by Will Durant
On January 5, 1579, a group of Catholic nobles from Hainaut, Douai, Artois, and Lille, inspired by the Bishop of Arras, formed the League of Arras for the protection of their religion and property. On January 29 the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Groningen, Utrecht, and Gelderland formed the Union of Utrecht for the defense of their faith and liberties; soon they were joined by Friesland and Overijssel; these seven “United Provinces” became the Dutch Netherlands of today. The remaining provinces became the “Spanish Netherlands” and, in the nineteenth century, Belgium. The division of the seventeen provinces into two nations was determined partly by the predominance of Catholicism in the south and of Protestantism in the north, but also by the geographical separation of the lowlands by the great inlets and rivers which, by their breadth and their controllable dykes, offered defensible ports and barriers to Spanish fleets and arms.
On May 19 the League of Arras signed an agreement with Parma by which it bound itself to tolerate no religion but the Catholic, and accepted Spanish sovereignty on condition that the privileges of the provinces and communes should be restored. By persuasion, bribery, or force, the Duke soon regained almost all the southern provinces for Spain. The Calvinist leaders at Brussels, Ghent, and Ypres abandoned their conquests and fled to the Protestant north. On March 12, 1579, Parma led a large army against Maastricht, strategically situated on the river from which it took its name. Prodigies of heroism and barbarity were performed on both sides. The attackers dug miles of subterranean passages to mine and invade the city; the defenders—women joining the men—dug passages to meet them, and battles were fought to the death in the bowels of the earth. Boiling water was poured into the tunnels, fires were lit to fill them with smoke; hundreds of besiegers were scalded or choked to death. One of Parma’s mines, exploding prematurely, killed five hundred of his men. When his soldiers tried to scale the wall they were met with firebrands, and burning pitch-hoops were quoited around their necks. After four months of effort and fury, the besiegers made a breach in the wall, entered through it silently at night, caught the exhausted defenders sleeping, and massacred 6,000 men, women and children. Of the city’s 30,000 population only 400 now survived. Parma repeopled it with Walloon Catholics.
It was a major disaster for the Protestant cause. William, who had tried in vain to succor the city, was with some reason blamed for incompetence and delay. The same extremists who had frustrated his unifying policies by their intolerance and violence now charged him with treason to their cause in his negotiations with the Catholic Duke of Anjou, and they pointed out that he had attended no religious service during the past year. Philip seized the moment to promulgate a ban (March 15, 1581) against Orange. After detailing all the ingratitude, disloyalty, marriages, and crimes of the Prince, he proceeded:
Therefore … for all his evil doings as chief disturber of the public peace, and as a public pest, we outlaw him forever, and forbid all our subjects to associate with him or communicate with him in public or in secret, or to administer to him victuals, drink, fire, or other necessaries. We declare him an enemy of the human race and give his property to all who may seize it. In order the sooner to remove our people from his tyranny and oppression, we promise, on the word of a king and as God’s servant, that if one of our subjects be found so generous of heart … that he shall find means of executing this decree and ridding us of the said pest, either by delivering him to us dead or alive, or by depriving him at once of life, we will give him and his heirs landed property or money, as he will, to the amount of 25,000 gold crowns. If he has committed any crime, of any kind whatsoever, we will pardon him. If he be not noble we will ennoble him.46
The provincial Estates replied to this ban by appointing William stadholder, or chief magistrate, of Holland and Zeeland (July 24, 1581); and two days later the representatives of Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, Flanders, and Brabant signed at the Hague an “Act of Abjuration” solemnly renouncing allegiance to the King of Spain. In a document as famous in Dutch history as Parliament’s Declaration of Rights (1689) in the history of England, they proclaimed that a ruler who treats his subjects as slaves and destroys their liberties should no longer be accounted their legitimate sovereign, and may lawfully be deposed.47 William’s own reply to the ban took the form of an Apologia written for him by his chaplain and sent to the States-General and to every European court. He welcomed the ban as a distinction. He charged Philip with incest, adultery, and the murder of his own wife and son. He expressed his readiness to resign his offices, to withdraw from the Netherlands, even to surrender his life, if he might thereby benefit his country. He signed the document with his motto, Je maintiendrai—”I will hold fast.”
