Hi WfQfM ■Si 3nE Pi ns *«* » <#*< ■ ) ■*■! >> wii^ m n n» 33 k ■^^t^r.iq&iSSSSf i i n i i i i i i i 1 " y— > "** i i "• t i t— (XT -^ i ■« I » p, r tm .... i ? i i r nr | * IJlllVfC >— il- ^ r i ea *• i i -J I "* i . r 3. ? ror $ 5 UJ M n 2- i f "" i ( *5 1 1 *5 i <3> i 2. C ;*' [ mi 9 3 THE IJBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES DJ 111 •R72 1886 c. 2 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00045110100 This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. due E RET DATE DUE KtI Vo. 513 — — =- IMLOtft Cfoe ©totg of tfje Jl3attons. HOLLAND THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 14. 15- 16. x 7- 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 2 3- 24. 25- 26. 27. 28. ROME. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. THE JEWS. By Prof. J. K. HOSMER. GERMANY. By Rev. S. Baring- Gould, M.A. CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church. ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffy. THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole. ANCIENT EGYPT. By Prof. George Rawlinson. HUNGARY. By Prof. Arminius Vambery. THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. IRELAND. By the Hon. Emily Lawless. By Zenaide A. By Henry Brad- By Zenaide A. By Stanley Lane- E. By Ben- Geo. CHALDEA. Ragozin. THE GOTHS LEY. ASSYRIA. Ragozin. TURKEY Poole. HOLLAND. By Prof. J Thoroi.d Rogers. MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Gustave Masson. PERSIA. By S. G. W JAMIN. PHCENICIA. By Prof. Rawlinson. MEDIA. By Zenaide A. Ra- gozin. THE HANSA TOWNS. By Helen Zimmern. EARLY BRITAIN. By Prof. Alfred J. Church. THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. By Stanley Lane-Poole. RUSSIA. By W. Morfill, M.A. THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMANS. By W. D. Morri- son. SCOTLAND. By John Mackin- tosh, LL.D. SWITZERLAND. By Mrs. Lina Hug and R. Stead. MEXICO. By Susan Hale. PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens. 29, 3 2 ' 33- 34- 35- 36. 37- 38. 39- 40. 41. 42. 43- 44. 45- 46. 47- 48. 49. 5o. 5 T < 52. 53- 54- 55- 5°- THE NORMANS. By Sarah Orne Jewett. THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By C. 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Edwards, London: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.G. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/hollandroge STAIRCASE WHERE GERA k W$»&| VI. CHARLES, COUNT OF FLANDERS AND EMPEROR. CHARLES succeeded his father Philip as Count of Flanders in 1506. His father, Philip the Handsome, was at Burgos in Castile, where he was attacked by fever, and died when only twenty-eight years of age. Ten years afterwards Charles became King of Spain (15 16). When he was nineteen years of age (1519) he was elected emperor. The three nations over whom he was destined to rule hated each other cordially. There was antipathy from the beginning between Flemings and Spaniards. The Netherlands nobles were detested in Spain, the Spaniards in the Low Countries were equally abhorred. Again the Spaniards entreated Charles not to accept his election to the German throne. Charles had employed his Flemish nobles in Spain, and they had disgusted the Spaniards by their ambition and rapacity. The Spaniards feared that they would become a mere outlying province of the German Empire, and be plundered by German adventurers. Charles was born in Flanders, and during his whole 4& CHARLES, COUNT OF FLANDERS AND EMPEROR. career was much more a Fleming than a Spaniard. This did not, however, prevent him from considering his Flemish subjects as mainly destined to supply his wants, and submit to his exactions. He was always hard pressed for money. The Germans were poor and turbulent. The conquest and subjection of the Moorish population in Spain had seriously injured the industrial wealth of that country. But the Flem- ings were increasing in riches, particularly the inhabi- tants of Ghent. They had to supply the funds which Charles required in order to carry out the operations which his necessities or his policy rendered urgent. He had been taught, and he readily believed, that his subjects' money was his own. Now just as Charles had come to the empire, two circumstances had occurred which have had a lasting influence over the affairs of Western Europe. The first of these was the conquest of Egypt by the Turks under Selim I. (1512-20). The second was the revolt from the authority of the Papacy in Germany. Egypt had for nearly two centuries been the only route by which Eastern produce, so much valued by European nations, could reach the consumer. The road through Russia had been blocked by the con- quest of Russia by the Tartars. The roads through Central Asia had been similarly obstructed by the savages who had overrun and destroyed the ancient civilization of that region. There remained only the sea passage from India to the Red Sea, a short caravan journey from the western shore of that sea to the Nile, and the transit thence to the Mediter- ranean. But the trade, of which the Nile was the DESTRUCTION OF THE EGYPTIAN TRADE. 49 carrier, was not the only important fact in the trade of Egypt. There were flourishing manufactures in Alexandria and Cairo. In particular, sugar was cultivated, extracted, and refined in the former town, with such success and abundance that its price fell, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, to less than an eighth of what it stood at in the beginning of the fifteenth. Now this trade, trifling to be sure to our present experience, was of the highest importance to the trading towns of Italy, the Rhine, and the Nether- lands. It was the source of nearly all their wealth to Venice, Genoa, and Florence, to Nuremberg, Coblentz, Cologne, and Bruges, and a hundred other towns. The decay of the Italian cities immediately commenced, and that of the German towns followed. The presence of the Turk in Egypt immediately caused the ruin of all its manufactures and trade. The risk of their invasion was the principal stimulant of the voyages which were undertaken by Columbus and Vasco di Gama. The destruction of the Egyptian trade produced serious effects in Southern Germany. The German nobles, infinite in number, for titles descended to all the offspring of ennobled persons, had improved their incomes by entering into the guilds and sharing the profits of the burghers. When the profits fell off, because the trade dried up, they strove to compensate themselves by taxing their peasants. This led to the peasants' war, its frightful excesses, and its relentless suppression. The German peasant was thereafter as much oppressed as the French roturier was. 5 50 CHARLES, COUNT OF FLANDERS AND EMPEROR. So the Flemish towns which had engaged in the Eastern trade suffered. But the Netherlands had two industries which saved them from the losses which affected the Germans and Italians. They were still the weavers of the world. They still had the most successful fisheries. The policy which led Henry the Seventh of England to grant the commercial treaty, known as the Great Intercourse, to the Flemish towns was maintained by his successor. It was at first undertaken in order to rid England of the per- petual plots which were hatched in Flanders by the Yorkist exiles ; it was continued, because it redounded to the manifest benefit of both the nations. The other cause was the revolt against the papacy. In the fifteenth century the power of the papacy was greatly weakened, and the sove- reigns of Europe, who, a few generations before, had trembled at the Pope's threats, now undertook to set his house in order by means of general councils. But, as soon as they had established external decency and unity in the Church, they saw that the Pope might become the invaluable ally of despotism. They wished to strengthen their own authority over nobles and people, and they obtained in this effort the assistance LOBSTER NET. POWER OF THE POPE IN EUROPE. 5 1 of Rome. But they had no mind to dissent from the doctrine of the Church, or to allow their subjects to do so either. They formulated the doctrine that the subject should be of the religion of his ruler, and they acted on the theory for generations. This was the principal reason why the European sovereigns insisted on conformity, and visited those whom they were pleased to call heretics with severer punishments than they inflicted on traitors. It cannot be by accident that the most successfully industrious parts of Europe have been, with but one notable exception, hostile to the established religion. The heresies of Toulouse, the most prosperous part of Europe in the twelfth century, were the first occasion of the Inquisition, and were rooted out with fire and sword. In England the Norfolk weavers were the principal disciples of Wiklif, and more men and women perished in that county by the stake, than in all the others put together. Before the days of Luther and Calvin the Flemish spinners and weavers were con- stantly at war with the Church, and were constantly exposed to its wrath. The exception is Italy. But Italy, though it constantly quarrelled with the Pope, was notably enriched by his presence and by the contributions which the faithful poured into his treasury. When the Reformation was an accomplished fact, it took two forms — that of Luther in Germany ; that of Calvin in the Netherlands and France. These sects agreed in hostility to Rome, but differed in nearly everything else, till at last Lutheran and Calvinist came to be as bitter foes to each other as 52 CHARLES, COUNT OF FLANDERS AND EMPEROR. Rome was to both. The cause of this is not far to seek. Luther threw off the yoke of Rome, but practically transferred the authority of the spiritual to the temporal prince. All that the Pope lost the Prince gained. The interests of rulers and the doctrine of the divine right of kings were served by the acceptance of Lutheranism. The subject's allegiance was not divided between Pope and King, but trans- ferred as a whole to the latter. When Henry the Eighth made himself supreme head of the Church, he carried out to a logical conclusion Luther's doctrine in State and Church. Hence, though there was no compromise between Rome and Luther possible, it was very possible for temporal sovereigns to accept Lutheranism, and to profit thereby. Lutheranism became the State religion of Northern Germany, of Scandinavia, and of Denmark. It powerfully affected England, though it was not accepted there in its entirety. But the teaching and discipline of Calvin was essen- tially democratic, even republican. The minister of religion was a preacher, but much more a tribune of the people. The Calvinist hated the Pope, but he was no friend to king or noble. Hence, from the very first, there was war between King and Calvinist. " No bishop no king," said James the First of Eng- land, himself bred under a Calvinist discipline. The French Calvinists, often noble, were suspected, and with reason, of designs against the monarchy. The burghers of the Netherlands and the peasants of Scotland were persecuted, not only because they CALVINISTS DISAVOW "DIVINE RIGHTS.' 1 53 disavowed the divine right of priests, but because they were believed to discredit the divine right of kings. The Calvinist enemy of the Church was held to be the Calvinist advocate of a democratic republic. This was proved in Holland, in England, and finally in the United States. Philip the Second saw, and avowed that he saw it, that the success of the Calvinist preachers would not only be the destruction of the Church which he clung to, but of his own power, which he still more passionately loved. With similar objects, his great-grandfather, Maximilian, wished to unite the Papacy and the Empire in the same person, that person being himself. If Erasmus of Rotterdam had possessed the courage of Luther, or the opinions and constructive genius of Calvin, the Reformation would have begun in Holland. But the learned man was too timid. He fled from the storm into Switzerland, and died there. Charles was not slow to persecute the Reformers in the Netherlands, though he had to temporise with them in Germany. But the former country was his patrimony ; in the latter he was only an elective sovereign, with rights limited by the powers of the independent princes of the empire, and he therefore could not do as he pleased. Under the rule of his sister, the Dowager of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, the persecution of the sectaries was organized in that country. There was no part of the world in which so many persons were put to death for their religion as in the Netherlands. When he was fifteen years of age, Charles limited the franchises of Ghent by the document known as ERASMUS. INSURRECTION AND CHASTISEMENT OF GHENT. 55 the Calfskin. The Great Privilege of Mary of Bur- gundy had been already abrogated by Maximilian. Now Charles, being in straits in 1539, demanded a subsidy of 1,200,000 florins from the Netherlands, 400,000 of which was to be subscribed by the citizens of Ghent. The burghers claimed that the grant could be made only by the unanimous consent of the Estates. The Emperor was carrying on war in France, in Sicily, and in Milan at once, and the Netherlanders were unwilling to contribute to a war in the conduct of which they had no interests whatever. Even the Spaniards resented the Emperor's appeals for money. But the men of Ghent broke out into insurrection. They offered themselves to Francis of France, who betrayed their correspondence to Charles. So Charles resolved on chastising them. They did not resist him on his approach. He entered the city, kept his inten- tions secret for a month, and then solemnly annulled all the charters, privileges, and laws of the city, and confiscated all the property of the guilds and corpora- tions. He exacted the subsidy which he demanded, added 150,000 more to it, and imposed a fine of 6,000 florins a year on the city for ever. Of course, a number of persons were executed. Finally, he sat in judgment on the famous Bell Roland, the tolling of which summoned the burghers to their assemblies, and ordered it to be immediately taken down. Having destroyed the constitution, having fined all the citizens and executed many, he forgave Ghent, because he was born there. —.--j ^b • - V^«.v! jBK*Jgttp"'»Jjr 5yJ**£v3 iHHi rtofSw"%E~!: %Gi|k ^^ ^^SjLgV V* '^j/iRW l?W*>»?S?2 hJsvHKv* imL M4kAW |t : - r g^^&^ |||||i 'j^&jgmrirrs Pll ***MT wW ■MLgfefflK 3y^^~i 3*3 ■j/L/SBjI ijwyv?^ vjc w ^^£^Xi»c I!?!! 7i5" «^»3 wiffe ^fBR^Jn rs^aS^E ^^fv^^ ^sK^I ^^Ml H sJ^I^El r^SBkX, H52S* K^b| iliS iiyEj VII. THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF SPAIN. CHARLES resigned all his crowns on October 25, 1555, he being then between fifty-five and fifty-six years of age. The ceremony, carefully elaborated, took place in the great hall of the palace of Brussels, the capital of the Duchy of Brabant. Charles, Philip, and Mary, the Dowager Queen of Hungary, were present, the last-named having acted as Regent of the Netherlands and the instrument of Charles's government for twenty-six years. The Emperor came into the hall, leaning on the arm of the Prince of Orange, who is known to all time as the ever-famous William the Silent. It was a most brilliant assemblage. The Knights of the Golden Fleece, an order instituted by Philip the Good, were present, and among them, or with them, were those Flemish and Holland nobles who were destined to play so conspicuous a part in the coming struggle. Besides Orange, the father of Dutch freedom, and the principal personage in the long struggle which was soon to begin, were Horn PHILIP II. 58 THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF SPAIN. and Egmont, Berghen, and Montigny, the Bishop of Arras (afterwards Cardinal Granvelle), Brederode, Noircarmes, and Viglius. Most of these men — indeed, most of those who were witnesses to the abdication — were to perish by one violent death or another in the course of a few years. Charles was a broken man. His vigorous consti- tution had yielded to the excesses of his life and the labours of his long career. He was such a victim to gout that he could hardly stand without assistance. The deformity of the lower jaw, which he inherited, and which reappeared in his descendants, and was said to have been originally transmitted to the Haps- burg family from a Polish princess, had almost deprived him of the power of eating and talking. Charles, unlike his father, was never handsome, and advancing years had increased the ugliness of his visage. His career, after all, had been a failure. In his youth he had been the great captain of his age, and had proved his military genius in numerous battles. Up to middle age he might have been called Charles the Fortunate. He had been victorious in Italy and in France. He had almost crushed the Protestants. Then the tide turned. He was humiliated before Metz. He was beaten by Maurice of Saxony and obliged to fly, disguised, from Innspruck, the cradle of the house of Hapsburg. He had been obliged to concede the Peace of Passau, and with it the esta- blishment of the Lutheran creed in the North of Germany. The Pope had turned on him, and the son of Francis I. of France had foiled him. The Grand THE PRINCE OF ORANGE. 59 Turk, the Pope, and the Protestants were leagued against him. It was time that he should leave the work to younger and, as he hoped, stronger hands. He would, it is true, have gained the German crown for his son if he could, but this came to be the portion of Ferdinand, his younger brother, and the two houses of Hapsburg were severed, never to be united. Philip the Second, to which these territories and kingdoms were to be transferred, was a slight, lean man, twenty-eight years old, below the middle height, with weak legs and a narrow chest. He did not possess in the least his father's energy and vigour, his military and political powers. In face like his father, he had the same Austrian deformity in his lower jaw. His father could speak any language in Western Europe witri fluency ; Philip could not speak any other tongue than Spanish. Charles was constantly talking ; Philip was habitually silent. Charles could be boisterous in his mirth ; Philip was sullen and retiring, and was hardly known even to smile. The Prince of Orange was at this time twenty-two years old. The place from which the hero of Dutch independence took his title was situated in the South of France, near Avignon, and the family were origi- nally vassals of the Pope, who was for centuries the Lord of Avignon. But they had migrated to the Netherlands, and had filled high offices under the Burgundian princes. The Prince of Orange was a noble who not only held the highest rank in the Netherlands, but was the head of a most opulent house. He was at the time Commander-in-chief on the French frontier where he was matched against WILLIAM I. CHARLES'S REIGN ONE LONG CRIME. 