History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Vols. 1 and 2

by William Hickling Prescott

CONFISCATIONS.

But the amount of suffering from such a persecution is not to be estimated merely by the number of those who have actually suffered death, when the fear of death hung like a naked sword over every man's head. Alva had expressed to Philip the wish that every man, as he lay down at night, or as he rose in the morning, "might feel that his house, at any hour, might fall and crush him!"[1069] This humane wish was accomplished. Those who escaped death had to fear a fate scarcely less dreadful, in banishment and confiscation of property. The persecution very soon took this direction; and persecution when prompted by avarice is even more odious than when it springs from[{345}] fanaticism, which, however degrading in itself, is but the perversion of the religious principle.

Sentence of perpetual exile and confiscation was pronounced at once against all who fled the country.[1070] Even the dead were not spared; as is shown by the process instituted against the marquis of Bergen, for the confiscation of his estates on the charge of treason. That nobleman had gone with Montigny, as the reader may remember, on his mission to Madrid, where he had recently died,—more fortunate than his companion, who survived for a darker destiny. The duke's emissaries were everywhere active in making inventories of the property of the suspected parties. "I am going to arrest some of the richest and worst offenders," writes Alva to his master, "and bring them to a pecuniary composition."[1071] He shall next proceed, he says, against the delinquent cities. In this way a round sum will flow into his majesty's coffers.[1072] The victims of this class were so numerous, that we find a single sentence of the council sometimes comprehending eighty or a hundred individuals. One before me, in fewer words than are taken up by the names of the parties, dooms no less than a hundred and thirty-five inhabitants of Amsterdam to confiscation and exile.[1073]

One may imagine the distress brought on this once flourishing country by this wholesale proscription; for besides the parties directly interested, there was a host of others incidentally affected,—hospitals and charitable establishments, widows and helpless orphans, now reduced to want by the failure of the sources which supplied them with their ordinary subsistence.[1074] Slow and sparing must have been the justice doled out to such impotent creditors, when they preferred their claims to a tribunal like the Council of Blood! The effect was soon visible in the decay of trade and the rapid depopulation of the towns. Notwithstanding the dreadful penalties denounced against fugitives, great numbers, especially from the border states, contrived to make their escape. The neighboring districts of Germany opened their arms to the wanderers; and many a wretched exile from the northern provinces, flying across the frozen waters of the Zuyder Zee, found refuge within the hospitable walls of Embden.[1075] Even in an inland city like Ghent, half the houses, if we may credit the historian, were abandoned.[1076] Not a family was there, he says, but some of its members had tasted the bitterness of exile or of death.[1077] "The fury of persecution," writes the prince of Orange, "spreads such horror throughout the nation, that thousands, and among them some of[{346}] the principal Papists, have fled a country where tyranny seems to be directed against all, without distinction of faith."[1078]

Yet in a financial point of view the results did not keep pace with Alva's wishes. Notwithstanding the large amount of the confiscations, the proceeds, as he complains to Philip, were absorbed in so many ways, especially by the peculation of his agents, that he doubted whether the expense would not come to more than the profits![1079] He was equally dissatisfied with the conduct of other functionaries. The commissioners sent into the provinces, instead of using their efforts to detect the guilty, seemed disposed, he said, rather to conceal them. Even the members of the Council of Troubles manifested so much apathy in their vocation, as to give him more annoyance than the delinquents themselves![1080] The only person who showed any zeal in the service was Vargas. He was worth all the others of the council put together.[1081] The duke might have excepted from this sweeping condemnation Hessels, the lawyer of Ghent, if the rumors concerning him were true. This worthy councillor, it is said, would sometimes fall asleep in his chair, worn out by the fatigue of trying causes and signing death-warrants. In this state, when suddenly called on to pronounce the doom of the prisoner, he would cry out, half awake, and rubbing his eyes, "Ad patibulum! Ad patibulum!"—"To the gallows! To the gallows!"[1082]

RESULTS.

But Vargas was after the duke's own heart. Alva was never weary of commending his follower to the king. He besought Philip to interpose in his behalf, and cause three suits which had been brought against that functionary to be suspended during his absence from Spain. The king accordingly addressed the judge on the subject. But the magistrate (his name should have been preserved) had the independence to reply, that "justice must take its course, and could not be suspended from favor to any one." "Nor would I have it so," answered Philip, (it is the king who tells it;) "I would do only what is possible to save the interests of Vargas from suffering by his absence." In conclusion he tells the duke, that Vargas should give no heed to what is said of the suits, since he must be assured, after the letter he has received under the royal hand, that his sovereign fully approves his conduct.[1083] But if Vargas, by his unscrupulous devotion to the cause, won the confidence of his employers, he incurred, on the other hand, the unmitigated hatred of the people,—a hatred deeper, it would almost seem, than even that which attached to Alva; owing perhaps to the circumstance that, as the instrument[{347}] for the execution of the duke's measures, Vargas was brought more immediately in contact with the people than the duke himself.

As we have already seen, many, especially of those who dwelt in the border provinces, escaped the storm of persecution by voluntary exile. The suspected parties would seem to have received, not unfrequently, kindly intimations from the local magistrates of the fate that menaced them.[1084] Others, who lived in the interior, were driven to more desperate courses. They banded together in considerable numbers, under the name of the "wild Gueux,"—"Gueux sauvages,"—and took refuge in the forests, particularly of West Flanders. Thence they sallied forth, fell upon unsuspecting travellers, especially the monks and ecclesiastics, whom they robbed, and sometimes murdered. Occasionally they were so bold as to invade the monasteries and churches, stripping them of their rich ornaments, their plate and other valuables, when, loaded with booty, they hurried back to their fastnesses. The evil proceeded to such a length, that the governor-general was obliged to order out a strong force to exterminate the banditti, while at the same time he published an edict, declaring that every district should be held responsible for the damage done to property within its limits by these marauders.[1085]

It might be supposed that, under the general feeling of resentment provoked by Alva's cruel policy, his life would have been in constant danger from the hand of the assassin. Once, indeed, he had nearly fallen a victim to a conspiracy headed by two brothers, men of good family in Flanders, who formed a plan to kill him while attending mass at an abbey in the neighborhood of Brussels.[1086] But Alva was not destined to fall by the hand of violence.

We may well believe that wise and temperate men, like Viglius, condemned the duke's proceedings as no less impolitic than cruel. That this veteran councillor did so is apparent from his confidential letters, though he was too prudent to expose himself to Alva's enmity by openly avowing it.[1087] There were others, however,—the princes of Germany, in particular,—who had no such reasons for dissembling, and who carried their remonstrances to a higher tribunal than that of the governor-general.