his vitality was wonderful. The executioners then disembowelled and quartered him; tore out his heart and flung it in his face. It was then only that the unfortunate man breathed his last. His head was then cut off and placed on a pike of a gate in the rear of the Prince’s residence, and the four parts of his body were fastened to the four gates of the city. This cruel mutilation and dismemberment of the assassin’s body was hardly sufficient to satisfy the vengeance of the people; the certainty that the King of Spain stooped even to murder of the basest sort to recover his sovereignty over the Netherlands exalted their desire for absolute and lasting national independence to a sort of religious dogma which made all hope of peace illusory.
When the assassin’s hand cut short the life of the Prince of Orange, he had not completed the great work for which he had toiled, fought, suffered and died. But part of that work had been done, and it had been done so well and so thoroughly that the Republic stood on a firm foundation ready to receive the other provinces which were still in the power of Spain as a fitting superstructure. For this reason history recognizes William the Silent as the founder of the Dutch Republic and of the independence of the United Provinces.
To Americans the character of William the Silent is of special interest because it bears, in many respects, a striking resemblance to that of George Washington. Both were the principal figures in wars for the independence of their countries; both were soldiers and statesmen of a high order. If Washington was very likely the greater general, William the Silent was very likely the greater statesman, and the success of the American cause would have been as impossible without Washington as the failure of the Dutch struggle would have been certain without William of Orange. Both were sterling patriots and subordinated their own interests to those of the nations they represented; but in this respect Washington was, perhaps, superior to William, who had an eye on the possibilities which might arise after a successful issue of the war. It should be remembered, however, that William of Orange was a prince and sovereign before he was made the head of the Netherlanders rising in revolt against Spain, and that, as a sovereign, it was natural for him to look after the interests of his family and dynasty. As far as mental and moral qualifications are concerned, both men were distinguished by that perfect equilibrium of powers of the mind and powers of the soul, which is but rarely found in men of the highest rank. Neither of these statesmen had the capacity of immediately conceiving and executing plans of a decisive character. Their minds, although full of resources, worked slowly in elaborating such plans; they weighed and hesitated before taking action; but as soon as their minds had been made up and a plan had been resolved upon, they acted without wavering, and held on to it until success or failure resulted from it. The great respect in which Washington has been always held by British historians and statesmen is, perhaps, the noblest tribute that can be paid to his character and abilities. The fact that Philip the Second relied less on his splendid armies, led by some of the ablest generals of Europe, and on his powerful navy, than on the death of William the Silent is, perhaps, the greatest eulogy which can be given to the great founder of the Dutch Republic. Unquestionably the Spanish monarch considered the twenty-five thousand gold pieces which he offered for the assassination of William of Orange, although an enormous sum for those times, but a very cheap equivalent for the life of a man who had been the very life and soul, the inspiring genius of the rebellious Dutch provinces. If monuments of foreign statesmen and rulers are to be erected on American soil, no fitter and no worthier man can be found for that honor than William the Silent.
CHAPTER XI
IVAN THE TERRIBLE