6l Admiral Coligny and other great generals. It is remarkable that the stadtholders of the house of Orange furnished the republic with a succession of seven eminent generals and statesmen in unbroken order for nearly two centuries, from William the First of Orange to William the Fourth. In the oration which Charles made before his Estates, he dwelt on the labours of his life and the difficulties which his waning health put on him. He could not grapple with the situation, but must leave it to younger and more vigorous hands. He entreated Philip, his successor, to maintain the Catholic religion in all its purity, as well as law and justice. In com- mending the Estates to their new lord, he implored them to show due obedience to their sovereign, dwelt on their obedience and affection in time past, asked their pardon if he had committed any offence or fallen into any error during the time of his rule, and assured them that their welfare should be the object of his prayers during the remainder of his life. It is said that the audience was melted to tears. The reign of Charles had been one long crime against his subjects. He had trampled on their liberties, wasted their resources by inordinate taxa- tion, and -had established the Spanish Inquisition among them. He had an annual revenue of five millions, two of which were extorted from the Nether- lands, and squandered on objects which were of no concern to them. But the cruelties which he practised in the name of religion were incredible in their atro- city and number. Great authorities allege that the Netherlanders who were burned, strangled, beheaded, 62 THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF SPAIN, and buried alive under his orders amounted to a hundred thousand. The Venetian ambassador reckoned that ten years before his abdication Charles had put to death for their religion no less than thirty thousand persons in Holland and Friesland alone. There is no reason to believe that Charles perse- cuted for any other reason than policy. He had no more morality than the rest of European sovereigns, for, with all his activity, his life was a long licentious debauch. His son Philip was, in the current sense of the word, religious, for his deference to the Pope was profound and incessant. But Charles had allowed his armies to sack Rome, to insult and imprison the pontiff. He had, it would seem, a malignant pleasure in thwarting and coercing Clement the Seventh. He needed the services of Lutheran soldiers in Germany, and he permitted his soldiers to attend the ministra- tions of their own preachers, even while they were under his orders, and before Maurice of Saxony com- pelled him to grant toleration. He was recognizing the Reformation in Germany, while he was burning thousands of the Reformers in the Netherlands. The fact is he was fighting with political liberty. He saw that resistance to the divine right of the priest implied resistance to the divine right of the despot. He was shrewd enough to discern that if he winked at religious nonconformity, he would soon be face to face with political nonconformity. Precisely the same fact was recognized by Elizabeth and the Stuarts, by the house of Valois in France, and the house of Bourbon. The massacre of St. Bartholomew the policy of Richelieu, and the dragonnades of Louis PHILIP MEANS TO RESPECT DUTCH LIBERTIES. 63 the Fourteenth, had the same object with the policy of Charles and Philip. The Dutch Republic was the first to be tolerant ; and when the English people controlled the power of their kings at the Revolution, they followed up the deed with the Act of Toleration. But, even in our own day, the stimulant of religious bigotry — mild, indeed, by what it has been in the past — is constantly employed in order to defeat political justice. Even in his Spanish retreat, when Charles was deprived of the power of gratifying any of his vices, except gluttony, he still clamoured that more victims should be sacrificed to what he called his religious, but what were really his political, instincts. In 1548, with the future of his inheritance within sight, Philip had sworn, without any reservation, to maintain all the privileges and liberties of the pro- vinces and cities. He promised more than his father did, and probably by his father's advice, for the emperor knew that in that age vows were binding only on the weak. On July 25, 1554, he married Mary Tudor, of England, who was fortunately child- less and not long-lived. England was freed of her in 1558, and of him a year before, for he deserted his vvife when she was plainly unable to give England a Spanish king. Philip the Second resided for four years in the Netherlands, and then left it never to revisit it. In the interval occurred his quarrel with Paul the Fourth and his war with France, the victory of St. Quentin, and the peace of Cateau Cambresis. These events have little to do with the history of the Netherlands, beyond the fact that, during their occurrence, it was 6 A THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF SPAIN. necessary to keep the Flemings and Hollanders in good humour. It is true that Philip early disregarded his father's advice. Charles had counselled him to govern the Netherlands by Netherlanders, for he knew well that the country had nobles enough who would betray its interests, and play into the king's hands. But Philip governed entirely by Spaniards, and so gave occasion to that bitter hatred of Spain which formed the bond of union between these disjointed commonwealths. Philip, however, re-enacted the edict of 1550, by which the Inquisition was established in the Nether- lands, though the towns were not ready to accept it, and the king was forced to temporise. He tried to get a permanent revenue, but had for the time to be content with a subsidy. But the peace which he made with France and the Pope, left him time to pursue his two designs on the Netherlands, the destruction of their liberties and the uprooting of heresy. Resolved to return to Spain, he made Margaret of Parma, natural daughter of Charles V., his regent. He ap- pointed her council. He prepared to leave the Nether- lands on August 7th. But as all seemed smooth, the Estates unanimously requested of the king that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from the Nether- lands. For a time Philip was furious, for he saw that an army of Spaniards was necessary in order that he might give effect to his favourite project. But he had to temporise, especially as part of his policy was the creation of a number of additional bishoprics in the Netherlands. Then he left the country at Flushing. As he was on the point of sailing there occurred the memorable scene between him and the Prince of SCENE BETWEEN PHILIP AND WILLIAM. 65 Orange, whom he saw then for the last time. He re- proached him with being the author of the opposition. William replied that the action of the Estates was unsolicited and spontaneous. On this Philip seized him violently by the wrist and, shaking it, said in Spanish, " Not the Estates, but you, you, you ! " express- ing himself by the most insulting pronoun he could use in Spanish. Philip reached Spain after a stormy voyage, and immediately regaled himself with an auto da ft. Soon after, for Philip had wooed Elizabeth of England in vain, he married Isabella of France, a marriage destined to cause a long war with that king- dom. VIII. MARGARET OF PARMA. The regent who administered the Netherlands for eight years was the eldest natural child of Charles. She had been married, first to Alexander de Medici, when she was twelve years old. He was assassinated after a year. At twenty she was married to the nephew of another Pope, Paul the Third. Ottavio Farnese was only thirteen years old. By him she be- came the mother of the celebrated Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma. She was a woman of masculine and imperious temper, a mighty huntress, and celebrated in her time for two unfeminine characteristics — a well- defined moustache and the gout. Margaret of Parma's mother was a Flemish woman. She could, however, be entirely trusted in carrying out her brother's designs in establishing the Inquisition, in retaining the foreign garrisons, and in crushing the liberties of the Netherlands. Her counsellors were Berlaymont, who, though a Fleming, was the persistent enemy of his country ; Viglius, who composed the famous persecuting edict of 1 5 50 ; the Bishop of Arras, THE FAMILY OF NASSAU. 67 afterwards the celebrated Cardinal Granvelle, the able and unscrupulous enemy of every Flemish liberty ; Egmont, who had won the battles of St. Quentin and Gravelines, and thereby humiliated France ; and William the Silent, Prince of Orange. The family of Nassau had done the most important services to the house of Burgundy. It had supplied warriors and counsellors to Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, and Philip the Handsome. The influence of Henry of Nassau put the imperial crown on the head of Charles the Fifth. He died in war at the emperor's side, and his titles and estates passed to his nephew William. There was every reason why the descendants of Charles V. should make much of, and trust the house of Nassau. William, who was only eleven years old at the time when he succeeded to his cousin's inheritance, was the eldest of five sons, all of whom did noble work in the great war of indepen- dence. William was educated at Brussels under the eye of an old emperor, and from fifteen years of age was his constant attendant. At twenty-one he was appointed to command the army. He was now one of Margaret's council and Stadtholder, ie., the king's representative in Holland, Zeland, and Utrecht. William negotiated the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, and, with the Duke of Alva, was one of the hostages appointed to guarantee the due execution of the treaty. It was in France, and while he was hunting with Henry II. in the Forest of Vincennes, that the French king incautiously communicated to William the plan which he and Philip had concocted for massacring all the Protestants in France and the Netherlands. 68 MARGARET OF PARMA. His motive was not religion, but a determination to extirpate all whose tenets, as he justly thought, would lead them to resist arbitrary power. To effect this the maintenance of the Spanish troops in the Netherlands was necessary. William received these communica- tions without any appearance of surprise, and there- after gained the name of William the Silent. But his mind was made up. He determined to do all that he could to get rid of the Spanish garrisons, to obstruct the establishment of the Inquisition, and to preserve the liberties of the Netherlands. It appears to me that Philip had divined his purposes at the epoch of that celebrated leave-taking. Had he given evidence of them, short work would have been made of him. William was still a Catholic. Indeed at that time it may be doubted whether there was a single Flemish noble who had embraced the reformed faith. The prospect of such a conversion was not as yet attractive in the Netherlands, as it was in Northern Germany where the Reformation had given the princes independ- ence and plunder. The dissidents from the old faith were artisans and priests whom the freedom of the new opinions had attracted. William was young, rich, and profuse. His wealth was great, his expenses greater. He kept open house at Brussels. But he did not, like one of his colleagues, speak of his poorer fellow country- men as " that vile and mischievous animal called the people." He was an enemy to the edict of 1550, and to the Spanish policy. There had been but four bishops in the Netherlands. Philip had induced the Pope to enlarge the number to eighteen, and to make three of them archbishops. THE NETHERLANDERS APPEAL TO CHARTERS. 69 The motive of this change was to strengthen the machinery for extirpating heresy. In order to assist them the four thousand Spanish troops were to be kept indefinitely in the Netherlands, of course at the expense of the Estates. Here then was plenty of material for discontent, for agitation, and finally for revolt. The cit'es again resolved to appeal to their charters. The charter of Brabant expressly disabled the ruler from increasing the power of the clergy. The unpopularity of these measures fell onGranvelle, as he was subsequently called. The old habit of loyalty was not yet worn out, and it was therefore expedient to transfer the odium from Philip to his minister. William led the opposition, and most of the nobles sided with him. At last Philip yielded, and withdrew the Spanish soldiers for a time in 1560. But the Inquisition kept to its work. On the other hand, the States were very reluctant to grant subsidies, and the king was at his wits' end for money. At this time (1561) William married the Princess Anna of Saxony, daughter of the celebrated Maurice. She was a Lutheran and the negotiations as to the exercise of her religion were protracted. Meanwhile the Inquisi- tion with Titelmann at its head continued its office, and in 1564/Granvelle was superseded. The Netherlanders were under the impression, and for a long time remained under it, that the severity of the government was not due to Philip, but to his ministers in the Netherlands. For this reason they hated Granvelle, with this view they sent deputations to Madrid — Egmont first, Montigny and Berghen afterwards. At last, in the beginning of 1566, some 70 MARGARET OF PARMA. of the Flemish nobles drew up the Compromise, by which they pledged themselves to resist the Inquisition. Orange took no part in it, but he did more. Remem- bering his conversation with Henry of France, he resolved to know Philip's mind. He therefore estab- lished such a system of espionage over Philip, that he got copies of all Philip's most secret despatches. It is the lot of despots to be ill served. Worse than that, it is their lot to be betrayed. Placing no trust in any man, they gain the genuine confidence of none. Meanwhile thousands of Flemish weavers emigrated to England, especially to the Eastern Counties, trans- ferred their skill and industry thither, and soon became the successful rivals of the land of their birth. The new league determined to present a " Request " to Margaret, and Orange so far acted with the leaders as to counsel them as to the language of the document. On April 5, 1566, the request was read to the Duchess and her council by Brederode. The purport of this document was that it was necessary to the peace of the country that the edicts and the Inquisition should be withdrawn, and that the management of affairs should be remitted to the States-General. The petitioners left, and the council debated it Then it is that Berlaymont, always consistently hostile to his countrymen, exclaimed, " Is it possible that your Highness can be afraid of these beggars!" As the confederates passed his house afterwards, he is said to have repeated the insult. The confederates reiterated their requests on April 8th. In the evening of that day Brederode prepared a great banquet for three hundred guests at his mansion. ABOLITION OF THE INQUISITION. Jl The Flemings (did much in the way of eating and drink- ing, and when they were warm with wine, the guests debated what name they should give their association. The host rose and told them, to their indignation, what was the name which the councillor had given them. He then suggested that they should adopt the name, instantly seized a beggar's wallet and bowl, rilled the latter with wine, put the former on, and passed both to his next neighbour. The name was adopted with shouts of applause, and thenceforward the Netherland patriots went by the name. Orange, Egmont, and Horn entered the apartment when the revelry was at its height. They were con- strained to drink the new toast and instantly left. Their momentary presence at this orgie caused soon after the deaths of the last two, a fate which Orange would have shared had he come into his enemies' hands. In the morning a new costume, imitating in quality and appearance the beggars' clothing and ap- pendages, was adopted by them. The common folk of the Netherlands now believed that they had leaders, and crowded to listen to the preachers. Shortly after these events, in August, occurred the image breaking in the Netherlands churches. But no injury was done to anything else, not to any person. The only objects on which the mobs wreaked their wrath were the symbols of the ancient religion. The confederate nobles took no part in the outrage. For a time the violence seemed to be an advantage. On August 25th, the Duchess signed the Accord, under which the Inquisition was abolished, and a general toleration accorded. The nobles did their best to 72 MARGARET OF PARMA. quiet the disturbances. But while Philip temporised, he had made up his mind. He collected an army in Spain, put it under the command of Alva, gave his commander instructions, and the war began. IX. ALVA. Philip had resolved to establish the Inquisition by the sword- He augmented his army in Italy, and had sent Alva and his troops thither. This man had been all his life engaged in war, was now sixty years old, and had the reputation, justly earned, of being the most accomplished and capable warrior in Europe. He had gained victories in Spain, in Africa, in Germany, in Italy, in France. He was, perhaps, the most blood- thirsty man who ever existed in what is called the civilized world, and he was sent to the Netherlands to satiate himself. The army was worthy of the general. He commanded the finest and the most merciless troops in Europe. Some of these troops, about 10,000 in number, em- barked at Carthagenaon May 16, 1567. The principal part of the force was collected at Genoa, and marched across Mont Cenis, and through Savoy, Burgundy,* and Lorraine. Had the confederates in the Netherlands determined at this time to resist Philip, and had Egmont taken the command, it is probable that COUNT ALVA. THE BLOOD COUNCIL. 