Soon afterward (March 18, 1582) Philip reaped the first fruits of the ban. Jean Jaureguy, spurred on by the promised reward, armed himself with a pistol, begged God’s help, promised the Virgin a portion of his spoils, made his way to William of Orange at Antwerp, and shot him through the head. The bullet entered under the right ear, passed through the palate, and emerged through the left cheek. The assassin was caught and killed at once by William’s attendants, but the mission seemed accomplished; for weeks the Prince seemed near death. Farnese invited the rebel provinces, now that their obstinate leader was dead, to make their peace with their merciful King. But William slowly recovered under the devoted care of his wife Charlotte, who died of exhaustion and fever on May 5. In July two obscure conspirators laid a plan to poison both the Prince of Orange and the Duke of Anjou; the plot was detected and the criminals were arrested; one killed himself in jail, the other was sent to Paris, was tried and found guilty, and was torn to pieces by means of four horses.
During this year 1582 Anjou collected some French soldiers about him at Antwerp. Dissatisfied with his ducal title, he dreamed of making himself a king. Suddenly, on January 17, 1583, his followers, shouting “Long live the Mass!” attempted to seize control of the city. The people resisted them; nearly two thousand lives were lost in this “French Fury”; the uprising failed, Anjou fled, and William suffered further loss of popularity for having so long supported him. In March another attempt was made upon his life. Feeling unsafe in Antwerp, he moved his headquarters to Delft. The provinces of Groningen and Gelderland now made their peace with Parma. Only two of the “united” provinces still adhered to William, but these two, Holland and Zeeland, testified their loyalty by making the stadholdership hereditary in his family (December 1583). So were laid the foundations of the house of Orange, which in 1688 would half conquer, half inherit, England.
Assassins persisted. In April 1584 Hans Hanszoon of Flushing tried to blow up the Prince; he failed and was put to death. Balthasar Gérard, of Burgundy, burned with religious zeal and the thought of twenty-five thousand crowns.IV Going to the Duke of Parma, he offered to kill the Prince of Orange. Parma judged the youth of twenty unfit for such an enterprise, refused him the modest advance requested, but promised him the full reward if he succeeded.48 Gérard went to Delft, disguised himself as a poor and pious Calvinist, received an alms of twelve crowns from William, and poured three bullets into the Prince’s body (July 10, 1584). William cried, “My God, have pity on my soul…. Have pity on this poor people.” He died within a few minutes. Gérard was caught, was tried by the city magistrates, expressed joy over his success, and was put to extreme torture and death. William was buried at Delft with the highest honors as “Father of His Country.” Having sacrificed nearly all his belongings in promotion of the revolt, he left his twelve children almost penniless—a silent testimony of the nobility into which he had matured.
The full reward was paid to Gérard’s parents. The Catholics of the Netherlands rejoiced, calling the crime God’s vengeance for the desecration of churches and the murder of priests. They sent the assassin’s head to Cologne as a precious relic, and for half a century they labored to have him declared a saint.49
VI. TRIUMPH: 1584–1648
The death of their leader broke the spirit of such followers
as William still had in Flanders and Brabant. Parma took Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Mechlin, Antwerp; by the end of 1585 all the Netherlands south of the Maas—except Ostend and Sluys—had fallen to Spain. The Beggars, however, still controlled the ports and the sea.
The northern provinces had repeatedly appealed to Elizabeth for aid. Now she responded. She knew that the revolt of the Netherlands had kept Spain from declaring war upon England; she could not afford to have that blessing cease; moreover, the Dutch controlled the market for English wool. In December 1585 she sent to Holland a substantial force under Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney. Leicester, as governor general of the rebel provinces, assumed almost sovereign power. Seeing that the southern provinces imported the necessaries of life from the northern, he forbade all trade with any Spanish possession. But the Dutch merchants lived on that trade; they exported goods to Spain during their war with Spain; they refused to obey Leicester’s prohibitions. Defeated at Zutphen (September 22, 1586), Leicester left Holland in disgrace and disgust. For a year chaos reigned in the north. The little republic was saved by Parma’s absorption in Philip’s plan for the invasion of England; by Parma’s diversions against Henry of Navarre in France; by Dutch control of the waters; by the wealth and the persistence of the Dutch merchants; by the political genius of Jan van Oldenbarneveldt; and by the military genius of Maurice of Nassau, William the Silent’s son.
