Thus in this rapid sketch of the course and development of the Netherland nation during sixteen centuries, we have seen it ever marked by one prevailing characteristic, one master passion—the love of liberty, the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest Teutonic elements, Batavian and Frisian, the race ever battles to the death with tyranny, organizes extensive revolts in the age of Vespasian, maintains a partial independence even against the sagacious dominion of Charlemagne, refuses in Friesland to accept the papal yoke or feudal chain, and, throughout the dark ages, struggles resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons has reached so high a point, that it is able to measure itself, undaunted, with the spirit of arbitrary rule, of which that engrossing and tyrannical house is the embodiment. For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, goes on; Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian, Charles V., in turn, assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised, age after age, against the despotic principle. The combat is ever renewed. Liberty, often crushed, rises again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in the 16th century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of religious freedom, comes to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assails the new combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. Venerable civic magistrates; haltered, grovel in sackcloth and ashes; innocent, religious reformers burn in holocausts. By the middle of the century, the battle rages more fiercely than ever. In the little Netherland territory, Humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stands at bay and defies the hunters. The two great powers have been gathering strength for centuries. They are soon to be matched in a longer and more determined combat than the world had ever seen. The emperor is about to leave the stage. The provinces, so passionate for nationality, for municipal freedom, for religious reformation, are to become the property of an utter stranger; a prince foreign to their blood, their tongue, their religion, their whole habits of life and thought.
Such was the political, religious, and social condition of a nation who were now to witness a new and momentous spectacle.
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Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres
Achieved the greatness to which they had not been born
Advancing age diminished his tendency to other carnal pleasures
All his disciples and converts are to be punished with death
All reading of the scriptures (forbidden)
Altercation between Luther and Erasmus, upon predestination
An hereditary papacy, a perpetual pope-emperor
Announced his approaching marriage with the Virgin Mary
As ready as papists, with age, fagot, and excommunication
Attacking the authority of the pope
Bold reformer had only a new dogma in place of the old ones
Charles the Fifth autocrat of half the world
Condemning all heretics to death
Craft meaning, simply, strength
Criminal whose guilt had been established by the hot iron
Criminals buying Paradise for money
Crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs
Democratic instincts of the ancient German savages
Denies the utility of prayers for the dead
Difference between liberties and liberty
Dispute between Luther and Zwingli concerning the real presence
Divine right
Drank of the water in which, he had washed
Enormous wealth (of the Church) which engendered the hatred
Erasmus encourages the bold friar
Erasmus of Rotterdam
Even for the rape of God's mother, if that were possible
Executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague
Fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system
Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich
Few, even prelates were very dutiful to the pope
Fiction of apostolic authority to bind and loose
Fishermen and river raftsmen become ocean adventurers
For myself I am unworthy of the honor (of martyrdom)
Forbids all private assemblies for devotion
Force clerical—the power of clerks
Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland
Guarantees of forgiveness for every imaginable sin
Halcyon days of ban, book and candle
Heresy was a plant of early growth in the Netherlands
In Holland, the clergy had neither influence nor seats
Invented such Christian formulas as these (a curse)
July 1st, two Augustine monks were burned at Brussels
King of Zion to be pinched to death with red-hot tongs
Labored under the disadvantage of never having existed
Learn to tremble as little at priestcraft as at swordcraft
Many greedy priests, of lower rank, had turned shop-keepers
No one can testify but a householder
Not of the stuff of which martyrs are made (Erasmus)
Nowhere was the persecution of heretics more relentless
Obstinate, of both sexes, to be burned
One golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude
Pardon for crimes already committed, or about to be committed
Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper
Paying their passage through, purgatory
Poisoning, for example, was absolved for eleven ducats
Pope and emperor maintain both positions with equal logic
Power to read and write helped the clergy to much wealth
Readiness to strike and bleed at any moment in her cause
Repentant females to be buried alive
Repentant males to be executed with the sword
Sale of absolutions was the source of large fortunes to the priests
Same conjury over ignorant baron and cowardly hind
Scoffing at the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church
Sharpened the punishment for reading the scriptures in private
Slavery was both voluntary and compulsory
Soldier of the cross was free upon his return
St. Peter's dome rising a little nearer to the clouds
Tanchelyn
The bad Duke of Burgundy, Philip surnamed "the Good,"
The egg had been laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther
The vivifying becomes afterwards the dissolving principle
Thousands of burned heretics had not made a single convert
Thus Hand-werpen, hand-throwing, became Antwerp
To prefer poverty to the wealth attendant upon trade
Tranquillity of despotism to the turbulence of freedom
Villagers, or villeins
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 3.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855
PHILIP THE SECOND IN THE NETHERLANDS
1555 [CHAPTER I.]