75 Alva's troops might have been destroyed in detail, so difficult was the march. By the middle of August they were all in the Netherlands. Alva fixed his headquarters at Brussels, on August 23rd, but distri- buted his troops through the other cities. It was the intention of Philip and Alva to destroy every Nether- lander who had resisted or even criticized the Spanish policy. Of course, Orange, Egmont, Horn, and Hoogstraten, were to be forthwith arrested and dealt with. There was to be a political in addition to a religious inquisition. In the interval these eminent men were to be entrapped into a false security. The plot succeeded with Egmont and Horn ; it failed with Orange and Hoogstraten. On September 9th Horn and Egmont were arrested, and on September 23rd transferred to the castle of Ghent, with other leading persons. Alva had done part of his commission with secrecy and dispatch. But the escape of Orange was thought by those who knew the Netherlands to make the capture of the others politically valueless. However, on the very day on which Horn and Egmont was arrested, Alva established a council which he called that of Troubles, but the Netherlanders the Blood Council. It was an invention of Alva's own. It soon set to work and slew its thousands before Margaret of Parma retired, which she did on December 9th. She was probably softened by this time, for her best friends and advisers had been imprisoned by her successor,and were already doomed. Alva set to work to build the citadel of Antwerp. In October, 1568, he took up his quarters in the new fortress. 76 ALVA. Orange was prosecuted, and his eldest son was kidnapped and sent to Spain. But William was himself out of reach. Meanwhile, a sentence of the Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, with a few exceptions, to death as heretics, and Philip confirmed the sentence. How powerful must the theory of the divine right of kings and the divine right of priests have been, that this decree was not met by an instant revolt. But all that came of it, as yet, was that bands of marauders, under the name of Wild Beggars, took to robbing all and sundry, but especially to mutilating monks and priests. Meanwhile, Orange had collected troops and taken to the field. He made his attack on three points and failed in two. But at the battle of Heiligerlee, in Friesland, the patriots were victorious, and the army of the Spaniards all but annihilated. But the victory was the death warrant of Egmont and Horn. They are executed on June 5, 1568. One of the brothers of Orange had perished in the battle of Heiligerlee, Louis of Nassau, another, was still in the field. But Alva was on his path, routed his army, laid waste the country, slaughtered the inhabitants, and brought back his soldiers with little loss. While Alva was defeating Louis, Philip was murdering his eldest son, Don Carlos. Had this young man gone, as he wished, to the Netherlands, in place of Alva, the tyranny of Caligula would have been exhibited in place of that of Nero. As Alva had beaten Louis of Nassau, so he now baffled William, who had now openly embraced the reformed faith, but carried into his new creed an ALVA LAYS WASTE THE NETHERLANDS. J J utter hatred of religious bigotry. He would perse- cute neither Papist or Anabaptist. With perhaps equal sincerity, he declared that he did not make war on Philip, but on Alva. He got but little aid from the nobles, who promised him much ; he got as little help from the peasants from whom he could expect nothing. He collected a formidable army, but he could not force Alva to fight, and the army wasted away. Alva returned to Antwerp, and set up a colossal statue of himself on the citadel. Alva was now triumphant, and, to all appearance, the fortunes of Orange and the Netherlands were desperate. The Flemish nobles were without spirit or character, as was to be often proved, and the people were not yet organized. Just at this crisis, Elizabeth of England put Alva into a serious difficulty. She impounded certain treasure ships which were on the road for the payment of the Spanish troops. This was the beginning of those military bankruptcies which ultimately aided the patriots so much. The murders of Alva and the depopulation of the Nether- lands were drying up all sources of revenue, and Alva began seriously to think of an amnesty. In his efforts to obtain money, Alva had even ventured on plundering his own Church, and he did it with a high hand. For two or three years Orange was an exile and a wanderer, while Alva was striving to reconcile the Flemings and Hollanders to taxes which would have absolutely ruined them. From time to time he was engaged in plots for the murder of Elizabeth, assassi- nation by hired bravos being now considered legitimate 78 ALVA. warfare by Philip. The plots were found out, the assassins punished, and the English people — Catholic, Anglican, and Puritan alike — were becoming united against Spain, and in defence of Elizabeth. Even Philip's victories were barren, for though the battle of Lepanto had checked the progress of the Turks, it had not furthered the ascendency of Spain. Alva's unpopularity was daily increasing, the pro- vinces were nearly ruined, or saw they could arrest ruin only by energetic resistance, the governor's successor was appointed, and Orange was again steadily but secretly making way, when the first turn of the tide came in favour of the patriots. The Beggars of the Sea had captured the city of Brill. The Hollanders had long been familiar with the sea. They had been driven from their homes ; their native land was being given up to military execution ; they could not for years stand against Spanish disci- pline in the field, but they rapidly became invincible on the water. The narrow seas were now swarming with rovers, furnished with letters of marque by Orange, and, it is to be feared, that they levied their contributions impartially from Spaniard and neutral. Their admiral was William de la Marck, a descendant of wild freebooters, and himself as ferocious as any of his ancestors. He was a kinsman of Egmont, and was sworn to avenge himself on Alva. Twenty-four vessels, manned by the Beggars of the Sea, were cruising in the spring of 1572, on the southern coast of England. Elizabeth, who had made up her quarrel with Alva, forbade her subjects from provisioning the Beggars. Half-starved already, BRILL. 80 ALVA. the rovers determined to essay some place in Holland, and appeared before Brill. They determined to obtain its surrender, and sent a friendly fisherman of the town as their envoy. The Beggars were some four hundred in all, but the fishermen, when asked about their numbers, answered in a careless manner, about five thousand. There was no thought of resistance, and the patriots soon got possession, and held it in the name of Orange. Alva sent troops to recapture the town, but they were repulsed ; for the Sea Beggars were in their element. A short time afterwards, Flushing was rescued from Alva by the patriots, and the number of their partisans rapidly increasing, this town was garrisoned. Here they caught Pacheco, Alva's engineer, who had built the citadel of Antwerp, and had been sent to finish the defences of Flushing. They hanged him on the spot. Almost at an instant, nearly all the cities of Holland and Zeland threw off the Spanish yoke, and accepted the government of Orange, though in the name of the king. But for a long time the insurgents claimed nothing more than the charters and liberties to which Philip had voluntarily sworn. Toleration was from the first the law of William's government. Meanwhile Louis of Nassau had captured the city of Mons, in South-west Flanders. At Walcheren nearly the whole Lisbon fleet was captured by the Beggars, the pay of the Spanish soldiery, and much of their ammunition. On July 1 8, 1572, the Estates of Holland w r.? convened at Dort, under the authority of Orange as Stadtholder. The convention was primarily for the 82 ALVA. purpose of raising funds for the prosecution of the war. Stirred to enthusiasm by the eloquence of Saint Aldegonde,the Hollanders unanimously resolved to dedicate themselves and their fortunes to the cause which was identified with Orange. The prince was himself seeking to effect a junction with the Huguenot troops, who were marching to the relief of Mons, but who were defeated before he could achieve his object. He continued his march, levying troops, collecting funds, and relying on the French, when on August 24th occurred the frightful massacre of St. Bartholomew. His plans were frustrated, his army was disbanded, and he was forced to retire into Holland. On September 19th, Mons was surrendered, and the Flemish towns returned to their allegiance. Henceforth, the principal interest of the struggle centres in Holland. Even here, however, the affairs of the patriots were unprosperous. Tergoes was relieved, and Zutphen sacked by the Spaniards. William was deserted by his brother-in-law, De Berg, who betrayed what was entrusted to him. Harlem, after a desperate defence, was captured in the summer of 1573. But the siege of Alkmaar, after an heroic defence of seven weeks, was raised. Then there was a breathing time for the Hollanders. The French king intrigued for the marriage of his brother with Elizabeth, and the Spanish king intrigued with the electors of the German Empire for the succession to Maximilian. Besides the Dutch had defeated the Spanish com- mander by sea, at Enkhuizen, on October nth. On December 18th, Alva left the Netherlands. His Blood Council had put to death 18,600 persons. ■gfig — 1 III initio FJ*^tc^^ {SS* ^ jI^jl^ljlT'iW X. REQUESENS, THE GRAND COMMANDER. It was understood that the new governorrepresented a policy of concession of amnesty, even of peace. But he was hampered by two conditions. He was to secure the king's supremacy, and the total prohibition of any but the Roman Catholic religion. It was obvious that unless an unconditional surrender was made, there was no hope for peace, and, in fact, the war continued for thirty-six years longer. Yet every one desired peace, Catholic and Protestant, Spaniard, Fleming, and Hollander, the advisers and tools of Alva, and the friends and adherents of Orange. Even Philip would have been glad to stop the perpetual drain on his resources, and avert the bankruptcy vvhich was imminent. The army, now numbering sixty-two thousand, was nearly a twelve months 5 pay in arrears. The country had been impoverished and the States refused to grant a dollar. But, on the other side, though the Dutch were out-numbered and out-generalled, they main- tained their fleets and their forces, though they were 84 REQUESENS, THE GRAND COMMANDER. sometimes short in granting supplies. Requesens, therefore imagined that the whole of the Netherlands would accept peace on any terms ; and if only the nobles had to be consulted, he was probably in the right. The Hollanders were now unquestionably superiors on the sea, as was to be conclusively proved. The patriots were besieging Middelburg, in the island of Walcheren, in which a Spanish general of great ability and courage was commander. The new governor found it necessary to relieve the garrison, which was nearly starved out. It could only be effected after a victorious sea fight. The battle was joined on January 29th, and the patriots were entirely victorious. Middelburg was soon surrendered. The siege of Leyden was the great event of the year. It was closely invested, and Orange bade his brother Louis relieve it. On March 14th he fought a battle with the besieging force ; his army was nearly annihilated, and he and his brother Henry slain. Their bodies, however, were never discovered. It seemed now that Leyden would be lost, not from the victorious army, which mutinied immediately after their victory, and marching on Antwerp, seized the city. Their pay was three years in arrear. But the danger was not passed, for the siege was reformed. Meanwhile the Dutch admiral had suc- ceeded in destroying another Spanish fleet. The second siege of Leyden began on May 26th. It lasted till October 3rd. The limits of this work disable the author from describing in detail this memorable siege, and the relief of the city by the OLD DUTCH STREET AND TOWN-HALL. 86 REQUESENS, THE GRAND COMMANDER. Beggars of the Sea. To meet their foe, and to baffle him, the Hollanders cut the dykes between Leyden and the sea, and turned the leaguer of the Spaniards into a sea fight, in which the patriots were thoroughly in their element. At last the Spaniards retreated in panic, and the siege was raised. In remembrance of this great deliverance, the States of Holland resolved to found a university in the town of Leyden. They endowed it with the possessions of the abbey of Egmont, and provided it with teachers, selected from the ablest scholars in the Netherlands. For two centuries the University ol Leyden was the most famous in Europe. But Orange still kept up the form of loyalty, and the charter of the university declares that it was founded by Philip, Count of Holland. The two provinces, Holland and Zeland, though Harlem and Amsterdam were still in the power of the enemy, raised nearly as high a revenue monthly for the prosecution of the war, as Alva had been able to extract yearly from the rest of the Netherlands. The fact is, their trade grew with their efforts. They were still in theory subjects of Spain, and they traded with the Spanish possessions. They were even charged with manufacturing and selling the powder with which the Spaniards bombarded their cities. Even to the last they made war on the Spanish Government, and had commercial transactions with Spanish subjects ; for as Philip did not recognize their independence, they seem, except at their pleasure, to be at war with him only in their own country. In the autumn of 1574, the Constitution of Holland THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN. 87 was organized. William was made commander-in- chief; a monthly grant for the expenses of the army was conceded to him, and practically the whole con- duct of affairs was conferred on him. Then came the farce of negotiating a peace. The terms of Philip were inadmissible. He refused toleration to the reformed religion, and the conferences were abruptly closed. In 1575, the states of Holland and Zeland were united. It was not done without some difficulty, for the municipal principle had ruinously kept cities apart, and made military action capricious and uncertain. It was this temper of isolation, constantly breaking out and thwarting the interests of the whole republic, which prolonged the war, narrowed the independence, and ultimately was a potent factor in bringing about the decline of the Dutch Republic. In the same year, however, the States suffered another reverse. The island of Schouwen was in- vaded by an army which marched through the sea to the mainland by one of those channels which separate the islands of the Dutch coast, and its capital, Zie- rikzee, was besieged. The situation induced the Hol- 'landers, though with no little hesitation, to take an important step. This was no less than to formally discard the sovereignty of Philip, and to declare their indepen- dence as far as he was concerned. But William and the States were far from believing that they could still stand alone. The renunciation of Philip was neces- sary only because they wished or felt it necessary that they should adopt some other prince as their lord, provided, of course, that their new ruler would 88 REQUESENS, THE GRAND COMMANDER. protect their religion and their liberties. Negotia- tion with divers powers were continued during nearly the whole of the War of Independence. There were three Powers to whom they might apply — the Emperor of Germany, the Queen of England, and the King of France. The first of these seemed most constitutional. It had undoubtedly been the case that in early times Holland had formed part of the German Empire, and the fact had not been for- gotten in the negotiations between Philip and the emperor. Had the proposition of William been accepted, the independence of Holland would practi- cally have been secured, for the States would have occupied the position which the German sovereigns did under what v/as no more than the nominal supremacy of the emperor. No doubt the religion of the Dutch, Calvinism, was an obstacle, for Protestant Germany was Lutheran, and fifty years later the irreconcilable enmity of the Calvinists and Lutherans was no small cause of the disasters which Germany suffered in the Thirty Years' War. Another difficulty was in the family relations of the emperor and Philip. The princes of Austria, Spain, and Portugal were closely connected by family ties, and marriages often taking place between certain members of these families, by the Pope's dispensa- tion, which would have been impossible in any other persons. In Spain and Portugal the marriage of uncle and niece was far from uncommon, and even more closely related persons were, as political exi- gencies seemed to dictate, contemplated for such unions. Besides the real assistance the Emperor of THE POSSIBLE ALLIES OF HOLLAND. 