A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 51
CHAPTER LI.
THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS: RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.
(1572–1609.)
The Country.—The term Netherlands (low-lands) was formerly applied to all that low, marshy district in the northwest of Europe, sunk much of it below the level of the sea, now occupied by the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. The entire strip of land is simply the delta accumulations of the Rhine and other rivers emptying into the North Sea. Originally it was often over-flowed by its streams and inundated by the ocean. But this unpromising morass, protected at last by heavy dykes against the invasions of the ocean and the overflow of its streams, was destined to become the site of cities which at one period were the richest and most potent of Europe, and the seat of one of the foremost commonwealths of modern times.
No country in Europe made greater progress in civilization during the mediaeval era than the Netherlands. At the opening of the sixteenth century they contained a crowded and busy population of 3,000,000 souls. The ancient marshes had been transformed into carefully kept gardens and orchards. The walled cities alone numbered between two and three hundred.
The Low Countries under Charles V. (1515–1555).—The Netherlands were part of those possessions over which Charles V. ruled by hereditary right. Though Charles could not prevent the growth of Protestantism in Germany, he resolved to root out the heresy from his hereditary possessions of the Netherlands. By an Imperial edict he condemned to death all persons presuming to read the Scriptures, or even to discuss religious topics. The Inquisition was introduced, and thousands perished at the stake and upon the scaffold, or were strangled, or buried alive. But when Charles retired to the monastery at Yuste (see p. 534), the reformed doctrines were, notwithstanding all his efforts, far more widely spread and deeply rooted in the Netherlands than when he entered upon their extirpation by fire and sword.
Accession of Philip II.—In 1555, in the presence of an august and princely assembly at Brussels, and amidst the most imposing and dramatic ceremonies, Charles V. abdicated the crown whose weight he could no longer bear, and placed the same upon the head of his son Philip (see p. 534), who was a most zealous Catholic. Philip remained in the Netherlands after his coronation four years, employing much of his time in devising means to root out the heresy of Protestantism. In 1559 he set sail for Spain, never to return.
Long live the Beggars.—Upon his departure from the Netherlands Philip entrusted their government to his half-sister, Margaret, Duchess of Parma, as Regent. Under the administration of Margaret (1559–1567) the persecution of the Protestants went on with renewed bitterness. Philip declared that " he would rather lose a hundred thousand lives, were they all his own, than allow the smallest deviation from the standards of the Roman Catholic Church." Thousands fled the country, many of the fugitives finding a home in England. At last the nobles leagued together for the purpose of resisting the Inquisition. They demanded of the Regent a redress of grievances. When the petition was presented to the Duchess, she displayed great agitation, whereupon one of her councillors exclaimed, " Madam, are you afraid of a pack of beggars?"
The expression was carried to the nobles, who were assembled at a banquet. Immediately one of their number suspended a beggar's wallet from his neck, and filling a wooden bowl with wine, proposed the toast, " Long live the Beggars." The name was tumultuously adopted, and became the party designation of the patriot Netherlanders during their long struggle with the Spanish power.
The Iconoclasts (1566).—Affairs now rapidly verged towards violence and open revolt. The only reply of the government to the petition of the nobles was a decree termed the Moderation, which substituted hanging for burning in the case of condemned heretics. The pent-up indignation of the people at length burst forth in an uncontrollable fury. They gathered in great mobs, and arming themselves with whatever implements they could first seize, proceeded to demolish every image they could find in the churches throughout the country. The rage of the insurgents was turned in this direction, because in their eyes these churches represented the hated Inquisition under which they were suffering. Scarcely a church in all the Netherlands escaped. The monasteries, too, were sacked, their libraries burned, and the inmates driven from their cloisters. In the province of Flanders alone there were four hundred sacred buildings visited by the mob, and sacked. The tempest destroyed innumerable art treasures, which have been as sincerely mourned by the lovers of the beautiful as the burned rolls of the Alexandrian Library have been lamented by the lovers of learning.
These image-breaking riots threw Philip into a perfect transport of rage. He tore his beard, and exclaimed, " It shall cost them dear! I swear it by the soul of my father! "
The Duke of Alva and William of Orange.—The year following the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, Philip sent to the Netherlands a veteran Spanish army, headed by the Duke of Alva. The duke was one of the ablest generals of the age; and the intelligence of his coming threw the provinces into a state of the greatest agitation and alarm. Those who could do so hastened to get out of the country. William the Silent, Prince of Orange, fled to Germany, where he began to gather an army of volunteers for the struggle which he now saw to be inevitable. Egmont and Horn, noblemen of high rank and great distinction, were seized, cast into prison, and afterwards beheaded (1568).
