The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical Studies

by Martin A. S. Hume

Philip was the most ungenerous and ungrateful of employers, and for reasons which presently will be stated it is doubtful whether Julian's devotion was rewarded as Alba recommended that it should be, notwithstanding a letter in the Record Office[[22]] from one of the many false Englishmen then in Spanish Flanders, written to a Captain Windebanke in Elizabeth's service. The writer was trying to get Windebanke to play the traitor, and deplores that so good a captain should be so scurvily rewarded by the Queen, whose penuriousness he compares with Philip's (entirely imaginary) liberality. "Captain Julian Romero," he says, "whom I knew a poor captain in Ireland, is now worth £2,000, and has a pension of a thousand ducats." The writer was probably false in his facts as he was in his patriotism, for I can find no record of Julian's ever having been in Ireland, and only a few months after the date of the letter we have his own word that he was almost in indigence.

The new Viceroy, Requesens, was to try to do by conciliation what Alba had failed to effect by severity. It was time to adopt a new policy, for Southern Flanders was now nearly as disaffected as Holland, and Zeeland was entirely in the hands of the Gueux. Its capital, Middleburg, was held by Mondragon and his Spaniards, but he was closely beleaguered by the rebels and in the direst straits. Mondragon was one of the best and bravest of the commanders on the Spanish side, whose heroic relief of Tergoes still remains one of the brightest feats of war ever performed, he had informed Requesens that, unless he were relieved with food and stores, he should be forced to lay down his sword and give up Middleburg to the despised "beggars of the sea"; so the new Viceroy's first duty was to send aid to Middleburg and Ramua. Two fleets were fitted out for the purpose in January, 1574, one consisting of large ships under the famous Sancho de Avila was to go by the main Scheldt and the Hundt, rather for the purpose of diverting the rebel force than for any other action, whilst nine standards of soldiers under Romero, and a great quantity of stores, were to go in a fleet of seventy-two canal boats, barges, galliots, and crookstems, through the narrow channels by way of Bergen-op-Zoom to the besieged town. The naval commander was to have been De Beauvoir, with Glimes as second in command. The former fell ill, and the Viceroy gave the chief control to Romero, who protested that he was a soldier and not a sailor, but at last consented to take the command.

The expedition began badly. Requesens came to the quay of Antwerp to see it depart; Romero's flagship led the way, and as a salvo of honour was fired, a gun on one of the boats burst, and the craft sank with all hands. Then the leader looked behind and found several of his vessels lagging. Antwerp itself was riddled with disaffection, and the Flemish sailors had given him the slip, so the boats had to be left behind. Then Romero and his fleet dropped down the river and anchored near Bergen, opposite Romerswald, to await another tide, Requesens, the Viceroy, proceeding to the same place by road to witness the final departure of the expedition from Bergen. At daybreak on the 21st the rebel fleet, under Boisot, Admiral of Flanders, was seen to be approaching them from the open water opposite. Romero's fleet was surrounded by shallows and sand-banks, and largely manned by Flemish sailors whose loyalty, to say the least of it, was doubtful, and de Glimes, seeing the danger, begged his chief not to fight. Cardinal Bentivoglio[[23]] says: "The Vice-Admiral would not have fought, knowing the great disadvantage on his side. The enemy's ships were many more in number, but Romero, either because his valour blinded his judgment, or from his want of knowledge of maritime affairs, or perhaps because the risk was forced upon him by Mondragon's urgent need, insisted upon fighting." The disaster that followed is ascribed by Bentivoglio to treachery of Romero's Flemish sailors, but, be that as it may, de Glimes' ship first stranded, and others immediately followed, and, thus helpless, were exposed to a galling musketry fire. Captain Osorio with other ships went to the aid of de Glimes and immediately met with the same fate. Greek fire was thrown into the Spanish vessels, and many of them were burnt to the water's edge, the Viceroy the while standing on the dyke helplessly witnessing the destruction of his force. When de Glimes, the Vice-Admiral, had been killed, and his part of the fleet destroyed, the rebels, acquainted as they were with the intricate passages, came alongside of Romero's flagship, grappling with it and with its consorts. Boisot's decks towered high over the canal boats, and the crews shot down from their superior position until nearly all the Spaniards were killed, when at last a round shot crashed through the timbers of the flagship, and Romero, fearing she was foundering, jumped overboard on the land side with his few surviving comrades. He came up spluttering and floundering within a few feet of the Viceroy, who stood upon the bank. As he dragged himself up the dyke he blurted out with a voice as vigorous as when he was giving the command to charge, "I told your Excellency how it would be! You knew I was no sailor but a foot soldier and nothing else. No more fleets for me; if you gave me a hundred I should probably lose them all." Requesens gave a graceful and generous answer, but the blow was a heavy one for the Spanish power, for Middleburg and Ramua surrendered to the rebels, and henceforward for ever Zeeland was lost to King Philip.[[24]] Seven hundred of the Spanish force were killed, as was Boisot, the Flemish admiral, and Romero's ship, with all his papers and instructions, fell into the hands of the enemy.

