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UN|VERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

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Social Sciences & Humanities Library

University of California, San Diego Please Note: This item is subject to recall.

Date Due

JUN U 7 m\
CI 39 (5/97) UCSD Lib.

THE DUKE OF ALVA DEPOSES MARGARET OF PARMA

Frontispiece, Holland.

HOLLAND

THE HISTORY OF

THE NETHERLANDS

BY

THOMAS COLLEY GRATTAN

WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS

By JULIAN HAWTHORNE

ILLUSTRATED

kill

NEW YORK

PETER FENELON COLLIER

MQCGCXCIX \

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION BY THE SALIAN FRANKS

B.C. 50— A. D. 250

Extent of the Kingdom — Description of the People — Ancient State of the Low Countries — Of the High Grounds — Contrasted with the present Aspect of the Country — Expedition of Juhus Cajsar — The Belgae — The Meuapians — Batavians — Distinguished among the AuxiHaries of Rome — Decrease of national Feeling in Part of the Countrj' — Steady Patriotism of the Prisons and Menapians — Commencement of Civilization — Early Formation of the Dilies — Degeneracy of those who became united to the Romans — Invasion of the Netherlands by the Salian Franks . . 17

CHAPTER II

FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OP FRIESLAND BY THE FRENCH

A.D. 250—800

Character of the Franks — The Saxon Tribes — Destruction of the Sali- ans by a Saxon Tribe — Julian the Apostate — Victories of Clovis in Gaul — Contrast between the Low Countries and the Provinces of France — State of Friesland — Ciuirlcs Kartell — Friesland con- verted to Christianity — Finally subdued by France 27

CHAPTER ITT

FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF

HOLLAND

A.n. 800—1000

Commencement of the Feudal System in the Highlands — Flourish- ing State of the Low Countries — Counts of the Empire — For-

in

4 CONTENTS

niation of the Gilden or Trades — Establishment of popular Privileges in Friesland — In what they consisted — Growth of Ecclesiastical Power — Baldwin of Flanders — Created Count — Appearance of the Normans — They ravage the Netherlands — Their Destruction, and final Disappearance — Division of the Empire into Higher and Lower Lorraine— Establishment of the Counts of Lorraine and Hainault — Increasing Power of the Bish- ops of Liege and Utrecht — Their Jealousy of the Counts ; who resist their Encroachments 34

CHAPTER IV

FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS

DE MALE

A.D. 1018-1384

Origin of Holland — Its first Count — Aggrandizement of Flanders — Its growing Commerce — Fisheries — Manufactures — Formation of the County of Guelders, and of Brabant — State of Friesland — State of the Provinces — The Crusades — Their good Effects on the State of the Netlierlands — Decline of the Feudal Power, and Growth of the Influence of the Towns — Great Prosperity of the Country — The Flemings take up Arms against the French — Drive them out of Bruges, and defeat them in the Battle of Courtrai — Popular Success in Brabant — Its Confederation with Flanders — Rebellion of Bruges againt the Count, and of Ghent under James d'Artaveldt — His Alliance with England — His Power, and Death — Independence of Flanders — Battle of Roos- beke — Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, obtains the Sover- eignty of Flanders 44

CHAPTER V

FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR

A.D. 1.384—1506

Philip succeeds to the Inheritance of Brabant — Makes War on Eng- land as a French Prince, Flanders remaining neuter — Power of the Houses of Burgundy and Bavaria, and Decline of Public Liberty — Union of Holland, Hainault, and Brabant — Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and Hainault — Flies from the Tyranny of her Husband. John of Brabant, and takes Refuge in England — Murder of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgund}' — Accession of his Son, Philip the Good — His Policy — Espouses the Cause of

CONTENTS 6

John of Brabant against Jacqueline — Deprives her of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand — Continues his Persecution, and despoils her of her last Possession and Titles — She marries a Gentleman of Zealand, and Dies — Peace of Arras — Dominions of the House of Burgundy equal to the present Extent of the Kingdom of the Netherlands — Rebellion of Ghent — Affairs of Holland and Zea- land— Charles the Rash — His Conduct in Holland — Succeeds his Father — Effects of Philip's Reign on the Manners of the People — Louis XI. — Death of Charles, and Succession of Mary — Fac- tions among her Subjects — Marries Maximilian of Austria — Battle of Guinegate — Death of Mai-}' — Maximilian unpopular — Imprisoned by his Subjects — Released — Invades the Netherlands — Succeeds to the Imperial Throne by the Death of his Father — Philip the Fair proclaimed Duke and Count — Eis wise Admin- istration— Affairs of Friesland — Of Guelders — Charles of Egmont —Death of Philip the Fair 60

CHAPTER VI

FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

A.D. 150G— 1555

Margaret of Austria invested with the Sovereignty — Her Character and Government — Charles, Son of Philip the Fair, created Duke of Brabant and Count of Flanders and Holland — The Reforma- tion— Martin Luther — Persecution of the Reformers — Battle of Pavia — Cession of Utrecht to Charles V. — Peace of Cambraj' — The Anabaptists' Sedition at Ghent — Expedition against Tunis and Algiers — Charles becomes possessed of Friesland and Guel- ders— His increasing Severity against the Protestants — His Ab- dication and Death — Review — Progress of Civilization .... 83

CHAPTER VII

FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT 07 THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS

A.D. 1555—1566

Accession of Philip II. — His Character and Government — His Wars with France, and with the Pope — Peace with the Pope — Battle of St. Quentin — Battle of Gravelines — Peace of Cateau-Cam- bresis — Death of Mary of England — Philip's Despotism — Estab- lishes a Provisional Government — Convenes the States-General at Ghent — His Miuist<'r Granvelle — Goes to Zealand — Embarks

<6 CONTENTS

for Spain — Prosperity revives — Effects of the Provisional Gov- ernment— Marguerite of Parma — Character of Granvelle — Viglius de Berlaimont — Departure of the Spanish Troops — Clergy — Bishops — National .Discontent — Granvelle appointed Cardinal — Edict against Heresy — Popular Indignation — Refor- mation— State of Brabant — Confederacy against Granvelle — Prince of Orange — Counts Egmont and Horn join the Prince against Granvelle — Granvelle recalled — Council of Trent — Its Decrees received with Reprobation — Decrees against Reformers — Philip's Bigotry — Establishment of the Inquisition — Popular Resistance .95

CHAPTER VIII

COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION A.D. 1566

Commencement of the Revolution — Defence of the Prince of Orange — Confederacy of the Nobles — Louis of Nassau — De Brederode — Philip de St. Aldegonde — Assembly of the Council of State — Confederates enter Brussels — Take the Title of Gueux — Quit Brussels, and disperse in the Provinces — Measures of Govern- ment— Growing Power of the Confederates — Progress of the Reformation — Field Preaching — Herman Strieker — Boldness of the Protestants — Peter Dathen — Ambrose Ville — Situation of Antwerp — The Prince repairs to it, and saves it — Meeting of the Confederates at St. Trond — The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont treat with them — Tyranny of Philip and Moderation of the Spanish Council — Image Breakers — Destruction of the Cathedral of Antwerp — Terror of Government — Firmness of Viglius — Arbitration between the Court and the People — Con- cessions made by Government — Restoration of Tranquillity . . 120

CHAPTER IX

TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS

A.D. 1566—1573

Philip's Vindictiveuess and Hypocrisy — Progress of Protestantism — Gradual Dissolution of the Conspiracy — Artifices of Philip and the Court to disunite the Protestants — Firmness of the Prince of Orange — Conference at Termonde — Egmont abandons the Patriot Cause — Fatal Effects of his Conduct — Commencement of Hostilities — Siege of Valenciennes — Protestant Sj'nod at Ant-

CONTENTS 7

werp — Haughty Conducf'of the Government — Royalists Re- pulsed at Bois-le-duc — Battle of Osterweel, and Defeat of the Patriots — Antwerp again saved by the Firmness and Prudence of the Prince of Orange — Capitulation of Valenciennes — Success of the Royalists — Death of De Brederode — New Oath of Alle- giance; Refused by the Prince of Orange and others — The Prince resolves on voluntary Banishment, and departs for Ger- many— His Example is followed by the Lords — Extensive Emi- gi'ation — Arrival of the Duke of Orleans — Egmont's Humiliation — Alva's Powers — Arrest of Egmont and others — Alva's first Acts of Tj'ranny — Council of Blood — Recall of the Government — Alva's Character — He sumuions the Prince of Orange, who is tried by Contumacy — Horrors committed by Alva — Desolate State of the Country — Trial and Execution of Egmont aud Horn — The Prince of Orange raises an Army in Germany, and opens his first Campaign in the Netherlands — Battle of Heiligerlee — Death of Adolphus of Nassau — Battle of Jemminghem — Suc- cess and skilful Conduct of Alva — Dispersion of the Prince of Orange's Army — Growth of the naval Power of the Patriots — Inundation in Holland and Friesland — Alva reproached by Philip — Duke of Medina-Celi appointed Governor — Is attacked, and his fleet destroyed bj' the Patriots — Demands his Recall — Policy of the English Queen, Elizabeth— The Dutch take Brille — General Revolt in Holland and Zealand — New Expedition of the Prince of Orange — Siege of Mons — Success of the Prince — Siege of Haarlem — Of Alkmaer — Removal of Alva — Don Luis Zanega y Requesens appointed Governor-General 136

CHAPTER X

TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT

A.D. 1573—1576

Character of Requesens — His conciliating Conduct — Renews the War against the States — Siege of Middleburg — Generosity of the Prince of Orange — Naval Victory — State of Flanders — Count Louis of Nassau — Battle of Mookerheyde — Counts Louis and Henry slain — Mutiny of the Spanish Troops — Siege of Levden — Negotiations for Peace at Breda — The Spaniards take Zuriczee — Requesens dies — The Government devolves on the Council of State — Miserable State of the Country, and Despair of the Patriots — Spanish Mutineers — The States-General are convoked, and the Council arrested by the Grand Bailiff of Brabant — Tiie Spanish ]\Iutineers sack and capture Maestricht, and afterward

8 CONTENTS

Antwerp — The States-General assemble at Ghent and assume the Government — The Pacification of Ghent 158

CHAPTER XI

TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OP SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

A.D. 1576—1580

Don John of Austria, Governor-General, arrives in the Nether- lands— His Character and Conduct — The States send an Envoy to Elizabeth of England — She advances them a Loan of Money — The Union of Brussels — The Treaty of Marche-en-Famenne, called the Perpetual Edict — The impetuous Conduct of Don John excites the public Suspicion — He seizes on the Citadel of Namur — The Prince of Orange is named Protector of Brabant — The People destroy the Citadels of Antwerp and other Towns — The Duke of Arschot is named Governor of Flanders — He invites the Archduke Mathias to accept the Government of the Netherlands— Wise Conduct of the Prince of Orange — Ryhove and Hembyse possess themselves of supreme Power at Ghent — The Prince of Orange goes there and establishes Order — The Archduke Mathias is installed — The Prince of Paraia arrives in the Netherlands, and gains the Battle of Gemblours — Confusion of the States-General — The Duke of Alencon comes to their Assistance — Dissensions among the Patriot Chiefs — Death of Don John of Austria — Suspicions of his having been Poisoned by Order of Philip II. — The Prince of Parma is declared Gov- ernor-General— The Union of Utrecht — The Prince of Parma takes the Field — The Congress of Cologne rendered fruitless by the Obstinacy of Philip — The States-General assemble at Ant- werp, and issue a Declaration of National Independence — The Sovereignty of the Netherlands granted to the Duke of Alencon . 168

CHAPTER XII

TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE A.D. 1580—1584

Proscription of the Prince of Orange — His celebrated Apology- Philip proposes sending back the Duchess of Parma as Stadt- iiolderess — Her Son refuses to act jointly with her, and is left in the Exercise of his Power — The Siege of Cambray undertaken by the Prince of Parma, and gallantly defended by the Princess of

CONTENTS 9

Epinoi — The Duke of Alencon created Duke of Anjou — Repairs to England, in hopes of marrying Queen Elizabeth — He returns to the Netherlands unsuccessful, and is inaugurated at Antwerp — The Prince of Orange desperately wounded by an Assassin — Details on John Jaureguay and his Accomplices — The People suspect the French of the Crime — Rapid Recovery of the Prince, who soon resumes his accustomed Activity — Violent Conduct of the Duke of Anjou, who treacherously attempts to seize on Antwerp — He is defeated by the Townspeople — His Disgrace and Death — Ungenerous Suspicions of the People against the Prince of Orange, who leaves Flanders in Disgust — Treachery of the Prince of Chimay and others — Treason of Hembyse — He is executed at Ghent — The States resolve to confer the Sovereign- ty on the Prince of Orange — He is murdered at Delft — Parallel between him and the Admiral Cohgny — Execution of Balthazar Gerard, his Assassin — Complicity of the Prince of Parma . . . 180

CHAPTER XIII

TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA

A.D. 15&1— 1593

Effects of William's Death on the History of his Country — Firm Conduct of the United Provinces — They reject the Overtures of the Prince of Parma — He reduces the whole of Flanders — De- plorable Situation of the Country — Vigorous Measures of the Northern States — Antwerp besieged — Operations of the Siege — Immense Exertions of the Besiegers — The Infernal Machine — • Battle on the Dike of Couvestien — Surrender of Antwerp — Ex- travagant Joy of Philip II. — The United Provinces solicit the Aid of France and England — Elizabeth sends them a supply of Troops under the Earl of Leicester — He returns to England — Treachery of some English and Scotch Officers — Prince Maurice commences liis Career — The Spanish Armada — Justin of Nassau blocks up the Prince of Parma in the Flemish Ports — Ruin of the Armada — Philip's Mock Piety on hearing the News — Leices- ter dies — Exploits and Death of Martin Schenck — Breda sur- prised— The Duke of Parma leads his Army into France — His famous Retreat — His Death and Character 198

CHAPTER XIV

TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP II. i..D. 1592—1599

Count Mansfield named Governor-General — State of Flanders and Brabant — The Archduke Ernest named Governor-General —

10 CONTENTS

Attempts against the Life of Prince Maurice— He takes Gron- ingen — Death of the Archduke Ernest — Count Fuentes named Governor-General — He takes Cambray and other Towns — Is soon replaced by the Archduke Albert of Austria — His high Reputation — He opens his first Campaign in the Netherlands — His Successes — Prince Maurice gains the Battle of Turnhout — Peace of Vervins — Philip yields the,Sovereignty of the Nether- lands to Albert and Isabella — A new Plot against the Life of Prince Maurice — Albert sets out for Spain, and receives the News of Philip's Death — Albert arrives in Spain, and solemnizes his Marriage with the Infanta Isabella — Review of the State of the Netherlands 211

CHAPTER XV

TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA A.D. 1599—1604

Cardinal Andrew of Austria Governor — Francisco Mendoza, Ad- miral of Aragon, invades the neutral States of Germany — His atrocious Conduct — Prince Maurice takes the Field — His mas- terly Movements — Sybilla of Cleves raises an Army, which is quickly destroyed — Great Exertions of the States-General — Naval Expedition under Vander Goes — Its complete Failure — Critical Situation of the United Provinces — Arrival of the Arch- duke in Brussels — Success of Prince Maurice — His Expedition into Flanders — Energy of the Archduke — Heroism of Isabella — Progress of Albert's Army — Its first Success — Firmness of Maurice — The Battle of Nieuport — Total Defeat of the Royal- ists— Consequences of the Victory — Prince Maurice returns to Holland — Negotiations for Peace — Siege of Ostend — Death of Elizabeth of England — United Provinces send Ambassadors to James I. — Successful Negotiations of Barneveldt and the Duke of Sully in London — Peace between England and Spain — Bril- liant Campaign between Spinola and Prince Maurice — Battle of Roeroord — Naval Transactions — Progress of Dutch Influence ia India — Establishment of the East India Company 223

CHAPTER XVI

TO THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT A.D. 1606—1619

Spinola proposes to invade the United Provinces — Successfully op- posed by Prince Maurice — The Dutch defeated at Sea — Desper-

