CHURCHES GRANTED TO REFORMERS.
The question now recurred as to the course to be pursued; and the more she pondered on the embarrassments of her position, the more she became satisfied that no means of extricating herself remained but that proposed by the nobles. Yet, in thus yielding to necessity, she did so protesting that she was acting under compulsion.[834] On the twenty-third of August, Margaret executed an instrument, by which she engaged that no harm should come to the members of the league for anything hitherto done by them. She further authorized the lords to announce to the confederates her consent to the religious meetings of the Reformed, in places where they had been hitherto[{281}] held, until his majesty and the states-general should otherwise determine. It was on the condition, however, that they should go there unarmed, and nowhere offer disturbance to the Catholics.
On the twenty-fifth of the month the confederate nobles signed an agreement on their part and solemnly swore that they would aid the regent to the utmost in suppressing the disorders of the country, and in bringing their authors to justice; agreeing, moreover, that, so long as the regent should be true to the compact, the league should be considered as null and void.[835]
The feelings of Margaret, in making the concessions required of her, may be gathered from the perusal of her private correspondence with her brother. No act in her public life ever caused her so deep a mortification; and she never forgave the authors of it. "It was forced upon me," she writes to Philip; "but, happily, you will not be bound by it." And she beseeches him to come at once, in such strength as would enable him to conquer the country for himself, or to give her the means of doing so.[836]—Margaret, in early life, had been placed in the hands of Ignatius Loyola. More than one passage in her history proves that the lessons of the Jesuit had not been thrown away.
During these discussions the panic had been such, that it was thought advisable to strengthen the garrison under command of Count Mansfeldt, and keep the greater part of the citizens under arms day and night. When this arrangement was concluded, the great lords dispersed on their mission to restore order in their several governments. The prince went first to Antwerp, where, as we have seen, he held the office of burgrave. He made strict investigation into the causes of the late tumult, hung three of the ringleaders, and banished three others. He found it, however, no easy matter to come to terms with the sectaries, who had possession of all the churches, from which they had driven the Catholics. After long negotiation, it was arranged that they should be allowed to hold six, and should resign the rest to the ancient possessors. The arrangement gave general satisfaction, and the principal citizens and merchants congratulated William on having rescued them from the evils of anarchy.
Not so the regent. She knew well that the example of Antwerp would become a precedent for the rest of the country. She denounced the compact, as compromising the interests of Catholicism, and openly accused the prince of having transcended his powers, and betrayed the trust reposed in him. Finally, she wrote, commanding him at once to revoke his concessions.
William, in answer, explained to her the grounds on which they had been made, and their absolute necessity, in order to save the city from anarchy. It is a strong argument in his favor, that the Protestants, who already claimed the prince as one of their own sect, accused him, in this instance, of sacrificing their cause to that of their enemies; and caricatures of him were made, representing him with open hands and a double face.[837] William, while thus explaining his conduct, did not conceal his indignation at the charges brought against him by the regent, and renewed his request for leave to resign his offices, since he no longer enjoyed her confidence. But whatever disgust she may have felt at his present conduct, William's services were too important to Margaret in this crisis to allow her to dispense with them; and she made[{282}] haste to write to him in a conciliatory tone, explaining away as far as possible what had been offensive in her former letters. Yet from this hour the consciousness of mutual distrust raised a barrier between the parties never to be overcome.[838]
William next proceeded to his governments of Utrecht and Holland, which, by a similar course of measures to that pursued at Antwerp, he soon restored to order. While in Utrecht, he presented to the states of the province a memorial, in which he briefly reviewed the condition of the country. He urged the necessity of religious toleration, as demanded by the spirit of the age, and as particularly necessary in a country like that, the resort of so many foreigners, and inhabited by sects of such various denominations. He concluded by recommending them to lay a petition to that effect before the throne,—not, probably, from any belief that such a petition would be heeded by the monarch, but from the effect it would have in strengthening the principles of religious freedom in his countrymen. William's memorial is altogether a remarkable paper for the time, and in the wise and liberal tenor of its arguments strikingly contrasts with the intolerant spirit of the court of Madrid.[839]
The regent proved correct in her prediction that the example of Antwerp would be made a precedent for the country. William's friends, the Counts Hoorne and Hoogstraten, employed the same means for conciliating the sectaries in their own governments. It was otherwise with Egmont. He was too stanch a Catholic at heart to approve of such concessions. He carried matters, therefore, with a high hand in his provinces of Flanders and Artois, where his personal authority was unbounded. He made a severe scrutiny into the causes of the late tumult, and dealt with its authors so sternly, as to provoke a general complaint among the reformed party, some of whom, indeed, became so far alarmed for their own safety, that they left the provinces and went beyond sea.
Order now seemed to be reëstablished in the land, through the efforts of the nobles, aided by the confederates, who seem to have faithfully executed their part of the compact with the regent. The Protestants took possession of the churches assigned to them, or busied themselves with raising others on the ground before reserved for their meetings. All joined in the good work; the men laboring at the building, the women giving their jewels and ornaments to defray the cost of the materials. A calm succeeded,—a temporary lull after the hurricane; and Lutheran and Calvinist again indulged in the pleasing illusion, that, however distasteful it might be to the government, they were at length secure of the blessings of religious toleration.