Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan

[Footnote 2: Strada.]

Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence of the restive members, he had left Granvelle the first place in the administration. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician, bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real head of the government.[3] Next to him among the royalist party was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman, attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of the financial department—a stern and intolerant satellite of the court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of the king were mere subaltern agents.

[Footnote 3: Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and therefore a fair witness on this point, uses the following words in portraying the character of this odious minister: _Animum_avidum_invidumque,ac _simultates_inter_principem_et_populos_occulti_foventum_.]

A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired, and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the country, living in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess. Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards were removed to Zealand; but instead of being embarked at any of its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money, ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple natives at length declared they would open the sluices of their dikes; preferring to be swallowed by the waters rather than remain exposed to the cruelty and rapacity of those Spaniards. Still the embarkation was postponed; until the king, requiring his troops in Spain for some domestic project, they took their long-desired departure in the beginning of the year 1561.

The public discontent at this just cause was soon, however, overwhelmed by one infinitely more important and lasting. The Belgian clergy had hitherto formed a free and powerful order in the state, governed and represented by four bishops, chosen by the chapters of the towns or elected by the monks of the principal abbeys. These bishops, possessing an independent territorial revenue, and not directly subject to the influence of the crown, had interests and feelings in common with the nation. But Philip had prepared, and the pope had sanctioned, the new system of ecclesiastical organization before alluded to, and the provisional government now put it into execution. Instead of four bishops, it was intended to appoint eighteen, their nomination being vested in the king. By a wily system of trickery, the subserviency of the abbeys was also aimed at. The new prelates, on a pretended principle of economy, were endowed with the title of abbots of the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses. Thus not only would they enjoy the immense wealth of these establishments, but the political rights of the abbots whom they were to succeed; and the whole of the ecclesiastical order become gradually represented (after the death of the then living abbots) by the creatures of the crown.

The consequences of this vital blow to the integrity of the national institutions were evident; and the indignation of both clergy and laity was universal. Every legal means of opposition was resorted to, but the people were without leaders; the states were not in session. While the authority of the pope and the king combined, the reverence excited by the very name of religion, and the address and perseverance of the government, formed too powerful a combination, and triumphed over the national discontents which had not yet been formed into resistance. The new bishops were appointed; Granvelle securing for himself the archiepiscopal see of Mechlin, with the title of primate of the Low Countries. At the same time Paul IV. put the crowning point to the capital of his ambition, by presenting him with a cardinal's hat.

The new bishops were to a man most violent, intolerant, and it may be conscientious, opponents to the wide-spreading doctrines of reform. The execution of the edicts against heresy was confided to them. The provincial governors and inferior magistrates were commanded to aid them with a strong arm; and the most unjust and frightful persecution immediately commenced. But still some of these governors and magistrates, considering themselves not only the officers of the prince, but the protectors of the people, and the defenders of the laws rather than of the faith, did not blindly conform to those harsh and illegal commands. The Prince of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, and the count of Egmont, governor of Flanders and Artois, permitted no persecutions in those five provinces. But in various places the very people, even when influenced by their superiors, openly opposed it. Catholics as well as Protestants were indignant at the atrocious spectacles of cruelty presented on all sides. The public peace was endangered by isolated acts of resistance, and fears of a general insurrection soon became universal.

The apparent temporizing or seeming uncertainty of the champions of the new doctrines formed the great obstacle to the reformation, and tended to prolong the dreadful struggle which was now only commencing in the Low Countries. It was a matter of great difficulty to convince the people that popery was absurd, and at the same time to set limits to the absurdity. Had the change been from blind belief to total infidelity, it would (as in a modern instance) have been much easier, though less lasting. Men might, in a time of such excitement, have been persuaded that all religion productive of abuses such as then abounded was a farce, and that common sense called for its abolition. But when the boundaries of belief became a question; when the world was told it ought to reject some doctrines, and retain others which seemed as difficult of comprehension; when one tenet was pronounced idolatry, and to doubt another declared damnation—the world either exploded or recoiled: it went too far or it shrank back; plunged into atheism, or relapsed into popery. It was thus the reformation was checked in the first instance. Its supporters were the strong-minded and intelligent; and they never, and least of all in those days, formed the mass. Superstition and bigotry had enervated the intellects of the majority; and the high resolve of those with whom the great work commenced was mixed with a severity that materially retarded its progress. For though personal interests, as with Henry VIII. of England, and rigid enthusiasm, as with Calvin, strengthened the infant reformation; the first led to violence which irritated many, the second to austerity which disgusted them; and it was soon discovered that the change was almost confined to forms of practice, and that the essentials of abuse were likely to be carefully preserved. All these, and other arguments, artfully modified to distract the people, were urged by the new bishops in the Netherlands, and by those whom they employed to arrest the progress of reform.

Among the various causes of the general confusion, the situation of Brabant gave to that province a peculiar share of suffering. Brussels, its capital, being the seat of government, had no particular chief magistrate, like the other provinces. The executive power was therefore wholly confided to the municipal authorities and the territorial proprietors. But these, though generally patriotic in their views, were divided into a multiplicity of different opinions. Rivalry and resentment produced a total want of union, ended in anarchy, and prepared the way for civil war. William of Nassau penetrated the cause, and proposed the remedy in moving for the appointment of a provincial governor. This proposition terrified Granvelle, who saw, as clearly as did his sagacious opponent in the council, that the nomination of a special protector between the people and the government would have paralyzed all his efforts for hurrying on the discord and resistance which were meant to be the plausible excuses for the introduction of arbitrary power. He therefore energetically dissented from the proposed measure, and William immediately desisted from his demand. But he at the same time claimed, in the name of the whole country, the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone was competent to decide what was just, legal, and obligatory for each province and every town. Governors, magistrates, and simple citizens, would thus have some rule for their common conduct; and the government would be at least endowed with the dignity of uniformity and steadiness. The ministers endeavored to evade a demand which they were at first unwilling openly to refuse. But the firm demeanor and persuasive eloquence of the Prince of Orange carried before them all who were not actually bought by the crown; and Granvelle found himself at length forced to avow that an express order from the king forbade the convocation of the states, on any pretext, during his absence.

The veil was thus rent asunder which had in some measure concealed the deformity of Philip's despotism. The result was a powerful confederacy, among all who held it odious, for the overthrow of Granvelle, to whom they chose to attribute the king's conduct; thus bringing into practical result the sound principle of ministerial responsibility, without which, except in some peculiar case of local urgency or political crisis, the name of constitutional government is but a mockery. Many of the royalist nobles united for the national cause; and even the stadtholderess joined her efforts to theirs, for an object which would relieve her from the tyranny which none felt more than she did. Those who composed this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride. The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange clearly saw that they were putting themselves in direct and personal opposition to the king himself. William alone, clear-sighted in politics and profound in his views, knew, in thus devoting himself to the public cause, the adversary with whom he entered the lists.