General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

THE ICONOCLASTS (1566).—Affairs now rapidly verged towards violence and open revolt. The only reply of the government to the petition of the nobles was a decree termed the Moderation, which substituted hanging for burning in the case of condemned heretics. The pent-up indignation of the people at length burst forth in an uncontrollable fury. They gathered in great mobs, and arming themselves with whatever implements they could first seize, proceeded to demolish every image they could find in the churches throughout the country. The rage of the insurgents was turned in this direction, because in their eyes these churches represented the hated Inquisition under which they were suffering. Scarcely a church in all the Netherlands escaped. The monasteries, too, were sacked, their libraries burned, and the inmates driven from their cloisters. In the province of Flanders alone there were four hundred sacred buildings visited by the mob, and sacked. The tempest destroyed innumerable art treasures, which have been as sincerely mourned by the lovers of the beautiful as the burned rolls of the Alexandrian Library have been lamented by the lovers of learning.

These image-breaking riots threw Philip into a perfect transport of rage. He tore his beard, and exclaimed, "It shall cost them dear! I swear it by the soul of my father!"

THE DUKE OF ALVA AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE.—The year following the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, Philip sent to the Netherlands a veteran Spanish army, headed by the Duke of Alva. The duke was one of the ablest generals of the age; and the intelligence of his coming threw the provinces into a state of the greatest agitation and alarm. Those who could do so hastened to get out of the country. William the Silent, Prince of Orange, fled to Germany, where he began to gather an army of volunteers for the struggle which he now saw to be inevitable. Egmont and Horn, noblemen of high rank and great distinction, were seized, cast into prison, and afterwards beheaded (1568).

The eyes of all Netherlanders were now turned to the Prince of Orange as their only deliverer. Towards the close of the year 1568, he marched from Germany against Alva, at the head of an army of 30,000 men, which he had raised and equipped principally at his own expense. The war was now fully joined. The struggle lasted for more than a generation,—for thirty-seven years.

[Illustration: WILLIAM OF ORANGE (the Silent). (After a copper-plate by
William Jacobz Delff, 1580-1638.)]

The Spanish armies were commanded successively by the most experienced and distinguished generals of Europe,—the Duke of Alva, Don John of Austria (the conqueror of the Moors and the hero of the great naval fight of Lepanto), and the Duke of Parma; but the Prince of Orange coped ably with them all, and in the masterly service which he rendered his country, thus terribly assaulted, earned the title of "the Founder of Dutch Liberties."

ISOLATION OF THE PROVINCES.—The Netherlanders sustained the unequal contest almost single-handed; for, though they found much sympathy among the Protestants of Germany, France, and England, they never received material assistance from any of these countries, excepting England, and it was not until late in the struggle that aid came from this source. Elizabeth did, indeed, at first furnish the patriots with secret aid, and opened the ports of England to the "Beggars of the Sea"; but after a time the fear of involving herself in a war with Philip led her to withhold for a long period all contributions and favors. As regards the German states, they were too much divided among themselves to render efficient aid; and just at the moment when the growing Protestant sentiment in France encouraged the Netherlanders to look for help from the Huguenot party there, the massacre of St. Bartholomew extinguished forever all hope of succor from that quarter (see p. 576). So the little revolted provinces were left to carry on unaided, as best they might, a contest with the most powerful monarch of Christendom.

The details of this memorable struggle we must, of course, leave unnoticed, and hurry on to the issue of the matter. In so doing we shall pass unnoticed many memorable sieges and battles. [Footnote: Read in Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic the siege and sack of Harlem and the relief of Leyden.]

PACIFICATION OF GHENT (1576).—The year 1576 was marked by a revolt of the Spanish soldiers, on account of their not receiving their pay, the costly war having drained Philip's treasury. The mutinous army marched through the land, pillaging city after city, and paying themselves with the spoils. The beautiful city of Antwerp was ruined. The horrible massacre of its inhabitants, and the fiendish atrocities committed by the frenzied soldiers, caused the awful outbreak to be called the "Spanish Fury."

The terrible state of affairs led to an alliance between Holland and Zealand and the other fifteen provinces of the Netherlands, known in history as the Pacification of Ghent (1576). The resistance to the Spanish crown had thus far been carried on without concerted action among the several states, the Prince of Orange having hitherto found it impossible to bring the different provinces to agree to any plan of general defence. But the awful experiences of the Spanish Fury taught the necessity of union, and led all the seventeen provinces solemnly to agree to unite in driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands, and in securing full liberty for all in matters of faith and worship. William of Orange, with the title of Stadtholder, was placed at the head of the union. It was mainly the strong Catholic sentiment in the Southern provinces that had prevented such a union and pacification long before.