Margaret next caused the churches of the reformed party to be levelled with the ground. Those of the Romish faith, after being purified, and the marks of violence, as far as practicable, effaced, were restored to their ancient occupants. The Protestant schools were everywhere closed. The children who had been baptized with Protestant rites were now re-baptized after the Catholic.[907] In fine, the reformed worship was interdicted throughout the city, and that of the Romish church, with its splendid ritual, was established in its place.
On occupying Antwerp, Margaret had allowed all who were not implicated in the late riots to leave the city with their effects. Great numbers now availed themselves of this permission, and the streets presented the melancholy spectacle of husbands parting from their wives, parents from their children, or, it might be, taking their families along with them to some kinder land, where they would be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.
But even this glimmering of a tolerant spirit,—if so it can be called,—which Margaret exhibited at the outset, soon faded away before the dark spirit of the Inquisition. On the twenty-fourth of May, she published an edict, written in the characters of blood which distinguished the worst times of Charles and of Philip. By this edict, all who had publicly preached, or who had performed the religions exercises after the Protestant manner, all who had furnished the places of meeting, or had harbored or aided the preachers, all printers of heretical tracts, or artists who with their pencil had brought ridicule on the Church of Rome,—all, in short, who were guilty of these or similar iniquities, were to be punished with death and confiscation of property. Lighter offences were to be dealt with according to the measure of their guilt. The edict containing these humane provisions is of considerable length, and goes into a large specification of offences, from which few, if any, of the reformed could have been entirely exempt.[908] When this ordinance of the regent was known at Madrid, it caused great dissatisfaction. The king pronounced it "indecorous, illegal, and altogether repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity;"[909] and he ordered Margaret forthwith to revoke the edict. It was accordingly repealed on the twenty-third of July following. The reader who may be disposed to join heartily in the malediction may not be prepared to learn that the cause of the royal indignation was not that the[{306}] edict was too severe, but that it was too lenient! It nowhere denounced the right of private worship. A man might still be a heretic at heart and at his own fireside, so long as he did not obtrude it on the public. This did not suit the Inquisition, whose jealous eye penetrated into the houses and the hearts of men, dragging forth their secret thoughts into open day, and punishing these like overt acts. Margaret had something yet to learn in the school of persecution.[910]
While at Antwerp, the regent received an embassy from the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes of Germany, interceding for the oppressed Lutherans, and praying that she would not consent to their being so grievously vexed by the Catholic government. Margaret, who was as little pleased with the plain terms in which this remonstrance was conveyed as with the object of it, coldly replied, that the late conduct of the Flemish Protestants doubtless entitled them to all this sympathy from the German princes; but she advised the latter to busy themselves with their own affairs, and leave the king of Spain to manage his as he thought best.[911]
Of all the provinces, Holland was the only one which still made resistance to the will of the regent. And here, as we have already seen, was gathered a military array of some strength. The head-quarters were at Brederode's town of Viana. But that chief had left his followers for the present, and had been secretly introduced into Amsterdam, where, as before noticed, he was busy in rousing a spirit of resistance in the citizens, already well prepared for it by their Protestant preachers. The magistrates, sorely annoyed, would gladly have rid themselves of Brederode's presence, but he had too strong a hold on the people. Yet, as hour after hour brought fresh tidings of the disasters of his party, the chief himself became aware that all hopes of successful resistance must be deferred to another day. Quitting the city by night, he contrived, with the aid of his friends, to make his escape into Germany. Some months he passed in Westphalia, occupied with raising forces for a meditated invasion of the Netherlands, when, in the summer of 1568, he was carried off by a fever, brought on, it is said, by his careless, intemperate way of life.[912]
Brederode was a person of a free and fearless temper,—with the defects, and the merits too, that attach to that sort of character. The friendship with which he seems to have been regarded by some of the most estimable persons of his party—Louis of Nassau, especially—speaks well for his heart. The reckless audacity of the man is shown in his correspondence; and the free manner in which he deals with persons and events makes his letters no less interesting than important for the light they throw on these troubled times. Yet it cannot be denied that, after all, Brederode is indebted much[{307}] more to the circumstances of his situation than to his own character for the space he occupies in the pages of history.[913]
CRUEL REPRISALS.
Thus left without a leader, the little army which Brederode had gathered under his banner soon fell to pieces. Detachments, scattering over the country, committed various depredations, plundering the religious houses and engaging in encounters with the royal troops under Megen and Aremberg, in which the insurgents fared the worst. Thus broken on all sides, those who did not fall into the enemy's hands, or on the field, were too glad to make their escape into Germany. One vessel, containing a great number of fugitives, was wrecked, and all on board were made prisoners. Among them were two brothers, of the name of Battenberg; they were of a noble family, and prominent members of the league. They were at once, with their principal followers, thrown into prison, to await their doom from the bloody tribunal of Alva.
Deprived of all support from without, the city of Amsterdam offered no further resistance, but threw open its gates to the regent, and consented to accept her terms. These were the same that had been imposed on all the other refractory towns. The immunities of the city were declared to be forfeited, a garrison was marched into the place, and preparations were made for building a fortress, to guard against future commotions. Those who chose—with the customary exceptions—were allowed to leave the city. Great numbers availed themselves of the permission. The neighboring dikes were crowded with fugitives from the territory around, as well as from the city, anxiously waiting for vessels to transport them to Embden, the chief asylum of the exiles. There they stood, men, women, and children, a melancholy throng, without food, almost without raiment or any of the common necessaries of life, exciting the commiseration of even their Catholic adversaries.[914]
The example of Amsterdam was speedily followed by Delft, Haarlem, Rotterdam, Leyden, and the remaining towns of Holland, which now seemed to vie with one another in demonstrations of loyalty to the government. The triumph of the regent was complete. Her arms had been everywhere successful, and her authority was fully recognized throughout the whole extent of the Netherlands. Doubtful friends and open foes, Catholics and Reformers, were alike prostrate at her feet.[915] With the hour of triumph came also the hour of vengeance. And we can hardly doubt that the remembrance of past humiliation gave a sharper edge to the sword of justice. Fortresses, to overawe the inhabitants, were raised in the principal towns;[916] and the expense[{308}] of their construction, as well as of maintaining their garrison, was defrayed by fines laid on the refractory cities.[917] The regent's troops rode over the country, and wherever the reformed were gathered to hear the word, they were charged by the troopers, who trampled them under their horses' hoofs, shooting them down without mercy, or dragging them off by scores to execution. No town was so small that fifty at least did not perish in this way, while the number of the victims sometimes rose to two or even three hundred.[918] Everywhere along the road-side the traveller beheld the ghastly spectacle of bodies swinging from gibbets, or met with troops of miserable exiles flying from their native land.[919] Confiscation followed, as usual, in the train of persecution. At Tournay, the property of a hundred of the richest merchants was seized and appropriated by the government. Even the populace, like those animals who fall upon and devour one of their own number when wounded, now joined in the cry against the Reformers. They worked with the same alacrity as the soldiers in pulling down the Protestant churches; and from the beams, in some instances, formed the very gallows from which their unhappy victims were suspended.[920] Such is the picture, well charged with horrors, left to us by Protestant writers. We may be quite sure that it lost nothing of its darker coloring under their hands.