CONTENTS It

ate Conduct of Admiral Klagoon — Great naval Victory of the Dutch, and Death of their Admiral Heemskirk — Overtures of the Archdukes for Peace — How received in Holland — Prudent Conduct of Barneveldt — Negotiations opened at The Hague — John de Neyen, Ambassador for the Archdukes — Armistice for Eight Months — Nej-en attempts to bribe D'Aarsens, the GrefRer of the States-General — His Conduct disclaimed by Yerreiken, Counsellor to the Archdukes — Great Prejudices in Holland against King James I. and the English, and Partiality toward France— Rupture of the Negotiations — They are renewed — Truce for Twelve Years signed at Antwerp — Gives great Satisfaction in the Netherlands — Important Attitude of the United Prov- inces— Conduct of tlie Belgian Provinces — Disputes relative to Cleves and Juliers — Prince Maurice and Spinola remove their Armies into the contested States — Intestine Troubles in the United Provinces — Assassination of Henry IV. of France — His Character — Change in Prince Maurice's Character and Conduct — He is strenuously opposed b^' Barneveldt — Religious Disputes — King James enters the Lists of Controversy — Barneveldt and Maurice take opposite Sides — The cautionary Towns released from the Possession of England — Consequences of this Event — Calumnies against Barneveldt — Ambitious Designs of Prince Maurice — He is baffled by Barneveldt — The Republic assists its Allies with Money and Ships— Its great naval Power— Outrages of some Dutch Sailors in Ireland— Unresentod by King James — His Anger at the manufacturing Prosperity of the United Provinces— Excesses of the Gomarists— The Magistrates call out the National Militia— Violent Conduct of Prince Maurice— Un- compromising Steadiness of Barneveldt— Calumnies against him — Maurice succeeds to the Title of Prince of Orange, and Acts with increasing Violence — Arrest of Barneveldt and his Friends— Synod of Dort— Its Consequences— Trial. Condemna- tion, and Execution of Barneveldt— Grotius and Hoogerbeets sentenced to perpetual Imprisonment — Ledenburg commits Suicide 338

CHAPTER XVII

TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE

A.D. I()19-16i5

The Parties of Arminianism quite subdued — Emigrations — Grotius resolves to attempt an Escape from Prison — Succeeds in his At- tempt— He repairs to Paris, and publishes his "Apology" — Expiration of the Twelve Years' Truce— Death of Philip III. and

]3> CONTENTS

of the Archduke Albert — War in Germany — Campaign between Prince Maurice and Spinola — Conspiracy against the Life of Prince Maurice — Its Failure — Fifteen of the Conspirators exe- cuted— Great Unpopularity of Maurice — Death of Maurice . . 261

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER A D. 1625—1648

IVederick Henry succeeds his Brother — Charles I, King of England — War between France and England — Victories of Admiral Hein — Brilliant Success of Frederick Henry — Fruitless Enterprise la Flanders — Death of the Archduchess Isabella — Confederacy in Brabant — Its Failure, and Arrest of the Nobles — Ferdinand, Prince-Cardinal, Governor-General — Treaty between France and Holland— Battle of Avein — Naval Affairs — Battle of the Downs — Van Tromp — Negotiations for the Marriage of Prince William with the Princess Mary of England — Death of the Prince-Car- dinal— Don Francisco de Mello Governor-General — Battle of Roc- roy — Gallantry of Prince William — Death of Cardinal Richelieu and of Louis XIII. — English Politics — Affairs of Germany — Ne- gotiations for Peace — Financial Embarrassment of the Republic — The Republic negotiates with Spain — Last Exploits of Fred- erick Henry — His Death, and Character — William II. Stadt- holder — Peace of Munster — Resentment of Louis XIII. — Peace of Westphalia — Review of the Progress of Art, Science, and Man- ners — Literature — Painting — Engraving — Sculpture — 'Archi- tecture— Finance — Population— Commercial Companies — Man- ners 371

CHAPTER XIX

FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN

A.D. 1648—1678

State of the Republic after the Peace of Munster — State of England — William II. Stadtholder — His ambitious Designs and Violent Conduct — Attempts to seize on Amsterdam — His Death — Dif- ferent Sensations caused by his Death — The Prerogatives of the Stadtholder assumed by the People— Naval War with England — English Act of Navigation— Irish Hostilities — Death of Tromp — A Peace with England — Disturbed State of the Republic — War with Denmark — Peace concluded — Charles II. restored to the English Throne — Declares War against Holland — Naval Ac-

CONTENTS 13

tiotis — Charles endeavors to excite all Europe against the Dutch — HTsT'ailure — Renewed Hostilities — De Ruyter defeated — Peace of Breda — Invasion of Flanders by Louis XIV. — He overruns Brabant and Flanders — Triple League, 1668 — Perfidious Conduct of Charles II. — He declares War against Holland, etc., as does Louis XIV. — Unprepared State of United Provinces — "William III. Prince of Orange — Appointed Captain-General and High Admiral — Battle of Soleba\' — The French Invade the Republic — The States-General implore Peace— Terms demanded by Louis XIV. and by Charles II. — Desperation of the Dutch — The Prince of Orange proclaimed Stadtholder — Massacre of the De Witts — Fine Conduct of the Prince of Orange — He takes the Field — Is reinforced by Spain, the Empei-or, and Brandenburg — Louis XIV. forced to abandon his Conquests — Naval .Actions with the English— A Peace, 1674— Military Affairs— Battle of Senef- Death of De Ruyter — Congress for Peace at Nimeguen — Battle of Mont Cassel— Marriage of the Prince of Orange — Peace of Nimeguen 290

CHAPTER XX

FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT

A.D. 1078—1713

State of Europe subsequently to the Peace of Nimeguen — Arrogant Conduct of Louis XIV. — Truce for Twenty Years — Death of Charles II. of England — League of Augsburg — The Conduct of William — He invades England — James 11. deposed — William III. proclaimed King of England — King William puts himself at the Head of the Confederacy against Louis XIV., and enters on the War — Militarj' Operations — Peace of Ryswyk — Death of Charles H. of Spain — War of Succession — Death of William IH. — His Character— Duke of Marlborough — Prince Eugene — Suc- cesses of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain and Portugal — Louis XIV. solicits Peace — Conferences for Peace — Peace of Utrecht— Treat V of the Barrier 311

CHAPTER XXI

FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

A.D. 1713—1794

Quadruple Alliance — General Peace of Europe — Wise Conduct of tlie Republic — Great Danger from the bad State of the Dikes —

14 CONTENTS

Death of the Emperor Charles VI. — Maria Theresa Empress — Her heroic Conduct — Battle of Dettingen — Louis XV. invades the Netherlands — Conferences for Peace at Breda — Battle of Fontenoy — William IV. Stadtholder and Captain-General^ Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle — Death of the Stadtholder, who is succeeded by his Son William V. — War of Seven Years — State of the Republic — William V. Stadtholder — Dismemberment of Poland — Joseph II. Emperor — His attempted Reforms in Relig- ion— War with England — Sea-Fight on the Doggerbank — Peace with England, 1784 — Progress of Public Opinion in Europe, in Belgium, and Holland — Violent Opposition to the Stadtholder — Arrest of the Princess of Orange — Invasion of Holland by the Prussian Army — Agitation in Belgium — Vander Noot — Prince Albert of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria Theresa joint Governors-General — Succeeded by Count Murray — Riots — • Meetings of the Provisional States — General Insurrection — Vonckists — Vander Mersch — Takes the Command of the Insur- gents— His Skilful Conduct — He gains the Battle of Turnhout — Takes Possession of Flanders — Confederation of the Belgian Provinces — Death of Joseph II. — Leopold Emperor — Arrest of Vander Mersch — Arrogance of the States-General of Belgium — The Austrians overrun the Country — Convention at The Hague — Death of Leopold — Battle of Jemraappes — General Dumouriez — Conquest of Belgium by the French — Recovered by the Aus- trians— The Ai'chduke Charles Governor-General — War in the Netherlands — Duke of York — The Emperor Francis — The Battle of Fleurus — Incorporation of Belgium with the French Repub- lic— Peace of Leoben — Treaty of Campo-Formio 335

CHAPTER XXII

FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FP^.NCH TO THE RETUEN OP THE PRINCE OF ORANGE

A.D. 1794-1813.

Pichegru invades Holland — Winter Campaign — The Duke of York vainly resists the French Army — Abdication of the Stadtholder — Batavian Republic — War with England — Unfortunate Situ- ation of Holland — Naval Fight — English Expedition to the Helder — Napoleon Bonaparte — Louis Bonaparte named King of Holland — His popular Conduct — He abdicates the Throne — An- nexation of Holland to the French Empire — Ruinous to the Prosperity of the Republic — The People desire the Return of the Prince of Orange — Confederacy to effect this Purpose — ^The

CONTENTS 15

Allied Armies advance toward Holland — The Nation rises to throw off the Yoke of France — Covint Styrum and his Asso- ciates lead on that Movement, and proclaim the Prince of Orange, who lands from England — His first Proclamation — His second Proclamation iJ4fl

CHAPTER XXIII

FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE-SOVEREIGN OF TH« NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

A.D. 1813—1815

Rapid Organization of Holland — The Constitution formed — Ac- cepted by the People — Objections made to it by some Indi- viduals— Inauguration of the Prince-Sovereign — Belgium is occupied by the Allies — Treaty of Paris — Treat}' of London — Formation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands — Basis of the Government — Relative Character and Situation of Holland and Belgium — The Prince-Sovereign of Holland arrives in Belgium as Governor-General — The fundamental Law — Report of the Commissioners by whom it was framed — Public Feeling in Hol- land, and in Belgium — The Emperor Napoleon invades France, and Belgium — The Prince of Orange takes the Field — The Duke of Wellington — Prince Blucher — Battle of Ligny — Battle of Quatre Bras — Battle of Waterloo — Anecdote of the Prince of Orange, who is wounded — Inauguration of the King .... 3S7

Supplementary Chapter (a,d. 1815—1899) 373

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HOLLAND

The Duke of Alva Deposes Margaret of Parma ....

Storming the Barricades at Brussels During the Revolution of 1848 William the Silent of Orange ........

A Holland Beauty ..........

HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

CHAPTER I

FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION BY THE SALIAN FRANKS

B.C. 50— A. D. 250

THE NETHERLANDS form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on the borders of the ocean, opposite to the southeast coast of England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those of Hanover, The country is principally composed of low and humid grounds, presenting a vast plain, irrigated by the waters from all those neighbor- ing states which are traversed by the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt. This plain, gradually rising toward its eastern and southern extremities, blends on the one hand with Prus- sia, and on the other with France. Having, therefore, no natural or strongly marked limits on those sides, the extent of the kingdom could only be determined by convention ; and it must be at all times subject to the arbitrary and varying influence of European policy. Its greatest length, from north to south, is about two hundred and twenty English miles; and its breadth, from east to west, is nearly one hundred and forty.

Two^distinct kinds of men inhabit this kingdom. The one occupying the valleys of the Meuse and the Scheldt, and the high grounds bordering on France, speak a dialect of the language of that country, and evidentlj'- belong to the Gallic race. They are called Walloons, and are distinguished from the others by many peculiar qualities. Their most prominent characteristic is a propensity for war, and their principal

__ (17)

18 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

source of subsistence the working of their mines. They form nearly one-fourth of the population of the whole king- dom, or about one million three hundred thousand persons. All the rest of the nation speak Low German, in its modifi- cations of Dutch and Flemish ; and they offer the distinctive characteristics of the Saxon race — talents for agriculture, navigation, and commerce; perseverance rather than vivac- ity; and more courage than taste for the profession of arms. They are subdivided into Flemings — those who were the last to submit to the House of Austria; and Dutch — those who formed the republic of the United Provinces. But there is no difference between these two subdivisions, except such as has been produced by political and religious institutions. The physical aspect of the people is the same ; and the soil, equally low and moist, is at once fertilized and menaced by the waters.

The history of this last-mentioned portion of the nation is completely linked to that of the soil which they occupy. In remote times, when the inhabitants of this plain were few and uncivilized, the country formed but one immense morass, of which the chief part was incessantly inundated and made sterile by the waters of the sea. Pliny the natu- ralist, who visited the northern coasts, has left us a picture of their state in his days. "There," says he, "the ocean pours in its flood twice every day, and produces a perpetual uncertainty whether the country may be considered as a part of the continent or of the sea. The wretched inhabi- tants take refuge on the sand-hills, or in little huts, which they construct on the summits of lofty stakes, whose eleva- tion is conformable to that of the highest tides. When the sea rises, they appear like navigators; when it retires, they seem as though they had been shipwrecked. They subsist on the fish left by the refluent waters, and which they catch in nets formed of rushes or seaweed. Neither tree nor shrub is visible on these shores. The drink of the people is rain- water, which they preserve with great care; their fuel, a sort of turf, which they gather and form with the hand.

FROM THE ROMANS TO THE SALTAN FRANKS 19

And yet these unfortunate beings dare to complain against their fate, when they fall under the power and are incorpo- rated with the empire of Rome!"

The picture of poverty and suffering which this passage presents is heightened when joined to a description of the country. The coasts consisted only of sand-banks or slime, alternately overflowed or left imperfectly dry. A little further inland, trees were to be found, but on a soil so marshy that an inundation or a tempest threw down whole forests, such as are still at times discovered at either eight or ten feet depth below the surface. The sea had no limits ; the rivers no beds nor banks ; the earth no solidity ; for, ac- cording to an author of the third century of our era, there was not, in the whole of the immense plain, a spot of ground that did not yield under the footsteps of man. — Eumenius.

It was not the same in the southern parts, which form at present the Walloon country. These high grounds suffered much less from the ravages of the waters. The ancient for- est of the Ardennes, extending from the Rhine to the Scheldt, sheltered a numerous though savage population, which in all things resembled the Germans, from whom they derived their descent. The chase and the occupations of rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of the coun- try ; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an exist- ence which any other people must have considered insup- portable.

This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present situation of the country. The high grounds, for- merly so preferable, are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards their agriculture; while the an- cient marshes have been changed by human industrj^ into

20 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

rich and fertile tracts, the best parts of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation which once reigned where we now see -the most richly cultivated fields, the most thriving villages, and the wealthiest towns of the continent, the imagination must go back to times which have not left one monument of antiquity and scarcely a vestige of fact.

The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of a patient and industrious population struggling against every obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being ; and, in this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements in those places where they offered the greatest resistance. This extraordinary result was due to the hardy stamp of character imprinted by suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for their foe ; to the nature of their countrj^, which presented no lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the justice, and the hberty nourished among men left to themselves, and who found resources in their so- cial state which rendered change neither an object of their wants nor wishes.

About half a century before the Christian era, the obscur- ity which enveloped the north of Europe began to disperse ; and the expedition of Julius Csesar gave to the civilized world the first notions of the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Ceesar, after having subjugated the chief part of Gaul, turned his arms against the warlike tribes of the Ardennes, who re- fused to accept his alliance or implore his protection. They were called Belg£e by the Romans; and at once pronounced the least civilized and the bravest of the Gauls. Caesar there found several ignorant and poor but intrepid clans of war- riors, who marched fiercely to encounter him ; and, notwith- standing their inferiority in numbers, in weapons, and in tactics, they nearly destroyed the disciplined armies of Rome. They were, however, defeated, and their country ravaged by the invaders, who found less success when they attacked the natives of the low grounds. The Menapians, a people who

FROM THE ROMANS TO THE SALTAN FRANKS 21

occupied the present provinces of Flanders and Antwerp, though less numerous than those whom the Romans had last vanquished, arrested their progress both by open fight and by that petty and harassing contest — that warfare of the people rather than of the soldiery — so well adapted to the nature of the country. The Roman legions retreated for the first time, and were contented to occupy the higher parts, which now form the Walloon provinces.

But the policy of Caesar made greater progress than his arms. He had rather defeated than subdued those who had dared the contest. He consolidated his victories without new battles; he offered peace to his enemies, in proposing to them alliance; and he required their aid, as friends, to carry on new wars in other lands. He thus attracted to- ward him, and ranged under his banners, not only those people situated to the west of the Rhine and the Meuse, but several other nations more to the north, whose territory ho had never seen; and particularly the Batavians — a valiant tribe, stated by various ancient authors, and particularly by Tacitus, as a fraction of the Catti, who occupied the space comprised between these rivers. The young men of these warlike people, dazzled by the splendor of the Roman armies, felt proud and happy in being allowed to identify themselves with them. Csesar encouraged this disposition, and even went so far on some occasions as to deprive the Roman cavalry of their horses, on which he mounted those new allies, who managed them better than their Italian riders. He had no reason to repent these measures ; almost all his subsequent victories, and particularly that of Pharsalia, be- ing decided by the valor of the auxiliaries he obtained from the Low Countries.

