CHAPTER VIII.
CHANGES DEMANDED BY THE LORDS.
Policy of Philip.—Ascendancy of the Nobles.—The Regent's Embarrassments.—Egmont sent to Spain.
1564, 1565.
We have now arrived at an epoch in the history of the revolution, when, the spirit of the nation having been fully roused, the king had been compelled to withdraw his unpopular minister, and to intrust the reins of government to the hands of the nobles. Before proceeding further, it will be well to take a brief survey of the ground, that we may the better comprehend the relations in which the parties stood to each other at the commencement of the contest.
ASCENDANCY OF THE NOBLES.
In a letter to his sister, the regent, written some two years after this period, Philip says: "I have never had any other object in view than the good of my subjects. In all that I have done, I have but trod in the footsteps of my father, under whom the people of the Netherlands must admit they lived contented and happy. As to the Inquisition, whatever people may say of it, I have never attempted anything new. With regard to the edicts, I have been always resolved to live and die in the Catholic faith. I could not be content to have my subjects do otherwise. Yet I see not how this can be compassed without punishing the transgressors. God knows how willingly I would avoid shedding a drop of Christian blood,—above all, that of my people[{227}] in the Netherlands; and I should esteem it one of the happiest circumstances of my reign to be spared this necessity."[605]
Whatever we may think of the sensibility of Philip, or of his tenderness for his Flemish subjects in particular, we cannot deny that the policy he had hitherto pursued was substantially that of his father. Yet his father lived beloved, and died lamented, by the Flemings; while Philip's course, from the very first, had encountered only odium and opposition. A little reflection will show us the reasons of these different results.
Both Charles and Philip came forward as the great champions of Catholicism. But the emperor's zeal was so far tempered by reason, that it could accommodate itself to circumstances. He showed this on more than one occasion, both in Germany and in Flanders. Philip, on the other hand, admitted of no compromise. He was the inexorable foe of heresy. Persecution was his only remedy, and the Inquisition the weapon on which he relied. His first act on setting foot on his native shore was to assist at an auto da fé. This proclaimed his purpose to the world, and associated his name indelibly with that of the terrible tribunal.