The eyes of all Netherlander were now turned to the Prince of Orange as their only deliverer. Towards the close of the year 1568, he marched from Germany against Alva, at the head of an army of 30,000 men, which he had raised and equipped principally at his own expense. The war was now fully joined. The struggle lasted for more than a generation,—for thirty-seven years.
(After a copper-plate by William Jacobz Delff, 1580–1638.)
The Spanish armies were commanded successively by the most experienced and distinguished generals of Europe,—the Duke of Alva, Don John of Austria (the conqueror of the Moors and the hero of the great naval fight of Lepanto), and the Duke of Parma; but the Prince of Orange coped ably with them all, and in the masterly service which he rendered his country, thus terribly assaulted, earned the title of "the Founder of Dutch Liberties."
Isolation of the Provinces.—The Netherlander sustained the unequal contest almost single-handed; for, though they found much sympathy among the Protestants of Germany, France, and England, they never received material assistance from any of these countries, excepting England, and it was not until late in the struggle that aid came from this source. Elizabeth did, indeed, at first furnish the patriots with secret aid, and opened the ports of England to the "Beggars of the Sea"; but after a time the fear of involving herself in a war with Philip led her to withhold for a long period all contributions and favors. As regards the German states, they were too much divided among themselves to render efficient aid; and just at the moment when the growing Protestant sentiment in France encouraged the Netherlanders to look for help from the Huguenot party there, the massacre of St. Bartholomew extinguished forever all hope of succor from that quarter (see p. 576). So the little revolted provinces were left to carry on unaided, as best they might, a contest with the most powerful monarch of Christendom.
The details of this memorable struggle we must, of course, leave unnoticed, and hurry on to the issue of the matter. In so doing we shall pass unnoticed many memorable sieges and battles.[1]
Pacification of Ghent (1576).—The year 1576 was marked by a revolt of the Spanish soldiers, on account of their not receiving their pay, the costly war having drained Philip's treasury. The mutinous army marched through the land, pillaging city after city, and paying themselves with the spoils. The beautiful city of Antwerp was ruined. The horrible massacre of its inhabitants, and the fiendish atrocities committed by the frenzied soldiers, caused the awful outbreak to be called the "Spanish Fury."
The terrible state of affairs led to an alliance between Holland and Zealand and the other fifteen provinces of the Netherlands, known in history as the Pacification of Ghent (1576). The resistance to the Spanish crown had thus far been carried on without concerted action among the several states, the Prince of Orange having hitherto found it impossible to bring the different provinces to agree to any plan of general defence. But the awful experiences of the Spanish Fury taught the necessity of union, and led all the seventeen provinces solemnly to agree to unite in driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands, and in securing full liberty for all in matters of faith and worship. William of Orange, with the title of Stadtholder, was placed at the head of the union. It was mainly the strong Catholic sentiment in the Southern provinces that had prevented such a union and pacification long before.
The Union of Utrecht (1579).—With the Spanish forces under the lead first of Don John of Austria, the hero-victor of Lepanto, and afterwards of Prince Alexander of Parma, a commander of most distinguished ability, the war now went on with increased vigor, fortune, with many vacillations, inclining to the side of the Spaniards. Disaffection arose among the Netherlanders, the outcome of which was the separation of the provinces. The Prince of Orange, seeing the impossibility of uniting all the states, devoted his efforts to effecting a confederation of the Northern ones. His endeavors were fortunately crowned with success, and the seven Protestant states of the North,[2] the chief of which were Holland and Zealand, by the treaty of Utrecht (1579), were united in a permanent confederation, known as the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. In this league was laid the foundation of the Dutch Republic.
Fortunate would it have been for the Netherlands, could all of the states at this time have been brought to act in concert. Under the leadership of the Prince of Orange, the seventeen provinces might have been consolidated into a powerful nation, that might now be reckoned among the great powers of Europe.
The "Ban" and the "Apology."—William of Orange was, of course, the animating spirit of the confederacy formed by the treaty of Utrecht. In the eyes of Philip and his viceroys he appeared the sole obstacle in the way of the pacification of the provinces and their return to civil and ecclesiastical obedience. In vain had Philip sent against him the ablest and most distinguished commanders of the age; in vain had he endeavored to detach him from the cause of his country by magnificent bribes of titles, offices, and fortune.
Philip now resolved to employ assassination for the removal of the invincible general and the incorruptible patriot. He published a ban against the prince, declaring him an outlaw, and offering to any one who should kill him the pardon of all his sins, a title of nobility, and 25,000 gold crowns.
The prince responded to the infamous edict in a remarkable paper, entitled "The Apology of the Prince of Orange,"—the most terrible arraignment of tyranny that was ever penned. The "Apology " was scattered throughout Europe, and everywhere produced a profound impression. The friends of the prince, while admiring his boldness, were filled with alarm for his safety. Their apprehensions, as the issue shows, were not unfounded.