These auxiliaries were chiefly drawn from Hainault, Lux- emburg, and the country of the Batavians, and they formed the best cavalry of the Roman armies, as well as their choicest light infantry force. The Batavians also signalized them- selves on many occasions, by the skill with whicli they swam across several great rivers without breaking their squadrons'

22 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

ranks. They were amply rewarded for their mihtary services and hazardous exploits, and were treated like stanch and valu- able allies. But this unequal connection of a mighty empire with a few petty states must have been fatal to the hberty of the weaker party. Its first effect was to destroy all feel- ing of nationality in a great portion of the population. The young adventurer of this part of the Low Countries, after twenty years of service under the imperial eagles, returned to his native wilds a Roman. The generals of the empire pierced the forests of the Ardennes with causeways, and founded towns in the heart of the country. The result of such innovations was a total amalgamation of the Romans and their new allies; and little by little the national char- acter of the latter became entirely obliterated. But to trace now the precise history of this gradual change would be as impossible as it will be one day to follow the progress of civil- ization in the woods of North America.

But it must be remarked that this metamorphosis affected only the inhabitants of the high grounds, and the Batavians (who were in their origin Germans) properly so called. The scanty population of the rest of the country, endowed with that fidelity to their ancient customs which characterizes the Saxon race, showed no tendency to mix with foreigners, rarely fig- ured in their ranks, and seemed to revolt from the southern refinement which was so little in harmony with their man- ners and ways of life. It is astonishing, at the first view, that those beings, whose whole existence was a contest against famine or the waves, should show less inclination than their happier neighbors to receive from Rome an abundant recom- pense for their services. But the greater their difficulty to find subsistence in their native land, the stronger seemed their attachment; like that of the Switzer to his barren rocks, or of the mariner to the frail and hazardous home that bears him afloat on the ocean. This race of patriots was divided into two separate peoples. Those to the north of the Rhine were the Frisons ; those to the west of the Mouse, the Menapians, already mentioned.

FROM THE ROMANS TO THE SALIAN FRANKS 21

The Frisons differed little from those early inhabitanta of the coast, who, perched on their high-built huts, fed on fish and drank the water of the clouds. Slow and suc- cessive improvements taught them to cultivate the beana which grew wild among the marshes, and to tend and feed a small and degenerate breed of horned cattle. But if thes* first steps toward civilization were slow, they were also sure; and they were made by a race of men who could never retro- grade in a career once begun.

The Menapians, equally repugnant to foreign impressions^ made, on their part, a more rapid progress. They were al- ready a maritime people, and carried on a considerable com- merce with England. It appears that they exported thither salt, the art of manufacturing which was well known to them; and they brought back in return marl, a most impor- tant commodity for the improvement of their land. They also understood the preparation of salting meat, with a per- fection that made it in high repute even in Italy ; and, finally, we are told by Ptolemy that they had established a colony on the eastern coast of Ireland, not far from Dublin.

The two classes of what forms at present the population of the Netherlands thus followed careers widely different, during the long period of the Roman power in these parts of Europe. "While those of the high lands and the Batavians distinguished themselves by a long-continued course of mili- tary service or servitude, those of the plains improved by de- grees their social condition, and fitted themselves for a place in civilized Europe. The former received from Rome great marks of favor in exchange for their freedom. The latter, rejecting the honors and distinctions lavished on their neighbors, secured their national independence, by trusting to their industry alone for all the advantages they gradually acquired.

Were the means of protecting themselves and their coun- try from the inundations of the sea known and practiced by these ancient inhabitants of the coast? or did they occupy only those elevated points of land which stood out hko isl-

24 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

ands in the middle of the floods? These questions are among the most important presented by their history ; since it was Ihe victorious struggle of man against the ocean that fixed the extent and form of the country. It appears almost cer- tain that in the time of Caesar they did not labor at the con- struction of dikes, but that they began to be raised during the obscurity of the following century; for the remains of ancient towns are even now discovered in places at present overflowed by the sea. These ruins often bring to light traces of Roman construction, and Latin inscriptions in honor of the Menapian divinities. It is, then, certain that they had learned to imitate those who ruled in the neighbor- ing countries: a result by no means surprising; for even England, the mart of their commerce, and the nation with which they had the most constant intercourse, was at that period occupied by the Romans. But the nature of their country repulsed so effectually every attempt at foreign domination that the conquerors of the world left them un- molested, and established arsenals and formed communica- tions with Great Britain only at Boulogne and in the island of the Batavians near Leyden.

This isolation formed in itself a powerful and perfect bar- rier between the inhabitants of the plain and those of the high grounds. The first held firm to their primitive customs and their ancient language ; the second finished by speaking Latin, and borrowing all the manners and usages of Italy. The moral effect of this contrast was that the people, once so famous for their bravery, lost, with their liberty, their energy and their courage. One of the Batavian chieftains, named Civilis, forme J an exception to this degeneracy, and, about the year 70 of our era, bravely took up arms for the expulsion of the Romans. He effected prodigies of valor and perseverance, and boldly met and defeated the enemy both by land and sea. Reverses followed his first success, and he finally concluded an honorable treaty, by which his countrymen once more became the allies of Rome. But after this expiring effort of valor, the Batavians, even though

FROM THE ROMANS TO THE SALIAN FRANKS 25

chosen from all nations for the bodyguards of the Roma a emperors, became rapidly degenerate; and when Tacitus wrote, ninety j'ears after Christ, they were already looked on as less brave than the Frisons and the other peoples be- yond the Rhine. A century and a half later saw thera confounded with the Gauls; and the barbarian conquerors said that "they were not a nation, but merely a prey.''^

Reduced into a Roman province, the southern portion of the Netherlands was at this period called Belgic Gaul; and the name of Belgium, preserved to our days, has until lately been applied to distinguish that part of the country situated to the south of the Rhine and the Meuse, or nearly that which formed the Austrian Netherlands.

During the establishment of the Roman power in the north of Europe, observation was not much excited toward the rapid effects of this degeneracy, compared with the fast- groAving vigor of the people of the low lands. The fact of the Frisons having, on one occasion, near the year 47 of our era, beaten a whole army of Romans, had confirmed their character for intrepidity. But the long stagnation produced in these remote countries by the colossal weight of the em- pire was broken, about the year 250, by an irruption of Ger- mans or Salian Franks, who, passing the Rhine and the Meuse, established themselves in the vicinity of the Mena- pians, near Antwerp, Breda and Bois-le-duc. All the nations that had been subjugated by the Roman power appear to have taken arms on this occasion and opposed the intruders. But the Menapians united themselves with these newcomers, and aided them to meet the shock of the imperial armies. Carausius, originally a Menapian pilot, but promoted to the command of a Roman fleet, made common cause with his fellow-citizens, and proclaimed himself emperor of Great Britain, where the naval superiority of the Menapians left him no fear of a competitor. In recompense of the assist- ance given him by the Franks, ho crossed the sea again from his new empire, to aid them in their war with the Batavians, the allies of Rome ; and having seized on their islands, and

t6 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

massacred nearly the whole of its inhabitants, he there estab- fished his faithful friends the Salians. Constantius and his «on Constantine the Great vainly strove, even after the death of the brave Carausius, to regain possession of the country; l)ut they were forced to leave the new inhabitants in quiet possession of their conquest.

CHAPTER II

FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJU- GATION OF FRIESLAND

A.D. 250-800

FROM this epoch we must trace the progress of a totally new and distinct population in the Netherlands. The Batavians being annihilated, almost without resist- ance, the low countries contained only the free people of the German race. But these people did not completely sympa- thize together so as to form one consolidated nation. The Salians, and the other petty tribes of Franks, their allies, were essentially warlike, and appeared precisely the same as the original inhabitants of the high grounds. The Mena- pians and the Frisons, on the contrary, lost nothing of their spirit of commerce and industry. The result of this diversity was a separation between the Franks and the Menapians. "While the latter, under the name of Armoricans, joined themselves more closely with the people who bordered the Channel, the Frisons associated themselves with the tribes settled on the limits of the German Ocean, and formed with them a connection celebrated under the title of the Saxon League. Thus was formed on all points a union between the niciritime races against the inland inhabitants; and their mutual antipathy became more and more developed as the decline of the Roman empire ended the former struggle between liberty and conquest.

The Netherlands now became the earliest theatre of an entirely new movement, the consequences of which were destined to affect the whole world. This country was occu- pied toward the sea by a people wholl}^ maritime, excepting

(37)

28 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

the narrow space between the Rhine and the Vahal, of which the Salian Franks had become possessed. The nature of this marshy soil, in comparison with the sands of "Westphaha, Guelders, and North Brabant, was not more strikingly con- trasted than was the character of their population. The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the Middle Ages. The Saxon (and this name comprehends all the tribes of the coast from the Rhine as far north as Denmark), uniting in himself the distinctive qualities of German and navigator, was mod- erate and sincere, but implacable in his rage. Neither of these two races of men was excelled in point of courage; but the number of Franks who still entered into the service of the empire diminished the real force of this nation, and naturally tended to disunite it. Therefore, in the subsequent shock of people against people, the Saxons invariably gained the final advantage.

They had no doubt often measured their strength in the most remote times, since the Franks were but the descend- ants of the ancient tribes of Sicambers and others, against whom the Batavians had offered their assistance to Caesar. Under Augustus, the inhabitants of the coast had in the same way joined themselves with Drusus, to oppose these their old enemies. It was also after having been expelled by the Frisons from Guelders that the Salians had passed the Rhine and the Meuse; but, in the fourth century, the two peoples, recovering their strength, the struggle recom- menced, never to terminate — at least between the direct de- scendants of each. It is believed that it was the Varni, a race of Saxons nearly connected with those of England (and coming, like them, from the coast of Denmark), who on this occasion struck the decisive blow on the side of the

TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND 29

Saxons. Embarking on board a numerous fleet, they made a descent in the ancient isle of the Batavians, at that time inhabited by the Salians, whom they completely destroyed. Julian the Apostate, who was then with a numerous army pursuing his career of early glory in these countries, inter- fered for the purpose of preventing the expulsion, or at least the utter destruction, of the vanquished ; but his efforts were unavailing. The Salians appear to have figured no more in this part of the Low Countries.

The defeat of the Salians by a Saxon tribe is a fact on which no doubt rests. The name of the victors is, however, questionable. The Yarni having remained settled near the mouths of the Rhine till near the year 500, there is strong probability that they were the people alluded to. But names and histories, which may on this point appear of such little importance, acquire considerable interest when we reflect that these Salians, driven from their settlement, became the conquerors of France; that those Saxons who forced them on their career of conquest were destined to become the masters of England; and that these two petty tribes, who battled so long for a corner of marshy earth, carried with them their reciprocal antipathy while involuntarily deciding the destiny of Europe.

The defeat of the Franks was fatal to those peoples who had become incorporated with the Romans ; for it was from them that the exiled wanderers, still fierce in their ruin, and with arms in their hands, demanded lands and herds; all, in short, which they themselves had lost. From the middle of the fourth century to the end of the fiftli, there was a suc- cession of invasions in this spirit, which always ended b}' the subjugation of a part of the country; and which was com- pleted about the year 490, by Clovis making himself master of almost the whole of Gaul. Under this jiew empire not a vestige of the ancient nations of the Ardennes was left. The civilized population either perished or was reduced to slavery, and all the high grounds were added to the previous conquests of the Salians.

30 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

But the maritime population, when once possessed of the whole coast, did not seek to make the slightest progress toward the interior. The element of their enterprise and the object of their ambition was the ocean; and when this hardy and intrepid race became too numerous for their nar- row limits, expeditions and colonies beyond the sea carried off their redundant population. The Saxon warriors estab- lished themselves near the mouths of the Loire; others, conducted by Hengist and Horsa, settled in Great Britain, It will always remain problematical from what point of the coast these adventurers departed; but many circumstances tend to give weight to the opinion which pronounces those old Saxons to have started from the Netherlands.

Paganism not being yet banished from these countries, the obscurity which would have enveloped them is in some degree dispelled by the recitals of the monks who went among them to preach Christianity. We see in those records, and by the text of some of their early laws, that this mari- time people were more industrious, prosperous, and happy, than those of France. The men were handsome and richly clothed; and the land well cultivated, and abounding in fruits, milk, and honey. The Saxon merchants carried their trade far into the southern countries. In the meantime, the parts of the Netherlands which belonged to France resem- bled a desert. The monasteries which were there founded were established, according to the words of their charters, amid immense solitudes; and the French nobles only came into Brabant for the sport of bear-hunting in its interminable forests. Thus, while the inhabitants of the low lands, as far back as the light of historj^ penetrates, appear in a continual state of improvement, those of the high grounds, after fre- quent vicissitudes, seem to sink into utter degeneracy and subjugation. The latter wished to denaturalize themselves, and become as though they were foreigners even on their native soil; the former remained firm and faithful to their country and to each other.

But the growth of French power menaced utter ruin to

TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND 31

this interesting race. Clovis had succeeded, about the year 485 of our era, in destroying the last remnants of Roman domination in Gaul. The successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the Pyrenees to the Rhine. They had continual contests with the free population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors. In the commencement of the seventh century, the French king, Clotaire II., exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and "Westphalia; and the historians of those bar- barous times unanimously relate that he caused to be be- headed every inhabitant of the vanquished tribes who exceeded the height of his sword. The Saxon name was thus nearly extinguished in those countries ; and the remnant of these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either because they became really incorporated with that nation, or merely that they recognized it for the most power- ful of their tribes. Friesland, to speak in the language of that age, extended then from the Scheldt to the Weser, and formed a considerable state. But the ascendency of Franco was every year becoming more marked ; and King Dagobert extended the limits of her power even as far as Utrecht. The descendants of the Menapians, known at that epoch by the different names of Menapians, Flemings, and Toxandi- rans, fell one after another directly or indirectly under the empire of the Merovingian princes ; and the noblest family which existed among the French — that which subsequently took the name of Carlovingians — comprised in its dominions nearly the whole of the southern and western parts of the Netherlands.

Between this family, whose chief was called duke of the Frontier Marshes {Dux Brabantice), and the free tribes, united under the common name of Frisons, the same strug- gle was maintained as that which formerly existed between the Salians and the Saxons. Toward the year 700, the French monarchy was torn by anarch}^, and, under '*the lazy kings," lost much of its concentrated power; but every dukedom formed an independent sovereigut}', and of all

82 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

those that of Brabant was the most redoubtable. Neverthe- less the Frisons, under their king, Radbod, assumed for a moment the superiority; and Utrecht, where the French had estabHshed Christianity, fell again into the power of the pagans. Charles Martell, at that time young, and but com- mencing his splendid career, was defeated by the hostile king in the forest of the Ardennes; and though, in sub- sequent conquests, he took an ample revenge, Radbod still remained a powerful opponent. It is related of this fierce monarch that he was converted by a Christian missionary; but, at the moment in which he put his foot in the water for the ceremony of baptism, he suddenly asked the priest where all his old Frison companions in arms had gone after their death? "To hell," replied the priest. "Well, then," said Radbod, drawing back his foot from the water, "I would rather go to hell with them, than to paradise with you and your fellow foreigners!" and he refused to receive the rite of baptism, and remained a pagan.

After the death of Radbod, in 719, Charles Martell, now become duke of the Franks, mayor of the palace, or by what- ever other of his several titles he may be distinguished, finally triumphed over the long-resisting Frisons. He labored to establish Christianity among them; but they did not under- stand the French language, and the lot of converting them was consequently reserved for the English. St. Willebrod was the first missionary who met with any success, about the latter end of the seventh century; but it was not till toward the year 750 that this great mission was finally accomplished by St. Boniface, archbishop of Mayence, and the apostle of Germany. Yet the progress of Christianity, and the establishment of a foreign sway, still met the partial resistance which a conquered but not enervated people are always capable of opposing to their masters. St. Boniface fell a victim to this stubborn spirit. He perished a martyr to his zeal, but perhaps a victim as well to the violent meas- ures of his colleagues, in Friesland, the very province which to this day preserves the name.

TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND 33

The last avenger of Friesland liberty and of the national idols was the illustrious Witikind, to vvhom the chronicles of his country give the title of first azing, or judge. Thia intrepid chieftain is considered as a compatriot, not only hj the historians of Friesland, but by those of Saxony; both, it would appear, having equal claims to the honor; for the union between the two peoples was constantly strengthened by intermarriages between the noblest families of each. As long as Witikind remained a pagan and a freeman, some doubt existed as to the final fate of Friesland ; but when by his conversion he became only a noble of the court of Charle- magne, the slavery of his country was consummated.

Hot r.Axn Ci)

CHAPTER III

FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION

OF HOLLAND

A.D. 800-1000

EVEN at this advanced epoch of foreign domination, there remained as great a difference as ever between the people of the high grounds and the inhabitants of the plain. The latter were, like the rest, incorporated with the great monarchy; but they preserved the remem- brance of former independence, and even retained their ancient names. In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost. Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or towns. They were classi- fied as accessories to inanimate things; and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin, they be- came as it were without recollections or associations; and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without ancestry.

The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the times of Csesar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like a delicate plant in an un- genial clime; but it seemed to have sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the desperate cour- age of the warriors of Germanv. A race of serfs now culti- (34)

TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND 35

vated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests. The clergy had immense posessions in this country; an act of the following century recognizes fourteen thousand fam- ilies of vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.

The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared in every part of the interior. The Mouse and the Scheldt no longer joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lauds; whether this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the accumula- tion of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence, the extent of the population may be conjec- tured. The formation of dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already well understood, and regu- lated by uniform custom. The plains thus reconquered from the waters were distributed in portions, according to their labor, by those who reclaimed them, except the parts re- served for the chieftain, the church, and the poor. This vital necessity for the construction of dikes had given to the Frison and Flemish population a particular habit of union, goodwill, and reciprocal justice, because it was neces- sary to make common cause in this great work for their mu- tual preservation. In all other points, the detail of the laws and manners of this united people presents a picture similar to that of the Saxons of England, with the sole exception that the people of the Netherlands were milder than the Saxon race properly so called — their long habit of laborious industry exercising its happy influence on the martial spirit

36 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

original to both. The manufacturing arts were also some- what more advanced in this part of the continent than in Great Britain. The Frisons, for example, were the only people who could succeed in making the costly mantles in use among the wealthy Franks.

The government of Charlemagne admitted but one form, borrowed from that of the empire in the period of its decline • — a mixture of the spiritual and temporal powers, exercised in the first place by the emperor, and at second-hand by the counts and bishops. The counts in those times were not the heads of noble families, as they afterward became, but officers of the government, removable at will, and possessing no hereditary rights. Their incomes did not arise from sal- aries paid in money, but consisted of lands, of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their authority. These lands being situated in the limits of their administra- tion, each regarded them as his property only for the time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will. How unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be well imagined. The force of possession was, how- ever, frequently opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though all civil dignity and the reve- nues attached to it were but personal and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage of the bar- barous state of the country in which their isolated cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render their power and prerogatives inalienable and real. The force of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the empire to its limits. Thus it was only by perpetually inter- posing his personal efforts, and flying, as it were, from one end to the other of his dominions, that Charlemagne suc- ceeded in preserving his authority. As for the people, with- out any sort of guarantee against the despotism of the gov- ernment, they were utterly at the mercj- of the nobles or of the sovereign. But this state of servitude was quite incom-

TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND 37

patible with the union of social powers necessary to a popu- lation that had to struggle against the tyranny of the ocean. To repulse its attacks with successful vigor, a spirit of com- plete concert was absolutely required ; and the nation being thus united, and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign tyrants were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the sea that broke against the dikes by which it was defied.

From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia, now become a prosperous commonwealth, formed political associations to raise a barrier against the despotic violence of the Franks. These associations were called Gil- den, and in the Latin of the times Gildonia. They com- prised, besides their covenants for mutual protection, an obligation which bound every member to give succor to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck. But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the quick-sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently, prohibited both by him and his successors. To give a notion of the importance of this prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is only necessary to state that the most ancient corporations (all which had preceded and en- gendered the most valuable municipal rights) were nothing more than gilden. Thus, to draw an example from Great Britain, the corporative charter of Berwick still bears the title of Charta Gildonias. But the ban of the sovereigns was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden stood their ground, and within a centurj^ after the death of Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corpo- rate towns.

This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern parts of the country, which still bore the com- mon name of Friesland; for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms of government. The fact is undoubted ; but the means which they emplo3'ed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great i)riv-

38 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

ilege was the price of their military services ; for they held a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin, the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with the most heroic valor.

These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own statements, from Charlemagne, but most un- doubtedly from some one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of property— a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign to violate by confiscation, ex- cept in cases of downright treason; thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow limitation of the mihtary services which they owed to the king ; fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect, totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited, the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages produced a government nearly analo- gous to that which Magna Charta was the means of found- ing at a later period in England.

The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege, and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages on that line of the fron- tier. They had the great advantage over the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tj^rannical removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves more and more independent ia their episcopal cities, which were

TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND 39

soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts, used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign ; for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors: France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole of the Nether- lands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.

In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title, considerable authority in the coun- try; since the pope on one occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him, lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders. The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced to con- sent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the title of count, the hereditary government of all the country be- tween the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer (iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.

The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought then, as at all times, to shako off the yoke, the epoch of their independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds, and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous privilege of continuance in

40 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

their rank. Several foreigners had gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the counts of Holland, and Heriold, .a Norman prince who had been banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It designated the pagan inhabitants of Den- mark, Norway, and Sweden, who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas. The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior of the country. Flanders alone suc- cessfully resisted them during the life of Baldwin Bras-de- fer; but after the death of this brave chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed, any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respect- ing the relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally, an agreement was en- tered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased on condi- tion of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period, the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France. The emperor Charles the Fat, antici- pating the consequence of a rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he caused him to be assassi- nated. His followers, attacked on all points by the people of

TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND 41

Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the coast ; and their last expedition appears to have taken place about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.

It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hun- dred and fiitj years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion and devastation by these northern barba- rians, the political state of the country underwent no impor- tant changes. The emperors of Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine, as well as all which thej^ possessed of what is now called France, and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the Lotheringian kings. The great diffi- culty of maintaining subordination among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958, to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieu- tenant of the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald, were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year 985, they gained a species of imperfect independence — Lambert becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Lou- vain, and Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.

The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant, Godfrej', became convinced that the imperial power was too weak to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country. He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of duke to a young prince of the royal

42 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

house of France ; and we thus see the duchy of Lower Lor- raine governed, in the name of the emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne, the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his residence. After several years of tran- quil government, the death of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that time he bravely con- tended for the crown of his ancestors, against the usurpa- tion of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously perished the name of the Carlo- vingians.

The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vas- sals once more in opposition. The German monarch in- sisted on naming some creature of his own to the dignit}^ of duke; but Lambert II., count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the sisters of Othon, re- spectively claimed the right of inheritance to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders, joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin. The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.

Amid the confusion of these events, a power well cal- culated to rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and

TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND 43

their power being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the aristocrac}'. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance and the sword, the ter- rible artillery of excommunication and anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved to their successors, who thus be- came more and more powerful, and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.

"Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new privileges and ex- tended possessions. So that when the monarch, at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts, little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in the overgrown power of these churchmen. Neverthe- less, a first effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which took place at the httle village of Stongarde. And five years later, the count of the Fries- land marshes {comes Frisonum Morsatenorum) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention, from the nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.

CHAPTER IV

FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE

A.D. 1018—1384

THE district in which Dordrecht is situated, and the grounds in its environs which are at present sub- merged, formed in those times an island just raised above the waters, and which was called Holland or Holt- land (which means wooded land, or, according to some, hollow land). The formation of this island, or rather its recovery from the waters, being only of recent date, -the right to its possession was more disputable than that of long-established countries. All the bishops and abbots whose states bordered the Rhine and the Meuse had, be- ing equally covetous and grasping, and mutually resolved to pounce on the prey, made it their common property. A certain Count Thierry, descended from the counts of Ghent, governed about this period the western extremity of Friesland — the country which now forms the province of Holland; and with much difficulty maintained his power against the Frisons, by whom his right was not acknowl- edged. Beaten out of his own territories by these refrac- tory insurgents, he sought refuge in the ec-clesiastical isl- and, where he intrenched himself, and founded a town which is believed to have been the origin of Dordrecht. This Count Thierry, like all the feudal lords, took ad- vantage of his position to establish and levy certain duties on all the vessels which sailed past his territory, dispos- sessing in the meantime some vassals of the church, and beating, as we have stated, the bishop of Utrecht himself. (44)

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 45

Complaints aud appeals without number were laid at the foot of the imperial throne. Godfrey of Eenham, whom the emperor had created duke of Lower Lorraine, was commanded to call the whole country to arms. The bishop of Liege, though actually dying, put himself at the head of the expedition, to revenge his brother prel- ate, and punish the audacious spoiler of the church prop- erty. But Thierry and his fierce Frisons took Godfrey prisoner, and cut his ariny in pieces. The victor had the good sense and moderation to spare his prisoners, and set them free without ransom. He received in return an im- perial amnesty; and from that period the count of Hol- land and his posterity formed a barrier against which the ecclesiastical power and the remains of the imperial su- premacy continually struggled, to be onh" shattered in each new assault. John Egmont, an old chronicler, says that the counts of Holland were "a sword in the flanks of the bishops of Utrecht."

As the partial independence of the great vassals becama consolidated, the mouarchs were proportionally anxious to prevent its perpetuation in the same families. In pursu- ance of this system, Godfrey of Eenham obtained the pref- erence over the Counts Lambert and Robert; and Frederick of Luxemburg was named duke of Lower Lorraine in 1040, instead of a second Godfrey, who was nephew and expect- ant heir to the first. But this Godfrey, upheld by Baldwin of Flanders, forced the emperor to concede to him the in- heritance of the dukedom. Baldwin secured for his share the country of Alost and Waas, and the citadel of Ghent; and he also succeeded in obtaining in marriage for his sou the Countess Richilde, heiress of Hainault and Namur. Thus was Flanders incessantly gaining new aggrandize- ment, while the duchy of Lorraine was crumbling away on every side.

In the year lOGG this state of Flanders, even then flour- ishing and powerful, furnished assistance, both in men aud ships, to William the Bastard of Normandy, for the con-

46 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

quest of England. William was son-in-law to Count Bald- win, and recompensed the assistance of his wife's father by an annual payment of three hundred silver marks. It was ^ Mathilda, the Flemish princess and wife of the conqueror, who worked with her own hands the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, on which is embroidered the whole history of the conquest, and which is the most curious monument of the state of the arts in that age.

Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superior- ity over all the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer, after having valiantly repulsed the Normans toward the end of the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an industrious and ener- getic people. They had built towns, cut down and cleared away forests, and reclaimed inundated lands: above all things, they had understood and guarded against the dan- ger of parcelling out their states at every succeeding gen- eration; and the county of Flanders passed entire into the hands of the first-born of the family. The stability pro- duced by this state of things had allowed the people to prosper. The Normans now visited the coasts, not as ene- mies, but as merchants; and Bruges became the mart of the booty acquired by these bold pirates in England and on the high seas. The fisheries had begun to acquire an importance sufficient to establish the herring as one of the chief aliments of the population. Maritime commerce had made such strides that Spain and Portugal were well known to both sailors and traders, and the voyage from Flanders to Lisbon was estimated at fifteen days' sail. "Woollen stuffs formed the principal wealth of the country; but salt, corn, and jewelry were also important branches of traffic; while the youth of Flanders were so famous for their excel- lence in all martial pursuits that foreign sovereigns were at all times desirous of obtaining bodies of troops from this nation.

The greatest part of Flanders was attached, as has been

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 47

seen, to the king of France, and not to Lorraine; but the dependence was little more than nominal. In 1071 the king of France attempted to exercise his authority over the country, by naming to the government the same Count- ess Richilde who had received Hainault and Namur for her dower, and who was left a widow, with sons still in their minority. The people assembled in the principal towns, and protested against this intervention of the French mon- arch. But we must remark that it was only the popula- tion of the low lands (whose sturdy ancestors had ever resisted foreign domination) that now took part in this op- position. The vassals which the counts of Flanders pos- sessed in the Gallic provinces (the high grounds), and in general all the nobility, pronounced strongly for submis- sion to France ; for the principles of political freedom had not yet been fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of those parts of the country. But the lowlanders joined together under Robert, surnamed the Frison, brother of the de- ceased count; and they so completely defeated the French, the nobles and their unworthy associates of the high ground, that they despoiled the usurping Countess Richilde of even her hereditary possessions. In this war perished the cele- brated Norman, William Fitz-Osborn, who had flown to the succor of the defeated countess, of whom he was enamored.

Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain, who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of Guolders. Finally, in lOSG, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant;

48 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

and from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as it was destined to remain for several centuries.

In the midst of this gradual organization of the various counties, history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder Zee, but not quite to the Rhine; and it be- came usual to consider no longer as Frisons the subjects of the counts of Holland, whom we may now begin to distin- guish as Hollanders or Dutch. The Frison race alone re- fused to recognize the sovereign counts. They boasted of being self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the em- peror, and regarding the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged in all things to respect them. But the counts of Holland, the bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that of the sovereign they represented. The descendants of the Count Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent in this assumption of power. Defeat after defeat, however, pun- ished their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the pikes of their Frison opponents. The latter had no regular leaders; but at the approach of the enemy the inhabitants of each canton flew to arms, like the mem- bers of a single family; and all the feudal forces brought against them failed to subdue this popular militia.

The frequent result of these collisions was the refusal of the Frisons to recognize any authority whatever but that of the national judges. Each canton was governed accord- ing to its own laws. If a difficulty arose, the deputies of the nation met together on the borders of the Ems, in a place called "the Trees of Upstal" {Upstall-boomen) , where

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 49

three old oaks stood in the middle of an immense plain. In this primitive council-place chieftains were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary au- thority.

It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look else- where for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust the whole stock of the monastery.

In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days. The Frisons successfully re- sisted the payment of tithes; and as a punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted upon them re- peated inundations. They forced their priests to marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesias- tical decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling themselves Vri-Vriesen, Free-Frisons. .

No nation is more interested than England in the exam- ination of all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits, we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may we enter on many mj'steries of social government which the most learned find a difficulty

60 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

in solving. "What were tlie rights of the nobles in their con- nection with these freemen? What ties of reciprocal inter- est bound the different cantons to each other? What were the privileges of the towns? — These are the minute but im- portant points of detail which are overshadowed by the grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the vague and imposing title of "the great Frison," applied to some pop- ular leader. All this confusion tends to prove, on the au- thority of the historians of the epoch, and the charters so carefully collected by the learned, that this question, now so impossible to solve, was even then not rightly understood — what were really those fierce and redoubtable Frisons in their popular and poHtical relations? The fact is, that lib- erty was a matter so difficult to be comprehended by the writers of those times that Froissart gave as his opinion, about the year 1380, that the Frisons were a most unrea- sonable race, for not recognizing the authority and power of the great lords.

The eleventh century had been for the Netherlands (with the exception of Friesland and Flanders) an epoch of organ- ization; and had nearly fixed the political existence of the provinces, which were so long confounded in the vast pos- sessions of the empire. It is therefore important to ascer- tain under what influence and on what basis these p^o^^nces became consolidated at that period. Holland and Zealand, animated by the spirit which we may fairly distinguish under the mingled title of Saxon and maritime, countries scarcely accessible, and with a vigorous population, pos- sessed, in the descendants of Thierry I., a race of national

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 51

chieftains who did not attempt despotic rule over so un- conquerable a people. In Brabant, the maritime towns of Berg-op-Zoom and Antwerp formed, in the Flemish style, so many republics, small but not insignificant; while tho southern parts of the province were under the sway of a nobility who crushed, trampled on, or sold their vassals at their pleasure or caprice. The bishopric of Liege offered also the same contrast; the domains of the nobility being governed with the utmost harshness, while those prince- prelates lavished on their plebeian vassals privileges which might have been supposed the fruits of generosity, were it not clear that the object was to create an opposition in the lower orders against the turbulent aristocracy, whom they found it impossible to manage single-handed. The wars of these bishops against the potty nobles, who made their cas- tles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the old romance writers. But in all the rest of the Netherlands, excepting the provinces al- ready mentioned, no form of government existed, but that fierce feudality which reduced the people into serfs, and turned the social state of man into a cheerless waste of bondage.

