OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT.
Grounds of Complaint.—The Spanish Troops.—The New Bishoprics.—Influence on Granvelle.—Opposed by the Nobles.—His Unpopularity.
1559-1562.
The first cause of trouble, after Philip's departure from the Netherlands, arose from the detention of the Spanish troops there. The king had pledged his word, it will be remembered, that they should leave the country by the end of four months, at farthest. Yet that period had long since passed, and no preparations were made for their departure. The indignation of the people rose higher and higher at the insult thus offered by the presence of these detested foreigners. It was a season of peace. No invasion was threatened from abroad; no insurrection existed at home. There was nothing to require the maintenance of an extraordinary force, much less of one composed of foreign troops. It could only be that the king, distrusting his Flemish subjects, designed to overawe them by his mercenaries, in sufficient strength to enforce his arbitrary acts. The free spirit of the Netherlanders was roused by these suggestions, and they boldly demanded the removal of the Spaniards.
Granvelle himself, who would willingly have pleased his master by retaining a force in the country on which he could rely, admitted that the project was impracticable. "The troops must be withdrawn," he wrote, "and that speedily, or the consequence will be an insurrection."[514] The states would not consent, he said, to furnish the necessary subsidies while they remained. The prince of Orange and Count Egmont threw up the commands intrusted to them by the king. They dared no longer hold them, as the minister added, it was so unpopular.[515]
The troops had much increased the difficulty by their own misconduct. They were drawn from the great mass, often the dregs, of the people; and their morals, such as they were, had not been improved in the life of the camp. However strict their discipline in time of active service, it was greatly relaxed in their present state of inaction; and they had full license, as well as leisure, to indulge their mischievous appetites, at the expense of the unfortunate districts in which they were quartered.
Yet Philip was slow in returning an answer to the importunate letters of the regent and the minister; and when he did reply, it was to evade their request, lamenting his want of funds, and declaring his purpose to remove the forces so soon as he could pay their arrears. The public exchequer was undoubtedly at a low ebb; lower in Spain than in the Netherlands.[516] But no one could believe the royal credit so far reduced as not to be able to provide[{202}] for the arrears of three or four thousand soldiers. The regent, however, saw that, with or without instructions, it was necessary to act. Several of the members of the council became sureties for the payment of the arrears, and the troops were ordered to Zealand, in order to embark for Spain. But the winds proved unfavorable. Two months longer they were detained, on shore or on board the transports. They soon got into brawls with the workmen employed on the dikes; and the inhabitants, still apprehensive of orders from the king countermanding the departure of the Spaniards, resolved, in such an event, to abandon the dikes, and lay the country under water![517] Fortunately, they were not driven to this extremity. In January, 1561, more than a year after the date assigned by Philip, the nation was relieved of the presence of the intruders.[518]
Philip's conduct in this affair is not very easy to explain. However much he might have desired originally to maintain the troops in the Netherlands, as an armed police on which he could rely to enforce the execution of his orders, it had become clear that the good they might do in quelling an insurrection was more than counterbalanced by the probability of their exciting one. It was characteristic of the king, however, to be slow in retreating from any position he had taken; and, as we shall often have occasion to see, there was a certain apathy or sluggishness in his nature, which led him sometimes to leave events to take their own course, rather than to shape a course for them himself.
This difficulty was no sooner settled, than it was followed by another scarcely less serious. We have seen, in a former chapter, the arrangements made for adding thirteen new bishoprics to the four already existing in the Netherlands. The measure, in itself a good one, and demanded by the situation of the country, was, from the posture of affairs at that time, likely to meet with opposition, if not to occasion great excitement. For this reason, the whole affair had been kept profoundly secret by the government. It was not till 1561 that Philip disclosed his views, in a letter to some of the principal nobles in the council of state. But, long before that time, the project had taken wind, and created a general sensation through the country.
The people looked on it as an attempt to subject them to the same ecclesiastical system which existed in Spain. The bishops, by virtue of their office, were possessed of certain inquisitorial powers, and these were still further enlarged by the provisions of the royal edicts. Philip's attachment to the Inquisition was well understood, and there was probably not a child in the country who had not heard of the auto da fé which he had sanctioned by his presence on his return to his dominions. The present changes were regarded as part of a great scheme for introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.[519] However erroneous these conclusions,[{203}] there is little reason to doubt they were encouraged by those who knew their fallacy.