89 Germany could give was little. Any effectual help must come from the Protestant princes. Elizabeth of England was in a very peculiar posi- tion. Her foreign enemies held her to be illegitimate. Her rival, Mary Stewart, was indeed in prison, and was detested in Scotland. But she had her party, and carried on her intrigues. Again, Elizabeth was very poor. The manufactures and trade of England were not developed, and she did not yet suspect that her sailors would be a match for Spain. Nor did she like the idea of patronizing revolted subjects. It was a dangerous precedent, and might be used against her. She preferred, therefore, to intrigue, to lend a favourable ear to the States, perhaps to assist them secretly — at any rate, to assist them cautiously. Even when she broke with Philip and went to war with him, she greatly hesitated. Though she knew that the Netherlands were at this time the bulwark of England and the fortress of Protestantism, she was timid and slow. She would and she would not. In the end she .helped Holland more than any other state did. The author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew had now passed away, and the last prince of the house of Valois was on the throne. He was even a more contemptible person than his predecessor, and the Queen Dowager was the real ruler. But who could trust this treacherous Court, whose perfidy was even greater than that of Spain, and whose crimes had been more colossal ? Still Orange inclined to France as, indeed, his son Maurice, with better apparent reason, did. At any rate, it was well to play off the jealousy of England against the jealousy of France. go REQUESENS, THE GRAND COMMANDER. It was at this time, as we are told, that Orange seriously meditated the scheme of transferring the Hollanders from the land of their birth to a new settlement, either in the Old or New World. It might be curious to speculate on what the course of history might have been if the whole population had migrated to the United States or the Tropics, to the island of Java or to the island of Manhattan, and that either or both these places had been the home of this race instead of being its colonies. But it was destined that Europe should be the theatre of the great deliverance. It is not certain that Orange was seriously debating the alternative of emigration. It has been confi- dently alleged that he was ; it has been as confidently disputed. But on March 5th the Grand Commander died, after a few days' illness. There was a lull foi a time. Philip, as years passed on, became more pro- crastinating than ever, though he was none the less absolute and determined on the purposes which he had formed. XL DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. While Philip was engaged in selecting his viceroy, trouble befel his government in the Netherlands. Immediately after the fall of Zierikzee the Spanish troops mutinied. They had been unpaid for years, and no money was forthcoming from Spain. The Netherlands had been nearly drained, and it is pro- bable that neither Philip nor his lieutenants desired to utterly impoverish the obedient provinces. The practice of these mutineers was to depose their own officers, or, at least, to disobey them, and to elect a temporary chief, to whom they gave, under the name of Eletto, full powers as long as they pleased to con- tinue them. It was a dangerous pre-eminence, for a deposed or distrusted Eletto was pretty sure to forfeit his life with his office. The mutineers demanded a city, and succeeded in capturing Alost. Thence they threatened Brussels. They could make no impression on it ; so, having ex- hausted Alost, they resolved on attacking Antwerp. The mutineers had been outlawed by the Government, 92 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. but were in communication with the governor of the citadel of Antwerp. The Spaniards burst into the city, overpowered its defences, and the Spanish fury- took place on November 4th.' It surpassed in horror and atrocity anything which happened during the war. The soldiers paid themselves handsomely, for it is said that they divided among themselves five millions of crowns. The sack of Antwerp hastened the pacification of Ghent, which William had been negotiating. It pro- vided, though unfortunately it was short lived, for the union of all the provinces of the Netherlands, for complete amity among them, and for the restoration of all the old liberties. It was signed on November 8, 1576, by the deputies of Holland and Zeland, on the one hand, and by those of thirteen other states or cities, on the other. The Spanish soldiery was to be expelled, and the Inquisition was to be abolished- At the same time, Zierikzee and the island of Schouwen were abandoned and recovered. Four days before the pacification of Ghent was signed, a cavalier, attended by a Moorish slave, rode into Luxembourg. The slave was in reality Don John of Austria, the new governor, who entered on his office in this strange disguise. Don John of Austria was an illegitimate son of Charles V. His mother is said to have been a washerwoman of Ratisbon, who lived, during Alva's administration and to his exceeding discomfort, at Ghent. She lived there till her son arrived as gover- nor, when she was persuaded or forced to retire into Spain. When an infant John was put under the care DON JOHN'S EARLY CAREER. 93 of a Spanish grandee and carefully educated. When he was fourteen years of age, the secret of his birth was made known to him by Philip. He was educated in the company of his two nephews, Don Carlos, the heir-apparent of Spain, and Alexander of Parma. It appears that Philip designed him for the Church, but Don John was nothing but a soldier, and, after a struggle, he had his way. The battle of Lepanto, in which John defeated the Turks, was fought in October, 1571, and the fame of the commander was on every one's tongue. But the victory was barren. The allies might have taken Constantinople, but they began to quarrel with each other. John strove to create for himself a kingdom in Tunis. But Philip interfered. Then Don John, with the goodwill of the Pope, determined to invade England, to dethrone Elizabeth, to liberate and marry the imprisoned Mary Stewart, and make himself king of England and Scotland. As he was gaining the Pope's assent, news came to him that he had been " appointed Governor-General of the Netherlands. It seemed as though his dream was almost accom- plished. There were ten thousand Spanish troops there, the bravest veterans in the world. He would soon, he imagined, quiet the discontents of the Flemings, and then win his kingdom. It was true that the news from the provinces was daily more unsatisfactory, as he was waiting for the last instruc- tions of the dilatory Philip. Freed at last, he hurried, as I have said, in disguise through France. Against this knight-errant, William was to exert all his energies and all his abilities. He implored the w o o & o h5 O Wi SK-, ? j|^«3W r -^! 1 IS3EB ^i rtfK&iS Wis ft§l ^jC^S* % ™]Pcr^S^w*]j^ l! iff SR p§& 5#*S SC^'ts mi W;*Ki ^ \')K^\wPf=s!§ feLt*! «S1|1 ^^t v i«^^S CO ^M?M ^O^^^Sr^S 5yf§-f| rsr gg^^^g j> - > w X H LANDING AT TORBAY. 297 pugnance to engaging in costly hostilities, and these with the dreaded King of France. Besides, William had contrived to gain the warm friendship and close alliance of the Elector of Brandenburg. He knew that he should have the support of the Emperor of Germany, and that even the Pope was favourable to the enterprise of the heretic prince, if he could only be free from the insults of France, the king of which was now engaged in thrusting a partisan of his into a German bishopric, in defiance of both Pope and emperor. He actually seized the opportunity of inflicting a serious loss on the Dutch fisheries, and so had alienated these persons who had hitherto been his partisans. On the 29th of October, New Style, but on the 19th according to the reckoning of most Protestant countries, the fleet started on the expedition, but, meeting with bad weather, was obliged to return to port, a circumstance which induced James to con- clude that there was now no present danger. It had been the intention of William to effect a landing in the North of England, where he believed his partisans were strong, and where he might expect Scotch assistance. Hither James had gone with his forces. There was some delay in starting again, and the wind made it necessary that William should land on the south-west coast. Here he landed at Torbay, on Nov. 5th, Old Style, an auspicious day to English minds, because it was the anniversary of the deliverance of King and Parliament from the Powder Plot. He was gladly received, and marched slowly towards London. 298 THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION, James was deserted by every one — by his first wife's relations, by his most trusted captains, by his army, by the clergy, even by his own daughter Anne and her husband. Never was king more cruelly dis- abused of the impressions which he cherished a few weeks before, of the abiding loyalty of his people to him. He made no stand whatever, indeed he did not know on what he could rely, for every prop of his throne had crumbled away. For a time he had absolutely no party left. It is doubtful whether even those who afterwards professed allegiance to him would have suffered him to do more than reign, without being allowed to govern. Many of the Jacobites of later times would have been content, if his name still figured on coins, was kept on the Great Seal, and was put in the preamble of writs and grants, that he should live in exile, the powers of government being committed to a Regent or Regents. The majority of Englishmen believed that the child was a fraud, even they who made the severest sac- rifices in order to avoid acknowledging William. After the old king's death, in 1701, not a few of these took the oaths to the new settlement, thus showing that they had no belief in the son. William was by no means satisfied with the re- straints which the English Parliament imposed on him. He expected to succeed, if not to the powers which his predecessors had overstrained, to a large prerogative and an ample revenue. But the Parlia- ment determined that they would never run the risk of another arbitrary reign. They resolved that they should be permanently necessary to any government. WILLIAM IN ENGLAND. 299 So they iimited their supplies to a year, in order to ensure their annual sitting and an annual review of the expenditure. They did not, indeed, meddle with William's conduct of foreign affairs, for the diplomatic handling of which long years of scandalous inactivity and corruption had made them unfit ; but they exercised a very efficient control over that, without which no diplomacy is of any avail. By the theory of the English constitution, the king had a great prerogative, and was untrammelled in many ways. By the theory of the Dutch constitution, William was only the elective magistrate of a republic, the States- General of which could reprimand, order, and control him. But the King of England exercised far more power in his own nation than he did in his adopted country. Indeed it cannot be doubted that William's quarrels with his English Parliaments ruined his con- stitution and shortened his life. Still he had achieved a great position, and one of signal service to his country. The English alliance was permanently secured, for the whole nation had deposed the old king, and was certain to stand by its act. Even those who began to wish James back, were convinced that it could not be effected by the aid of Louis. The knowledge that England had been for two reigns the mere tool of France, made even the timid and treacherous indignant at the recurrence of this disgraceful sejvitude. War was certain to be declared, and war with the object of restoring James^ And though his Parliament quarrelled with William j thwarted, and vexed him, so that he seriously thought of resigning his uneasy dignity, they never flinched 300 THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. during the eight years' war which followed, and would not make peace till the king of the Revolution was acknowledged by France. The Dutch too now felt themselves in a condition of comparative safety. It is true that they were necessarily involved in a war, the first object of which was the liberation of England from French influences and a heaed sovereign ; but there was no prospect now that another 1672 was before them. It is true that they had to put up with several galling condi- tions in the alliance with England, and to endure that commercial jealousy which had been a habit with English traders for a century. They could get no relaxation of the Navigation Laws, the repayment of the money which they had advanced for William's expedition was vexatiously delayed, and the English Government insisted that the Dutch should follow the English practice, and make prize of all shipswhich trafficked with the public enemy. Now the Dutch, being almost entirely a commercial nation, were in the habit of trafficking even with their own enemies, and they were very unwilling to enter into an arrange- ment by which they should introduce neutrals to a trade which they could have carried on on their own account. But they yielded, at least in appearance, though it is probable that they were not very keen- sighted or very diligent in carrying out this part of the bargain. It is noteworthy, and is a proof of the extra- ordinary influence which William's position gave him, that after his death, they refused, when another war broke out, to renew this engagement with his successor. The Dutch complained that William made them WILLIAM DISTRUSTS THE ENGLISH. 301 the instruments of his English policy ; the English that he favoured the Dutch at their expense, that he trusted no one but Dutch counsellors, and relied on nothing but Dutch troops. These charges probably show that William did, as far as possible, the best he could by both nations. It was difficult for him to trust English statesmen. The profligacy of Charles the Second's Court had seriously degraded the characters of public men, and though the misconduct of James justified the Revolution, the dissimulation by which the old king had been driven to his ruin, had made even the agents of it, though they had associated with William, untrustworthy. In the nature of things, men who have betrayed one master are dangerous instruments for another to use, and William soon found out that they who had taken part in his enterprize were in correspondence with the exiled king ; not, I believe, because they seriously wished or intended his restoration, but from ingrained habits of perfidy and intrigue. But William always retained the affection of his countrymen. English- men who accompanied him in his frequent voyages to the Hague were amazed to see how cordially he was received, how his cold manner thawed, and his grave face was relaxed when he was among the Dutch. It was also quite clear that the English would employ many men and spend much money in the war. Now this meant the negotiation of English remittances to Amsterdam, and good business at its famous bank For at this time Amsterdam was the commercial centre of Europe, and its bank contained more specie than all the treasuries of the European 302 THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. states, They who have studied the history of the exchanges at this time can discover how enormous was the profit which the Bank made on the negotia- tion of English bills. I have little doubt that this profit went a great way towards compensating Hol- land for the costs which the war involved, and though the Bank was not a State institution, whose profits went to the State treasury, yet it was under the management of the municipal authorities of that city, and its property to a very large extent was theirs. The Dutch, who were before so averse to war, now requested William that he would declare war against France, a request which he was very ready to gratify. Louis had declared war against Holland immediately on William's landing, not alleging this as the reason for hostilities, for it was not yet clear that the ex- pedition would be successful ; but stating that the States had resisted the election of his creature to the see of Cologne. At the same time he declared war against Spain, on the ground that the governor of the Spanish Netherlands had connived at William's ex- pedition. He had already quarrelled with the Em- peror of Germany, the Elector of Bavaria, and the Duke of Savoy, whom he had previously insulted and humbled. William, therefore, had no difficulty in consolidating the Grand Alliance, the members of which engaged themselves not to make peace with France, unless Europe was restored to the condition in which it was left by the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees. From the days of the Grand Alliance, French historians of capacity reckon the decline of the French monarchy. XXXII. THE WAR OF 1689 TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK 1697. POPULAR as William was with his countrymen, he always had differences with the city of Amsterdam. This rich seat of commerce was proud of its municipal privileges, and jealous of any interference with its municipal independence. Amsterdam, in common with the other Dutch towns, had been induced to submit the officers whom it appointed to civil office, to the approval of the Stadtholder. Now, taking advantage of William's absence, they presented their nominees to the Court of Holland, on the ground that in the absence of the Stadtholder, they were acting under their charter. But the State declined to act on their recommendation, or to accept their view of the charter, and after a somewhat angry quarrel the city had to yield. * Again they took offence at Bentinck, the favourite counsellor of the king, who had been raised to the English peerage, and to the great dissatisfaction of the English nobility, had been lavishly enriched by 304 FROM 1689 TO 1697. •Jr. ■»<*.:. 3^1 William, while retaining his place as a Dutch noble in the States. They alleged that he had transferred his allegiance to another sovereign, that he was natu- ralized in another country, and was therefore no longer a Hollander. But here, again, they were opposed by the rest of Holland, and after having excited the vehement anger of William, were obliged to give way. I refer to these facts in order to show how considerable was William's influence in his native country, where he was able to override the strongly expressed wishes of Am- sterdam. In the same way William blockaded and re- duced the town of Goes for venturing to resist his au- thority. He was far more powerful in Holland than in England, and certainly in the face of the trouble before them, it was expe- dient that the executive should be strengthened. It is true that the pride and aggressiveness of Louis were irritating the whole of Europe. The outrageous violence of the French armies in the Palatinate had revived the worst memories of the Thirty Years' War. Louis was urging the Turks to attack Germany on the east, in order to prevent Germany from resisting his aggressions. He was threatening the house of Savoy on the Italian ALKMAAR WINDOWS. THE ALLIES. 