Notwithstanding the warnings of his ventured to represent to Philip the peril. most faithful and experienced counsellors, which might attend the appointment of Philip, in 1565, resolved on introducing Alva. The inflexible Philip, according to into the Netherlands the most grievous his custom, made no answer. Alva's conpart of the Spanish system,-the holy in-versation on the heretical provinces was quisition, of which he believed that he always harsh, and often savored of blood. had sufficiently proved the efficacy, for the The poignancy of his language, and his extirpation of heretics, by his successful use of national proverbs, caused his cruel employment of it in Spain. The council phrases to be generally circulated, easily of the Netherlands entreated that the king remembered, and never forgiven. The would suspend the execution of his orders sentence in which he expressed, at Bayto this effect, on the ground that the estab- onne, his preference of the murder of chiefs lishment of this new tribunal would be de- to the massacre of multitudes, that "one structive of the jurisdiction of the ancient salmon's head was worth a thousand frogs," courts, and an infraction of the fundamental is mentioned by nearly all contemporaries. laws. These remonstrances were in vain; He was rumored in Flanders to have spoken but the manifest designs of Philip excited of his expedition as if it were like one of the same alarm, and roused the people to those invasions to exterminate the natives the same resistance, which fears from the of America, which had dishonored - the projects of the holy league had produced Spanish name. As soon as these circumin France. The nobility confederated in stances were noised abroad, industry and 1566 against the inquisition. They peti-wealth began to seek an asylum in other tioned Margaret of Parma, the governess lands. An emigration began of Protestof the Netherlands, to obtain security ant manufacturers and capitalists, chiefly against this tremendous tribunal. A great to England; which Alva's subsequent meacrowd, who attended count Louis of Nas-sures increased to such an extent, that the sau, in the presentation of the petition to ancient opulence and commerce of the the governess at Brussels, were sneered at Flemish towns disappeared. When the by the courtiers as Beggars,* on account employers abandoned their country, the unof the torn apparel of some of their mem- employed workmen resorted to the camp bers. The courtiers lived to regret their of the insurgents, where they took revenge insolence, and their sarcastic name was on those whose tyranny had caused their adopted as a title of honor by the enemies ruin. The troops of Alva were accounted of the inquisition. The confederated nobles the best disciplined, and his officers the fortified themselves in monasteries desert-most skilful, that the modern world had ed by the monks. The Protestant popu- seen. The sixty years which had passed lace, more unresisted and more indiscrim- over his head had enriched his experience inately than in France, assailed and de- without abating his enterprise, and still stroyed the churches on account of the more without weakening his determination. images deemed idolatrous, which in their The resistance of the plowmen of Brabant, eyes profaned these sacred edifices. A the woollen manufacturers of Flanders, and general confusion appeared to threaten the herring-fishers of Holland, to so great these provinces, while the most formidable a captain, at the head of a veteran army, of enemies was about to enter the coun- seemed rather an object of derision, than try with forces sufficient to exterminate of the slightest apprehension. heretics, and to reduce the mutinous Bel- The appointment of a commissary-gengians to irretrievable servitude. eral, and the choice of Serbelloni, a disThe duke de Feria, who had been am- tinguished officer, to command the ordnance bassador in England, was proposed by the in this army, indicated remarkable progress moderate party for the command in Flan- in the art of war. The quality and size of ders. The choice of a commander in Flan- their muskets, which were such as had ders was considered so decisive of the pol- never been seen in the Netherlands, at icy likely to be adopted, that the prince of once manifested their superior science, and Eboli, the most popular of royal favorites, aided their physical power. The old officers of Charles V., who had served and concontempt for the Spanish "vos." I have been obliged quered in every country from Tunis to the to render it in the French idiom, which is known to Elbe, were Alva's lieutenants. He confined most readers. In that language, tutoyer, "to thee and thou," is a term of disparagement. Every one knows himself to 9000 chosen men of the renownthat "you" is employed as a second person singu-ed Spanish infantry, and to a select body lar; and that "thou," when it is not a poetical term, of 1200 cavalry, because they were better is sometimes employed by playful fondness, but generally denotes a deeper veneration than can be rea- fitted for so long a march than a larger sonably felt towards imperfect beings. mass, and because they were a stock on which recruits might be safely and easily

* Gueux.

