by Will Durant
The Torquemada of the Netherlands was Peter Titelman, whose methods were so arbitrary and brutal that the city council of Bruges, all Catholic, denounced him to the Regent as a barbarian who dragged people from their homes, tried them without any legal checks, forced them to say whatever he wished, and then condemned them to death; and the magistrates of Flanders, in an earnest address to Philip, begged him to end these enormities. Margaret timidly asked the Inquisitor to conduct himself “with discretion and modesty,” but the executions continued. Philip supported Titelman, and bade the Regent enforce without mercy or delay the decrees recently issued by the Council of Trent (1564). The Council of State protested that several of these decrees violated the recognized privileges of the provinces, and it suspended their publication.
William of Orange, anxious to keep the Netherlands united in the preservation of their traditional political liberties, proposed a policy of toleration far in advance of his time. “The King errs,” he told the Council of State, “if he thinks that the Netherlands … can indefinitely support these sanguinary edicts. However strongly I am attached to the Catholic religion, I cannot approve of princes attempting to rule the consciences of their subjects and wanting to rob them of the liberty of faith.”11 Catholics joined with Protestants in branding the edicts as tyrannical.12 Egmont was sent to Madrid to ask for a mitigation of the edicts; Margaret privately seconded the request. Egmont was feted in Spain, but came back empty-handed. The bishops of Ypres, Namur, Ghent, and St.-Omer addressed a petition to Philip (June 1565), begging him to soften the edicts and “to admonish the people by gentleness and fatherly love, not by judicial severity.”13 To all such protests Philip replied that he would rather sacrifice a hundred thousand lives than change his policy,14 and in October 1565 he sent this plain directive to the agents of the Inquisition:
As to the Inquisition, my will is that it be enforced … as of old, and as is required by all law, human and divine. This lies very near my heart, and I require you to carry out my orders. Let all condemned prisoners be put to death, and suffer them no longer to escape through the neglect, weakness, and bad faith of the judges. If any are too timid to execute the edicts, I will replace them by men who have more heart and zeal.15
Margaret obeyed Philip and ordered full enforcement of the edicts (November 14, 1565). Orange and Egmont again withdrew from her Council. Orange, other nobles, and many magistrates refused to enforce the edicts. Protestants poured forth pamphlets and broadsheets denouncing the persecution. Foreign merchants, sensing revolution in the air, began to leave the Low Countries. Stores closed, trade languished, Antwerp seemed dead. Many Netherland Protestants fled to England or Germany. In England they helped to develop those textile industries which in the seventeenth century competed with the United Provinces, and in the eighteenth led the Industrial Revolution.
Many of the lesser nobles secretly adopted the Protestant creed. In December 1565 some of these—Louis, Count of Nassau (the chivalrous younger brother of William), Philip van Marnix, Lord of St.-Aldegonde, his brother Jean van Marnix, Lord of Tholouse, Hendrik, Count of Brederode, and others—met in the palace of the Count of Culemborch in Brussels, drew up a “Compromise” denouncing the introduction of the Inquisition into the Netherlands, and formed a league pledged to drive it from the country. On April 5, 1566, some four hundred of these minor nobles marched to the palace of the Regent, and presented to her a “Request” that she ask the King to end the Inquisition and the edicts in the Netherlands, and that all enforcement of the edicts be suspended until Philip’s reply was received. Margaret replied that she would communicate their petition to the King, but that she had no authority to suspend the edicts; however, she would do all in her power to mitigate their operation. One of her councilors, seeing her frightened by the number and the resolution of the petitioners, reassured her: “What, madam, is your Highness afraid of these beggars [ces gueux]?” The confederates defiantly accepted the name; many of them adopted the coarse gray costume, the wallet and bowl then characteristic of mendicants; “Vivent les Gueux!” became the battle cry of the revolution, and for a year it was these younger nobles who led and nourished the revolt.
Margaret apprised Philip of the “Request” and its wide popular support, and renewed her efforts to bring him around to moderation. He answered in an apparently conciliatory mood (May 6, 1566): he hoped that heresy could be suppressed without further shedding of blood, and he promised to visit the Netherlands soon. The Council of State sent to him Florent de Montmorency, Baron of Montigny, and the Marquis of Bergheon to reinforce the Regent’s plea. Philip received them handsomely; wrote to Margaret (July 31) consenting to the abolition of the episcopal Inquisition in the Netherlands, and offering a general pardon to all for whom the Regent should recommend it.