305 frontier, and harassing Charles the Second on the Spanish. He had occupied the papal dominions in Avignon, and had annexed them. Every one of his neighbours was irritated and alarmed, and it was not difficult, at least on paper, to construct the Grand Alliance referred to in the last chapter. But it was not so easy to put the Alliance in motion. Holland and England were the two countries which really resisted with any effect the power of the French king. Spain was politically helpless. Her vast em- pire was an encumbrance rather than an aid. A century and a half of the worst possible kind of govern- ment had ruined the Spanish provinces in America. The Government of Spain itself was as demoralizing and disastrous as that of Mexico and Peru. Spanish statesmen were incredibly corrupt and rapacious, and the body of the people of Spain was sunk in sloth and apathy. Industry was held in dishonour. Public spirit was lost. The old discipline of the Spanish army had passed away. It is true that Spanish pride still survived. But it was pride without energy. Leopold of Germany, who reigned from 1658 to 1705, was a narrow, selfish, sordid bigot. He had to defend himself from the Turks in the East, and the French in the West. His wisdom would have been by timely and generous conciliation, to have united, in the bonds of a common interest, all the parts of his ill-cemented empire against the common enemy and the common danger. But he was far more interested in persecuting his Protestant subjects than in secur- ing them against foreign foes. Besides, the Thirty Years' War had ruined Germany. The country needed 21 306 FROM 1689 TO 1697. union even more than peace, in order to recover itself, and Germany was divided against itself. The future of Europe seemed almost hopeless in 1689. There were no powers in the civilized world which could be relied on in the coming struggle except Holland and the newly-enfranchised kingdom of England. William had a far harder task with the country which accepted rather than welcomed him, than he had with his native country. At first all seemed to go well. The defection from James was universal in Great Britain, and the exiled family never had any real party in the country again. But in Ireland William had to fight for his crown, and the conquest of Ireland occupied all the energies of the English Government during the first years of the Revolution, and there was but a faint opposition to Louis and his projects. They were apparently near to being rea- lized. In Flanders, Luxemburg won the battles of Fleurus, Steinkirk, and Neerwinden ; in Western Italy, Catinat was victorious at StafTard and Marsaille ; and Tourville, the French admiral, inflicted serious and apparently irreparable damage on the combined Dutch and English fleets at Beachy Head. The strong fortresses of Mons and Namur were captured, and it seemed that the immediate object of the French king's ambition would be attained in the con- quest of the Spanish Netherlands. The military reputation of France remained at the highest as long as Luxemburg lived. He died at the end of the year 1694, when his services were most needed. William was unfortunate as a commander, for he had to fight against the most accomplished generals which WILLIAM NO GREAT GENERAL. 307 the art of war had yet produced. He was defeated in every pitched battle which he fought in Europe. But it was early noticed that he lost less by a defeat than other generals. His power of recovery after a repulse was remarkable and continual. The victories of Louis, therefore, in the Low Countries were com- paratively barren, and the stubborn resistance of the Dutch and English made it plain at last that the con- quest of Flanders, if it were ever to be effected, would be accomplished only after a prolonged and ruinous struggle. " The last pistole wins," was the frequent comment of Louis, but as yet he did not guess where this would be found. In course of time, he discovered that the resources of England and Holland were greater than those of France, and that they would come out of the war with undiminished powers. The first serious check which Louis suffered was the battle of La Hogue, fought on May 19, 1692. The exiled king, James, deceived by his correspon- dents, and still more deceived by the hopes which exiles always entertain, was under the impression that an invasion of England would not only be feasible but successful. He had been assured that it would be so by the Jacobites and malcontent Whigs ; he was under the impression that the seamen in the fleet desired to restore him, and would refuse to fight against the French, and he had actually been in correspondence with Russel, the admiral. But the King of France had always been dissuaded from the project by Louvois, and Louvois was a person whose advice Louis could not disregard, for he had done more to 308 FROM 1689 TO 1697. secure the military supremacy of Louis than any man living. But on July 6, 1 691, Louvois died suddenly after an interview with the king, when high words passed between them. Though the quarrel had been so angry, the king appointed the son of his late minister to the office which his father had held, and with the most unfortunate results. Louis now determined to invade England, with an army of French and Irish troops — those Irish troops which, after the surrender of Limerick, had passed over to the French king's service. It was impossible to conceive a worse act of imprudence than to attempt an invasion of England with Irish forces. Nothing had contributed more to the downfall of James than the collection of an Irish army in the neighbourhood of London. In the hands of the English enemy, whose name was an object of absolute detestation throughout England, the enrolment of such an army would be sure to excite the most stubborn resistance even from those who had hitherto been disaffected or mutinous. For the English people, and, for the matter of that, the Dutch, however much they may have quarrelled or grumbled when danger was remote, have always forgotten their differences and made an effective truce as soon as ever danger is near. In order to still more irritate his former sub- jects against him, James put out a manifesto, in which he proscribed the nation whom he imagined to be anxious for his restoration. The Government very wisely reprinted this insane document, with some very natural and practical comments. The fleet which was to convoy the three hundred THE BATTLE OF LA HOGUE. 309 transports to England consisted of seventy-nine ships of the line, some of them being the finest which the dockyards of Brest and Toulon had turned out. Tourville was again commander, and was strictly ordered to fight, and it was determined to undertake the enterprise before the English and Dutch fleet had got to sea. In order to assure himself, James had sent his emissaries among the English admirals. Some of them gave these agents fair words, and forth- with communicated their information to the English Government. The anxiety which the banished king felt, and his desire to acquaint himself with the strength of the feeling in his favour, while it deceived him, undeceived and forewarned the administration. The weather in the Channel is always capricious, and the time for the rendezvous had long passed by, and the French line was not yet formed. The combined English and Dutch fleet was superior in numbers to that of the French, but in the first part of the battle the vessels engaged, owing to the state of the wind, were about equal on both sides. But, after the contest had been prolonged for five hours, and Tourville saw that he had no immediate prospect of a successful invasion, the wind changed, and the whole allied fleet was able to take part in the battle. It was soon over, and the relics of the French arma- ment fled to Cherbourg and La Hogue, where the army of invasion was waiting to embark. On the 24th of May, after five days' incessant fighting, the French fleet was totally destroyed. All hopes of naval supremacy passed away from France. There was hardly any naval victory which caused more 310 FROM 1689 TO 1697. national exultation both in England and Holland than that of La Hogue. The great commerce of the Republic was now placed in comparative safety, and the last pistole was more likely than ever to be in the Banks of Amsterdam and London. Still, the Grand Alliance was very nearly collapsing. The northern Powers of Denmark and Sweden, never very hearty in their co-operation, began to grow cool and finally even hostile. The several powers of Ger- many threatened to make a separate peace with France if they were not handsomely bribed. They even went so far as to state that Louis was ready to pay them for deserting the common cause, and that it was therefore the policy of England and Holland to outbid Louis. Even the German emperor was of opinion, and pretty clearly expressed it, that it was the duty of England and Holland to undertake the defence of his own frontier, and to find him money for the purpose of enabling him to achieve further con- quests over the Turks. " I cannot," said William, in writing to his friend Heinsius, "offer a suggestion without being met with a demand for a subsidy." But William succeeded in keeping the coalition together, by giving these royal mendicants, not all that they asked, but more than they had a right to expect. He saved the alliance, but he found it hard to induce the allies to fight. The Spanish Government, at last seriously alarmed, offered William the regency of the Netherlands. But William refused it. He knew that if he took it, the religious differences between the ruler and people would make his authority precarious. The Nether- THE FAMINE. 3" — 1 lands, once the most Protestant country in Europe, had now, thanks to the Inquisition, become as Catholic as Spain itself, and much more restive. It was not possible at the end of the seventeenth century to restore the Pacification of Ghent. He therefore recommended the nomination of the Elector of Bavaria, who had good reason for being the enemy of France. A few years later, the Elector found its friendship even more mis- chievous. But the delay and half-heartedness of the allies led to the loss of Namur. And now a series of events were recurring, of which his- torians are apt to take no notice, but which had more to do with the rapid exhaus- tion of France than any defeats or victories could have. The harvest of 1692 was unfavourable, and for six or seven years the har- vests in Western Europe remained unfavourable. In a country like England, where ordinary prices were nearly doubled, much distress prevailed. In France, where the peasant farmer was forced to bear nearly all the charges of government, the, cost of the buildings at Versailles and Marli, and the cost of the great king's army, the calamity was ruinous. In Holland, which imported nine-tenths of its food, and had a habit of keeping a store at Amsterdam, which would be sufficient for the wants of two or three years, GIRL S HEAD. 312 FROM 1689 TO 1697. which it imported from all parts of the world, whence food could be got, the rise in prices was inconvenient, but not disastrous. The period from 1692 to 1698 inclusive was long remembered in tradition as the seven dear years. The year 1693 and 1694 were marked by brilliant victories, by horrible cruelties, by great sufferings, but by small military results. Louis began to find his resources fail him. But in the second of these years, the founda- tion of the Bank of England at once contributed and utilized the resources of the country. In 1695, William undertook and achieved the recapture of Namur, to the great chagrin of Louis. Early in the next year, Louis was unquestionably privy as was also James, to a plot devised for the murder of William, and there is little doubt that Berwick was sent to England in order to encourage, if not to advise, the conspirators. The plot failed, the culprits being detected and executed, as indeed all other conspiracies against William's life failed. At last both sides were exhausted. Louis was ready to acknowledge William's title, and William saw that for a time the Netherlands, the barrier of Holland, were safe. But the Powers which sacrificed the least, and got the largest subsidies through the war, put forward the most preposterous claims. Spain and Austria demanded what Louis was not likely to grant, and they had no power of enforcing. The absurd for- malities of diplomacy seemed likely to postpone the settlement to an indeterminate date, when William and Bentinck entered into a distinct negotiation with the French envoy, and rapidly settled the terms of PEACE OF RYSWICK. 3*3 peace. The arrangement nearly fell through owing to the selfish and dilatory action of Spain and Austria, which gave Louis an opportunity of insisting on the retention of Strasburg. On the 10th of September the treaty was signed, and the first part of this long war with France was ended. XXXIII. FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT. As soon as ever the power of Louis failed to make progress, it began to decline. We know this now by the evidence of facts. But the terror of Europe after the accession of Philip to the throne of Spain, and the apparent union of all Western Europe, Central America, and the west coast of South America under one master head, or at least under one settled policy, was universal and intelligible. No man at the time could have foreseen that the ambition and cupidity of Louis, the success with which he subdued his nobles and people at home, and the success with which he gratified his ambition abroad, would in time bring about by natural and traceable causes, the great catas- trophe which is known in history as the French Revolution. But of all European countries none had so reasonable a fear as the Dutch. The inheritance of Spain included those provinces which William the Silent had nearly gained to the great confederation, and Alva and Parma had securely recovered for Spain. THE DUTCH AFRAID OF LOUIS. 315 A wealthy, vigorous, and powerful monarch, who had trained all the commanders of Europe, even those who were to be opposed to him, Marlborough and Eugene, had taken the place of the poor, imbecile, and power- less kings of Spain of the Austrian family in the person of Philip's grandson, and the most able oppo- nent of the French king had just died in what should have been the prime of life, worn out by the folly, short-sightedness, and factiousness of the English Parliament. He was succeeded by his wife's sister, Anne, the silliest person who ever sat on the English throne, and was really strong only by the unbounded deference she showed to Sarah, the imperious wife of Marlborough. Ever since reaching his majority and the conduct of affairs by himself, Louis had been conspiring against the Dutch Republic. He had conspired against them independently, and in concert with Charles, the pro- fligate whom the English aristocracy restored, and whose career inflicted permanent injury on the public and private morality of the people he was allowed to rule over. He had tried as soon as he could to detach the Stadtholder William from all patriotic aims, and it is not improbable that William so far went with his intrigues as to acquiesce in the murder of the De Witts, the tragedy which followed on the unprovoked war of 1672. But as we have seen, when, William in this crisis was raisedyto the Stadtholderate, he became the persistent and active enemy of Louis. He was not strong enough to grapple with him, but he succeeded in checking him, and though the issues of the wars which ended with the peace of Nimeguen, and the 316 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. treaty of Ryswick, had left the position of Louis to all appearance stronger and more imposing than ever, the successes of the great king would have been more secure and more pronounced had not William stood in his way. And now William was gone. It is probable that Louis never wished to effect the conquest and annexation of the Dutch Republic, any more than Philip of Macedon wished to effect the sub- jugation of Athens. But it was all important to make it submissive, or at least, neutral. Had Louis suc- ceeded in his plans, had he secured the frontier of the Rhine, and permanently disorganized the Roman empire, he might have given Holland the boon which the grateful Cyclops in his den offered Ulysses, that of being devoured the last. By the neutrality of Holland he would have deprived the Alliance of one among the Powers who could find money for the war, the other being Great Britain, and the people of Great Britain could hardly have been counted on for all the expense which the Spanish war of succession would be sure to entail. Besides, if Holland were neutral, it would soon be possible to cripple the English trade in the East, and finally to come to close quarters with the Dutch. For nearly a century, the French strove to acquire the British factories in India, and the British plantations in America. In the middle of the eighteenth century, it seemed far from improbable that they would succeed. Clive defeated their aims in India, and the first exploits of Washington were directed against them in America. But the military purposes which were finally baffled in the Seven Years' War were the outcome of projects which were originally devised by the ambition of Louis. CHARACTER OF LOUIS. 