Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan

William summoned his brother Louis, the Counts Egmont, Horn, and Hoogstraeten, to a secret conference at Termonde; and he there submitted to them this letter of Alava's, with others which he had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears. Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government, not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to devote himself wholly to the service of the king, and on no inducement whatever to risk the perils of rebellion. He expressed his perfect reliance on the justice and the goodness of Philip when once he should see the determined loyalty of those whom he had hitherto had so much reason to suspect; and he extorted the others to follow his example. The two brothers and Count Horn implored him in their turn to abandon this blind reliance on the tyrant; but in vain. His new and unlooked-for profession of faith completely paralyzed their plans. He possessed too largely the confidence of both the soldiery and the people to make it possible to attempt any serious measure of resistance in which he would not take a part. The meeting broke up without coming to any decision. All those who bore a part in it were expected at Brussels to attend the council of state; Egmont alone repaired thither. The stadtholderess questioned him on the object of the conference at Termonde: he only replied by an indignant glance, at the same time presenting a copy of Alava's letter.

The stadtholderess now applied her whole efforts to destroy the union among the patriot lords. She, in the meantime, ordered levies of troops to the amount of some thousands, the command of which was given to the nobles on whose attachment she could reckon. The most vigorous measures were adopted. Noircarmes, governor of Hainault, appeared before Valenciennes, which, being in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission, and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the direction of John de Soreas, gathered together in the neighborhood of Lille and Tournay, with a show of attacking these places. But the governor of the former town dispersed one party of them; and Noircarmes surprised and almost destroyed the main body—their leader falling in the action. These were the first encounters of the civil war, which raged without cessation for upward of forty years in these devoted countries, and which is universally allowed to be the most remarkable that ever desolated any isolated portion of Europe. The space which we have already given to the causes which produced this memorable revolution, now actually commenced, will not allow us to do more than rapidly sketch the fierce events that succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.

While Valenciennes prepared for a vigorous resistance, a general synod of the Protestants was held at Antwerp, and De Brederode undertook an attempt to see the stadtholderess, and lay before her the complaints of this body; but she refused to admit him into the capital. He then addressed to her a remonstrance in writing, in which he reproached her with her violation of the treaties; on the faith of which the confederates had dispersed, and the majority of the Protestants laid down their arms. He implored her to revoke the new proclamations, by which she prohibited them from the free exercise of their religion; and, above all things, he insisted on the abandonment of the siege of Valenciennes, and the disbanding of the new levies. The stadtholderess's reply was one of haughty reproach and defiance. The gauntlet was now thrown down; no possible hope of reconciliation remained; and the whole country flew to arms. A sudden attempt on the part of the royalists, under Count Meghem, against Bois-le-duc, was repulsed by eight hundred men, commanded by an officer named Bomberg, in the immediate service of De Brederode, who had fortified himself in his garrison town of Vienen.

The Prince of Orange maintained at Antwerp an attitude of extreme firmness and caution. His time for action had not yet arrived; but his advice and protection were of infinite importance on many occasions. John de Marnix, lord of Toulouse, brother of Philip de St. Aldegonde, took possession of Osterweel on the Scheldt, a quarter of a league from Antwerp, and fortified himself in a strong position. But he was impetuously attacked by the Count de Lannoy with a considerable force, and perished, after a desperate defence, with full one thousand of his followers. Three hundred who laid down their arms were immediately after the action butchered in cold blood. Antwerp was on this occasion saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens, and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and intrepidity of the Prince of Orange. Valenciennes at length capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six hours. The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited. Noircarmes promptly followed up his success. Maestricht, Turnhout, and Bois-le-duc submitted at his approach; and the insurgents were soon driven from all the provinces, Holland alone excepted. Brederode fled to Germany, where he died the following year.