† Herrera calls him speio de privados-the mirror of favorites.

Vander Wynkt, i. 244-250.

engrafted in the Burgundian provinces. counts of Holland, and Horn, the repreThis army began its march from Asti in sentative of the elder branch of the house the beginning of July, 1567; and, having of Montmorency, were considered among crossed Mont Cenis, marched through the Belgic patricians as second only to the Savoy, the free country of Burgundy, and prince of Orange. Both had bled and conLorraine, to the frontiers of the provinces quered for the house of Austria. In hopes of Luxemburgh and Namur, which it of preserving peace by obtaining the rereached in the end of August, after having dress of grievances, they had both trusted been reinforced on its march, at Thion- themselves to the faith and mercy of ville, by Austrian auxiliaries under count Philip, by a journey to Spain, whence they Mansfield. The advance of military science were suffered to depart; though Horn's was manifested by Alva's rigorous enforce- brother, the baron de Montigny, a deputy ment of discipline before he reached the with the same pacific object, was secretly devoted territory. In their whole march put to death at Segovia, with or without through neutral dominions, it was their the vain formality of a pretended trial.j boast that no outrage was committed but Alva, after the departure of the duchess the stealing of a few sheep, for which Alva of Parma, erected "a council of troubles," ordered three of his artillerymen to be in- which the people called "the Council of stantly hanged. That many of the officers Blood." He appointed himself to be presiand soldiers on whom he most relied were dent; but John de Vargas, the vice-presiItalians, is a remarkable proof of the prone-dent, was the chief laborer in the scenes ness of military arts and habits to migrate of blood which ensued. He was an ignofrom nation to nation.* rant, pitiless, and brutal Spaniard, whose Brantôme, who went to visit his old cruelty seems to have been the longer refriends in that army on the frontiers of Lor-membered in the Netherlands for the jumraine, tells us that the bystanders looked ble of bad Latin with Spanish, in which it upon them rather as an army of generals was expressed. The privy counsellors of than of soldiers; and at the same time the Netherlands, under various pretences, mentions a circumstance, in appearance escaped from the necessity of becoming almost equally incompatible with the piety members of a detestable tribunal; and of their professions, and with the ferocity Viglius, the president, a Frisian lawyer of of their true purpose. "Among them," says celebrity, took refuge from all share in the he, "were 400 courtesans on horseback, proceedings, which he foresaw, by becomlike princesses in beauty and bravery, ing an ecclesiastic, which rendered it unwhile 800 more, not to be contemned, lawful for him to vote in capital cases. The marched on foot." proscriptions of this murderous council are One of the earliest acts of Alva's govern- by Catholic historians compared to those of ment was to detach a body of troops into the Roman triumvirates. T Egmont and France to quell the Huguenots, whom the Horn, who vainly objected to the jurisdicalarm of his expedition had roused to arms. tion, were beheaded at Brussels in June, For a time he used the popular name of 1568. The rank and the popularity of both the duchess of Parma, whom he was to these noblemen so much interested all succeed, for the purpose of quietly occu- classes of men, that their death exaspepying the fortified places, as well as to rated instead of intimidating the oppressed draw into his snares counts Egmont and people. The emperor Maximilian had Horn, two of the chiefs of the Netherlands, almost openly expostulated against the whom, with many others of the nobility, savage policy adopted by Alva. It was not he had invited to Brussels, under pretence wonderful that this signal spectacle of of a consultation on public affairs. They atrocity should have kindled a general rewere imprisoned. Egmont, being required volt. Alva had the meanness to seize and to give up his sword, answered, "It has send prisoner to Spain the count de Buren, often been drawn for the king." Cardinal the eldest son of the prince of Orange, Granvelle, who had retired to Rome when then a boy of fifteen,** who pursued his he heard of the capture, asked whether studies in the university of Louvain. "the Taciturn" was taken? On being an- Orange collected a considerable army in swered "No;" he replied, "Alva has done nothing." Such were already the terrors whose papers he had access. From that time he of the name of the prince of Orange, who owns that he writes from sources accessible to comwas commonly called "the Taciturn." Egmont, a descendant from the ancient

mon industry.

§ Vander Wynkt, Troubles des Pays Bas, i. 264. A Catholic historian, attached to the house of Austria, who wrote from the archives at Brussels. Van Meteren, Grotius, &c. &c.