Soon after his father’s death, Maurice was chosen stadholder of Holland and Zeeland. In 1588, aged twenty-one, he was made captain general and admiral of the United Provinces. In 1590 Utrecht, Overijssel, and Gelderland conferred their stadholderships upon him. Profiting from the Leiden lectures of Simon Stevin on mathematics, Maurice applied the latest science to ballistics, engineering, and siege. He trained the Dutch army to new cohesion and discipline. In a series of campaigns (1590–94) remarkable for swift movement and surprising strategy, he recaptured Zutphen, Deventer, Nijmegen, and Groningen. Parma, having wasted his skill and funds in Philip’s vain sallies against England and Henry IV, died at Spa of exhaustion and wounds (February 20, 1592).
To succeed him Philip appointed Archduke Ernest of Austria, who soon died; then Cardinal Archduke Albert, who resigned his religious dignities and married the King’s daughter Isabel Clara Eugenia. Shortly before his own death (1598), Philip bestowed upon Albert and Isabel sovereign rights in the Netherlands, with the proviso that if they died childless the sovereignty was to revert to Spain. They proved to be capable and kindly rulers, unable to subdue the northern provinces, but establishing in the south a civilized regime under which ecclesiastical arts flourished in genial harmony with Rubens’ nudes.
A new figure appeared upon the scene in 1603. Albert had besieged Ostend for two years without success. An Italian banker, Ambrosio de Spinola, placed his fortune at the service of Spain, raised and equipped a force of eight thousand men, besieged and took Ostend. But even his immense riches could not offset the wealth of the Dutch merchants. They persisted in building and financing fleets that harassed Spanish shipping and threatened the line of gold between America and Spain. Tired of blockade and slaughter, Albert and Isabel urged negotiations with the Dutch, and Philip III, tired of bankruptcy, consented. Oldenbarneveldt, over the protests of Maurice, persuaded the Dutch to conciliation. A truce was signed (1609) that gave the Netherlands twelve years’ rest from war.
Internal concord varies inversely with external peace. Maurice resented the dominance of Oldenbarneveldt in the affairs of the republic. Technically the grand pensionary—chief paid official—of Holland had authority in that province alone; but since Holland had as much wealth, and paid to the States-General as much in taxes, as all the rest of the United Provinces together, he wielded in the federation a power commensurate with that wealth, and with the force of his mind and character. Moreover, the landowners who ruled the provinces and the rich merchants who ruled the communes felt drawn to Oldenbarneveldt, who, like them, rejected democracy. “Better overlorded,” he said, “than ruled by a mob.”50 Maurice, turning to the people for support, found that he could win them if he made the Calvinist ministers his friends.
The religious issue that now inflamed the republic was threefold: the growing opposition between Church and state, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and the war of doctrine within the Protestant fold. Calvinist synods sought to determine political policy and to use the government as an agent for the enforcement of their creed; the States-General distrusted the Calvinist congregations as dangerous examples and seedplots of democracy, and Oldenbarneveldt made many enemies by bidding the clergy leave government to the civil powers. Strange to say, even in the northern provinces the population in 1609 was still predominantly Catholic.51 The laws forbade Catholic worship, but were not enforced; 232 priests conducted Catholic services.52 The provincial council of Utrecht ordered the priests to marry their housekeepers, but compliance was sporadic and spiritless.