The stadtholderess showed, in her success, no small proofs of decision. She and her counsellors, acting under orders from the king, were resolved on embarrassing to the utmost the patriot lords; and a new oath of allegiance, to be proposed to every functionary of the state, was considered as a certain means for attaining this object without the violence of an unmerited dismissal. The terms of this oath were strongly opposed to every principle of patriotism and toleration. Count Mansfield was the first of the nobles who took it. The duke of Arschot, Counts Meghem, Berlaimont, and Egmont followed his example. The counts of Horn, Hoogstraeten, De Brederode, and others, refused on various pretexts. Every artifice and persuasion was tried to induce the Prince of Orange to subscribe to this new test; but his resolution had been for some time formed. He saw that every chance of constitutional resistance to tyranny was for the present at an end. The time for petitioning was gone by. The confederation was dissolved. A royalist army was in the field; the Duke of Alva was notoriously approaching at the head of another, more numerous. It was worse than useless to conclude a hollow convention with the stadtholderess of mock loyalty on his part and mock confidence on hers. Many other important considerations convinced William that his only honorable, safe, and wise course was to exile himself from the Netherlands altogether, until more propitious circumstances allowed of his acting openly, boldly, and with effect.

Before he put this plan of voluntary banishment into execution, he and Egmont had a parting interview at the village of Willebroek, between Antwerp and Brussels. Count Mansfield, and Berti, secretary to the stadtholderess, were present at this memorable meeting. The details of what passed were reported to the confederates by one of their party, who contrived to conceal himself in the chimney of the chamber. Nothing could exceed the energetic warmth with which the two illustrious friends reciprocally endeavored to turn each other from their respective line of conduct; but in vain. Egmont's fatal confidence in the king was not to be shaken; nor was Nassau's penetrating mind to be deceived by the romantic delusion which led away his friend. They separated with most affectionate expressions; and Nassau was even moved to tears. His parting words were to the following effect: "Confide, then, since it must be so, in the gratitude of the king; but a painful presentiment (God grant it may prove a false one!) tells me that you will serve the Spaniards as the bridge by which they will enter the country, and which they will destroy as soon as they have passed over it!"

On the 11th of April, a few days after this conference, the Prince of Orange set out for Germany, with his three brothers and his whole family, with the exception of his eldest son Philip William, count de Beuren, whom he left behind a student in the University of Louvain. He believed that the privileges of the college and the franchises of Brabant would prove a sufficient protection to the youth; and this appears the only instance in which William's vigilant prudence was deceived. The departure of the prince seemed to remove all hope of protection or support from the unfortunate Protestants, now left the prey of their implacable tyrant. The confederation of the nobles was completely broken up. The counts of Hoogstraeten, Bergen, and Culembourg followed the example of the Prince of Orange, and escaped to Germany; and, the greater number of those who remained behind took the new oath of allegiance, and became reconciled to the government.

This total dispersion of the confederacy brought all the towns of Holland into obedience to the king. But the emigration which immediately commenced threatened the country with ruin. England and Germany swarmed with Dutch and Belgian refugees; and all the efforts of the stadtholderess could not restrain the thousands that took to flight. She was not more successful in her attempts to influence the measures of the king. She implored him, in repeated letters, to abandon his design of sending a foreign army into the country, which she represented as being now quite reduced to submission and tranquillity. She added that the mere report of this royal invasion (so to call it) had already deprived the Netherlands of many thousands of its best inhabitants; and that the appearance of the troops would change it into a desert. These arguments, meant to dissuade, were the very means of encouraging Philip in his design. He conceived his project to be now ripe for the complete suppression of freedom; and Alva soon began his march.

On the 5th of May, 1567, this celebrated captain, whose reputation was so quickly destined to sink into the notoriety of an executioner, began his memorable march; and on the 22d of August he, with his two natural sons, and his veteran army consisting of about fifteen thousand men, arrived at the walls of Brussels. The discipline observed on this march was a terrible forewarning to the people of the Netherlands of the influence of the general and the obedience of the troops. They had little chance of resistance against such soldiers so commanded.

Several of the Belgian nobility went forward to meet Alva, to render him the accustomed honors, and endeavor thus early to gain his good graces. Among them was the infatuated Egmont, who made a present to Alva of two superb horses, which the latter received with a disdainful air of condescension. Alva's first care was the distribution of his troops—several thousands of whom were placed in Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns, and the remainder reserved under his own immediate orders at Brussels. His approach was celebrated by universal terror; and his arrival was thoroughly humiliating to the duchess of Parma. He immediately produced his commission as commander-in-chief of the royal armies in the Netherlands; but he next showed her another, which confided to him powers infinitely more extended than any Marguerite herself had enjoyed, and which proved to her that the almost sovereign power over the country was virtually vested in him.