317 Again the Dutch had reason to be alarmed at the intolerance of Louis, who was as resolute in his attempts to extirpate Protestantism as the Inquisition and Alva had been. Louis was not a moral person, not even, except in outward form, a religious one. Philip of Spain sincerely believed that he was fulfilling the highest duties of a Christian in burning Jews and heretics alive after torture. He would have sacrificed his own family to the Inquisition if any suspicion of heresy could have been brought home to them. He would have given up his own life, so he said, if he had fallen away, through mental aberration, or demoniac possession, from the faith which the council of Trent defined. He was by no means disposed to yield to the Pope or his own bishops in temporal matters, however submissive he was in spiritual things, for he kept the patronage of ecclesiastical offices strictly in his own hands. But Philip sincerely and devoutly believed what he wished to impress on others. Within the circle of orthodoxy he welcomed ascetic and passionate devotion, and was as much a monk himself as his official industry allowed him to be. But Louis was by no means of this mind. He was orthodox, for to his view the unity and strength of France lay in the completeness of its orthodoxy. But he browbeat and insulted the head of his Church with nearly as much persistent bitterness as his ancestor, Philip the Fair did Bbniface the Eighth. He despoiled the Pope of his ancient inheritance in France, and never restored it. In consequence of this quarrel a third of the French dioceses were at one time empty, and this in a Church where the offices of a bishop 318 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. were considered essential to salvation. He hated heartily all pious enthusiasm. The Quietists were orthodox, but they fell under his ban, and were repressed or exiled. The Jansenists set up a rule of exalted morality, of severe truthfulness, of rigid but not unkindly piety, and Louis was implacable towards them. His own court was entirely orthodox, and profoundly immoral. The fact is, Louis detested singularity. He saw in it a revolt from his authority. No one was to be wiser, stricter, and more virtuous than the King of France was. For this view he had some excuse in the history of the country over which he ruled, for the Huguenot nobles, with all the stern- ness of their religion, were somewhat turbulent sub- jects, and Louis, like many other rulers, believed that the repression of opinion was the extinction of opinion. The Hollanders had now become tolerant, and could not at last be roused to bigotry by the most impas- sioned and unsparing of their Calvinist preachers. But they could see that a powerful, unscrupulous, and intolerant neighbour, with whom religion was policy, was a danger. In common, too, with most Reformed countries and with not a few of those which were Catholic, they had a hearty aversion to the Jesuits and with reason suspected their purposes. To their intrigues they ascribed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the atrocities that were perpetrated in the Cevennes, and the war of despair, which the Camisards began, a war, the particulars of which were as atrocious as those of the Reign of Terror ninety years later. Now English wits could jest about John PERFIDY OF LOUIS. 3 TO. Bull, and Lord Strutt, and Louis Baboon, and Nick Frog ; but the King of France was a far more serious person to the Hollanders than he was to the English. But the principal cause of alarm which the European Powers entertained about Louis and his designs was the total want of faith and honour which characterized the great king. He was as perfidious, as treacherous, as lying as an Italian pupil of Machiavelli. He was an intriguer of the fifteenth century, holding a powerful place in Europe in the eighteenth. No oath, no treaty bound him. If people pointed to his solemn renun- ciations he had an easy expedient at hand. His parliament, otherwise submissive and docile, stiffly stood out against his relinquishing anything.' The Popes used to absolve kings from their oaths for a consideration, the French Parliament, high-minded and resolute only in this, affirmed that his oath was no oath, and Louis expected the European Powers to be satisfied with an interpretation of public duty and good faith with which the servile lawyers, who formed what was called the French Parliament, supplied him. Now a sovereign of great power, of solid purpose, of tenacious will, who has large armies and large means for keeping them afoot, is a very dangerous person at all times. But if to these resources he adds habitual perfidy, and an utter disregard for the most solemn pledges ; the distrust which he naturally excites is pretty certain to develop a very energetic and persis- tent hatred. Nor do I doubt that, had it not been for the English Tories, when they finally acquired an ascendency in Parliament, and over the councils of Anne, Marlborough would have dictated the terms of 320 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. peace to Louis in his own capital, and have rent from him all his acquisitions. There were persons, indeed, both in England and Holland, who saw that the ambition of Louis was overreaching itself. In a past age the matrimonial alli- ances of European sovereigns were supposed to confer rights over subjects which it was impious to dispute and treasonable to resist. No sovereigns had appealed at a more early date to the principle of nationality than the French sovereigns had, and with greater success. The kingdom of France had been consoli- dated by the policy of seeking to make every inhabi- tant glory in the name of Frenchman. But the patriotism of a Spaniard was as keen as that of a Frenchman, perhaps keener ; for his name, and the departed glories of his name, were all that he had to recall. The house of Austria had effectually de- stroyed everything else. The Hollanders, too, had emphatically repudiated dynastic rights. The Eng- lish had changed the succession and had transferred it over twenty or thirty heads to the most remote descendant of the first Stewart king, to a petty German prince, one of the least considerable potentates in that rope of sand, the later German Empire. Such persons argued in England — "What interest have we in the question as to whether Philip ot Bourbon or Charles of Austria is to reign in Spain ? The Spanish Empire is ready to fall to pieces, but we want no part of it. It is very likely that the Emperor of Germany wants to recover those Italian provinces, which his predecessors claimed, sometimes ruled and finally ruined. Very likely the French king OPINION AT THE TIME. 32 1 cherishes the dreams of his predecessors, Charles the Eighth and Francis the First, or fancies that he has succeeded to the rights and the designs of his Austrian kinsfolk Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. He is unquestionally bold, unscrupulous, and ambitious. But he will be less able to turn these dreams into realities, if he hampers himself with the defence of his grandson's inheritance. He will be certainly baffled if he tries to despoil him of any part of it. Nothing is more costly, nothing more disappointing, than the attempt to establish a protectorate over a country which is intensely jealous of its independence, even though it takes the money and accepts the military assistance which it cannot provide out of its own resources. It is difficult enough to assist Spain with entirely disinterested motives. If the King of France, who is never disinterested in his objects, but always sel- fish and grasping, seeks to enlarge his dominions at the expense of Spain, the more he does for his grandson the more will he and his grandson be hated. The poor creature who just lately died was to his people the impersonation of the Spanish Empire, and a Spanish policy, and though he was son-in-law and nephew to Louis, made war on him for these ends. The Spaniards will never consent to be the tools of France, or allow their king to be a viceroy for his grandfather. If Spanish and French interests are at variance, no ties of bjood or alliance will prevent a collision between the two kingdoms, and Philip will be either obliged to follow the policy of the country which has accepted him, or be soon driven from the throne." Events proved that these people reasoned correctly. 22 322 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. In Holland, too, contemporary evidence shows that similar opinions were current. There were public men who saw that Louis was increasing, not lighten- ing his difficulties, that he was engaged, to use a com- mercial phrase, in doubling his liabilities, indefinitely increasing his expenses, and making no addition to his capital. " Our policy," they argued, "is to keep out of European and especially out of dynastic complica- tions. Our late Stadtholder looked after our interests, though we had to pay a heavy price. We are now again a free republic. It is our wisdom to protect our frontier, to husband our resources and to increase our trade. We are already heavily in debt for our past wars, and while these belligerents are wasting their means we shall be increasing ours. Besides, the English, partly from selfishness, partly from ignorance, insist that we should contract our trade with Spain and France. We deal in the choicest of products. What were once luxuries are now, thanks to our energy and perseverance, common comforts, and we have a monopoly of this trade. The English people would gladly deprive us of it, under the hypocritical pretence of high policy and military necessity. Our course should be to stand aloof. The English are covetous and enterprising, the Germans are covetous and beggarly, and we should not present our trade to to the one and our florins to the other. We can easily get ample guarantees from France, and a sub- stantial barrier on the Flemish frontier. There is no price which Louis will not pay for our neutrality." So I find that the Dutch party which was unfriendly to the war argued during the interval between the succes- sion of Philip and the outbreak of war. LOUIS STRIVES FOR DUTCH NEUTRALITY. 323 In one particular they were certainly in the right. Louis spared no pains, and no offers to secure the neutrality of the Dutch during the war of the Spanish succession. He would even, it seems, have guaranteed that there should be no military operations in Flan- ders at all, and that ample indemnities should be given to Holland as the price of neutrality. For he saw that if Holland were neutral not only would half the sinews of war be gone, but that it would be diffi- cult for the allies to land a single soldier on Western Europe. He offered through his agent, Barre, to renew his alliance with the States, to guarantee their com- merce, to renew the treaties of Munster, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, with any additional security which they might demand, and to pledge himself that the Spanish Netherlands should be occupied with Spanish troops only. On the other hand, Anne despatched the Earl of Manchester within a week after her accession, to assure the Dutch that her resolution was the same as that of her predecessor, and that the interests of Hol- land and England were identical and equally impor- tant to her. The States of Holland decided to stand by their resolution, for now that there was no Stadtholder, Holland was, to use a modern phrase, the empire state of the United Provinces. They persuaded the States-General, who were summoned for deliberation, to accept the same policy and to repudiate all the offers of Louis. On May 15, 1702, Great Britain, Germany, and Holland, issued the declaration of war, the plea being the ambition and bad faith of Louis. The atti- tude of the French king showed how deeply he was 324 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. disappointed at the resolution taken by Holland. He took no offence at the attitude of Great Britain and Germany; but said, " Messieurs, the Dutch merchants, will repent for having provoked so great a king as I am." I have dwelt at length on these particulars, because the decision come to in the spring of 1702 was so momentous in the future fortunes of the Dutch Re- public. They were drawn into the European system, and no effort which they made afterwards sufficed to draw them out of it. In this unequal struggle they were finally exhausted, though it must be allowed that other faults of government or policy contributed to this result. The war resolved on, the question was, who should be commander. Rumour was busy. At one time it was the Landgrave of Hesse. Soon afterwards a story was afloat that Queen Anne had recommended her husband, George of Denmark. It was probably an idle guess. Silly as Anne was, she must have known that her husband was the most incompetent fool in Christendom. Charles the Second had described him and his faculties with some pleasantry. The States- General soon put an end to all rumours by appointing Marlborough. Unhappily the English allowed the Queen to put her husband at the head of the navy, in the capacity of Lord High Admiral. More than once the stupid servility of the English people has put in jeopardy the most important interests, by committing them into the hands of royal fools. The mismanage- ment of George of Denmark had a very disastrous effect on the early naval operations of the allies. MARLBOROUGH. 325 Marlborough was the son of a poor country knight. He came to the Court of Charles the Second with many personal graces and great natural gifts. He had improved his natural abilities in the art of war by serving under the great Turenne. He had improved his fortunes by his intimacy with the shameless and rapacious Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, the king's mistress, and his position by marrying Sarah Jennings, the favourite and arrogant waiting woman of Princess Anne. His interest was further served by the fact that his sister, Arabella Churchill, was the mistress of James, Duke of York, and the mother of the famous Duke of Berwick, one of the last great generals in the service of Louis, a person whose attachment to his father, and his father's benefactor, was constant and devoted. Berwick was not only a person of great abilities, but of high character. It was impossible for John Churchill, with these recommendations, natural, acquired, and incidental, to fail of making his way at Court. He was soon ennobled, and on the accession of James he was trusted. He deserted his master at a crisis, he per- suaded the king's daughter to desert her father with him, and he passed over to the service of William. He exhibited his great military abilities under the Dutch king, but soon fell into disgrace, for with him treachery and intrigue were a passion. , As long as Mary lived he was^a traitor, as soon as she died he became loyal to the English Revolution, for the suc- cession of Anne was now assured, and he ruled Anne through his wife. His fidelity at last squared with his interest, and he remained consistently loyal to the 326 FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. latter. I do not find so much fault with Churchill, when I think of his associations, and of the expedients which he was obliged to adopt in order to save his interests. It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to discover any public man who lived through the vile age of the English Restoration, and under the influences of the Court, who was not thoroughly tainted by the atmosphere which he breathed. But I am disposed to believe that historians would have been more kindly to his faults had it not been for the family which he founded. Churchill was avaricious beyond experience, and was seconded in his passion for money-getting by his wife. But in military skill he was far in advance of his age, some say of all men. He never lost his head, his temper, or his judgment. His conception of a campaign was faultless, his interpretation of a field of battle perfect. He never made a mistake in the art of war, never gave a chance to an enemy, never failed in a plan, never lost a battle. When he was thwarted by the Dutch deputies, who would be wiser than he was, and could not be expected to anticipate when we now know, he was as deferential to the States as Maurice had been in his better days, and with less reason, for he soon put Louis in such a position as destroyed the reputation of his military system in Europe. He first saved Germany, he then saved Holland, and he might, had time been given him, have brought Louis on his knees before Europe. But for the Dutch deputies, he might have finished the war within a year of its commencement; and again in 1705, for willing as he was to prolong the war, which was CHURCHILL'S PURPOSES. $2J filling his pockets, he had the truest instincts of a soldier, which was that the best wars are short wars. But though he was thwarted, his temper was placid, almost angelic. He yielded to them with the greatest grace, and continued, as the custom was, to receive his percentages on their and the British expenditure. He even conceded more than was reasonable to the beggarly German princes, perhaps winked at their embezzling English and Dutch money, of course minus his percentage, and graciously accepted a Ger- man patent of nobility. But the tension of his life was too great, and before he reached old age he became imbecile. There was of course an awkwardness which was inherent in the hostilities which the Dutch, the English, and the Germans commenced. The object of the allies was to secure the Spanish throne and the Spanish dominions to the son of the emperor. But they could do this only by subduing the strongholds of the actual king of Spain, and by ravaging or otherwise injuring what they alleged to be the rightful inheri- tance of his rival, On the other hand, Louis could act on the defensive in Spain and Holland, and on the offensive in Germany, particularly in the South, where the Elector of Bavaria was his ally, and for a consider- able time, his only ally. It was therefore (the rear being efficiently protected by the capture or occupa- tions of sufficient forjfcs) advisable at an early d ite to try conclusions with the armies of Louis in Germany. In the first of his campaigns, Marlborough got possession of several fortresses on the Flemish frontier which were of great advantage to him in strengthening w « and now a section of the English race was following their