It was then that the Crusades, with wild and stirring fanaticism, agitated, in the common impulse given to all Europe, even those little states which seemed to slumber in their isolated independence. Nowhere cMd the voice of Peter the Hermit find a more sympathizing echo than in these lands, still desolated by so many intestine struggles. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, took the lead in this chivalric and religious frenzy. With him set out the counts of Hainault and Flanders; the latter of whom re- ceived from the English crusaders the honorable appellation of Fitz St. George. But althou<2:h the valor of all these

52 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

princes was conspicuous, from the foundation of the king- dom of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1098, until that of the Latin empire of Constantinople by Baldwin of Flan- ders in 1203, still the simple gentlemen and peasants of Friesland did not less distinguish themselves. They were, on all occasions, the first to mount the breach or lead the charge; and the pope's nuncio found himself forced to pro- hibit the very women of Friesland from embarking for the Holy Land — so anxious were they to share the perils and glory of their husbands and brothers in combating the Saracens.

The outlet given by the crusaders to the overboiling ardor of these warlike countries was a source of infinite ad- vantage to their internal economy ; under the rapid progress of civilization, the population increased and the fields were cultivated. The nobility, reduced to moderation by the en- feebling consequences of extensive foreign wars, became comparatively impotent in their attempted efforts against domestic freedom. Those of Flanders and Brabant, also, were almost decimated in the terrible battle of Bouvines, fought between the Emperor Othon and Phihp Augustus, king of France. On no occasion, however, had this reduced but not degenerate nobility shown more heroic valor. The Flemish knights, disdaining to mount their horses or form their ranks for the repulse of the French cavalr}^, composed of common persons, contemptuously received their shock on foot and in the disorder of individual resistance. The brave Buridan of Ypres led his comrades to the fight, with the chivalric war-cry, "Let each now think of her he loves!" But the issue of this battle was ruinous to the Belgians, in consequence of the bad generalship of the emperor, who had divided his army into small portions, which were defeated in detail.

While the nobility thus declined, the towns began rapidly to develop the elements of popular force. In 1120, a Flem- ish knight who might descend so far as to marrj^ a woman of the plebeian ranks incurred the penalty of degradation

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 53

and servitude. In 1220, scarcely a serf was to be found in all Flanders. The Countess Jane had enfranchised all those belonging to her as early as 1222. In 1300, the chiefs of the gilden, or trades, were more powerful than the nobles. These dates and these facts must suffice to mark the epoch at which the great mass of the nation arose from the wretchedness in which it was plunged by the Norman in- vasion, and acquired sufficient strength and freedom to form a real political force. But it is remarkable that the same results took place in all the counties or dukedoms of the Lowlands precisely at the same period. In fact, if we start from the year 1200 on this interesting inquiry, we shall see the commons attacking, in the first place, the petty feudal lords, and next the counts and the dukes themselves, as often as justice was denied them. In 1257, the peasants of Holland and the burghers of Utrecht proclaimed freedom and equality, drove out the bishop and the nobles, and be- gan a memorable struggle which lasted full two hundred years. In 1260, the townspeople of Flanders appealed to the king of France against the decrees of their count, who ended the quarrel by the loss of his county. In 1 303, Mech- lin and Lou vain, the chief towns of Brabant, expelled the patrician families. A coincidence like this cannot be at- tributed to trifling or partial causes, such as the miscon- duct of a single count, or other local evil; but to a great general movement in the popular mind, the progress of agriculture and industry in the whole country, superin- ducing an increase of wealth and intelligence, which, \vhen unrestrained by the influence of a corrupt govern- ment, must naturally lead to the liberty and the happiness of a people.

The weaving of woollen and linen cloths was one of the chief sources of this growing prosperity. A prodigious (juan- tity of cloth and linen was manufactured in all parts of the Netherlands. The maritime prosperity acquired an equal increase by the carrying trade, both in imj)orts and exports. Whole fleets of Dutch and Flemish merchant ships repaired

64: HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

regularly to the coasts of Spain and Languedoc. Flan- ders was already become the great market for England and all the north of Europe. The great increase of population forced all parts of the country into cultiva- tion ; so much so, that lands were in those times sold at a high price, which are to-day left waste from imputed sterility.

Legislation naturally followed the movements of those positive and material interests. The earliest of the towns, after the invasion of the Normans, were in some degree but places of refuge. It was soon, however, established that the regular inhabitants of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges and magis- trates, and attached to their authority the old custom of ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the sum- mons of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assem- blage or service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary strug- gles, almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen, forced to tear themselves from every association of home and its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the contest ; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of that still greater to be found in a pro- longed struggle. It is thus that it may be remarked, during the menK)rable conflicts of the thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights advised their counts or dukes

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 55

to grant or demand a truce, the citizen militia never knew but one cry — "To the charge!"

Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation, when it became forced to take up arms against ene- mies still more redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king of France, began to repent of their newly-formed allegiance, and to be weary of the master they had chosen. Two citizens of Bruges, Peter de Koning, a draper, and John Breydel, a butcher, put themselves at the head of their fellow-townsmen, and completely dislodged the French troops who garrisoned it. The following year the militia of Bruges and the immediate neighborhood sustained alone, at the battle of Courtrai, the shock of one of the finest armies that France ever sent into the field. Victory soon declared for the gallant men of Bruges; upward of three thousand of the French chivalry, besides common soldiers, were left dead on the field. In 1304, after a long contested battle, the Flemings forced the king of France to release their count, whom he had held prisoner. "I believe it rains Flemings!" said Philip, aston- ished to see them crowd on him from all sides of the field. But this multitude of warriors, always ready to meet the foe, were provided for the most part by the towns. In the seigniorial system a village hardly furnished more than four or five men, and these only on important occasions; but in that of the towns every citizen was enrolled as a soldier to defend the country at all times.

The same system established in Brabant forced the duke of that province to sanction and guarantee the popular privi- leges, and the superiority of the people over the nobility. Such was the result of the famous contract concluded in 1312 at Cortenbergh, by which the duke created a legislative and judicial assembly to meet every twenty-one days for the provincial business; and to consist of fourteen deputies, of whom only four were to be nobles, and t<.'n were cho« n from the people. The duke was bound by this act to hold

6G HISTOEY OF THE NETHERLANDS

himself iii obedience to the legislative decisions of the coun- cil, and renounced all right of levying arbitrary taxes or duties on the state. Thug vv^ere the local privileges of the people by degrees secured and ratified; but the various towns, making common cause for general liberty, became strictly united together, and progressively extended their influence and power. The confederation between Flanders and Brabant was soon consolidated. The burghers of Bruges, who had taken the lead in the grand national union, and had been the foremost to expel the foreign force, took umbrage in 1323 at an arbitrary measure of their count, Louis (called of Cressy by posthumous nomination, from his having been killed at that celebrated fight), by which he ceded to the count of Namur, his great-uncle, the port of Ecluse, and authorized him to levy duties there in the style of the feudal lords of the high country. It was but the affair of a day to the intrepid citizens to attack the fortress of Ecluse, carry it by assault, and take prisoner the old count of Namur. They destroyed in a short time almost all the strong castles of the nobles throughout the province; and having been joined by all the towns of west- ern Flanders, they finally made prisoners of Count Louis himself, with almost the whole of the nobility, who had taken refuge with him in the town of Courtrai. But Ghent, actuated by the jealousy which at all times existed between it and Bruges, stood aloof at this crisis. The latter town was obliged to come to a compromise with the count, who soon afterward, on a new quarrel breaking out, and sup- ported by the king of France, almost annihilated his sturdy opponents at the battle of Cassel, where the Flemish in- fantry, commanded by Nicholas Zannekin and others, were literally cut to pieces by the French knights and men-at- arms.

This check proved the absolute necessity of union among the rival cities. Ten years after the battle of Cassel, Ghent set the example of general opposition; this example was promptly followed, and the chief towns flew to arms. The

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 5l

celebrated James d'Artaveldt, commonly called the brewer of Ghent, put himself at the head of this formidable insur- rection. He was a man of a distinguished family, who had himself enrolled among the guild of brewers, to entitle him to occupy a place in the corporation of Ghent, which he soon succeeded in managing and leading at his pleasure. The tyranny of the count, and the French party which sup- ported him, became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law, Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt, and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable. The Flemings had sworn allegiance to the crown of France; and they revolted at the idea of perjury, even from an extorted oath. But to overcome their scruples, Artaveldt proposed to acknowledge the claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown. The Flemings readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed Count Louis of Cressy and his French parti- sans; and then joined, with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of fighting, until a Flemish squadron, hastening to the aid of the English, fixed the fate of the combat by the utter defeat of the enemy.

A truce between the two kings did not deprive Artaveldt of his well-earned authority. He was invested with the title of ruward, or conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and governed the whole province with almost sovereign sway. It was said that King Edward used familiarly to call him "his dear gossip"; and it is certain that there was not a feudal lord of the time whose power was not eclipsed by tliis leader of the people. One of the ]irinci()al motives wliirh

58 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

cemented the attachment of the Flemings to Artaveldt was the advantage obtained through his influence with Edward for faciUtating the trade with England, whence they pro- cured the chief supply of w©ol for their manufactories. Ed- ward promised them seventy thousand sacks as the reward of their alliance. But though greatly influenced by the stimulus of general interest, the Flemings loved their do- mestic liberty better than English wool; and when they found that their ruward degenerated from a firm patriot into the partisan of a foreign prince, they became disgusted with him altogether; and he perished in 1345, in a tumult raised against him by those by whom he had been so lately idolized. The Flemings held firm, nevertheless, in their alliance with England, only regulating the connection by a steady principle of national independence.

Edward knew well how to conciliate and manage these faithful and important auxiliaries during all his continental wa,rs. A Flemish army covered the siege of Calais in 1348; and, under the command of Giles de Rypergherste, a mere weaver of Ghent, they beat the dauphin of France in a pitched battle. But Calais once taken, and a truce con- cluded, the English king abandoned his allies. These, left wholly to their own resources, forced the French and the heir of their count, young Louis de Male, to recognize their right to self-government according to their ancient privi- leges, and of not being forced to give aid to France in any war against England. Flanders may therefore be pro- nounced as forming, at this epoch, both in right and fact, a truly independent principality.

But such struggles as these left a deep and immovable sentiment of hatred in the minds of the vanquished. Louis de Male longed for the re-establishment and extension of his authority ; and had the art to gain over to his views not only all the nobles, but many of the most influential guilds or trades. Ghent, which long resisted his attempts, was at length reduced by famine; and the count projected the ruin, or at least the total subjection, of this turbulent town.

TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE 59

A son of Arta veldt started forth at this juncture, when the popular cause seemed lost, and joining with his fellow- citizens, John Lj^ons and Peter du Bois, he led seven thou- sand resolute burghers against forty thousand feudal vas- sals. He completely defeated the count, and took the town of Bruges, where Louis de Male only obtained safety by hiding himself under the bed of an old woman who gave him shelter. Thus once more feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.

The consequences of this event were immense. They reached to the very heart of France, where the people bore in great discontent the feudal yoke; and Froissart declares that the success of the people of Ghent had nearly over- thrown the superiority of the nobility over the people in France. But the king, Charles VI., excited by his uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, took arms in support of the defeated count, and marched with a powerful army against the rebellious burghers. Though defeated in four successive combats, in the latter of which, that of Roosbeke, Artaveldt was killed, the Flemings would not submit to their imperious count, who used every persuasion with Charles to continue his assistance for the punishment of these refractory subjects. But the duke of Burgund)^ was aware that a too great perseverance would end, either in driving the people to despair and the possible defeat of the French, or the entire conquest of the country and its junction to the crown of France. He, being son-in-law to Louis de Male, and consequently aspiring to the inheritance of Flan- ders, saw with a keen glance the advantage of a present compromise. On the death of Louis, who is stated to have been murdered by Philip's brother, the duke of Berri, he concluded a peace with the rebel burghers, and entered at once upon the sovereignty of the country.

CHAPTER V

FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILTP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS, TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR

A.D. 1384—1506

THUS the house of Burgundy, which soon after became so formidable and celebrated, obtained this vast ac- cession to its power. The various changes which had taken place in the neighboring provinces during the continuance of these civil wars had altered the state of Flanders altogether. John d'Avesnes, count of Hainault, having also succeeded in 1299 to the county of Holland, the two provinces, though separated by Flanders and Brabant, remained from that time under the government of the same chief, who soon became more powerful than the bishops of Utrecht, or even than their formidable rivals the Frisons.

During the wars which desolated these opposing terri- tories, in consequence of the perpetual conflicts for supe- riority, the power of the various towns insensibly became at least as great as that of the nobles to whom they were constantly opposed. The commercial interests of Holland, also, were considerably advanced by the influx of Flemish merchants forced to seek refuge there from the convulsions which agitated their province. Every day confirmed and increased the privileges of the people of Brabant^ while at Liege the inhabitants gradually began to gain the upper hand, and to shake off the former subjection to their sov- ereign bishops.

Although Philip of Burgundy became count of Flan- ders, by the death of his father-in-law, in the year 1384, it w^as not till the following year that he concluded a peace

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 61

with the people of Ghent, and entered into quiet possession of the province. In the same year the duchess of Brabant, the last descendant of the duke of that province, died, leav- ing no nearer relative than the duchess of Burgundy; so that Philip obtained in right of his wife this new and im- portant accession to his dominions. But the consequent increase of the sovereign's power was not, as is often the case, injurious to the liberties or happiness of the people. Philip continued to govern in the interest of the country'', which he had the good sense to consider as identified with his own. He augmented the privileges of the towns, and negotiated for the return into Flanders of those merchants who had emigrated to Germany and Holland during the continuance of the civil wars. He thus by degrees accus- tomed his new subjects, so proud of their rights, to submit to his authority ; and his peaceable reign was only disturbed by the fatal issue of the expedition of his son, John the Fearless, count of Nevers, against the Turks. This young prhice, filled with ambition and temerity, was offered the command of the force sent by Charles III. of France to the assistance of Sigismund of Hungary in his war against Bajazet. Followed by a numerous body of nobles, he en- tered on the contest, and was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks at the battle of Nicopolis. His army was totally destroyed, and himself only restored to liberty on the payment of an immense ransom.

John the Fearless succeeded in 1404 to the inheritance of all his father's dominions, with the exception of Brabant, of which his younger brother, Anthony of Burgundy, be- came duke. John, whose ambitious and ferocious char- acter became every day more strongly developed, now aspired to the government of France during the insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent to the rivalry of England and France, which now

62 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

began so fearfully to afflict the latter kiugdom, forced their ambitious count to declare their province a neutral country; so that the English merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of Flanders, and the Flemings equally well received in England, while the duke made open war against Great Britain in his quality of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction between the prince and the people.

Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles of the province to take part m the quar- rels of France; and he suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this event, for the militia of the country had not followed their duke and his nobles to the war ; and a national council was now established, con- sisting of eleven persons, two of whom were ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners. This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated the demand with derision.

The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the history of the time bj^ two striking and characteristic incidents. At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In the

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 63

same year (1404) the widow of Albert, count of Holland and Hainault, finding herself in similar circumstances, re- quired of the bailiff of Holland and the judges of his court permission to make a like renunciation. The claim was granted ; and, to fulfil the requisite ceremony, she walked at the head of the funeral procession, carrying in her hand a blade of straw, which she placed on the coffin. We thus find that in such cases the reigning families were held liable to follow the common usages of the country. From such instances there required but little progress in the principle of equality to reach the republican contempt for rank which made the citizens of Bruges in the following century arrest their count for his private debts.

The spirit of independence had reached the same point at Liege. The families of the counts of Holland and Hai- nault, which were at this time distinguished by the name of Bavaria, because they were only descended from the an- cient counts of Netherland extraction in the female line, had sufficient influence to obtain the nomination to the bishopric for a prince who was at the period in his in- fancy. John of Bavaria — for so he was called, and to his name was afterward added the epithet of "the Pitiless" — on reaching his majority, did not think it necessary to cause himself to be consecrated a priest, but governed as a lay sovereign. The indignant citizens of Liege expelled him, and chose another bishop. But the Houses of Bur- gundy and Bavaria, closely allied by intermarriages, made common cause in his quarrel; and John, duke of Burgundy, and William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, brother of the bishop, replaced by force this cruel and unworthy prelate.