"Non curamus vestros privilegios," is a sample. Vander Wynkt, i. 265. 276.

** Van Meteren, 50.

Germany of foreign Protestants and exiled therein fixed, to quit her harbors; on conFlemings, of which one division, under his dition that the king of Spain should, in like brother count Louis, after some successes in manner, banish the English rebels from his Friesland, was finally defeated. The main dominions.* They, in consequence, set sail body, commanded by the prince of Orange for the islands which form the province of himself, penetrated to the Meuse. Con- Zealand, in twenty-four small vessels; the scious that his pecuniary resources were germ of a navy which became one of the too scanty to keep his troops long together, most powerful that the modern world had his object was to force Alva to action. seen. On the evening of Palm Sunday, Alva, who knew that the prince's army the 1st of April, 1572, a party of them, would melt away as soon as his supplies with the appearance of men who had eswere exhausted, was content to stand on a caped from a shipwreck, were suffered to somewhat mortifying defence against raw steal into the small town of Brille; and, revolters, well knowing that winter would being seconded by some of the inhabitants, in no long time rid him of their presence. disarmed the Spanish garrison, and made A campaign of positions and surprises, with themselves masters of the place. This incessant watchfulness on both sides, then gallant adventure of a party of the despised ensued; a species of war where military beggars laid the foundations of a wise and ability is often best shown: and though in renowned commonwealth. this case Alva, by the discipline of his Zealand and Holland declared for the troops and the superiority of his material prince of Orange, who gave some regularmeans of war, accomplished his purpose, ity to his administration by conducting the yet the prince of Orange proved himself to government in his character of stadtholder be no unworthy opponent of the most re- or lieutenant of Holland; an office confernowned commander in Europe. red by the king, but under color of which

It was not till 1572 that Orange made the prince continued for many years to another irruption into the Netherlands, at- wage war against Spanish armies by his tended by a success which never after- majesty's authority. All the affairs of wards entirely deserted the cause of liberty the law and the state were transacted, acin these provinces. The beggars, or gueux, cording to usual form, in the king's name. besides the large party of malcontents Arms were professedly employed only whom the arrogance of the court of Brus- against foreign soldiers, whose presence sels called by that name, comprehended in the Netherlands was in open defiance two regular bodies,-the bush beggars, of the fundamental laws, and all the public and the sea beggars,-whose origin may documents contained an express saving of be easily seen in these contemptuous ap- the supreme and sacred prerogatives of pellatives. The illustrious admiral Coligny his majesty. Elizabeth beheld this great had suggested to the prince, at Paris, that, revolution with satisfaction, and considered as Spain had no marine in the Netherlands, herself as having sufficiently performed the the seizure of a sea-port would be the most duties of neutrality by compliance with the effectual means of lasting war against them. requisition made by the Spanish minister. The prince, well knowing that the sea beg- She imposed no farther restraints on the gars had lately been recruited by numerous inclination of her people; a small part of and opulent refugees from the scaffolds whom (probably Catholics) joined the duke of Alva, had begun to capture Spanish of Alva, while great numbers, yielding to ships along the coast, carrying their prizes the hereditary feeling of their name and either to the Protestant city of Rochelle, lineage, espoused the cause of liberty.† or, more covertly, to the ports of England. The massacre of the Huguenots in He dispatched William count de la Marck, France, to which it will soon be necessary —a man of no valuable quality, but of a to recur, changed the fortune of the war fierce valor, which the occasion demanded, in the Netherlands during the latter part -to prepare a small armament in the Eng-of the year 1572. The successes of the lish harbors. The Spanish ambassador

complained that the connivance at the * Camd. Aun. 1572, ii. 264. Van Meteren, Hist. mooring of the piratical rebels in the des Pays Bas, 71. On the 21st of February, Eliza beth, in terms of extraordinary indulgence towards Downs and at Dover was a breach of neu- the exiles, commanded the mayor of Dover to warn trality, and an offence against the treaties the count de la Marck of the necessity of ceasing to disturb her dominions, by recruiting his troops between the two crowns. When these and arming his vessels within the English territory. complaints were so often repeated that Murden, 210. Elizabeth could no longer shut her eyes cœperunt, alii propartium studiis ad Albanum, alii "Viri militares ex Angliâ in Belgium confluere on the facts, but not, as it should seem, et longe plures ad principem arausionensem, qui retill the little squadron was ready for sail-ligionis et libertatis nomine Albano se opposuit.”— ing, she issued a proclamation, in March, 1572, commanding the exiles, on a day aniæ regnis."-Grot. Ann. lib. ii.

