In the pursuit of peace, human progress has lain in the enlargement of the units of government capable of holding together; from villages to towns, from towns to provinces, from provinces to nations. The last step had been the achievement of the Middle Ages, though even by the end of the fifteenth century it was not yet complete: the twentieth century finds us reaching forward to a new advance. We have spoken of Erasmus' efforts to bring back peace from her exile, of the experiences of his youth when Holland had wept for her children. In 1517, when he wrote his 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all lands', he was a man and one of Charles' councillors; but Holland was still weeping and refusing comfort. She had good reason. The provinces of the Netherlands were disunited, no sway imposed upon them with strength enough first to restrain and then to knit together. On either side of the Zuider Zee lay two bitter enemies: Holland, which had accepted the Burgundian yoke, and Friesland, which after a long struggle against foreign domination, had been reduced by the rule of Saxon governors, Duke Albert and Duke George. To the south was Gueldres, which, under its Duke, Charles of Egmont, had thrown in its lot with France against Burgundy, and was continually instigating the subjugated Frieslanders to rebellion. Then was war in the gates.
This was the kind of thing that happened. In 1516, after a fresh outbreak of the ceaseless struggle, Henry of Nassau, Stadhouder of Holland and Zeeland, ordered that all Gueldrians or Frieslanders who showed their faces in his dominions should be put to death; and some who were resident at the Hague were executed on the charge of sending aid to their compatriots. A raid by the Gueldrians ended in the massacre of Nieuwpoort. Nassau replied by ravaging the country up to the walls of Arnhem, the Gueldres capital.
Duke Charles had terrible forces at command. A body of mercenary troops, known as the Black Band, had been used by George of Saxony for the repression of Friesland in 1514, and since then had been seeking employment wherever they could find it. At the same time, one of the conquered Frieslanders, known as Long Peter, had turned to piracy as an effective way of revenging himself on Holland. Proclaiming himself 'King of the Sea', he seized every ship that came in his way, showing no mercy to Hollanders and holding all others to ransom.
In May 1517, the Duke, violating a truce not yet expired, renewed hostilities. The Black Band, some of whom had strayed as far as Rouen in quest of fighting, flocked back. At the end of June 3000 of them crossed the Zuider Zee in Long Peter's ships and disembarked suddenly at Medemblik, in North Holland. The town was quickly set on fire, and everything destroyed except the citadel; the fleet carrying back the first spoils. Then they marched southwards, burning what they list; and happy were those whose offer of ransom was accepted, to escape with plunder only.
There was no fixed plan. The murderous horde wandered along, turning to right or left as fancy suggested. After burning five country towns, they appeared at Alcmar, the chief town of North Holland, into which the most precious possessions of the neighbourhood had been hurriedly conveyed. By a heavy payment, the burghers purchased immunity from the flames; but for eight days the town was given up to the lust and ferocity of an uncontrolled soldiery, from whose senseless destruction it took thirty years to recover. Egmond, with its great abbey, was pillaged; and then it was Haarlem's turn to suffer. But by this time resistance had been organized. Troops had been called back from garrison work in Friesland, and a strong line drawn in front of Haarlem. Headed off, the Black Band turned suddenly away. Passing Amsterdam and Culemborg, it penetrated down into South Holland, whence it would be easy to pass back into Gueldres. Asperen was its next prey. Three times the citizens beat off the cruel foe: a few more to man their walls, and they might have driven him right away, to overwhelm others less fortunate and less brave.
But it was not to be. At the fourth attempt the marauders were successful, and massacre ensued. Death to the men, worse than death to the women: nor age nor innocence could touch those black hearts. A schoolmaster with his boys fled into a church and hid trembling in the rood-loft. Before long they were discovered. Thirsting for blood, some of the monsters rushed up the steps and tossed the shrieking victims over on to the pikes of their comrades below. When all the butchery was finished, a few helpless and infirm survivors were dragged out of hiding-places. The miserable creatures were driven out of the city and the gates barred in their faces. For a month the Black Band held Asperen as a standing camp, living upon the provisions stored up by the dead. Then Nassau came with troops and drove them forth, pursuing into Gueldres, where he burned '46 good villages' in revenge. The sight of fire blazing to heaven is appalling enough when men are ranged all on one side, and the battle is with the element alone. Our peace-lapped imaginations cannot picture the terror of flames kindled aforethought. As those poor fugitives scattered over the country, cowering into the darkness out of the fire's searching glow, they cannot but have recalled the words: 'Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days.' At least they could give thanks that their flight was not in the winter.
Meanwhile Long Peter had not been idle. On 14 August he had a great battle with the Hollanders off Hoorn. Eleven ships he took, and cast their crews into the sea: 500 men, save one, a Gueldrian, struggling in the calm summer waters and stretching out their hands to a foe who knew no pity. In September he surrounded a merchant fleet. The Easterlings escaped at heavy ransom; but the crews of three Holland vessels were flung to the waves. Then he carried the war on to the land, to glean what the Black Band had left. With 1200 men he took Hoorn by escalade; plunder-laden and sated, they returned to the sea. Nothing was too small or too helpless for his rapacity. Along the coast they picked up a barge of Enckhuizen. Its only crew, master and mate, were thrown overboard, and Peter's fleet sailed upon its way. We must remember that the provinces engaged in this internecine strife were not widely diverse in race, and that to-day they are peacefully united under one governance.
The winter of 1517-18 was spent by the Black Band in Friesland. Three thousand men who are prepared to take by force what is not given to them, do not lie hungry in the cold. We may be sure that under them the land had no rest. At Easter they began to move southwards in quest of other victims and other employ. But as they halted between Venlo and Roermond, resistance confronted them. Nassau had arrayed by his side the Archbishop of Cologne and the Dukes of Juliers and Cleves: the gates of the cities were closed and the ferry-boats that would have carried them across the Maas had been kept on the other side. Caught in a trap, the freebooters promised to lay down their weapons and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there was no safety but in flight. A thousand were massacred before Nassau and his confederates could check their men.
Erasmus was about to set out from Louvain to Basle, to work at a new edition of the New Testament. Bands such as these were, of course, a peril to travellers. Half exultant, half disgusted, he wrote to More: 'These fellows were stripped before disbandment: so they will have all the more excuse for fresh plundering. This is consideration for the people! They were so hemmed in that not one of them could have escaped: yet the Dukes were for letting them go scot-free. It was mere chance that any of them were killed. Fortunately, a man blew his trumpet: there was at once an uproar, and more than a thousand were cut down. The Archbishop alone was sound. He said that, priest though he was, if the matter were left to him, he would see that such things should never occur again. The people understand the position, but are obliged to acquiesce.' To Colet he exclaimed more bitterly: 'It is cruel! The nobles care more for these ruffians than for their own subjects. The fact is, they count on them to keep the people down.' Let us be thankful that Europe to-day has no experience of such mercenaries.
A sign of the troubles of the times was the existence of the French order of Trinitarians for the redemption of prisoners. This need had been known even when Rome's power was at its height, for Cicero[1] specifies the redemption of men captured by pirates as one of the ways in which the generously minded were wont to spend their money. The practice lasted down continuously through the Middle Ages. Gaguin, the historian of France, Erasmus' first patron in Paris, was for many years General of the Trinitarians, and made a journey to Granada to redeem prisoners who had been taken fighting against the Moors. Even in the eighteenth century, church offertories in England were asked and given to loose captives out of prison.