The Calvinists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists of the Netherlands took advantage of this lull in the storm to bring their worship out in the open. Protestant refugees returned in considerable number from England, Germany, and Switzerland; preachers of all kinds—ex-monks, learned theologians, ambitious hatters, curriers, and tanners—addressed large gatherings of fervent men and women, many of them armed, all chanting psalms and crying, “Vivent les Gueux!” Near Tournai Ambrose Wille, who had studied with Calvin, preached to six thousand (June 28, 1566); two days later, on the same spot, another minister addressed ten thousand; a week later, twenty thousand.16 Half of Flanders seemed to have gone Protestant. On Sundays the churches and towns were almost empty while the townspeople attended the Protestant assemblies. When word went about the province of Holland that the eloquent Peter Gabriel was to preach at Overeen, near Haarlem, Protestants by the thousands flocked there and shook the fields with their psalms. Near Antwerp the Protestant assemblages numbered fifteen thousand—some said thirty thousand—nearly every man armed. The Regent ordered the magistrates of Antwerp to prevent such gatherings as a danger to the state; they replied that their militia was inadequate and unreliable. Margaret herself, since the departure of the Spanish garrisons, had no troops at her disposal. Antwerp was in such turmoil that economic life was seriously impeded. The Regent asked William of Orange to go there and arrange some peaceful settlement between Catholics and Protestants. He quieted the strife by persuading the preachers to confine their assemblies to the suburbs and to keep them unarmed.
In this same month (July 1566) two thousand “Beggars,” led by Count Louis of Nassau, gathered at St.-Trond, in the bishopric of Liége, and, amid much joyous roistering, laid plans to advance their cause. They resolved to communicate with German Protestants and to raise among them an army that would come to the aid of the Netherland Protestants in case these should be attacked. On July 26 Louis and twelve others, garbed as beggars, presented to the Regent a demand that she convene the States-General, and that meanwhile she be guided by Orange, Egmont, and Horn. Her answer being noncommittal, they intimated that they might be obliged to seek foreign aid. Louis at once proceeded, with the connivance of his more cautious brother William, to raise in Germany four thousand cavalry and forty companies of infantry.17
On August 9 Philip signed a formal instrument declaring that his offer of pardon had been wrung from him against his will and did not bind him, and on August 12 he assured the Pope that the suspension of the Inquisition was subject to papal approval.18 On August 14 a Protestant crowd, aroused by preachers who denounced religious images as idols, broke into one after another of St.-Omer’s churches, smashed the images and the altars, and destroyed all decorations. In that week similar mobs accomplished like denudations in Ypres, Courtrai, Audenaarde, and Valenciennes. At Antwerp, on the sixteenth and seventeenth, mobs entered the great cathedral, broke up the altars, shattered stained glass, the crucifixes and other images, destroyed organs, embroideries, chalices, and monstrances, opened sepulchers, and stripped corpses of ornaments. They drank the sacramental wine, burned costly missals, and trampled upon masterpieces of art. Having sent for ladders and ropes, they hauled statues down from niches and sm
ashed them with sledge hammers. Shouting in triumph, the crowd passed through Antwerp, destroyed the images and ornaments in thirty churches and monasteries, burned monastic libraries, and drove monks and nuns from their convents.19 When the news of this “Calvinist Fury” reached Tournai the iconoclastic ecstasy was let loose there, and every church was sacked. In Flanders alone four hundred churches were cleansed of their imagery. At Culemborch the jolly Count presided over the devastation, and fed his parrots with consecrated Hosts;20 elsewhere some former priests toasted the wafers on forks.21 From Flanders the Fury passed into the northern provinces, to Amsterdam, Leiden, Delft, Utrecht, at last into Groningen and Friesland. Most Protestant leaders condemned these ravages, but some of them, noting that very little violence had been done to persons, judged the destruction of statues and pictures as less criminal than the burning of live “heretics.”
Margaret of Parma shrank before this storm. “Anything and everything is now tolerated in this country,” she wrote to Philip, “except the Catholic religion.”22 Philip bided his time for revenge, but the Regent, faced with armed mobs and audacious leaders, felt compelled to make concessions. On August 23 she signed with the representatives of the Gueux an “Accord” by which Calvinist worship was to be permitted wherever it was already practiced, on condition that it should not interfere with Catholic services, and that the Protestants should leave their weapons at home. The confederate spokesmen agreed to disband their league if the government lived up to this accord. The persecution halted, and for a moment there was peace.
Neither William of Orange nor the King of Spain was satisfied to let matters rest. William saw in the growth of a passionate Protestantism an instrument with which to win independence for the Netherlands. Though still nominally a Catholic, he resigned all his state offices, organized his own system of espionage, and went to Germany (April 22, 1567) to seek soldiers and funds. Five days later the Duke of Alva left Spain, commissioned by Philip to raise and use sufficient troops to avenge the Calvinist riots and stamp out, by uncompromising force, all heresy, rebellion, and freedom in the Netherlands.
III. ALVA IN THE NETHERLANDS: 1567–73
Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, or Alva, now fifty-nine years old, was a figure out of El Greco: straight, tall, thin, with dark eyes, yellow skin, silver beard. At twenty he had inherited his illustrious title and extensive estates. He had entered early upon a military career, in which he distinguished himself by courage, intelligence, and severity. Philip attached him to his innermost council and listened congenially to his advice. In this emergency his judgment was that of a soldier trained in Spanish discipline and piety: crush the rebels without mercy, for every concession strengthens the opposition. Philip gave him full powers and bade him Godspeed.
Alva crossed to Italy and assembled there, chiefly from Spanish garrisons in Naples and Milan, a select army of ten thousand men. He dressed them in proud splendor, gave them the latest arms and armor, and solaced them with two thousand prostitutes properly enrolled and assigned. He led them over the Alps and through Burgundy, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, and entered Brussels on August 22, 1567. Egmont met him with all submission and a gift of two rare horses. Margaret met him with regret, feeling that her brother had superseded and overruled her just when she had restored a humane order. When Alva garrisoned the larger towns with his Spanish troops she protested, but the Duke coldly replied, “I am ready to take all the odium upon myself.” Margaret asked Philip’s permission to resign; he granted it with a comfortable pension, and in December she left Brussels for her home in Parma, mourned by the Catholics, who revered her, and by the Protestants, who foresaw how mild her greatest rigor would soon appear beside Alva’s calculated brutality.
The new Regent and Governor General installed himself in the citadel at Antwerp and prepared to cleanse the Netherlands of heresy. He invited Egmont and Horn to dinner, feted them, arrested them, and sent them under strong guard to a castle in Ghent (September 7). He appointed a “Council of Troubles,” which the terrified Protestants rechristened the “Council of Blood”; seven of its nine members were Netherlanders, two were Spaniards; but only these two had a vote, and Alva reserved to himself the final decision in any case that specially interested him. He ordered the council to ferret out and arrest all persons suspected of opposition to the Catholic Church or the Spanish government, to try them privately, and to punish the convicted without tenderness or delay. Agents were sent out to spy; informers were encouraged to betray their relatives, their enemies, their friends. Emigration was forbidden; shipmasters aiding emigration were to be hanged.23 Every town that had failed to stop or punish rebellion was held guilty, and its officials were imprisoned or fined. Thousands of arrests were made; in one morning some 1,500 persons were seized in their beds and carried off to jail. Trials were summary. Condemnations to death were sometimes voted upon groups of thirty, forty, or fifty at a time.24 In one month (January 1568) eighty-four residents of Valenciennes were executed. Soon there was hardly a family in Flanders that did not mourn a member arrested or killed by the Council of Troubles. Scarcely anyone in the Netherlands dared protest; the slightest criticism would have meant arrest.
Alva felt his success tarnished by inability to lure William of Orange within his reach. The Council of Troubles drew up an indictment of the Prince, his brother Louis, his brother-in-law Count van den Berg, the Baron of Montigny, and other leaders as having encouraged heresy and revolt. Montigny was still in Spain; Philip had him jailed. William’s son, Philip William, Count of Buren, was a student in the University of Louvain; he was arrested, was sent to Spain, and was brought up as a fervent Catholic, who repudiated his father’s principles. William was declared an outlaw whom anyone might kill with legal impunity.
He proceeded with the organization of an army, and directed his brother Louis to do likewise. He asked aid of the Lutheran princes, who responded feebly, and of Queen Elizabeth, who held back cautiously; sums came to him from Antwerp, Amsterdam, Leiden, Haarlem, Flushing; Counts van den Berg, Culemborch, and Hoogstraaten sent 30,000 florins each; he himself sold his jewelry, plate, tapestries, and rich furniture and contributed 50,000 florins. Soldiers were plentiful, for mercenaries released by a lull in the religious wars of France had returned to Germany penniless. Toleration was a necessary policy for William: he had to win Lutherans as well as Calvinists to his banner, and he had to assure the Catholics of the Netherlands that their worship would not be impeded by liberation from Spain.
He planned simultaneous action by three armies. A force of Huguenots from France was to attack Artois in the southwest; Hoogstraaten was to lead his men against Maastricht in the south; Louis of Nassau was to enter Friesland from Germany in the northeast. The Huguenot and Hoogstraaten invasions were repulsed, but Louis won a victory over the Spanish soldiery at Heiligerlee (May 23, 1568). Alva ordered the execution of Egmont and Horn (June 5) to release for action the 3,000 troops that had guarded them and Ghent. With these reinforcements he advanced into Friesland, overwhelmed Louis’ weakened army at Jemmingen (July 21), and killed 7,000 men. Louis escaped by swimming an estuary of the Ems. In October William led 25,000 men into Brabant, resolved to meet Alva in a decisive battle. Alva, with men less numerous but better disciplined, outgeneraled him, and avoided battle except in destructive rearguard attacks. William’s troops, unpaid, refused to fight. He led them to safety in France and disbanded them. Then, disguised as a peasant, he made his way from France to Germany, where he moved from one town to another to avoid assassination. With these disastrous campaigns began the “Eighty Years’ War” waged with unprecedented perseverance by the Netherlands till their final triumph in 1648.
Alva was for the time proud master of the field, but he too was penniless. Philip had arranged with Genoese bankers to send Alva, by sea, 450,000 ducats; but the vessels were forced by English privateers into Plymouth harbor, and Elizabeth, not averse to helping William for such a fee, seized the money with the blandest of apologies. Alva su
mmoned the States-General of nobles and burgesses to Brussels, and proposed to them (March 20, 1569) an immediate tax of one per cent to be levied upon all property, a perpetual tax of 5 per cent on every transfer of realty, and a perpetual tax of 10 per cent on every sale. The assembly protested that since many articles changed ownership several times a year, such a sales tax would approach confiscation. It referred the proposals to the provincial assemblies, and there the opposition was so bitter that Alva had to defer the 10 per cent tax till 1572, and content himself meanwhile with the one per cent tax and a grant of two million florins yearly for two years. Even the one per cent tax was hard and costly to collect. Utrecht refused to pay it; a regiment of soldiery was quanered upon the households; resistance continued; Alva declared the whole district treasonous, abolished its charters and privileges, and confiscated all the property of the inhabitants for the King.
It was this taxation, and the measures taken to enforce it, that defeated the hitherto undefeated Alva. Now nearly the entire population, Catholic as well as Protestant, opposed him, and with rising anger as his impositions hampered and discouraged the business activity upon which the Netherlands had built their prosperity. More skilled in war than in finance, Alva retaliated for Elizabeth’s appropriation of the Genoese funds by seizing English property in the Netherlands and forbidding trade with England. Elizabeth thereupon confiscated Netherland goods in England and diverted English trade to Hamburg. Soon the Netherlands felt the torpor of commercial decay. Shops closed, unemployment mounted, and the powerful business classes, which had borne so patiently the hanging of Protestants and the sacking of churches, secretly meditated, at last financed, revolt. Even the Catholic clergy, fearing the collapse of the national economy, turned against Alva and warned Philip that the Duke was ruining the state.25 Pope Pius V, who had rejoiced over Alva’s victories, joined with Cardinal de Granvelle in deploring Alva’s severity,26 and recommended a general amnesty to all repentant rebels and heretics. Philip agreed and so notified Alva (February 1569), but the Duke asked for delay, and the amnesty was not proclaimed till July 16, 1570. In that year the Pope bestowed the blessed hat and sword upon Alva and the Golden Rose upon Alva’s wife,27 and Philip put the imprisoned Montigny to death (October 16, 1570).