example. She could not therefore take the English side. In consequence, the English Govern- ment revived the old practice of piracy, under the name of privateering, made prize of Dutch ships sailing to French and Spanish ports, though no war had been declared with either country, and informed the Dutch Government, that if the States, in order to protect their own commerce, increased their naval force, they would treat the action as one of hostility. As an Englishman, I am heartily ashamed of telling the story. It is one of undisguised tyranny, violence, oppression, practised by a strong on a weak state, in which the head of the latter was a traitor to his country's best interests. In 1779, the English com- mander, Fielding, captured the Dutch mercantile fleet, with four Dutch men-of-war; and in 1780, Yorke, the English ambassador at the Hague, demanded subsidies from the States, whom his government had just before plundered. By this time, however, the English Government had overstrained the patience of all other nations. It was seen that, unless some steps were taken, England would put herself effectively into the position which Philip II. had very ineffectually assumed, and declare that the three oceans belonged to her, and to her only, and that, commerce on the part of any other people must depend on her will. Hence Catherine II. of 366 TO THE ARMED NEUTRALITY. Russia, formulated the celebrated agreement, known as the "Armed Neutrality," in 1780. It was joined by all the principal states of Europe. Every effort was made by the English to bring about the exclusion of the Dutch from this alliance, and in this they were of course assisted by the Stadtholder. The Dutch hesitated, but in the end resolved. In 1780, England declared war on Holland, and severed a connection which had lasted for more than two centuries. XXXVII. FROM THE WAR OF 1 78 1 TO THE CREATION OF MONARCHY. The entire indifference of the Stadtholder to national interests, and the declaration of war, with the great losses which followed on hostilities, led to the develop- ment of the party of "Patriots" in Holland. The framers and advocates of the " Armed Neutrality," it is true, took no steps to defend that country on which the brunt of the contest fell. Nay, many of the Powers treated them with less favour than they did the English. Probably they hoped to succeed to some of the Dutch possessions, and to all its trade. If so, the English were beforehand with them, for they attacked the Dutch possessions in the West Indies, at the Cape, and in India, before the rupture was known. The spirits of the Dutch was a little raised by the indecisive naval engagement of the Doggerbank in 1 78 1. Peace was effected in 1783, but on disadvan- tageous terms to Holland. Meanwhile the Patriots had compelled the Duke of Brunswick to relinquish his authority in the States, 368 FROM 1781 TO CREATION OF MONARCHY. and the Orange faction was greatly depressed. Day by day, the wretched Stadtholder lost character and influence with his unfortunate countrymen, while the Dutch contrasted the present condition of the States with that which it occupied during the two centuries of heroism of which she had fondly anticipated that William would be a present exemplar. The Patriots began to resume that authority over the councils of which the Senates had been deprived, and to revive the local guard, under the name of " schuttery," which had been all but disbanded by the Stadtholder, William complaining that his prerogative was being invaded. In this crisis, the King of Prussia interfered, to protect the interests of his niece and her husband, and though the interference came to little more than an angry protest, the Dutch learnt anew how wise their forefathers were, when more than a century before, they suspected what would ensue if their Stadtholder allied himself with the reigning houses of Europe. In 1783 the Dutch were attacked by Joseph II., Emperor of Austria, It was owing to their efforts that the Belgian Netherlands had been taken from Spain, and made over to Austria under the treaty of Utrecht. But Joseph, rightly interpreting the finan- cial position of Holland, and seeing how discredited the Stadtholder's government was, determined to take advantage of the situation to wrest the navigation of the Scheldt from the Dutch, and secure himself, if he pleased, an easy entry into Holland. In 1784, war seemed impending, and the States made some effort to enlist soldiers, and to collect army stores. But the THE PATRIOT PARTY. 369 emperor's threat came to nothing. The house of Austria has always depended for its existence on foreign alliances and foreign subsidies, and Joseph was not popular with other European governments. He therefore patched up a peace with the States, the principal condition of which was that the Dutch should pay him some money. The Patriot or States party was meanwhile in- creasingly hostile to the unpopular Stadtholder, and set to work to deprive him of all the prerogatives which he had usurped, and even of those which the States had granted, forty years before, to his father. Certain members of the national party having been insulted by the Orange mob at the Hague, and Wil- liam having connived at the disorder, the States took away from him the command of the Hague garrison, and on his threatening never to return to the seat of government, unless his rights were restored, adhered to their resolution. As they had taken this step, they went further, and in particular at Amsterdam, re- sumed those military and naval functions which had been previously ceded to the Stadtholder. The power of the Stadtholder was gradually being curtailed, and his only chance of his retaining a shadow of it was in the strength of the Orange party, and in what was virtually civil war, the forcible re- straint of malcontents. The States answered his action by deposing y him from his office of Captain- General. It is true that, under the pretence of me- diation, the sovereigns of England, of Prussia, and even of France, counselled moderation in the crisis, and perhaps had the advice of the French ambas- 25 370 FROM 1781 TO CREATION OF MONARCHY. sador, Rayneval, been accepted, an accommodation might have followed. But the Prussian wife of Wil- liam was obstinate, and demanded that the States should abandon the position which they had taken up. This was out of the question, and the breach became wider, the Stadtholder being held up to the public execration of his fellow countrymen as an un- faithful minister, " whose heart was as corrupt as his mind was narrow." The States made his property liable to land-tax, examined his accounts and allow- ances, and substituted the arms of the States for those of the house of Orange in public documents, on the regimental colours, and even on furniture. But while it was comparatively easy to circum- scribe the powers of the Stadtholder, and even to reduce him to the position of first citizen in the Re- public or less, it was not easy to reconstruct the con- stitution of the Republic. There were leaders of the popular party who thought that enough had been done ; there were others who wished to put the con- stitution on a more popular basis ; there were others who desired to proscribe the whole Orange party, to make the use of its party cries and party emblems a capital offence, even to prohibit the exhibition of orange-coloured flowers, and the sale of carrots, un- less the roots were decently hidden. And, above all, the smaller states became jealous of Holland, and seemed inclined to retrace their steps. The Stadt- holder thought his opportunity was come, and began civil war in 1787. On the plea that an insult had been offered to his sister, who had been prevented from stirring up the CIVIL WAR. 371 Orange party at the Hague, the King of Prussia now took part in the war, and invaded Holland. Utrecht was abandoned, and the Stadtholder was restored to his full authority. Amsterdam was besieged and capitulated. Even the English Whigs expressed their satisfaction at the result. The Patriot party seemed to be extinguished. The Dutch were under English influence, and the French Government was accused of bad faith and poltroonery. The leaders of the Patriots were declared incapable of serving their country hereafter, and every one was constrained to wear the Orange badge. I have given these wearisome and miserable details of misgovernment and abortive attempts at reform, because they form a necessary prelude to the events which followed. In 1789 the French constitution was remodelled, and, for a time, good and wise men rejoiced over the reform of what had become the most detestable government in Europe. The Stadt- holder's son contracted a fresh alliance with the house of Prussia ; but Holland took no part in the League of Pilnitz, a league which was to prove so disastrous to the States which joined it, when they forced revo- lutionary France to act on the defensive, and finally justified its reprisals. The Stadtholder, of course, as soon as possible joined the alliance of the Euro- pean sovereigns. But the Patriots determined to wel- come the French. The winter of 1794-95 gave them the wished-for opportunity. The Stadtholder fled to England, and the Dutch revolution was effected. It is very possible that many of those who formed and developed the French revolution were men of 372 FROM 178 1 TO CREATION OF MONARCHY. high purposes and patriotic ends. But France was bankrupt, its finance aggravated the mischief, and at first, constrained to defend itself, and then led to ag- gressive war, it naturally made war support itself. The Dutch paid dearly for the revenge which they took on William. Their trade was ruined, their com- mercial integrity violently destroyed, their resources squandered for objects which did not concern them, their colonies wrested from them. They were erected into a kingdom, dependent on the French Empire, and ruled by one of Napoleon's brothers. In 18 13 came a counter revolution, when Holland, despairing of republican institutions, resolved to accept a limited monarchy. It was perhaps impossible, in the existing temper of European governments, to adopt any other course. When Europe was remodelled, at the final termination of the great continental war, Belgium was added to Holland, and the principle of the Ghent pacification was temporarily enforced by the authority of Europe. Holland recovered most of her depen- dencies. These had been temporarily occupied by the Eng- lish during the time that Holland had been a depen- dency of France. It was inevitable that they should be, for they were virtually French possessions during the French occupancy. But two of them; Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, were retained by the English after the war was over, contrary, as I think, to good faith and justice. It is doubtful whether England has gained anything by the Cape Settlement. The country is essentially Dutch, and the dissatisfaction of the Dutch settlers with the English Government OCCUPATION BY FRANCE. 373 has led to secession, revolt, and war, under circum- stances which has conferred no credit on the intrusive government, and have been no particular honour to English arms. And though in our time Holland cannot, even if she had her old spirit and resources, vie with the great military Powers of Europe, as she once did, her reputation is still high, and her energy is renewed. XXXVIII. CONCLUSION. I HAVE now arrived at the end of the object which I had before me, which was to give a brief narrative of the manner in which the Dutch people vindicated their nationality, and were for a long time the very centre of modern European his- tory. In my opinion, the story of this heroic people is entirely worthy of study, and, as I have stated, is more romantic and more instructive than that of the famous stand which Greece made against Persia, near twenty-four centuries ago. The debt which civilization and liberty owe to these people is greater than that which is due to any other race, however little it may be known and acknowledged. The administration of the United Provinces, no doubt, committed some grave errors, which were visited over severely upon it. But there was a time when these errors were deemed to be political wisdom, and the English Government, which treated the Dutch more ungenerously, more unjustly, and more unwisely than any other European Power did, clung to these errors after they had been discarded in the Netherlands. KUKNEN. 376 CONCLUSION. In a brief sketch like this the difficulty is, not what one should say, but what one should omit, without impairing the historical lesson, which the narrative of Dutch heroism and enterprize should and can convey. It is true that towards the end of the eighteenth cen- tury, Holland was assailed by jealous rivals, into whose hands their own chief magistrate played. But it is also true that after sixty years of humiliation, the Dutch have reasserted themselves, and though a small people, hemmed in by large military governments, they hold a considerable place among nations. Some scribbler, the other day, who knows little of what they were, and nothing of what they are, has called them an effete nation. Nothing can be more untrue. They are fortunately disabled from wasting their substance on militarism, and they are, and I trust will be, pro- tected by the public conscience of Europe, as they should be, in so far as political wisdom goes for any- thing, by the persistent goodwill of Great Britain. But I do not find that in any department of enter- prize, of commercial integrity, and of intellectual vigour, the Dutchman of to-day is behind any Euro- pean nation whatever, or even the race which achieved so remarkable a position in the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. I need only quote the name of Kuenen. I have been constrained in the necessary task of selecting the materials for this sketch, to omit much that might have been said about the place which by- gone generations of Dutchmen have done for progress and for letters. The language of the people is a dialect, spoken by the inhabitants of what is only a INTERNATIONAL SERVICES OF HOLLAND. $J7 corner of Europe. But the Dutch are justly proud of their native poets, of Vondel and of Katz, for in- stance, from the former of whom, it is said, our Milton did not disdain to borrow, if we do not accept the alternative, that two persons of nearly the same age, not only thought alike, but expressed their thoughts in nearly the same words ; in the latter of whom the Dutch allege that they have a lyrist whose poems rank with the best. In the early days of the Republic, Holland, and especially Amsterdam and Rotterdam, held the printing-presses of Europe, whatever may be said of the modern claim that this great invention was made at Haarlem. The Elzevirs were the first pub- lishers of cheap editions, and thereby aided in dis- seminating not the new learning only, but all that the world knew at the time. From Holland came the first optical instruments, the best mathematicians, the most intelligent philosophers, as well as the boldest and most original thinkers. Holland is the origin of scientific medicine and rational therapeutics. From Holland came the new agriculture, which has done so much for social life, horticulture, and flori- culture. The Dutch taught modern Europe naviga- tion. They were the first to explore the unknown seas, and many an island and cape which their cap- tains discovered has been renamed after some one who got all his knowledge by their research, and ap- propriated the fruit of his predecessor's labours. They have been as much plundered in the world of letters, as they have been in commerce and politics. Holland taught the Western nations finance, per- JACOB KATZ. ACHIEVEMENTS IN ALL LEARNING. 