It might be supposed that the different judges to whom the prisoner's case was thus separately submitted for examination, would have afforded an additional guaranty for his security. But quite the contrary; it only multiplied the chances of his conviction. When the provincial committee presented their report to Vargas and Del Rio,—to whom a Spanish jurist, auditor of the chancery of Valladolid, named Roda, was afterwards added,—if it proposed sentence of death, these judges declared it "was right, and that there was no necessity of reviewing the process." If, on the contrary, a lower penalty was recommended, the worthy ministers of the law were in the habit of returning the process, ordering the committee, with bitter imprecations, to revise it more carefully![1013]
THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD.
As confiscation was one of the most frequent as well as momentous penalties adjudged by the Council of Blood, it necessarily involved a large number of civil actions; for the estate thus forfeited was often burdened with heavy claims on it by other parties. These were all to be established before the council. One may readily comprehend how small was the chance of justice before such a tribunal, where the creditor was one of the parties, and the crown the other. Even if the suit was decided in favor of the[{331}] creditor, it was usually so long protracted, and attended with such ruinous expense, that it would have been better for him never to have urged it.[1014]
The jurisdiction of the court, within the limits assigned to it, wholly superseded that of the great court of Mechlin, as well as of every other tribunal, provincial or municipal, in the country. Its decisions were final. By the law of the land, established by repeated royal charters in the provinces, no man in the Netherlands could be tried by any but a native judge. But of the present court, one member was a native of Burgundy, and two were Spaniards.
It might be supposed that a tribunal with such enormous powers, which involved so gross an outrage on the constitutional rights and long-established usages of the nation, would at least have been sanctioned by some warrant from the crown. It could pretend to nothing of the kind,—not even a written commission from the duke of Alva, the man who created it. By his voice alone he gave it an existence. The ceremony of induction into office was performed by the new member placing his hands between those of the duke, and swearing to remain true to the faith; to decide in all cases according to his sincere conviction; finally, to keep secret all the doings of the council, and to denounce any one who disclosed them.[1015] A tribunal clothed with such unbounded power, and conducted on a plan so repugnant to all principles of justice, fell nothing short, in its atrocity, of that inquisition so much dreaded in the Netherlands.
Alva, in order to be the better able to attend the council, appointed his own palace for the place of meeting. At first the sittings were held morning and afternoon, lasting sometimes seven hours in a day.[1016] There was a general attendance of the members, the duke presiding in person. After a few months, as he was drawn to a distance by more pressing affairs, he resigned his place to Vargas. Barlaimont and Noircarmes, disgusted with the atrocious character of the proceedings, soon absented themselves from the meetings. The more respectable of the members imitated their example. One of the body, a Burgundian, a follower of Granvelle, having criticised the proceedings somewhat too freely, had leave to withdraw to his own province;[1017] till at length only three or four councillors remained,—Vargas, Del Rio, Hessels, and his colleague,—on whom the despatch of the momentous business wholly devolved. To some of the processes we find not more than[{332}] three names subscribed. The duke was as indifferent to forms, as he was to the rights of the nation.[1018]
It soon became apparent, that, as in most proscriptions, wealth was the mark at which persecution was mainly directed. At least, if it did not actually form a ground of accusation, it greatly enhanced the chances of a conviction. The commissioners sent to the provinces received written instructions to ascertain the exact amount of property belonging to the suspected parties. The expense incident to the maintenance of so many officials, as well as of a large military force, pressed heavily on the government; and Alva soon found it necessary to ask for support from Madrid. It was in vain he attempted to obtain a loan from the merchants. "They refuse," he writes; "to advance a real on the security of the confiscations, till they see how the game we have begun is likely to prosper!"[1019]
In another letter to Philip, dated on the twenty-fourth of October, Alva, expressing his regret at the necessity of demanding supplies, says that the Low Countries ought to maintain themselves, and be no tax upon Spain. He is constantly thwarted by the duchess, and by the council of finance, in his appropriation of the confiscated property. Could he only manage things in his own way, he would answer for it that the Flemish cities, uncertain and anxious as to their fate, would readily acquiesce in the fair means of raising a revenue proposed by the king.[1020] The ambitious general, eager to secure the sole authority to himself, artfully touched on the topic which would be most likely to operate with his master. In a note on this passage, in his own handwriting, Philip remarked that this was but just; but as he feared that supplies would never be raised with the consent of the states, Alva must devise some expedient by which their consent in the matter might be dispensed with, and communicate it privately to him.[1021] This pregnant thought he soon after develops more fully in a letter to the duke.[1022]—It is edifying to observe the cool manner in which the king and his general discuss the best[{333}] means for filching a revenue from the pockets of the good people of the Netherlands.
GENERAL PROSECUTIONS.
Margaret,—whose name now rarely appears,—scandalized by the plan avowed of wholesale persecution, and satisfied that blood enough had been shed already, would fain have urged her brother to grant a general pardon. But to this the duke strongly objected. "He would have every man," he wrote to Philip, "feel that any day his house might fall about his ears.[1023] Thus private individuals would be induced to pay larger sums by way of composition for their offences."