Romero was sick at heart. Requesens' mild temporising looked to Alba's iron lieutenant like lamentable weakness. There was only one way for Julian to meet heresy and the assertion of independence, and that was by extermination. Philip apparently had sent him no rewards, or even thanks, for his staying after Alba left, and had simply ignored his prayer for leave to return home. This was nothing new, for the King always treated his most faithful servants thus, but bluff Julian probably did not know this at the time, and was bitterly disappointed. After his defeat at Bergen he busied himself for some months in planning fortifications and re-organising the forces, which Requesens had found in a state of almost open mutiny for want of pay. By the end of June his task was done, and affairs in South Flanders were looking much more tranquil. No answer came from Madrid to Julian, who, sick and mortified, counted the hours for the time when he might see his home again. In June he wrote an interesting letter to the Viceroy, which deserves to be repeated nearly in full. After recommending the names of five officers for the future command of the forces he says:[[25]] "I must now address you with my customary frankness and clearness, and disabuse your mind, for once and for all, of the idea that any offers or promises from his Majesty, or any one else, will make me waver in my determination to return home next September. Nothing but my own death shall stand in the way of this, so urgent is my need to go; since my soul's health and the welfare of my wife and children depend upon it, and the least of these reasons would be sufficient to make me firm in my resolve. I have long wished to go but have deferred it because my services here were so much required. I very unwillingly consented to stay when the Duke of Alba left; with the sole object of being by your Excellency's side whilst you were new to your position. I have been well repaid by the pleasure of knowing you and would still serve you with all love and zeal, but the moment now has arrived beyond which I cannot, and will not, stay. You may judge whether I need go when I say that I have served his Majesty 40 years next Christmas without once resting from the wars and my duty. I have lost in the service an arm, a leg, an eye, and an ear; and the rest of my person is so seared with wounds that I suffer incessantly. I have now just lost a dear son upon whom I built all my hopes—and with good reason as the whole army will bear witness. You will judge whether such troubles as these are not enough to break down my health and spirits. Moreover I married nine years ago, thinking that I might have some rest, but since then I have never been an entire year at home. I have spent during my service nearly all the money I had with my wife, and although I have a daughter at home, and one here of marriageable age, I can do nothing to help them; except with the trifle still left of my wife's money. I can, moreover, see plainly that this is being exhausted by me at such a rate, that unless I can get home at once, both my wife and myself will have to end our days in the poor-house. You are so Christian a prince that I feel sure you will not try to hinder my resolution, for, believe me, it is not for the purpose of exalting or selling myself at a higher price that I urge it. If when I have been home the King still thinks I may be useful, I will try with all my heart, but it must be in some place where I may set up my home and have my wife by my side, for without her, all the world shall not make me stir. I think I have already well deserved by my sufferings and long service any favours his Majesty has conferred upon me."