Within the Protestant communities the struggle lay between the Calvinists and a minority of “libertines.” The latter were so called not as loose livers but as favoring religious liberty, even for Catholics, and a liberal and humane interpretation of the Protestant theology. These heirs of the Erasmian tradition (to whom William of Orange had belonged) were denounced as secret “papists” by the Precisians, or orthodox Calvinists, who adhered to strict predestinarianism and felt that their faith should be made compulsory throughout the United Provinces.53 Dirck Coornhert, who had served as secretary to the Prince of Orange, argued for freedom of worship in writings that established the literary language of Holland. An Amsterdam preacher, Jacobus Arminius, was assigned to refute Coornhert’s views; he was converted to them as he studied to answer them, and when he was appointed professor of theology at Leiden he shocked the Precisians by questioning predestination and asserting, against Luther and Calvin, that man is saved by good works as well as faith. He admitted that virtuous heathen might escape hell, and surmised that in the end all men would be saved. His fellow professor Franciscus Gomarus branded him an insidious heretic.
Arminius died in 1609. By that time he had won an influential following, including Oldenbarneveldt and Hugo Grotius, the pensionary of Rotterdam. In 1610 these “libertines” drew up a Remonstrantie against the doctrines of predestination, election, and reprobation, and proposed a national synod of clergymen and laymen to redefine the Reformed faith. The Precisians formulated a Contra-Remonstrantie reaffirming the Calvinist theology:
God had, after Adam’s fall, reserved a certain number of human beings from destruction, and … destined them to salvation through Christ. … In this election God does not consider belief or conversion, but acts simply according to his pleasure. God sent his son Christ for the salvation of the elect, and of them alone.54
The Gomarists insisted that such questions could be dealt with only by clergymen; and they so successfully labeled the Remonstrants as papists, Pelagians, or Unitarians that a large majority of the Protestant population rallied to the Precisian side. Maurice of Nassau moved from a scornful disregard of theological disputes to a tentative association with the orthodox party, as offering him a popular basis for an attempt to regain national leadership.
A battle of sermons and pamphlets ensued, of more than warlike bitterness. Violent disturbances broke the peace of the truce. “Libertine” houses were raided in The Hague, orthodox Calvinist preachers were driven from Rotterdam. Holland mustered an army to defend its theology; other provinces followed suit; civil war seemed about to destroy the republic so lately born. On August 4, 1617, Oldenbarneveldt put through the council of Holland a “scherpe resolutie”—which Maurice thought sharp indeed—proclaiming the supremacy of the state in matters of religion, and directing the cities of the province to arm themselves for protection against Calvinist violence. Passing to Utrecht, he persuaded its provincial council to raise troops in support of Holland. On July 25, 1618, Maurice of Nassau, as legal head of the army, entered Utrecht at the head of an armed force, a
nd compelled its new regiments to disband. On August 29 the States-General of the United Provinces ordered the arrest of Oldenbarneveldt, Grotius, and other Remonstrant leaders. On November 13 a synod of the Reformed Church met at Dordrecht (Dort), gave the Remonstrant theologians a hearing, condemned them as heretics, and ordered all Remonstrant ministers dismissed from ecclesiastical or educational posts. The Arminians, like the Catholics, were placed under a ban and were forbidden to hold public assemblies or services. Many of them fled to England, where they were well received by the Established Church and strongly influenced the Latitudinarian Anglicans.
Oldenbarneveldt was tried by a special court, which allowed him no legal aid. He was charged with having treasonably divided and endangered the Union, having sought to set up a state within the state. Outside the court a flurry of pamphlets advertised to the multitude the faults of his private life. He defended himself with such eloquence and force that his children raised a Maypole before his prison and confidently celebrated his coming release. On May 12, 1619, the court pronounced him guilty, and the sentence of death was carried out the next day. Grotius was condemned to life imprisonment, but through the ingenuity of his wife he escaped and lived to write a memorable book.
Despite this triumph of intolerance, religious liberty grew in the provinces. The Catholics were too numerous to be suppressed, and the doctrinal decrees of the Synod of Dort could not be enforced. In this same year 1619 the Mennonites freely founded at Rijnsburg their Quakerlike sect of Collegianten, with whom Spinoza would find safe refuge. In 1629 Descartes was to praise the intellectual freedom that he enjoyed in Amsterdam, and by the end of the century Holland was to be the haven of heretics from many lands.