This union of the government over all the provinces in two families so closely connected rendered the preponder- ance of the rulers too strong for that balance hitherto kept steady by the popular force. The former could on each new quarrel join together, and employ against anj' par- ticular town their whole united resources; whereas the

64 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

latter could only act by isolated efforts for the mainte- nance of their separate rights. Such was the cause of a considerable decline in public liberty during the fifteenth century. It is true that John the Fearless gave almost his whole attention to his French political intrigues, and to the fierce quarrels which he maintained with the House of Orleans. But his nephew, John, duke of Brabant, hav- ing married, in 1416, his cousin Jacqueline, daughter and heiress of "William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, this branch of the House of Burgundy seemed to get the start of the elder in its progressive influence over the prov- inces of the Netherlands. The dukes of Guelders, who had changed their title of counts for one of superior rank, ac- quired no accession of power proportioned to their new dig- nity. The bishops of Utrecht became by degrees weaker; private dissensions enfeebled Friesland ; Luxemburg was a poor, unimportant dukedom; but Holland, Hainault, and Brabant formed the very heart of the Netherlands; while the elder branch of the same family, under whom they were united, possessed Flanders, Artois, and the two Bur- gundies. To complete the prosperity and power of this latter branch, it was soon destined to inherit the entire dominions of the other.

A fact the consequences of which were so important for the entire of Europe merits considerable attention ; but it is most difficult to explain at once concisely and clearly the series of accidents, manoeuvres, tricks, and crimes by which it was accomplished. It must first be remarked that this John of Brabant, become the husband of his cousin Jacque- line, countess of Holland and Hainault, possessed neither the moral nor physical qualities suited to mate with the most lovely, intrepid, and talented woman of her times; nor the vigor and firmness required for the maintenance of an increased, and for those days a considerable, dominion. Jacqueline thoroughly despised her insignificant husband; first in secret, and subsequently by those open avowals forced from her by his revolting combination of weak-

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 65

ness, cowardice, and tyranny. He tamely allowed the province of Holland to be invaded by the same ungrate- ful bishop of Liege, John the Pitiless, whom his wife's father and his own uncle had re-established in his justly forfeited authority. But John of Brabant revenged him- self for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic perse- cutions so odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection. Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest Avith a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels, where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of his fame and power.

England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European affairs. John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and in his presence. Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI. But besides the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline, his cousin. As soon as he had learned that this princess, so well received in England, was taking measures for having her marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester, also the l)rother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented b}- a double anxiet3\ He, in the first place, dreaded that Jacqueline might have children by her projected marriage with Glouces- ter (a circumstance neither likely nor even possible, in the opinion of some historians, to result from her union with John of Brabant: Hume, vol. iii., p. 133), and thus deprive

1 < 'LLAND (8)

66 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

him of his right of succession to her states; and in the next, he was jealous of the possible domination of England in the Netherlands as well as in France. He therefore soon be- came self-absolved from all his vows of revenge in the cause of his murdered father, and labored solely for the object of his personal aggrandizement. To break his connection with Bedford; to treat secretly with the dauphin, his father's as- sassin, or at least the witness and warrant for his assassina- tion; and to shuffle from party to party as occasion required, were movements of no difficulty to Philip, surnamed "the Good." He openly espoused the cause of his infamous relative, John of Brabant; sent a powerful army into Hai- nault, which Gloucester vainly strove to defend in right of his affianced wife; and next seized on Holland and Zea- land, where he met with a long but ineffectual resistance on the part of the courageous woman he so mercilessly op- pressed. Jacqueline, deprived of the assistance of her stanch but ruined friends,' and abandoned by Gloucester (who, on the refusal of Pope Martin V. to sanction her divorce, had married another woman, and but feebly aided the efforts of the former to maintain her rights), was now left a widow by the death of John of Brabant. But Philip, without a shadow of justice, pursued his designs against her dominions, and finally despoiled her of her last possessions, and even of the title of countess, which she forfeited by her marriage with Vrank Van Borselen, a gentleman of Zea- land, contrary to a compact to which Philip's tyranny had forced her to consent. After a career the most checkered

' We must not omit to notice the existence of two factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated the whole population of Holland and Zea- land. One bore the title of Hoehs (fishing-hooks) ; the other was called Eaabel- jauws (cod-fish). The origin of these burlesque denominations was a dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish took the hook or ihe hook the cod-fish? This apparently frivolous dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel ; and the partisans of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either side, and assumed different badges of distinction. The Hoehs, partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the Kaabeljauws wore gray ones. In Jacqueline's quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492 that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck a final blow to the dissensions of both.

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 67

and romantic which is recorded in history, the beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacquehne found repose and happiness in the tranquilhty of private life, and her death in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from Philip's thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which he drowned his remorse. As if fortune had conspired for the rapid consohdation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province ; and his dominions soon extended to the ver}" limits of Picardy, by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance with France.

Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though almost nominal, rights as lord para- mount. He next purchased the title of the duchess of Lux- emburg to that duchy; and thus the states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to that of the ex- isting kingdom of the Xetherlands. For although on the north and east the}" did not include Friesland, the bishopric of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south and west they comprised French Flanders, the Bou- lonnais, Artois, and a part of Picard}', besides Burgundy. But it has been already seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the maritime provinces. Flanders in particular, the most populous and wealthy, strictly pre- served its republican institutions. Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and each maintained its individual authority over its respective temtorj', with great indifference to the will or the wishes of the sovereign duke. Philip, however, had the poUcy to divide most effect- ually these rival towns. After having fallen into the bauds of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt to surprise, and who massacred numbers of his followers before his eyes, he forced them to submission by the assistance of

68 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

the citizens of Ghent, who sanctioned the banishment of the chief men of the vanquished town. But some years later Ghent was in its turn oppressed and punished for having resisted the payment of some new tax. It found no support from the rest of Flanders. Nevertheless this powerful city si ngl 3^ maintained the war for the space of two years; but the intrepid burghers finally yielded to the veterans of the duke, formed to victorj- in the French wars. The principal privileges of Ghent w^ere on this occasion revoked and annulled.

During these transactions the province of Holland, which enjoyed a degree of liberty almost equal to Flanders, had declared war against the Hanseatic towns on its own proper authority. Supported by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce, and soon forced them to submission. Philip in the meantime contrived to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety. Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic char- acter, he conducted himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least. Age and ex- haustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant over any.

Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely to look well in the sight of Heaven. This son was Charles, count of Charolois, afterward cele- brated under the name of Charles the Rash. He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen of despot- ism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 69

that province in 14:57, he appropriated to himself several important successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a word, conducted himself as an absolute master. Soon afterward he broke out into open opposition to his father, who had complained of this undutiful and im- petuous son to the states of the provinces, venting his grief in lamentations instead of pvmishing his people's wrongs. But his private rage burst forth one day in a manner as furious as his public expressions w^ere tame. He went so far as to draw his sword on Charles and pursue him through his palace; and a disgusting yet instructive spec- tacle it was, to see this father and son in mutual and dis- graceful discord, hke two birds of prey quarrelling in the same eyry; the old count outrageous to find he was no longer undisputed sovereign, and the young one in feeling that he had not yet become so. But Philip was declining daily. Yet even when dying he preserved his natural haughtiness and energy; and being provoked by the in- subordination of the people of Liege, he had himself car- ried to the scene of their punishment. The refractory town of Dinant, on the Mouse, was utterly destroyed by the two counts, and six hundred of the citizens drowned in the river, and in cold blood. The following year Philip expired, leav- ing to Charles his long-wished-for inheritance.

The reign of Philip had produced a revolution in Belgian manners; for his example and the great increase of wealth had introduced habits of luxury hitherto quite unknown. He had also brought into fashion romantic notions of mili- tary honor, love, and chivalry ; which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility, contained neverthe- less a certain mixture of frivolity and extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which was intro- duced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his pas- sion for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the

70 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

conquest of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit so fair an opportunity for levjing new taxes on his people. And it is" undoubted that the splendor of his court and the immorality of his example were no slight sources of corruption to the countries which he governed.

In this respect, at least, a totally different kind of gov- ernment was looked for on the part of his son and succes- sor, who was by nature and habit a mere soldier. Charles began his career by seizing on all the money and jewels left by his father; he next dismissed the crowd of useless func- tionaries who had fed upon, under the pretence of manag- ing, the treasures of the state. But this salutary and sweeping reform was only effected to enable the sover- eign to pursue uncontrolled the most fatal of all passions, that of war. Nothing can better paint the true character of this haughty and impetuous prince than his crest (a branch of holly), and his motto, "Who touches it, pricks himself." Charles had conceived a furious and not ill-founded hatred for his base yet formidable neighbor and rival, Louis XI. of France. The latter had succeeded in obtaining from Philip the restitution of some towns in Picardy ; cause sufficient to excite the resentment of his inflammable successor, who, during his father's lifetime, took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles was the proudest, most daring, and most unman- ageable prince that ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness; Louis the most subtle, dissimulat- ing, and treacherous king that ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was unequal only in respect to this difference of character; for France, subdi-

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 71

vided as it still was, and exhausted bj the wars with Eng- land, was not comparable, either as regarded men, monej', or the other resources of the state, to the compact and prosperous dominions of Burgundy.

Charles showed some symptoms of good sense and great- ness of mind, soon after his accession to power, that gave a false coloring to his disposition, and encouraged illusory hopes as to his future career. Scarcely was he proclaimed count of Flanders at Ghent, when the populace, surround- ing his hotel, absolutely insisted on and extorted his consent to the restitution of their ancient privileges. Furious as Charles was at this bold proof of insubordination, he did not revenge it; and he treated with equal indulgence the city of Mechlin, which had expelled its governor and razed the citadel. The people of Liege, having revolted against their bishop, Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event, in February, 1168, he concluded with Ed- ward IV. of England an alliance, offensive and defensive, against France.

The real motive of this alliance was rivalry and hatred against Louis. The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war against the duke of Brittan}-, Charles's old ally in the short contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength with his rival after he became king. The present union between England and Burgundy was too powerful not to alarm Louis; he demanded an ex- planatory conference with Charles, and the town of Peronne in Picardy was fixed on for their meeting. Louis, willing to imitate the boldness of his rival, who had formerly come to meet him in the very midst of his army, now came to the rendezvous almost alone. But he was severely mortified and near paying a greater penalty than fright for this liazard- ous conduct. The duke, having received intelligence of a new revolt at Liege excited by some of the agents of France, instantly made Louis prisoner, in defianctt of every law of

72 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

honor or fair dealing. The excess of his rage and hatred might have carried him to a more disgraceful extremity, had not Louis, by force of bribery, gained over some of his most influential counsellors, who succeeded in appeasing his rage. He contented himself with humiliating, when he was disposed to punish. He forced his captive to accom- pany him to Liege, and witness the ruin of this unfortunate town, which he delivered over to plunder; and having given this lesson to Louis, he set him at liberty.

From this period there was a marked and material change in the conduct of Charles. He had been previously moved by sentiments of chivalry and notions of greatness. But sullied by his act of public treachery and violence toward the monarch who had, at least in seeming, manifested un- limited confidence in his honor, a secret sense of shame em- bittered his feelings and soui'ed his temper. He became so insupportable to those around him that he was abandoned by several of his best officers, and even by his natural brother, Baldwin of Burgundy, who passed over to the side of Louis. Charles was at this time embarrassed by the ex- pense of entertaining and maintaining Edward IV. and nu- merous English exiles, who were forced to take refuge in the Netherlands by the successes of the earl of Warwick, who had replaced Henry VL on tbe throne. Charles at the same time held out to several princes in Europe hopes of bestow- ing on them in marriage his only daughter and heiress Marj", while he privately assured his friends, if his courtiers and ministers may be so called, "that he never meant to have a son-in-law until he was disposed to make himself a monk." In a word, he was no longer guided by any prin- ciple but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.

In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles and of the national militia, who only maintained to- ward him a forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as their absolute master.

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 73

When the taxes necessar}^ for the support and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur, Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the mo- ment when nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais ; and thus made of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block on his path of conquest.

The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin of his unsupported, or as might be said his aban- doned, ally, who made the best terms he could \%dth Louis; and thus Charles's presumption and obstinacy paralyzed aU the efforts of his courage and power. But he soon after- ward acquired the duchy of Guelders from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found liis jus- tification on the argument that his father having reig-ned forty-four years, he was fully entitled to his share — a fine practical auihority for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.

After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands were considered sufficiently important and con- solidated to entitle their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance his coronation. But the

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insolence and selfishness of the latter put an end to the proj- ect. He humiliated the emperor, who was of a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage, from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law who might embitter his old age as be had done that of his own father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon, and the projected king- dom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.

Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for ag- grandizement and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recov- ered possession of England. But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping. This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till after the treaty was signed, up- braided and abused the English king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.

Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions, now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggran- dizement, and to recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying, abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the constable

TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR 75

of St, Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his inde- pendence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemv to either. Charles now marched against, and soon over- came, Lorraine. Thence he turned his armj'- against the Swiss, who were allies to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the more they hum- bled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions of Lothaire L, who had possessed the whole of the countries traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po ; and he even spoke of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.

Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered. The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had de- spatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss — a force in which they were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted to thirty-four thousand men. They took up a position, skilfully chosen, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, where they were attacked by Charles at the head of sixty thousand soldiers of all ranks. The result was the total defeat of the latter, with the loss of ten thousand killed, whose bones, gathered into an immense heap, and bleacliing in the winds, remained for above throe centuries; a t4?rriblo monument of rashness and injustice on the one hand, and of patriotism and valor on the other.

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Charles was now plunged into a state of profound mel- ancholy; but he soon burst from this gloomy mood into one of renewed fierceness and fatal desperation. Nine months after the battle ojf Morat he re-entered Lorraine, at the head of an army, not composed of his faithful militia of the Netherlands, but of those mercenaries in whom it was madness to place trust. The reinforcements meant to be despatched to him by those provinces were kept back by the artifices of the count of Campo Basso, an Italian who com- manded his cavalry, and who only gained his confidence basely to betray it. Rene, duke of Lorraine, at the head of the confederate forces, offered battle to Charles under the walls of Nanc}'; and the night before the combat Campo Basso went over to the enemy with the troops under his command. Still Charles had the way open for retreat. Fresh troops from Burgundy and Flanders were on their march to join him; but he would not be dissuaded from his resolution to fight, and he resolved to try his fortune once more with his dispirited and shattered army. On this oc- casion the fate of Charles was decided, and the fortune of Louis triumphant. The rash and ill-fated duke lost both the battle and his life. His body, mutilated with wounds, was found the next day, and buried with great pomp in the town of Nancy, by the orders of the generous victor, the duke of Lorraine.

Thus perished the last prince of the powerful House of Burgundy. Charles left to his only daughter, then eighteen years of age, the inheritance of his extensive dominions, and with them that of the hatred and jealousy which he had so largely excited. External spoliation immediately com- menced, and internal disunion quickly followed. Louis XL seized on Burgundy and a part of Artois, as fiefs de- volving to the crown in default of male issue. Several of the provinces refused to pay the new subsidies commanded in the name of Mary ; Flanders alone showing a disposition to uphold the rights of the young princess. The states were assembled at Ghent, and ambassadors sent to the king of

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France, in the hopes of obtaining peace on reasonable terms. Louis, true to his system of subtle perfidy, placed before one of those ambassadors, the burgomaster of Ghent, a letter from the inexperienced princess, which proved her intention to govern by the counsel of her father's ancient ministers rather than by that of the deputies of the nation. This was enough to decide the indignant Flemings to render them- selves at once masters of the government and get rid of the ministers whom they hated. Two Burgundian nobles, Hu- gonet and Imbercourt, were arrested, accused of treason, and beheaded under the very eyes of their agonized and outraged mistx-ess, who threw herself before the frenzied multitude, vainly imploring mercy for these innocent men. The people having thus completely gained the upper hand over the Burgundian influence, Mary was sovereign of the Netherlands but in name.