379 haps no great boon. But they also taught commer- cial honour, the last and the hardest lesson which nations learn. They inculcated free trade, a lesson which is nearly as hard to learn, if not harder, since the conspiracy against private right is watchful, in- cessant, and, as some would make us believe, respect- able. They raised a constant, and for a long time ineffectual, protest against the barbarous custom of privateering, and the dangerous doctrine of contra- band in war, a doctrine which, if carried out logically, would allow belligerents to interdict the trade of the world. The Dutch are the real founders of what people call international law, or the rights of nations. They made mistakes, but they made fewer than their neighbours made. The benefits which they conferred were incomparably greater than the errors which they committed. There is nothing more striking in the Dutch cha- racter than the fact that, after a brief and discreditable episode, the States were an asylum for the persecuted. The Jews, who were contemned because they were thrifty, plundered because they were rich, and harassed because they clung tenaciously to their ancient faith and customs, found an asylum in Holland ; and some of them perhaps, after they originated and adopted, with the pliability of their race, a Teutonic alias, have not been sufficiently grateful to the country which sheltered therrw The Jansenists, expelled from France, found a refuge in Utrecht, and more than a refuge, a recognition, when recognition was a dangerous offence. There is no nation in Europe which owes more to 380 CONCLUSION. Holland than Great Britain does. The English, I regret to say, were for a long time, in the industrial history of modern civilization, the stupidest and most backward nation in Europe. There was, to be sure, a great age in England during the reign of Elizabeth, and that of the first Stewart king. But it was brief indeed. In every other department, of art, of agriculture, of trade, we learnt our lesson from the Hollanders. How we repaid them I have striven to show, I hope in no unpatriotic strain. Our own Selden, who learnt all his learning from Dutch sources, never lets an opportunity slip of gibing at his literary benefactors and teachers. I must not permit myself to linger on the modern merits of restored and revived Holland. I doubt whether any other small European race, after passing through the trials which it endured from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the conclusion of the continental war, ever had so entire a recovery. The chain of its history, to be sure, was broken, and cannot, in the nature of things, be welded together. But there is still left to Holland the boast and the reality of her motto, " Luctor et emerge" THE END §110 ^1 JTtr-S f&& v\l3# ^^A" \1^wjK[^ ^p INDEX Abjuration, Act of, 106 Accord, the concession of, 71 Agriculture, prosecution of, in Holland, 217 Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 357 Albert, Archduke, his history, Alexander VI., Pope (Borgia), Bull of, 45 Alliance, the grand, formation of, by William, 290 Almanza, battle of, 329 Alva, Duke of, his history before he came to Flanders, 73 ; policy of, 75 Ambassadors, privileges of, abuse of, 290 Amboyna, capture of, 179; mas- sacre of, 249 American independence, war of, 364 Amsterdam, Bank of, foundation of, 221 ; government of, and reputation of, 223 Amsterdam, rise of, on the fall of Antwerp, 144; trade of, 168; riches of, 215; less hearty to- wards William III. than the rest of Holland, 303 ; com- mercial prosperity of, 346 ; siege of, in 1787, 371 Anjou, Duke of, his character, 101 ; his bad conduct, in ; his departure, 116 Antwerp, attempted seizure of, by Anjou, 115 ; importance of, as a base against England, 139 ; siege of, 140 Archdukes, the, their stipulations as to peace, 183 Aristocracy, the, in Holland, and elsewhere, an unmixed evil, 10 Armada, the, and the English fleet, 147 ; defeat of, 148 ; the second, its fate, 164 Armed neutrality, the, in 1780, 366 Arminius, Jacob, at Leyden, 230 Artificial grasses, cultivation of, in Holland, 218 Augsburg, League of, 291 Austrian succession, war of the, 356 Avignon, annexation of, 289 B Bank of England, foundation of, 312 Barneveldt , Olden , his policy, 230 ; his recovery of the cautionary towns, 233 ; imprisonment, trial, and execution of, 234-5 Barendz, voyages of, 172-6 3 82 INDEX. Bartholomew, massacre of, effects of, 82 Batavia, foundation of, 180 Batavians, the allies of Caesar and Rome, 2 ; disappear, 4 Bubbles, the time of the, 345 Bavaria, Elector of, regent of the Netherlands, 311 ; his refusal to accept the Pragmatic Sanction, 355 Beachy Head, battle of, 306 Beggars of the Sea, their capture of Brill, 78 Beggars, the name of adopted, 70 Belgium, an European battlefield, 190 Bentinck, elevation of, an offence in Holland and England, 303 Binnenhof, the, 359 Bishops, the, increase of, in the Netherlands, 68 Blenheim, battle of, 329 Blood Council, the, 75 Bohemia, election of, king of, 239 Boniface, Bishop of Mainz and of Utrecht, 8 Brazil, relinquishment of, by the Dutch, 258 Bribes, expenditure of Philip on, 127 Bridge, the, over the Scheldt, 140 Brill, capture of, by the Beggars of the Sea, 78 Burgundy, Dukes of, origin of, 2 3 Burnet, his counsels to William, 291 Cadiz, second destruction of the fleet at, 162 Calfskin, the, a charter, 55 Calvin, policy of, $2 Cape Passage, the Dutch make the, in 1595, 176 Catherine II. (Russia), her policy in 1780, 365 Charles II. of England, character of, 255 ; his perfidy in 1672, 267 ; forced to forego his bar- gain with France, 276 Charles, the Great, principles of government by, 6 Charles the Headstrong, succes- sion of, 32 ; his objects, 33 ; his quarrel with the Swiss, 38 Charles (V. ), his birth in 1 500, 44 ; accession of, his empire, 47 ; resignation of, 56 ; his career, 58 ; oration of, and conduct of, 61 Charles VI. (Germany), policy of, S54 Charters to towns, forms of early, T 4 Civilis Claudius, revolt of, 3 Civil War, the, in France, 131 ; of 1787, 370 Clergy, use of the, as instruments of government, 8 ; never one of the estates in the Netherlands, 20 Cleves and Juliers, the mad Duke of, 239 Commerce, necessity of, to Hol- land, 170; the destruction of, 362 Cromwell, hostility of Dutch to- wards, 250 Crusades, effects of the, on trade, 13 D Debt, the, of Holland in 17 14, 337 De Witt and the events of 1672, 224 De Witt, John, his administration, 260 De Witts, murder of the, 270 Dirk, Count of Holland in the tenth century, 7 Dorislaus, Isaac, murder of, 251 Dort, Synod of, 234 Drake, his expeditions, 145 ; his exploits at Cadiz, 146 Dunkirk, pirates of, 143 ; sale of, 25 f INDEX. 383 Dutch independence, declaration of, 104 Dutch, political views of, in, 1609, 212 ; adopted Calvinism, 230; tried to conciliate Charles II., 258 Dutch ports, their reputation, 377 Dutch Republic, constitution of the, 339 Dutch scholars, their eminence, 376 Dyke, the, at Antwerp, attempts to break through, 142 Dykes, opening of the, in 1672, 274 ; danger to the, from the Pholas, 348 Dykvelt, the Dutch envoy in England, 291 E East India Company, foundation of the English, 177 ; Dutch and English rivalry of, 249 ; its rapid progress, 280 East India Company, foundation of the Dutch, 178; its capital, 200 ; its policy, 202 ; its rapid growth, 243 East India Companies, fortunes of the English and Dutch, 344 Egmont, arrest and execution of, 75-76 Egypt, conquest of, its effects, 48 Elizabeth impounds Alva's trea- sure ships, yj ; her position, 89 ; her knowledge of Philip's designs, 129 England, friendship of Nether- lands with, its motive, 19 ; throne of, Philip's claim to, 122 ; condition of, in Elizabeth's reign, 189 ; war of, on Holland in 1653, 255 ; receives many of the Huguenots, 287 ; jealous of the Dutch after 1688, 300 ; policy of, towards Holland, during the war of American in- dependence, 365 English Government, the, its usage of Holland, 337 English traitors, some, as Yorke and Stanley, in Holland, 135 Erasmus, his timidity, 53 Ernest, Archduke, his brief rule, 161 Essex, his capture of Cadiz, 162 Europe, hostility of, to Louis XIV., 304 ; feeling of, towards England, 365 European Powers, principal in the war of the English succession, 305; quarrels of the, 352 European system, the Dutch drawn into, in 1702, 324 Females, descent through, com- mon in Europe, 23 Fisheries, the importance of, to Holland, 27 Flanders, temporary freedom of, 95 Flemish towns, the, small repub- lics, 35 Flushing, capture of, 80 Fontenoy, battle of, 356 France, wars of, with England, 33 ; policy of, in relation to the Low Countries, 206 ; alli- ance of Holland with, 244 Frederic Henry, birth of, 118; ac- cession of, 240 Frederic the Great, his behaviour, 355 French prey, the, at Antwerp, r ?s Frisians, the, probably absorbed the Batavians, their love of free- dom, 4 Frontier towns, the, guaranteed, 334 Fury, the Spanish, in Antwerp, 92 Genoa, bankruptcies in, 208 ; bank of, 222 ; Louis XIV. bombards, ^285 George II. (England), his German policy, 349 384 INDEX. George of Denmark, his want of capacity, 324 Gerard, Balthasar, the murderer of Orange, 118 Germany, Philip claims the empire of, 123 Ghent, town of, and its bell, 21 ; insurrection of, in 1448, 31 ; another insurrection at, 55 ; pacification of, 92 Gianibelli, his devices, 141 Gibraltar, battle of, in 1607, 203 ; capture of, 329 Golden Fleece, Order of, insti- tuted, 31 Gomarus, quarrel of,with Arminius, 230 Governess, the, Anne, her per- nicious counsels, 361 Grand Alliance, danger to, 310 Great Intercourse, the, its import- ance, 50 Great Privilege, the provisions of, 4 1 . Grotius, his attempts to reconcile differences, 233 ; his imprison- ment, escape, and banishment, 235-7 Guilds, institution of, its origin, 15 Guises, murder of the, 152 H Hanover, house of, its succession welcomed by the Dutch, 338 Hanseatic League, the excellent work of, 17 Harvests, seven years bad, 311 Heemskerk, his exploits, 203 Heinsius, death of, 341 Henrietta, wife of Charles I., her intrigues in Holland, 251 Henry IV., of France, policy of, 189 Henry II., of France, communi- cates his purposes to William, 6 7 Henry III., of France, his views, 130 Herrings, curing of, improved by the Flemings, 27 High Mightinesses, title of, assumed and why, 245 Hooks and Kabeljauws, the, factions of, 11 Holland and Zeland, simultaneous insurrection of, 80 Holland, ancient, character of, 3 ; two principal potentates in, the Count and the Bishop of Utrecht, 9 ; constitution of, 87 ; negotiations of, with Elizabeth, 134; really gained her own independence, 137 ; trade of, in the East and West, 183 ; its numerous sea captains, 204 ; independence of, not recognized by James and Henry, 213; its success in the arts, 220; enemies of, their anticipations, 227 ; con- stitution of, unsatisfactory, 228 ; position of, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, 240 ; independence of, acknowledged, 248; commercial theory of, 250 ; war of, with the English Parlia- ment, 253 ; first war of Charles II. with, 264 ; Louis XIV. makes, thoroughly distrust him, 287 ; receives many of the Huguenots, 289; always attached to William III., 301 ; its fear of Louis XIV., 316; resolution taken by, in the war of the Spanish succession, 323 ; its trust in Marlborough, and his deference to it, 326 j debts of, after 1713, 335 ; decline of, after 17 16, 339; condition of, in 1735' 353 ; during the Con- tinental war, 372 ; its past and present condition, 380 Horticulture, practice of, in Hol- land, 217 Huguenots, the, in France, 285, 286; emigration of, 287 Image breaking, the, in the Netherlands, 71 INDEX. 385 Inquisition, the, establishment of, 64 Intolerance common among those who have been persecuted, 225 ; decline of, in Holland, 241 ; motives of Louis XIV. in, 317 Ireland, war in, 1689, 306 Irish troops brought to England, 294 J Jacqueline of Holland deposed by Philip, 28 James I. of England, his character, 206 ; his religious sympathies, 214; his opinion of his own theological learning, 227 James II. of England offends Louis at a crisis, 292 ; his policy, 293 ; deserted by everybody, 298 ; his foolish manifesto in 1692, 308 Jansenists, quarrel with the, by Louis XIV., 285 ; and Jesuits, 347 Jesuits, dislike of the, 213 Joanna, wife of Philip, madness of, 44 John of Austria, Don, his history, 92 ; bis purposes, 93-5 ; his death, 99 John William Friso, heir of William III., his death, 341 Joseph II., Emperor, attack of on Holland, 368 Juareguy, Juan, attempts the assassination of William, story of, 113 K Kabeljauws and Hooks, the prac- tices of, n La Hogue, battle of, 307 League, The Most Holy, its designs, 130 Leicester, Earl of, his history, 135 Leopold of Germany, his cha- racter, 305 15 26 Lepanto, battle of, 93 Leyden, siege of, 34 ; University of, 86; University of, its reputa- tion, 220 Liege, revolt of, 37 Linen, manufacture of, in the Netherlands, 19 Linschoten, his map of the East, Louis XL, the crafty, his policy, 33 ; his character, 34 ; disap- pointed by the distrust of the Flemings, 39 ; intrigues of, with Mary's counsellors, 42 Louis XIV., activity of, in 1672, 268 ; ambition of, an assistance to Holland, 275 ; declares war against Holland, 302 ; fear en- tertained about him, 315 Luther, policy of, 52 Lutheranism, political tendencies of, 232 M Madrid, treaty of, in 1729, 343 Malacca, attack on, in 1606, 181 Margaret of Parma made Regent, 64-66 Maria Theresa, her position, 355 Marlborough, origin and character of, 3 2 5 Mary of Burgundy, her attitude to the Low Countries, 40 ; her death, 42 Mary of England, wife of William II., death of, 257 ; marriage of William III. with, 281 Matalieff, Dutch admiral, victory of, 182 Maurice, gradual development of the military skill of, 153 ; his successes, 154; his conduct at the battle of Nieuwport, 193 ; character of, 228 ; death of, in 1625, 240 Maximilian, marriage of, with Mary, 42 Mayenne, Duke of, his intrigues, 156 Medway, English fleet burnt in the, 266 3 86 INDEX. Monarchy, hereditary, a coming danger to Holland, 348 Money, sources of Philip's, 126 Monopoly of trade, early, defence of, 178 Monopoly, the object of the Dutch and English traders, 205 Mutinies of Spanish troops, fre- quent, 91 N Namur, recapture of, in 1695, 312 Nantes, Edict of, 286 ; repealed, 287 Napoleon I., the basis of his claim to the Dutch states, 2 Nassau, house of, its services, 67 Navigation Act, its effects on Dutch trade, 253 Netherlands, the, two races in, 2 ; trade of, origin of, 15 ; pros- perity of, in the fifteenth cen- tury, 25 ; persecutions in, 53 ; importance of, to France, 131, 133; Philip determines to sur- render, 161 ; the dower of, dangled before France and Eng- land, 213 ; designs of Louis XIV. on, 263 Neutrality, Dutch, greatly desired by Louis, 323 New Amsterdam, capture of, 265 Nieuwport, battle of, 192 Nimeguen, effects of the treaty of, 282 North-east Passage, attempts to discover, 172 sqq. Nova Zembla, isle of, wintering of the Dutch on, 175 O Opinion, public, about Louis in England and Holland, 318-323 Orange, Prince of, first appear- ance of, 59 Orange, Prince of, William IV., his marriage, 349 Orleans, Duke of, his policy after I7I5> 338 Ostend, siege of, 194 sqq. Ostend Company, foundation of the, 342 P Papacy, revolt against, districts in which it occurred, 50, 51 ; Philip obliged to manage the, 123 Parliament, English, its distrust of William III., 299 Parma, Prince of, character of, IOO; distrusted by Philip, 158; his death, 159 Pensionary De Witt, prime mini- ster, 262 Patriots, party of the, 367 ; wel- comed the French in 1794-5, 371 Peace, negotiations for,in 1607,209 Peace, desire for, in 1572, 83 Peace of 1763, effects of, 363 Peasants' war, the, causes of, 49 Pepper, great demand for, 177 Peterborough, campaign of, in Spain, 330 Philip, son of Mary, his acession, 43 ; his marriage, 44 Philip, reign of and death of, 165 Philip II., description of, 59 ; formally deposed in 1575, 87; becomes king of Portugal, his ban published, 103 ; his pro- jects, 120-8 ; his distrust of Parma, 157 Philip III., character of, 188 Philip "the Good," of Burgundy, 24 ; quarrel of, with the English, and siege of Calais by, 29 Pholas, ravages of the, 348 Political liberty, the true object of Charles V.'s animosity, 62 Pope, effects from the lessening of his authority, 25 ; Louis XII. insults the, 285 Portugal, revolt of, in 1641, 247 ; claims of Charles II. on behalf of, 258 Portuguese, original possessors of the spice trade, 202 Powers, European, at the declara- tion of Dutch independence, 88 INDEX. 387 Pragmatic Sanction, the, its ob- ject, 344 Printing in Holland, 377 Printing presses, activity of, in Holland, 220 Privateers really pirates, 362 Prussia, claims of, in Holland, 341 Prussia, king of, his invasion of Holland, 371 Pyrenees, treaty of, terms of, 263 R Ramillies, battle of, 330 Reformation, two divisions of, 51 Religions, some, have been ex- tirpated, 352 Remonstrants, the, and their opponents, 231 Republic, Dutch, the, importance of the foundation of, in history, 107 Repudiation of debts by Philip in 1596, 187 Requesens, death of, 90 Resentment of Europe, interpreta- tion of, by Cromwell, 251 Rhine, the delta of the, is Hol- land, 1 Roland, the town bell of Ghent, 21 ; the bell tried and condemned, 55 Ryswick, peace of, 312 Salic law, the, in France, 22 Salted provisions, importance of, 28 Salzburg, Archbishop of, his persecutions, 346 Scheldt, the, closed by the Dutch, 144 Science and art, their progress in Holland, 377 Seneff, battle of, 278 Seven Years' War, the, its object, 361 Shipping, Dutch, injuries to, in the Seven Years' War, 362 Sluys, capture of, 195 Smallpox, severe visitation of, 332 Southwold Bay, battle of, 265 Spain, downfall of, as a European Power, 150; foolish liking of James I. to, 207 ; claims of, in 1607, 209; attempt on, by Louis XIV'., 277; reverses in, 332 Spanish troops, excellence of the, 73 Spice islands, acquisition of, 200 Spices, liking for, 201 bpinola, Marquis of, 192 ; family of, 196 Stadtholder, office of the, 26 ; son of, married to daughter of Charles I. , 247 ; the general progress of his power, 340 Stadtholderate made hereditary, 243 . State rights in Holland, 228 States -General, their reluctance to the marriage of William IV. , 349 Steenwyk, siege of, and incident at, 104 Strasburg, retention of, 313 Subjects and kings, rights of, 24 Swiss, the, quarrel with Charles of Burgundy, and defeat him, 38 Temple, Sir W., sent to the Hague, 266 Theological questions of universal interest at one time, 231 Thirty Years' War, importance of, 238 Titelmann, the chief Inquisitor, 69 Toleration first practised by the Dutch, 166; reasons why the Dutch would not grant it, as a concession to Spain, 211 ; instances of, in Holland, 379 Torbay, William lands at, 297 Tories, the, supplanted Marl- borough, 333 Tourville, entire defeat of, at La Hogue, 309 Towns, survival of, after the down- fall of Rome, 12 Triple Alliance, the, negotiated, 266 Truce, the, of 1609, 210 Tulip mania, the, of 1637, 245 388 INDEX. U Union of Brussels, the, 99 Union of Utrecht, the, 102 United Provinces induced to take part in the expedition of 1688, 295 Utrecht, church of, foundation of, 4 ; treaty of, 334 ; Jansenist archbishop at, 347 V Venice, bank of, 222 Vere, Sir Francis, governor of Ostend, 196 Vervins, peace of, 164 Vigo bay, battle of, 329 Vondel, supposed indebtedness of Milton to, 221 W Wales, Prince of (the Old Pre- tender), title of, its effects, 291 West India Company, foundation of the Dutch, 180 White Mountain, battle of the, 239 William II., Stadtholder, deter- mines on making himself abso- lute ; dies, 252 William III., a posthumous child, 252 ; education, undertaken by Holland, 256 ; made Captain- General, 269 ; character of, 271 ; anxious to prolong war, and why, 279 ; his quarrels with the English Parliament, 299 ; pecu- liar military abilities of, 307 William IV., his accession, 357 ; his memory respected, 360 ; his death, 361 William V., his accession and his character, 364; curtailment of his powers, 369 William of Orange, insults of Philip to, 65 ; the Silent, why thus called, 68 ; learns all Philip's secrets, 70 ; his difficul- ties, 96 ; put under the ban of Philip, 103 ; his belief in the necessity of foreign help, 109 ; attempted assassination of, 112 ; his fourth marriage, 116; his murder, 118 Winter roots, cultivation of, in Holland, 217 "Wisdom of Holland," a title given to De Witt, 262 Wool, English, importance of, to the Netherlands, 18 Zulestein, special envoy to Eng- land, 292 Zuyder Dee, irruption of, in the thirteenth century, 4 PRINTED RY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH I