As for the Aerschots, the Havres, the Chimays, he was never influenced either by their blandishments or their plots. He was willing to use them when their interest made them friendly, or to crush them when their intrigues against his policy rendered them dangerous. The adroitness with which he converted their schemes in behalf of Matthias, of Don John, of Anjou, into so many additional weapons for his own cause, can never be too often studied. It is instructive to observe the wiles of the Macchiavelian school employed by a master of the craft, to frustrate, not to advance, a knavish purpose. This character, in a great measure, marked his whole policy. He was profoundly skilled in the subtleties of Italian statesmanship, which he had learned as a youth at the Imperial court, and which he employed in his manhood in the service, not of tyranny, but of liberty. He fought the Inquisition with its own weapons. He dealt with Philip on his own ground. He excavated the earth beneath the King's feet by a more subtle process than that practised by the most fraudulent monarch that ever governed the Spanish empire, and Philip, chain-mailed as he was in complicated wiles, was pierced to the quick by a keener policy than his own.
Ten years long the King placed daily his most secret letters in hands which regularly transmitted copies of the correspondence to the Prince of Orange, together with a key to the ciphers and every other illustration which might be required. Thus the secrets of the King were always as well known to Orange as to himself; and the Prince being as prompt as Philip was hesitating, the schemes could often be frustrated before their execution had been commenced. The crime of the unfortunate clerk, John de Castillo, was discovered in the autumn of the year 1581, and he was torn to pieces by four horses. Perhaps his treason to the monarch whose bread he was eating, while he received a regular salary from the King's most determined foe, deserved even this horrible punishment, but casuists must determine how much guilt attaches to the Prince for his share in the transaction. This history is not the eulogy of Orange, although, in discussing his character, it is difficult to avoid the monotony of panegyric. Judged by a severe moral standard, it cannot be called virtuous or honorable to suborn treachery or any other crime, even to accomplish a lofty purpose; yet the universal practice of mankind in all ages has tolerated the artifices of war, and no people has ever engaged in a holier or more mortal contest than did the Netherlands in their great struggle with Spain. Orange possessed the rare quality of caution, a characteristic by which he was distinguished from his youth. At fifteen he was the confidential counsellor, as at twenty-one he became the general-in-chief, to the most politic, as well as the most warlike potentate of his age, and if he at times indulged in wiles which modern statesmanship, even while it practises, condemns, he ever held in his hand the clue of an honorable purpose to guide him through the tortuous labyrinth.
It is difficult to find any other characteristic deserving of grave censure, but his enemies have adopted a simpler process. They have been able to find few flaws in his nature, and therefore have denounced it in gross. It is not that his character was here and there defective, but that the eternal jewel was false. The patriotism was counterfeit; the self-abnegation and the generosity were counterfeit. He was governed only by ambition—by a desire of personal advancement. They never attempted to deny his talents, his industry, his vast sacrifices of wealth and station; but they ridiculed the idea that he could have been inspired by any but unworthy motives. God alone knows the heart of man. He alone can unweave the tangled skein of human motives, and detect the hidden springs of human action, but as far as can be judged by a careful observation of undisputed facts, and by a diligent collation of public and private documents, it would seem that no man—not even Washington—has ever been inspired by a purer patriotism. At any rate, the charge of ambition and self-seeking can only be answered by a reference to the whole picture which these volumes have attempted to portray. The words, the deeds of the man are there. As much as possible, his inmost soul is revealed in his confidential letters, and he who looks in a right spirit will hardly fail to find what he desires.
Whether originally of a timid temperament or not, he was certainly possessed of perfect courage at last. In siege and battle—in the deadly air of pestilential cities—in the long exhaustion of mind and body which comes from unduly protracted labor and anxiety—amid the countless conspiracies of assassins—he was daily exposed to death in every shape. Within two years, five different attempts against his life had been discovered. Rank and fortune were offered to any malefactor who would compass the murder. He had already been shot through the head, and almost mortally wounded. Under such circumstances even a brave man might have seen a pitfall at every step, a dagger in every hand, and poison in every cup. On the contrary, he was ever cheerful, and hardly took more precaution than usual. "God in his mercy," said he, with unaffected simplicity, "will maintain my innocence and my honor during my life and in future ages. As to my fortune and my life, I have dedicated both, long since, to His service. He will do therewith what pleases Him for His glory and my salvation." Thus his suspicions were not even excited by the ominous face of Gerard, when he first presented himself at the dining-room door. The Prince laughed off his wife's prophetic apprehension at the sight of his murderer, and was as cheerful as usual to the last.
He possessed, too, that which to the heathen philosopher seemed the greatest good—the sound mind in the sound body. His physical frame was after death found so perfect that a long life might have been in store for him, notwithstanding all which he had endured. The desperate illness of 1574, the frightful gunshot wound inflicted by Jaureguy in 1582, had left no traces. The physicians pronounced that his body presented an aspect of perfect health. His temperament was cheerful. At table, the pleasures of which, in moderation, were his only relaxation, he was always animated and merry, and this jocoseness was partly natural, partly intentional. In the darkest hours of his country's trial, he affected a serenity which he was far from feeling, so that his apparent gaiety at momentous epochs was even censured by dullards, who could not comprehend its philosophy, nor applaud the flippancy of William the Silent.