To this affecting and dignified letter the Viceroy replied saying that he would no longer stand in the way. He had written four or five times already to the King, urging him to fitly reward Julian's great services, and had reason to believe that something would shortly be done, but he had again written in the most pressing terms begging the King not to neglect so good and true a servant. A day or two afterwards Romero again wrote to the Viceroy another manly letter, which shows how bitterly he felt the King's indifference to him. He says: "With reference to your Excellency's kindness in begging his Majesty to reward me, I am constrained to beseech that no further great effort should be made. I will endeavour to pass the few years left to me as decently as I can, and if I cannot have everything I desire I am already as reconciled to leave it all as one who has the candle in his hand. God is my witness that I have never served the King for lucre; no, that has never been my target! True it is that I am cut to the heart to see his Majesty extend his favours to others, who were suckling at the breast when I was already a veteran, whilst he forgets me, but this I lay to my ill luck and to God's will that I should remain a poor man. But naked I was born; I have lived honourably and I care for naught else. Pray therefore, trouble yourself no further on my account. I trust before my departure hence God will settle the affairs of these States. At this season of the year there is little stirring, and if when I have been home and set my house in order, your Excellency should remain in your present straits; I pledge my word as a Christian to come and serve again with all my strength. If I were a batchelor and as hale as I used to be, you should see what I would do. Worcum, June 27, 1574."

If Romero's desire of seeing his home again was fulfilled, as it probably was, his visit must have been of short duration, for in October of the next year he was commanding thirty standards of troops before Zerusee, and endeavoured to capture an island near Dortrecht, but was beaten by the Prince of Orange himself with the loss of 800 men.[[26]]

Early in the following year things had reached an acute stage. Requesens was dead, and Don Juan of Austria, his successor, had not arrived. The mercenaries in the Spanish service, unpaid and chafing at inaction, were in open mutiny, and were plundering and maltreating friends and foes indifferently to indemnify themselves. The Council of State, mostly Flemish and Walloon nobles, were profoundly divided, and already were doing their best to hold their own against the savage Spanish soldiery. Brussels was held by Walloon troops in the interests of the Council of State, the Spanish troops in the neighbourhood being under the command of Romero. By the middle of March the Council were obliged to meet and devise some means of pacifying the mutineers by raising money to pay them, "without which many strange seditions must happen." They agreed with Romero to pay certain soldiers forty crowns each, to satisfy them until the arrival of the new Governor, and then sent him to parley with the mutineers. Strada says they would not listen to him, but in any case most of his men fraternised with and joined them. On his return to Brussels he was again sent by the Council against the rebel Spaniards who had gone towards Maestricht. English agents in Flanders[[27]] report that he had arranged a plot to be carried out in his absence. He had left 200 of his men in Brussels, and the plan was for Count Barlemont, one of the Council, to deliver the keys of the city to them, in order that the mutineers, and probably Romero with them, should enter the city and sack it. The plot was discovered, and Barlemont deprived of the keys, and after Romero had fruitlessly been to Maestricht, he found on his return to Brussels the citizens in a frenzy of rage against the Spaniards in consequence of the massacres at Alost and elsewhere by the mutineers. The infuriated Flemings tore to pieces a servant of Jerome Rodas, the leading Spanish councillor, and the latter, with Romero and Vargas, had to fly for their lives to the stronghold in the palace. Henceforward the Flemish Council and the Spaniards were completely estranged. The Council proclaimed the mutineers rebels against the King, whilst Rodas assumed to be Philip's sole representative.

Philip was in deep distress at the news.[[28]] Romero was to be warmly thanked, the Council must disband their forces, money would be sent, Don Juan would soon arrive, and all would be settled. In the meantime, however, the forces of the Council were attacking the mutineers at Ghent, Maestricht, Alost, and elsewhere, and the Spanish commanders, Sancho de Avila, Romero, Vargas, &c., whilst ostensibly condemning them, were constrained daily to side more with their fellow-countrymen. Romero at last escaped from Brussels and fortified himself at Lierre, where a considerable force gradually joined him. The Council sent word that they would attack him if he did not submit to their authority, but when they attempted to do so his force, with that of Vargas, routed the States troops. The massacre which followed is explained by Mendoza by the fact that the Spaniards were hot-headed youngsters, which they were not, but he is evidently ashamed of it. A large number of spectators, students from Louvain and others, had come out to see the fight. They were all slaughtered, as were soldiers and civilians, armed and unarmed, men and women, without quarter and without mercy, up to the very gates of Louvain. Thenceforward all hope of restraint was lost. The Spanish soldiery were so many bloodthirsty wild beasts, making no distinction between Flemish friends or foes, and it was war to the knife on both sides. Romero's headquarters were still at Lierre, although he kept up a close connection with the mutineers at Alost, and his men seem to have outdistanced others in their savagery, no attempt to moderate which appears to have been made by their chief. Savage Rodas himself got frightened in October, and wrote to the King that the Spanish soldiers were pillaging on all sides, and if some remedy were not sent soon from Spain, all would go to perdition.[[29]]