It would have now been easy for Louis XL to have ob- tained for the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but interesting princess; but he thought him- self sufficiently strong and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not actualh' rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick III. ; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his father's parsi- mony, that she was obliged to borrow money from the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite. Neverthe- less he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his new subjects. They not onlj' supplied all his wants, but enabled him to maintain the war against Louis XL, whom they defeated at the battle of Guinegate in Picard}', and forced to make peace on more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the school of abso- lute despotism; and his duchess having mot with a too early

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death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked as a favor from his rebel subjects of Bruges to be guarded while a prisoner by them alone. He was then king of the Romans, and all Europe became interested in his fate. The pope addressed a brief to the town of Bruges, demand- ing his deliverance. But the burghers were as inflexible as factious ; and they at length released him, but not until they had concluded with him and the assembled states a treaty which most amply secured the enjoyment of their privileges and the pardon of their rebellion.

But these kind of compacts were never observed by the princes of those days beyond the actual period of their ca- pacity to violate them. The emperor having entered the Netherlands at the head of forty thousand men, Maximilian, so supported, soon showed his contempt for the obligations he had sworn to, and had recourse to force for the extension of his authority. The valor of the Flemings and the mili- tary talents of their leader, Philip of Cleves, thwarted all his projects, and a new compromise was entered into. Flan- ders paid a large subsidy, and held fast her rights. The German troops were sent into Holland, and employed for the extinction of the Hoeks; who, as they formed by far the weaker faction, were now soon destroyed. That province, which had been so long distracted by its intestine feuds, and which had consequently played but an insignificant part in

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the transactions of the Netherlands, now resumed its place; and acquired thenceforth new honor, till it at length came to figure in all the imix)rtance of historical distinction.

The situation of the Netherlands was now extremely precarious and difficult to manage, during the unstable sway of a government so weak as Maximilian'3. But he having succeeded his father on the imperial throne in 1493, and his son Philip having been proclaimed the following year duke and count of the various provinces at the age of sixteen, a more pleasing prospect was offered to the people. Philip, young, handsome, and descended by his mother from the ancient sovereigns of the country, was joyfully hailed by all the towns. He did not belie the hopes so enthusiastically expressed. He had the good sense to renounce all preten- sions to Friesland, the fertile source of many preceding quarrels and sacrifices. He re-established the ancient com- mercial relations with England, to which country Maximil- ian had given mortal offence b}' sustaining the imposture of Perkin Warbeck. Philip also consulted the states-general on his projects of a double alliance between himself and his sister with the son and daughter of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; and from thiswise precaution the project soon became one of national partiality instead of private or personal interest. In this manner com- plete harmony was established between the young prince and the inhabitants of the Netherlands. All the ills pro- duced by civil war disappeared with immense rapidity in Flanders and Brabant, as soon as peace was thus consoli- dated. Even Holland, though it had particularly felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this, Philip can be scarcely called a good prince : his merits were negative rather than real. But that sutliced for the nation; which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to tha resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by the despotism of the House of Burgundy, and the attempts of Maximilian to continue the same system.

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The reign of Philip, unfortunately a short one, was ren- dered remarkable by two intestine quarrels; one in Fries- land, the other in Guelders. The Frisons, who had been so isolated from the more important affairs of Europe that they were in a manner lost sight of by history for several centuries, had nevertheless their full share of domestic dis- putes; too long, too multifarious, and too minute, to allow us to give more than this brief notice of their existence. But finally, about the period of Philip's accession, eastern Friesland had chosen for its count a gentleman of the country surnamed Edzart, who fixed the headquarters of his military government at Etnbden. The sight of such an elevation in an individual whose pretensions he thought far inferior to his own induced Albert of Saxony, who had well served Maximilian against the refractory Flemings, to de- mand as his reward the title of stadth older or hereditary governor of Friesland. But it was far easier for the em- peror to accede to this request than for his favorite to put the grant into effect. The Frisons, true to their old char- acter, held firm to their privileges, and fought for their maintenance with heroic courage. Albert, furious at this resistance, had the horrid barbarity to cause to be impaled the chief burghers of the town of Leuwaarden, which he had taken by assault. But he himself died in the year 1500, without succeeding in his projects of an ambition un- just in its principle and atrocious in its practice.

The war of Guelders was of a totally different nature. In this case it was not a question of popular resistance to a t3"rannical nomination, but of patriotic fidelity to the reign- ing family. Adolphus, the duke who had dethroned his father, had died in Flanders, leaving a son who had been brought up almost a captive as long as Maximilian governed the states of his inheritance. This j^oung man, called Charles of Egmont, and who is honored in the history of his coun- try under the title of the Achilles of Guelders, fell into the hands of the French during the combat in which he made his first essay in arms. The town of Guelders unanimously

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joined to pay his ransom; and as soon as he was at hberty they one and all proclaimed him duke. The emperor Philip and the Germanic diet in vain protested against this meas- ure, and declared Charles a usurper. The spirit of justice and of liberty spoke more loudly than the thunders of their ban; and the people resolved to support to the last this scion of an ancient race, glorious in much of its conduct, though often criminal in many of its members. Charles of Egmont found faithful friends in his devoted subjects; and he main- tained his rights, sometimes with, sometimes without, the assistance of France — making up for his want of numbers by energy and enterprise. We cannot follow this warlike prince in the long series of adventures which consolidated his power; nor stop to depict his daring adherents on land, who caused the whole of Holland to tremble at their deeds; nor his pirates — the chief of whom, Long Peter, called him- self king of the Zuyder Zee. But amid all the consequent troubles of such a struggle, it is marvellous to find Charles of Egmont upholding his country in a state of high prosper- ity, and leaving it at his death almost as rich as Holland itself.

The incapacity of Philip the Fair doubtless contributed to cause him the loss of this portion of his dominions. This prince, after his first acts of moderation and good sense, was remarkable only as being the father of Charles V. The remainder of his life was worn out in undignified pleas- ures; and he died almost suddenly, in the year 1506, at Burgos in Castile, whither he had repaired to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, the king of Spain.

CHAPTER VI

PKOM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.

A.D. 1506—1555

PHILIP being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret stadthold- eress of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria, already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract of marriage before its consumma- tion; her second, the Infante of Spain, died immediately after their union ; and her third, the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved by the couplet she com- posed for her own epitaph, at the very moment of a danger- ous accident which happened during her journey into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.

"Ci-git Margot la gente demoiselle, Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."

"Here gentle Margot quietly is laid, "Who liad two husbands, and yet died a maid."

She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority against the threats of France ; and

(82) ^—

TO THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 83

she carried on in person all the negotiations between Louia XII., Maximihan, the pope Julius II,, and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice. These negotia- tions took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret, if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her letters, was more than once on the point of having serious differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII. But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up some places in Holland which he illegally held.

From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised the commerce and manufactures of the south- ern provinces of the Netherlands to a high degree of pros- perity, while the northern parts of the country were still kept down by their various dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and finally recog- nized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become common to the whole nation.

A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret, and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and Belgian army, in which Maximil- ian figured as a spectator (taking care to bo paid by Eng- land), marched for the destruction of Therouonne, and de- feated and dispersed the French at the battle of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a se])arato i)oacc; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made ^Margaret and the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the coun- try to recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town ; while the duke of Saxony at length renounced to an-

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other his unjust claim on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.

About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased the presumed right of Sax- ony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal power — a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected by the doc- trines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in Ger- many. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole dio- cese, and the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular. It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reforma- tion. While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actuall}- pro- nouncing himself a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.

We may here remark that, during the government of the House of Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight obstacle in the oppo- sition of a slavish and ignorant clergy, and its progress was

TO THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 85

all at once prodigious. The refusal of the dignity of em- peror by Frederick "the "Wise," duke of Saxony, to whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands, both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism, At length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.

From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign of so many states, having to estabUsh his authority at the two extremities of Europe, could not effi- ciently occupy himself in resisting the doctrines which, de- spite their dishonoring epithet of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great part of the Continent. "While Charles vigorously put down the revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safe- guard of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly ventur- ing to appear and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee of the emperor; unlike tlie celebrated and unfortunate John Huss, who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of Sigismund, in the year 1415.

Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the Low Countries, Avhere his authority was undis- puted, he proscribed the heretics, and even viohited the privileges of the country by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their pursuit ;ind punishment. This

86 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

imprudent stretch of power fostered a rising spirit of oppo- sition ; for, though entertaining the best disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a mighty revolu- tion gradually began to be developed.

Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power, and they now became implacable personal ene- mies. Young, ambitious, and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impres- sion on Henry VIII. ; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. "War was declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during the war; for the French cruisers having, on re- peated occasions, taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which desolated these provinces in 1524.

While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flour- ish, in spite of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died, his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism; and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the city

TO THE ABDICATION OF CIIAELES V. 87

of Utrecht, redoubled his hostihty at this intelHgence ; and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray, between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August, 1529.

This peace once concluded, the industry and persever- ance of the inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little, however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite the people against each other on the score of religious dissension. The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many prose- lytes in the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Ley- den, one of the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem; and making himself master of the to^vn of Munster, sent out his disciples to preach in the neighbor- ing countries. Mary, sister of Charles V., and queen-dowa- ger of Hungary, the stadtholderess of the Netherlands, pro- posed a crusade against this fanatic ; which was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged by im- punity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution, they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon held out at Mun- ster, which was besieged by the bishop and the neighlK)ring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married no less

88 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

than seventeen "women, had gained considerable influence over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and imprisoned in an iron cage — an event which undeceived the greater number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.

The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rap- idly and uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to Bruges as the gen- eral mart of commerce, and was the most opulent town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city volun- tarily incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold. Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen out of twenty- one parts of the general contribution ; and all the rest com- bined but eight, A search for further or minuter proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the coun- try would be superfluous.

The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles of Gruelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in Spain, and leaving to his sis- ter the regulation of those distant provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of inflicting a terrible

TO THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 89

example upon them. The people of Ghent, suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the mo- ment when Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take into his own hands the settlement of this affair — trusting to the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Glient, taken by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor, when he appeared before the walls ; and the city was punished with extreme severit3^ Twenty-seven leadei*s of the sedition were beheaded; the principal privileges of the citj' were with- drawn, and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so prospered under his sway, and was so flat- tered by the gTeatness of the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished, that his acts of despotic harsh- ness were borne without a murmur. But in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently; and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest in the different divisions of the nation.

Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all his other subjects on the occasion of two expedi- tions which Charles undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did not lead liim to do any- thing in return as peculiarly favorable to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Gueldcrs on the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter, which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars

90 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

of the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look for a futurity of union and peace ; and thus the latter years of Charles promised better for his country than his early ones, though he obtained less success in his new wars with France, which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either side.

Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings between his only son PhiHp and Mary of England, whom he had induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis L, and the successful dissimulation of Maui-ice, elector of Saxony, by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated. Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the 25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense assemblage of nobility from various coun- tries. Charles resigned the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans ; and all the rest of his domin- ions to his son. Soon after the ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain. He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February, 1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the fifty- ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence, contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.

The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now

TO TPIE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 91

for the first time united under one sovereign, such a junc- tion marks the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose in these countries during a period of one thousand j^ears. The extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the state of Em-ope from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch at which we arc now arrived must be referred to, to judge of the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles V. The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other considerations, the cause of the groAvth of libert}^ in the Netherlands. The Reformation opened the minds of men to that intellectual freedom \vithout which political enfran- chisement is a worthless privilege. The invention of print- ing opened a thousand channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made subservient to those great principles of policy' in which society began to perceive its only chance of durable good. Manufactures attained a state of high perfection, and went on progressively with the growth of wealth and luxury. The opulence of the towns of Brabant and Flanders was without uny previous example in the state of Europe. A merchant of Brugt^ took upon himself alone the secui-itj' for the ransom of John the Fearless, taken at the battle of Nicopolis, amounting to two hundred thousand ducats. A provost of Valenciennes repaired to Paris at one of the great fairs i)eriodicaliy hold there, and purchased on his own account every article that was for sale. At a repast given by one of the counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates the seats they occupied were unfurnished with cushions. Those proud burghers

92 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

folded their sumptuous cloaks and sat on them. After the feast they were retiring without retaining these important and costly articles of dress; and on a courtier reminding them of their apparent neglect, the burgomaster of Bruges replied, "We Flemings are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner!" The meetings of the different towns for the sports of archery were signalized by the most splendid display of dress and decoration. The archers were habited in silk, damask, and the finest linen, and carried chains of gold of great weight and value. Lux- ury was at its height among women. The queen of Philip the Fair of France, on a visit to Bruges, exclaimed, with as- tonishment not unmixed with envy, "I thought myself the only queen here; but I see six hundred others who appear more so than I."

The court of Philip the Good seemed to carry magnifi- cence and splendor to their greatest possible height. The dresses of both men and women at this chivalric epoch were of almost incredible expense. Velvet, satin, gold, and pre- cious stones seemed the ordinary materials for the dress of either sex; while the very housings of the horses sparkled with brilliants and cost immense sums. This absurd ex- travagance was carried so far that Charles V. found him- self forced at length to proclaim sumptuary laws for its re- pression.

The style of the banquets given on grand occasions was regulated on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Ban- quet of Vows given at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness (Ohvier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but unluckily too long to find a place in our pages.

Such excessive luxury naturallj^ led to great corruption of manners and the commission of terrible crimes. During the reign of Philip de Male, there were committed in the

TO THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 93

city of Ghent and its outskirts, in less than a year, above fourteen hundred murders in gambling-houses and other resorts of debauchery. As early as the tenth century, the petty sovereigns established on the ruins of the empire of Charlemagne began the independent coining of money; and the various provinces were during the rest of this epoch inundated with a most embarrassing variety of gold, silver, and copper. Even in ages of comparative darkness, litera- ture made feeble efforts to burst through the entangled weeds of superstition, ignorance, and war. In the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, history was greatly culti- vated; and Froissart, Monstrelet, Olivier de la Marche, and Philip de Comines, gave to their chronicles and memoirs a charm of style since their days almost unrivalled. Poetry began to be followed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish, and French languages; and even before the institution of the Floral Games in France, Belgium pos- sessed its chambers of rhetoric (rederykkamers) which la- bored to keep alive the sacred flame of poetry "with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing sev- eral at once.

The arts in their several branches made considerable progress in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architect- ure was greatly cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age. Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution, make them still speaking monu- ments of the stern magnificence and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree. The first mu- sicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other i)ro- fessors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.

Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth cent-

94 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

ury, sprung at once into a new existence frc n the invention of John Van Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe, and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius which has becpieathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting on glass, polish- ing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry, were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle for the pro- ductions of all the nations of the earth. Its port was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and served greatly to the spread of knowledge, al- though it degenerated into the hotbed of those fierce dis- putes which stamped on theology the degradation of bigotry, and drew down odium on a study that, if purely practiced, ought only to inspire veneration.

Charles Y. was the first to establish a solid plan of gov- ernment, instead of the constant fluctuations in the manage- ment of justice, police, and finance. He caused the edicts of the various sovereigns, and the municipal usages, to be embodied into a S3'stem of laws ; and thus gave stability and method to the enjoyment of the prosperity in which he left his dominions.

CHAPTER VII

PROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION

IN THE NETHERLANDS

A.D. 1555-15G6

IT has been shown that the Netherlands were never in a more flourishing state than at the accession of Philip II. The external relations of the country presented an aspect of prosperity and peace. England was closely allied to it by Queen Mary's marriage with Philip; France, fa- tigued with war, had just concluded with it a five years* truce; Germany, paralyzed by religious dissensions, ex- hausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and noth- ing appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was something dangerous and alarming in the situa- tion of the Low Countries ; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded till the mischief was beyond remedy.

From the time that Charles V. was called to reign over Spain, he may be said to have been virtually lost to the country of his birth. He was no longer a more duke of Brabant or Limberg, a count of Flanders or Holland; he was also king of Castile, Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, of Naples, and of Sicily. These various kingdoms had inter- ests evidently opposed to those of the Low Countries, and forms of government far different. It was scarcely to be doubted that the absolute monarch of so many po()]ilos would look with a jealous eye on the institutions of those provinces which placed limits to his power; and the natural conse-

(05) _

96 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

quence was that he who was a legitimate king in the south soon degenerated into a usurping master in the north.