Abdication of Charles resolved upon—Brussels in the sixteenth
century—Hall of the palace described—Portraits of prominent
individuals present at the ceremony—Formalities of the abdication—
Universal emotion—Remarks upon the character and career of Charles
—His retirement at Juste.
On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels. They had been summoned to be the witnesses and the guarantees of the abdication which Charles V. had long before resolved upon, and which he was that day to execute. The emperor, like many potentates before and since, was fond of great political spectacles. He knew their influence upon the masses of mankind. Although plain, even to shabbiness, in his own costume, and usually attired in black, no one ever understood better than he how to arrange such exhibitions in a striking and artistic style. We have seen the theatrical and imposing manner in which he quelled the insurrection at Ghent, and nearly crushed the life forever out of that vigorous and turbulent little commonwealth. The closing scene of his long and energetic reign he had now arranged with profound study, and with an accurate knowledge of the manner in which the requisite effects were to be produced. The termination of his own career, the opening of his beloved Philip's, were to be dramatized in a manner worthy the august character of the actors, and the importance of the great stage where they played their parts. The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that day towards Brussels; for an imperial abdication was an event which had not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom.
The gay capital of Brabant—of that province which rejoiced in the liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the "joyful entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing show. Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, and, at that day, numbered about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields, flowed round it like a sea. The foot of the town was washed by the little river Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an amphitheatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely embroidered tower of the townhouse, three hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needlework in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous with the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely decorated and brocaded architecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive and thickly-wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemburg, and other Flemish grandees, on the right.. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within a quarter of a mile of the city walls. The population, as thrifty, as intelligent, as prosperous as that of any city in Europe, was divided into fifty-two guilds of artisans, among which the most important were the armorers, whose suits of mail would turn a musket-ball; the gardeners, upon whose gentler creations incredible sums were annually lavished; and the tapestry-workers, whose gorgeous fabrics were the wonder of the world. Seven principal churches, of which the most striking was that of St. Gudule, with its twin towers, its charming facade, and its magnificently painted windows, adorned the upper part of the city. The number seven was a magic number in Brussels, and was supposed at that epoch, during which astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in its prime, to denote the seven planets which governed all things terrestrial by their aspects and influences. Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient castles, supplied the stock from which the seven senators were selected who composed the upper council of the city. There were seven great squares, seven city gates, and upon the occasion of the present ceremony, it was observed by the lovers of wonderful coincidences, that seven crowned heads would be congregated under a single roof in the liberty-loving city.
The palace where the states-general were upon this occasion convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since the days of John the Second, who had built it about the year 1300. It was a spacious and convenient building, but not distinguished for the beauty of its architecture. In front was a large open square, enclosed by an iron railing; in the rear an extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest trees, and containing gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game preserves, fountains and promenades, race-courses and archery grounds. The main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arran, representing the life and achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the "fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there were various additional embellishments of flowers and votive garlands. At the western end a spacious platform or stage, with six or seven steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with tapestry, upon the right hand and upon the left. These were respectively to accommodate the knights of the order and the guests of high distinction. In the rear of these were other benches, for the members of the three great councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were placed three gilded arm-chairs.