Wherever Romero had a chance of fighting the States forces he did so, and Mendoza gives particulars of many brilliant skirmishes in which the Spaniards were successful, but which usually ended in an indiscriminate massacre of Flemings. Sancho de Avila in the Antwerp citadel the while was keeping up a close communication with the mutineers at Alost, Ghent, and other places, whilst the citizens were collecting such forces of Walloons and German mercenaries as they could. Sancho at last was informed that unless he ceased to send aid to Alost he himself would be held as a rebel to the King. This was a signal that he must either submit to the dictation of the despised Flemish Council or fight, and he chose the latter alternative. He sent out messengers on all sides for the Spaniards to concentrate in Antwerp, and soon Romero started out from Lierre with all his men. On his way he met the main body of malcontents from Alost and greeted them with effusion. Vargas with his men joined them also, and on the 4th of November they all entered the citadel of Antwerp together. The townsmen and their troops had already begun to run up earthworks to defend themselves against the bloodthirsty marauders who had made a shambles of Alost, Maestricht, and wherever else they had gained the upper hand. The rich booty of Antwerp, and the thirst for blood, they knew would launch the greedy hawks from the citadel upon the panting quarry below, and they determined to sell their lives and property dearly. Hungry and tired as the Alost men were on their arrival at daybreak, no meal would they consume until, as they said, they could break their fast in Antwerp. Slaking their thirst and firing their brains only with wine, by eleven o'clock before noon they were ready for the struggle. Then with solemn prayer and blessing of banners as a preparation for their fell work, they swept down in three bodies to the town to the aggregate number of about 6,000 men. The scene that followed has often been described, and need not be repeated here. In a few hours the richest city in Christendom was a ravished corpse of its former self. Romero, with his stalwarts of Spaniards and Almains, entered the city by the St. George's gate and swept along the street of St. Michael, driving weak young Egmont before him into a church at the end, where the Count was taken.

Everywhere the Walloons turned and fled before the Spaniards. The brave Champigny, Granvelle's brother, did his best heroically; the townsmen, unused to arms, made what resistance they could, but the States troops were worse than useless, and butchery was the only order of the day. In the great square every house was occupied by Sancho de Avila's men, who kept up a fusilade upon the frightened crowds of unarmed people huddled together in the doorways. Soon the curling smoke showed that the rich stores of merchandise, the noble palaces of the merchant princes, and the lowly cottages of the artisans were alike doomed to wanton destruction. The Spaniards, drunk with blood, blind with rage, spared neither age, sex, nor faith; and with one great gust of fury swept like a blight over the doomed city. When the blood-lust was partly sated, it was found that 6,000 unarmed people at least had been slaughtered, and 6,000,000 ducats worth of property stolen, with as much again burnt. The States infantry had all fled or been killed. The Catholic Flemish nobles were scattered and lost, and the Spaniards had Antwerp beneath their talons. Strada says that the massacre and plunder were as much the work of the Walloons and Germans as of the Spaniards, and bears testimony to the efforts of the Spanish leaders to restrain the fury of their men, mentioning Sancho de Avila, Mondragon, and others as having exerted their influence to that end, but markedly omits the name of Romero. Rodas, writing to the King a day after the fight, says the town was sacked against orders, and that Avila, Romero, and Vargas, used great diligence to stop plunder. "They deserve," he says, "well of his Majesty for the services they have rendered in this great victory." Dr. Wilson, who certainly was not prejudiced in favour of the Spaniards, says, on the other hand, in a letter to Walsingham of the 13th of November,[[30]] that he fears the Spaniards much less than the English refugees, "who are said to have done the greatest murders and most horrible above all others, and all Englishmen are hated for their sake."