But during the reign of Charles the danger was in some measure lessened, or at leg,st concealed from public view, by the apparent facilit}^ with which he submitted to and ol)- served the laws and customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far different, and the results too obvi- ous. Uninformed on the Belgian character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the language, no sj'mpa- thy attached him to the people. He brought with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner, without one of the kindly or considerate feelings of a compatriot.

Spain, where this young prince had hitherto passed his life, was in some degree excluded from European civiliza- tion. A contest of seven centuries between the Mohammedan tribes and the descendants of the Visigoths, cruel, like all civil wars, and, like all those of religion, not merely a con- test of rulers, but essentially of the people, had given to the manners and feelings of this imhappy country a deep stamp of barbarity. The ferocity of military chieftains had become the basis of the government and laws. The Christian kings had adopted the perfidious and bloody system of the despotic sultans they replaced. Magnificence and tyranny, power and cruelty, wisdom and dissimulation, respect and fear, were inseparably associated in the minds of a people so gov- erned. They comprehended nothing in religion but a God armed with omnipotence and vengeance, or in politics but a king as terrible as the deity he represented.

Philip, bred in this school of slavish superstition, taught , that he was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to appear superior to those be- yond whom his station had placed him, he was insensible to the affections which soften and ennoble human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea — that of his greatness; he had but one ambition — that of command ; but one enjoy-

TO ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION 97

ment — that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting self- ishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing, which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty; and the fanatic bigotry which in- spired him formed the strongest contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.

Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration and unusual self-command ; the first revealing to him the views of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself. Although ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cimning. He wanted courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.

Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. His father had already sapped its foumla- tions, by encouraging foreign manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad. His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the nation to religious discords and hatred. Philip soon enlarged on what Charles had commenced, and he unmercifully sacri- ficed the well-being of a people to the worst objects of his selfish ambition.

Philip had onl}' once visited tlie Netherlands before his a-- cession to sovereign power. Being at that time twenty-iwo years of age, his opinions were formed and iiis iircjudifos deeply rooted. Everything that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both. The frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression of popular

1 ! OLLAND (4)

98 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

rights sounded like the voice of rebelhon. Even the mag- nificence displayed in his honor offended his jealous vanity. From that moment he seems to have conceived an implaca- ble aversion to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism.

The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his subjects. His haughty severity and vexatious eti- quette revolted their pride as well as their plain dealing; and the moral qualities of their new sovereign were consid- ered with loathing. The commercial and political connection between the Netherlands and Spain had given the two peo- ple ample opportunities for mutual acquaintance. The dark, vindictive dispositions of the latter inspired a deep antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to em- body all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent consideration for a few points of political in- terest and individual privilege, and particularly by the revo- cation of some of the edicts against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct had excited ; and his intended victims did not perceive that the despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them an easier prey.

Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to re- duce such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid by instalments during a period of nine j'ears. That was gaining a great step toward his designs, as it su- perseded the necessity of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to Rome, to obtain the approba- tion of the pope to his insidious but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards and Ger- mans which his father had formed on the frontiers of

TO ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION 99

France; and although he did not remove from their em- ployments the functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.

In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of France, and by Pope Paul lY. A prince less obstinate than Philip would in such circumstances have re- nounced, or at least postponed, his designs against the lib- erties of so important a part of his dominions, as those to which he was obliged to have recourse for aid in support of this double war. But he seemed to make ever}^ foreign con- sideration subservient to the object of domestic aggression which he had so much at heart.

He, however, promptly met the threatened dangers from abroad. He turned his first attention toward his contest with the pope; and he extricated himself from it with an adroitness that proved the whole force and cunning of his character. Having first publicly obtained the opinion of several doctors of theology, that he was justified in taking arms against the pontiff (a point on which there was really no doubt), he prosecuted the wai* with the utmost vigor, by the means of the afterward notorious duke of Alva, at that time viceroy of his Italian dominions. Paul soon yielded to superior skill and force, and demanded terms of peace, which were granted with a readiness and seeming lil)c'rality that astonished no one more than the defeated pontiff. But Philip's moderation to his enemy was far outdone by his perfidy to his allies. He confirmed Alva's consent to the confiscation of the domains of the noble Romans who had espoused his cause ; and thus gained a stanch and powerful supporter to all his future projects in the religious auth(.)rity of the successor of St. Peter.

His conduct in the conclusion of the war Avith Franco was not less base. His army, under the command of Phili- bert Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, consisting of Belgians, CJor- mans, and Spaniards, with a considerable body of English,

100 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

sent by Marj^ to the assistance of her husband, penetrated into Picardy, and gained a complete victory over the French forces. The honor of this briUiant affair, which took place near St. Quintin, was almost wholly due to the count d'Egmont, a Belgian noble, who commanded the light cav- alry; but the king, unwilling to let any one man enjoy the glory of the day, piously pretended that he owed the entire obligation to St. Lawrence, on whose festival the battle was fought. His gratitude or hypocrisy found a fitting monu- ment in the celebrated convent and palace of the Escurial, which he absurdly caused to be built in the form of a grid- iron, the instrument of the saint's martyrdom. When the news of the victory reached Charles V. in his retreat, the old warrior inquired if Philip was in Paris? but the cau- tious victor had no notion of such prompt manceuvring; nor would he risk against foreign enemies the exhaustion of forces destined for the enslavement of his people.

The French in some measure retrieved their late dis- grace by the capture of Calais, the only town remaining to England of all its French conquests, and which, conse- quently, had deeply interested the national glory of each people. In the early part of the year 1558, one of the gen- erals of Henry II. made an irruption into western Flan- ders; but the gallant count of Egmont once more proved his valor and skill by attacking and totally defeating the invaders near the town of Gravelines.

A general peace was concluded in AjDril, 1550, which bore the name of Cateau-Cambresis, from that of the place where it was negotiated. Philip secured for himself vari- ous advantages in the treaty; but he sacrificed the inter- ests of England, by consenting to the retention of Calais by the French king — a cession deeply humiliating to the national pride of his allies ; and, if general opinion be cor- rect, a proximate cause of his consort's death. The alli- ance of France and the support of Rome, the important results of the two wars now brought to a close, were coun- torbalanced by the well-known hostility of Elizabeth, who

TO ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION 101

had succeeded to the throne of England; and this latter consideration was an additional motive with Philip to push forward the design of consolidating his despotism in the Low Countries.

To lead his already deceived subjects the more surely into the snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to Spain ; and created for the period of his ab- sence a provisional government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian nobility. He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to this provisional government the right of lev3'ing taxes during the tempo- rary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the revival of the edicts against heresy, which be had gained the merit of suspending. These, with many minor details of profound duplicity, formed the principal features of a plan, which, if s'uccessful, would have reduced the Nether- lands to the wretched state of colonial dependence by which Naples and Sicily were held in the tenure of Spain.

As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of government in the hands of the new administra- tion for the period of the king's absence, the ro3'al hypocrite believed his scheme secure, and flattered himself he had es- tablished an instrument of durable despotism. The compo- sition of this new government was a masterpiece of ]H)litical machinery. It consisted of several councils, in which the most distinguished citizens were entitled to a place, in suffi- cient numbers to deceive the people -vA-ith a show of repre- sentation, but not enough to command a majorit}', which was sure on any important question to rest with the titled creatures of the court. The edicts against lieresy, soon adopted, gave to the clergy an almost unlimite'il power over the lives and fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the church being men of great respect- ability and moderation, chosen by the body of the inf-rior clergy, these extraordinary powers excited httle alarm.

102 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

Philip's project was suddeul}^ to replace these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice, as soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority of the court of Rome,

In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. The whole of this force, so redoubtable to the fears of despotism, consisted of only three thousand cavalry. It was now divided into fourteen companies (or squadrons in the modern phraseology), under the command of as many independent chiefs, so as to leave little chance of any principle of union reigning among them. But the German and Spanish troops in Philip's pay were cantoned on the frontiers, ready to stifle any incipient effort in oppo- sition to his plans. In addition to these imposing means for their execution, he had secured a still more secret and .more powerful support: a secret article in the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis obhged the king of France to assist him with the whole armies of France against his Belgian sub- jects, should they prove refractory. Thus the late war, of which the Netherlands had borne all the weight, and earned all the glory, onh' brought about the junction of the de- feated enemy with their own king for the extinction of their .national independence.

To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of Jul}", 1559. This meeting of the repre- sentatives of the three orders of the state offered no appar- -ent obstacle to Philip's ^dews. The clergy, alarmed at the progress of the new doctrines, gathered more closely round the government of which they required the support. The nobles had lost much of their ancient attachment to liberty; and had become, in various ways, dependent on the royal favor. Many of the first families were then represented by men possessed rather of courage and candor than of fore- sight and sagacity. That of Nassau, the most distinguished

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of all, seemed the least interested in the national cause. A great part of its possessions were in Germany and France, where it had recently acquired the sovereign principality of Orange. It was only from the third order — that of the commons — that Philip had to expect any opposition. Al- ready, during the war, it had shown some discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies. But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would be found capable of penetrating the manifold com- binations of the king, and disconcerting his designs.

Anthony Perreiiotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, who was considered as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reahty no more than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration was one of cautious de- ception, and contained the most flattering assurances of Philip's attachment to the people of the Netherlands. It excused the king for not having nominated his only son, Don Carlos, to reign over them in his name; alleging, as a proof of his royal affection, that he preferred giving them as stadtholderess a Belgian princess, Madame Marguerite, duchess of Parma, the natural daughter of Charles V. by a young lady, a native of Audenarde. Fair promises and fine words were thus lavished in profusion to gain the con- fidence of the deputies.

But notwithstanding all the talent, the cautitni, and the mystery of Philip and his minister, there was among the nobles one man who saw through all. This individual, en- dowed with many of the higiiest attril)utes of iH)litical genius, and pre-eminently with judgment, the most im- portant of all, entered fearlesslj^ into the contest against tyranny — despising every personal sacrifice for the coun- try's good. Without making himself suspiciously promi- nent, he privately warned some members of the stutos of the coming danger. Those in whom he confided did not betray the trust. They spread among the other deputies

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the alarm, and pointed out the danger to which they had been so judiciously awakened. The consequence was a re- ply to Philip's demand, in vague and general terms, with- out binding the nation by _ any pledge ; and a unanimous entreaty that he would diminish the taxes, withdraw the foreign troops, and intrust no official employments to any but natives of the country. The object of this last request was the removal of Granvelle, who was born in Franche- Comte.

Philip was utterly astounded at all this. In the first moment of his vexation he imprudently cried out, "Would ye, then, also bereave me of my place; I, who am a Span- iard?" But he soon recovered his self-command, and re- sumed his usual mask; expressed his regret at not having sooner learned the wishes of the states; promised to remove the foreign troops within three months; and set off for Zea- land, with assumed composure, but filled with the fury of a discovered traitor and a humiliated despot.

A fleet under the command of Count Horn, the admiral of the United Provinces, waited at Flessingue to form his escort to Spain. At the very moment of his departure, William of Nassau, prince of Orange and governor of Zea- land, waited on him to pay his official respects. The king, taking him apart from the other attendant nobles, recom- mended him to hasten the execution of several gentlemen and wealthy citizens attached to the newly introduced re- ligious opinions. Then, quite suddenly, whether in the random impulse of suppressed rage, or that his piercing glance discovered William's secret feelings in his counte- nance, he accused him with having been the means of thwarting his designs. "Sire," replied Nassau, "it was the work of the national states." — "No!" cried Philip, grasping him furiously by the arm; "it was not done by the states, but by you, and you alone!" — Schiller. The words of Philip were: "A'o, no los est ados; ma vos, vos, vosT' Vos thus used in Spanish is a term of contempt, equivalent to toi in French.

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This glorious accusation was not repelled. He who had saved his country in unmasking the designs of its tyrant admitted by his silence his title to the hatred of the one and the gratitude of the other. On the 20th of August, Philip embarked and set sail; turning his back forever on the country which offered the first check to his despotism; and, after a perilous voyage, he arrived in that which per- mitted a free indulgence to his ferocious and sanguinary career.

For some time after Philip's departure, the Netherlands continued to enjoy considerable prosperity. From the period of the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, commerce and naviga- tion had acquired new and increasing activity. The fish- eries, but particularly that of herrings, became daily more important; that one alone occupying two thousand boats. "While Holland, Zealand and Friesland made this progress in their peculiar branches of industry, the southern prov- inces were not less active or successful. Spain and the colonies offered such a mart for the objects of their manu- facture that in a single year they received from Flanders fifty large ships filled with articles of household furniture and utensils. The exportation of woollen goods amounted to enormous sums. Bruges alone sold annualh' to the amount of four million florins of stuffs of Spanish, and as much of English, wool; and the least value of the florin then was quadruple its present worth. The commerce ^vith England, though less important than that with Spain, was calculated yearly at twenty-four million florins, which was chiefly clear profit to the Netherlands, as their exportations consisted almost entirely of objects of their own manufact- ure. Their commercial relations with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and the Levant, were daily increjising. Antwerp was the centre of this prodigious trade. Several sovereigns, among others Elizabeth of England, had recog- nized agents in that city, equivalent to consuls of the pres- ent times; and loans of immense amount were froijuently negotiated by them with wealthy merchants, who furnished

106 HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS

them, not in negotiable bills or for unredeemable debentures, but in solid gold, and on a simple acknowledgment.

Flanders and Brabant were still the richest and most flourishing portions of the state. Some municipal fetes given about this time afford a notion of their opulence. On one of these occasions the town of Mechlin sent a deputation to Antwerp, consisting of three hundred and twenty-six horsemen dressed in velvet and satin with gold and silver ornaments; while those of Brussels con- sisted of three hundred and forty, as splendidly equipped, and accompanied by seven huge triumphal chariots and seventy-eight carriages of various constructions — a pro- digious number for those days.

But the splendor and prosperity which thus sprung out of the national industry and independence, and which a wise or a generous sovereign would have promoted, or at least have established on a permanent basis, was destined speedily to sink beneath the bigoted fury of Philip II. The new government which he had established was most ingeniously adapted to produce every imaginable evil to the state. The king, hundreds of leagues distant, could not himself issue an order but with a lapse of time ruinous to any object of pressing importance. The stadtholderess, who repre- sented him, having but a nominal authority, was forced to follow her intetructions, and liable to have all her acts reversed; besides which, she had the king's orders to con- sult her private council on all affairs whatever, and the council of state on any matter of paramount importance. These two councils, however, contained the elements of a serious opposition to the royal projects, in the persons of the patriot nobles sprinkled among Philip's devoted creatures. Thus the influence of the crown was often thwarted, if not actually balanced ; and the proposals which emanated from it frequently opposed by the stadtholderess herself. She, although a woman of masculine appearance and habits,* was

> Strada.

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possessed of no strength of mind. Her prevailing sentiment seemed to be dread of the king; yet she was at times influ- enced by a sense of justice, and by the remonstrances of the well- judging members of her councils. But these were not all the difficulties that clogged the machinery of the state. After the king, the government, and the councils, had de- liberated on any measure, its execution rested with the pro- vincial governors or stadtholders, or the magistrates of the towns. Almost every one of these, being strongly attached to the laws and customs of the nation, hesitated, or refused to obey the orders conveyed to them, when those orders appeared illegal. Some, however, yielded to the authority of the government ; so it often happened that an edict, which in one district was carried into full effect, was in others deferred, rejected, or violated, in a way productive of great confusion in the pubho affairs.

Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence of the restive mem- bers, he had left Granvelle the first place in the administra- tion. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician, bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real head of the government.' Next to him among the royahst part)' was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite school- man, attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter of the laws, and thus carrying jiedantry into the very councils of the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of the financial department — a stem and intolerant satellite of the court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which operate<l as checks upon

' Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and tlicrefore a fair wiliioss on this point, uses tlie following words in portraying (he character of this odious niiiiistor: Animum avidum invidumque, ac simultates inter prinripem ei jiopulos occulH fovenium.

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fraud. These three individuals formed the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of the king were mere subaltern agents.

A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired, and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the coimtry, Kving in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess. Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards were removed to Zealand ; but instead of being embarked at any of its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money, ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple natives