He besought Catherine to come to no terms with the rebels; above all, to make them no concessions. "Such concessions must, of necessity, be either spiritual or temporal. If spiritual, they would be opposed to the rights of God; if temporal, to the rights of the king. Better to reign over a ruined land, which yet remains true to its God and its king, than over one left unharmed for the benefit of the Devil and his followers the heretics."[1032] In this declaration, breathing the full spirit of religious and political absolutism, may be found the true key to the policy of Alva and of his master.
Philip heartily approved of the views taken by his general.[1033] As the great champion of Catholicism, he looked with the deepest interest on the religious struggle going forward in the neighboring kingdom, which exercised so direct an influence on the revolutionary movements in the Netherlands. He strongly encouraged the queen-mother to yield nothing to the heretics. "With his own person," he declared, "and with all that he possessed, he was ready to serve the French crown in its contests with the rebels."[1034] Philip's zeal in the cause was so well understood in France, that some of the Catholic leaders did not scruple to look to him, rather than to their own government, as the true head of their party.[1035][{336}]
Catherine de Medicis did not discover the same uncompromising spirit, and had before this disgusted her royal son-in-law by the politic views which mingled with her religion. On the present occasion she did not profit by the brilliant offer made to her by Alva to come in person at the head of his army. She may have thought so formidable a presence might endanger the independence of the government. Roman Catholic as she was at heart, she preferred, with true Italian policy, balancing the rival factions against each other, to exterminating either of them altogether. The duke saw that Catherine was not disposed to strike at the root of the evil, and that the advantages to be secured by success would be only temporary. He contented himself, therefore, with despatching a smaller force, chiefly of Flemish troops, under Aremberg. Before the count reached Paris, the battle of St. Denis had been fought. Montmorenci fell; but the royal party was victorious. Catherine made a treaty with the discomfited Huguenots, as favorable to them as if they, not she, had won the fight. Alva, disgusted with the issue, ordered the speedy return of Aremberg, whose presence, moreover, was needed, on a more active theatre of operations.
During all this while Margaret's position afforded a pitiable contrast to the splendid elevation which she had occupied for so many years as head of the government. Not only had the actual power passed from her hands, but she felt that all her influence had gone with it. She hardly enjoyed even the right of remonstrance. In this position, she had the advantage of being more favorably situated for criticizing the conduct of the administration, than when she was herself at the head of it. She became more sensible of the wrongs of the people,—now that they were inflicted by other hands than her own. She did not refuse to intercede in their behalf. She deprecated the introduction of a garrison into the good city of Brussels. If this were necessary, she still besought the duke not to allow the loyal inhabitants to be burdened with the maintenance of the soldiers.[1036] But he turned a deaf ear to her petition. She urged that, after the chastisement already inflicted on the nation, the only way to restore quiet was by a general amnesty. The duke replied, that no amnesty could be so general but there must be some exceptions, and it would take time to determine who should be excepted. She recommended that the states be called together to vote the supplies. He evaded this also by saying it would be necessary first to decide on the amount of the subsidy to be raised.[1037] The regent felt that in all matters of real moment she had as little weight as any private individual in the country.
DEPARTURE OF MARGARET
From this state of humiliation she was at last relieved by the return of her secretary, Machiavelli, who brought with him despatches from Ruy Gomez, Philip's favorite minister. He informed the duchess that the king, though, reluctantly, had at last acceded to her request, and allowed her to resign the government of the provinces. In token of his satisfaction with her conduct, his majesty had raised the pension which she had hitherto enjoyed, of eight thousand florins, to fourteen thousand, to be paid her yearly during the[{337}] remainder of her life. This letter was dated on the sixth of October.[1038] Margaret soon after received one, dated four days later, from Philip himself, of much the same tenor with that of his minister. The king, in a few words, intimated the regret he felt at his sister's retirement from office, and the sense he entertained of the services she had rendered him by her long and faithful administration.[1039]
The increase of the pension showed no very extravagant estimate of these services; and the parsimonious tribute which, after his long silence, he now, in a few brief sentences, paid to her deserts, too plainly intimated, that all she had done had failed to excite even a feeling of gratitude in the bosom of her brother.[1040] At the same time with the letter to Margaret came a commission to the duke of Alva, investing him with the title of regent and governor-general, together with all the powers that had been possessed by his predecessor.[1041]
Margaret made only one request of Philip previous to her departure. This he denied her. Her father, Charles the Fifth, at the time of his abdication, had called the states-general together, and taken leave of them in a farewell address, which was still cherished as a legacy by his subjects. Margaret would have imitated his example. The grandeur of the spectacle pleased her imagination; and she was influenced, no doubt, by the honest desire of manifesting, in the hour of separation, some feelings of a kindly nature for the people over whom she had ruled for so many years.
But Philip, as we have seen, had no relish for these meetings of the states. He had no idea of consenting to them on an emergency no more pressing than the present. Margaret was obliged, therefore, to relinquish the pageant, and to content herself with taking leave of the people by letters addressed to the principal cities of the provinces. In these she briefly touched on the difficulties which had lain in her path, and on the satisfaction which she felt at having, at length, brought the country to a state of tranquillity and order. She besought them to remain always constant in the faith in which they had been nurtured, as well as in their loyalty to a prince so benign and merciful as the king, her brother. In so doing the blessing of Heaven would rest upon them; and for her own part, she would ever be found ready to use her good offices in their behalf.[1042]
She proved her sincerity by a letter written to Philip, before her departure, in which she invoked his mercy in behalf of his Flemish subjects. "Mercy," she said, "was a divine attribute. The greater the power possessed by a monarch, the nearer he approached the Deity, and the more should he strive to imitate the divine clemency and compassion.[1043] His royal predecessors had[{338}] contented themselves with punishing the leaders of sedition, while they spared the masses who repented. Any other course would confound the good with the bad, and bring such calamities on the country as his majesty could not fail to appreciate."[1044]—Well had it been for the fair fame of Margaret, if her counsels had always been guided by such wise and magnanimous sentiments.