Assassination of the Prince of Orange.—" The ban soon bore fruit." Upon the 10 th day of July, 1584, five previous unsuccessful attempts having been made upon his life, the Prince of Orange was fatally shot by an assassin. The heirs of the murderer received substantially the reward which had been offered in the ban, being enriched with the estates of the prince, and honored by elevation to the ranks of the Spanish nobility.
The character of William the Silent is one of the most admirable portrayed in all history.[3] His steadfast and unselfish devotion to the cause of his country deservedly won for him the love of all classes. His people fondly called him " Father William."
Prince Maurice: Sir Philip Sidney.—Severe as was the blow sustained by the Dutch patriots in the death of the Prince of Orange, they did not lose heart, but continued the struggle with the most admirable courage and steadfastness. Prince Maurice, a youth of seventeen years, the second son of William, was chosen Stadtholder in his place, and proved himself a worthy son of the great chief and patriot. The war now proceeded with unabated fury. The Southern provinces were, for the most part, in the hands of the Spaniards, while the revolutionists held control, in the main, of the Northern states.
Substantial aid from the English now came to the struggling Hollanders. Queen Elizabeth, alarmed by the murder of the Prince of Orange,—for she well knew that hired agents of the king of Spain watched likewise for her life,—openly espoused the cause of the Dutch. Among the English knights who led the British forces sent into the Netherlands was the gallant Sir Philip Sidney, the " Flower of Chivalry." At the siege of Zutphen (1586), he received a mortal wound. A little incident that occurred as he rode from the field, suffering from his terrible hurt, is always told as a memorial of the gentle knight. A cup of water having been brought him, he was about to lift it to his lips, when his hand was arrested by the longing glance of a wounded soldier who chanced at that moment to be carried past. "Give it to him," said the fainting knight; " his necessity is greater than mine."
Progress of the War: Treaty of 1609.—The circle of war grew more and more extended. France as well as England became involved, both fighting against Philip, who was now laying claims to the crowns of both these countries. The struggle was maintained on land and on sea, in the Old World and in the New. The English fleet, under the noted Sir Francis Drake (see p. 560, n.), ravaged the Spanish settlements in Florida and the West Indies, and intercepted the treasure-ships of Philip returning from the mines of Mexico and Peru; the Dutch fleet wrested from Spain many of her possessions in the East Indies and among the islands of the South Pacific.
Europe at last grew weary of the seemingly interminable struggle, and the Spanish commanders becoming convinced that it was impossible to reduce the Dutch rebels to obedience by force of arms, negotiations were entered into, and by the celebrated treaty of 1 609, comparative peace was secured to Christendom.
The treaty of 1609 was in reality an acknowledgment by Spain of the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, although the Spanish king was so unwilling to admit the fact of his being unable to reduce the rebel states to submission, that the treaty was termed simply " a truce for twelve years." Spain did not formally acknowledge their independence until forty years afterwards, in the Peace of Westphalia, at the end of the Thirty Years' War (1648) (see p. 586).
Development of the Provinces during the War.—One of the most remarkable features of the war for Dutch independence was the vast expansion of the trade and commerce of the revolted provinces, and their astonishing growth in population, wealth, and resources, while carrying on the bitter and protracted struggle. When the contest ended, notwithstanding the waste of war, the number of inhabitants crowded on that little patch of sea-bottom and morass constituting the Dutch Republic, was equal to the entire population of England; that is to say, to three or four millions. But the home-land was only a small part of the dominions of the commonwealth. Through the enterprise and audacity of its bold sailors, it had made extensive acquisitions in the East Indies and other parts of the world, largely at the expense of the Spanish and the Portuguese colonial possessions. The commerce of the little republic had so expanded that more than one hundred thousand of its citizens found a home upon the sea. No idlers or beggars were allowed a place in the industrious commonwealth. And hand in hand with industry went intelligence. Throughout the United Provinces it was rare to meet with a person who could not both read and write.
- ↑ Read in Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic the siege and sack of Harlem and the relief of Leyden.
- ↑ The ten Catholic provinces of the South, although they continued their contest with Philip a little longer, ultimately submitted to Spanish tyranny. A portion of these provinces were absorbed by France, while the remainder, after varied fortunes amidst the revolutions and dynastic changes of the European states, finally became the present kingdom of Belgium.
- ↑ He was not, however, without faults. The most serious of these was his habit of dissimulation. Some charge to this the separation of the Northern and Southern provinces after the Pacification of Ghent. The Southern provinces would not trust the "double-dealer." For references to various writers on this point, consult Young's History of the Netherlands, p. 320.