He went through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name was the last word upon his lips, save the simple affirmative, with which the soldier who had been battling for the right all his lifetime, commended his soul in dying "to his great captain, Christ." The people were grateful and affectionate, for they trusted the character of their "Father William," and not all the clouds which calumny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind to which they were accustomed, in their darkest calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Bribed the Deity
Forgiving spirit on the part of the malefactor
Great error of despising their enemy
Mistake to stumble a second time over the same stone
Modern statesmanship, even while it practises, condemns
Preferred an open enemy to a treacherous protector
Reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious
Unremitted intellectual labor in an honorable cause
Usual phraseology of enthusiasts
Writing letters full of injured innocence
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1574-84
A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman
A good lawyer is a bad Christian
A most fatal success
A common hatred united them, for a time at least
Absurd affectation of candor
Agreements were valid only until he should repent
All the majesty which decoration could impart
All Protestants were beheaded, burned, or buried alive
All claimed the privilege of persecuting
Always less apt to complain of irrevocable events
Amuse them with this peace negotiation
Are apt to discharge such obligations—(by) ingratitude
Arrive at their end by fraud, when violence will not avail them
As the old woman had told the Emperor Adrian
Attachment to a half-drowned land and to a despised religion
Barbara Blomberg, washerwoman of Ratisbon
Beautiful damsel, who certainly did not lack suitors
Believed in the blessed advent of peace
Blessing of God upon the Devil's work
Breath, time, and paper were profusely wasted and nothing gained
Bribed the Deity
Care neither for words nor menaces in any matter
Character of brave men to act, not to expect
Claimed the praise of moderation that their demands were so few
Colonel Ysselstein, "dismissed for a homicide or two"
Compassing a country's emancipation through a series of defeats
Conflicting claims of prerogative and conscience
Confused conferences, where neither party was entirely sincere
Country would bear his loss with fortitude
Customary oaths, to be kept with the customary conscientiousness
Daily widening schism between Lutherans and Calvinists
Deadliest of sins, the liberty of conscience
Difficult for one friend to advise another in three matters
Distinguished for his courage, his cruelty, and his corpulence
Don John of Austria
Don John was at liberty to be King of England and Scotland
Dying at so very inconvenient a moment
Eight thousand human beings were murdered
Establish not freedom for Calvinism, but freedom for conscience
Everything was conceded, but nothing was secured
Fanatics of the new religion denounced him as a godless man
Ferocity which even Christians could not have surpassed
Forgiving spirit on the part of the malefactor
Glory could be put neither into pocket nor stomach
God has given absolute power to no mortal man
Great error of despising their enemy
Happy to glass themselves in so brilliant a mirror
He had never enjoyed social converse, except at long intervals
He would have no Calvinist inquisition set up in its place
He would have no persecution of the opposite creed
His personal graces, for the moment, took the rank of virtues
Hope delayed was but a cold and meagre consolation
Human ingenuity to inflict human misery
I regard my country's profit, not my own
Imagined, and did the work of truth
In character and general talents he was beneath mediocrity
Indecision did the work of indolence
Insinuate that his orders had been hitherto misunderstood
It is not desirable to disturb much of that learned dust
Its humility, seemed sufficiently ironical
Judas Maccabaeus
King set a price upon his head as a rebel
Like a man holding a wolf by the ears
Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty
Logical and historical argument of unmerciful length
Made no breach in royal and Roman infallibility
Mankind were naturally inclined to calumny
Men were loud in reproof, who had been silent
Mistake to stumble a second time over the same stone
Modern statesmanship, even while it practises, condemns
More easily, as he had no intention of keeping the promise
Natural to judge only by the result
Necessary to make a virtue of necessity
Neither wished the convocation, while both affected an eagerness
Neither ambitious nor greedy
No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly
No authority over an army which they did not pay
No man could reveal secrets which he did not know
Not so successful as he was picturesque
Not upon words but upon actions
Not to fall asleep in the shade of a peace negotiation
Nothing was so powerful as religious difference
Of high rank but of lamentably low capacity
On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered
One-half to Philip and one-half to the Pope and Venice (slaves)
Our pot had not gone to the fire as often
Peace was desirable, it might be more dangerous than war
Peace, in reality, was war in its worst shape
Perfection of insolence
Plundering the country which they came to protect
Pope excommunicated him as a heretic
Power grudged rather than given to the deputies
Preferred an open enemy to a treacherous protector
Presumption in entitling themselves Christian
Preventing wrong, or violence, even towards an enemy
Proposition made by the wolves to the sheep, in the fable
Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life
Quite mistaken: in supposing himself the Emperor's child
Rebuked the bigotry which had already grown
Reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious
Reformers were capable of giving a lesson even to inquisitors
Republic, which lasted two centuries
Result was both to abandon the provinces and to offend Philip
Sentimentality that seems highly apocryphal
She knew too well how women were treated in that country
Superfluous sarcasm
Suppress the exercise of the Roman religion
Taxes upon income and upon consumption
The disunited provinces
The more conclusive arbitration of gunpowder
There is no man who does not desire to enjoy his own
They could not invent or imagine toleration
Those who "sought to swim between two waters"
Those who fish in troubled waters only to fill their own nets
Throw the cat against their legs
To hear the last solemn commonplaces
Toleration thought the deadliest heresy of all
Unduly dejected in adversity
Unremitted intellectual labor in an honorable cause
Usual phraseology of enthusiasts
Uunmeaning phrases of barren benignity
Volatile word was thought preferable to the permanent letter
Was it astonishing that murder was more common than fidelity?
Word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought
Worn crescents in their caps at Leyden
Worship God according to the dictates of his conscience
Writing letters full of injured innocence