Camd. ii. 264.

"Affluentibus quotidie auxiliis e Galliæ et Brit.

Spanish arms were dishonored by cruelties man. Vargas, his sanguinary instrument, before unheard of; and excited a resistance, when he arrived with his master at the perhaps not to be matched in modern his- frontier, looking back on the provinces tory. Frederic, the duke of Alva's son, be- which had endured his rod for nine years, gan his career of blood by the massacre of exclaimed, "There is a country lost by inold men, women, and children, at Naarden. dulgence!" A degree of cruelty is conThe first of those memorable defences ceivable which might altogether extinguish which immortalize Holland was that of the spirit and resolution which resistance Haarlem; where the siege commenced in requires: but this extent of destruction, December, 1572, and was closed on the though it may doubtless be conceived, can 12th of July, after a promise of general hardly ever be practised. Tyrants are igmercy, which did not prevent Toledo from norant of the laws which limit their debeheading, hanging, or drowning more than structive power. Strangers to pity them1600 of the garrison, foreigners and na- selves, they know not its power over other tives, and 2000 of the townsmen. The men. Unbelievers in the force of moral Spaniards evinced their sense of the merit indignation, it bursts upon them when they of the defence by bestowing on the regi- are least prepared. They know not that ments who took the most active part in re- every new crime dissolves some link of ducing an almost open town, in the course that mutual trust between them and their of seven months, the titles of the Invinci- accomplices or followers, without which bles and the Immortals. The royal army assassins and robbers cannot act together. were compelled to raise the siege of Alk- Men who must more and more distrust and maer. The garrison and inhabitants en- abhor each other, and who are doomed to dured miseries, during their long defence, end in hating themselves, cannot always which would be incredible if they were not preserve the union and concert without better attested than most facts in history. which their malignity becomes powerless. They were reduced to preserve the linger- The infirmities of human nature undering wretchedness of their lives by scanty mine the conspiracies of the wicked, perportions of unclean and lothesome rats, haps, even more than they loosen the union cats, and dogs. Fish-skins were collected of the good. No man was ever so consistfrom the dunghills; cow-skins, cut into ently depraved as never to be visited by small pieces, were among the dishes on misgivings in a course of guilt which, save which they tried to subsist. They labored only the fellows of his crimes, renders all to extract nourishment from the dried mankind his enemies, for whose constancy bones of cattle which for years had been and fidelity he has no other security than whitening over the fields. Pestilence, as a common criminality, which, brittle as it usual, followed in the train of famine. The is, has no force but against the virtuous; people bore all with heroic patience, and for, in their relations to each other, every consented to open the sluices, so as to villain must live in continual dread of deluge the whole environs; declaring fraud, treachery, and destruction from his loudly, that an injured country was better brethren in blood. The greater part of than an enslaved country. At last a high them, unripe in atrocity, must be often unwind arose, which was regarded as the manned by cowardice, and appalled by messenger of Providence sent to deliver fearful anticipations that they are doomed the brave and faithful city. By this breeze one day to regard their own dispositions the waters were so raised as to enable the with some degree of that abhorrence which Dutch squadron to come so near that they they must sometimes read in the eyes of threw in supplies for the garrison, and the their fellow-creatures. They at last fall besiegers were obliged to retire. unpitied victims to the eternal law which

Amsterdam, afterwards celebrated by dooms the vices to perpetual discords, arms zeal for civil and religious liberty, was the virtues with that power which flows bridled by a Spanish garrison, placed in it from unbroken harmony, and has decreed on account of its importance. Grotius that peace and faith are blessings too sastrengthens his credit in the narrative of cred to be allotted to any except the good. Alva's atrocities by owning that de la When Alva was thus compelled to reMarck, though an useful ruffian, had linquish his prey, he was succeeded by don brought infamy on infant liberty by cruelty Juan de Requesens, grand commander of to the Catholic priests.* The duke of Alva Castile and viceroy of Lombardy; a man was recalled from his deplorable adminis- of moderate and pacific character, who, if tration of the Netherlands, where he boast- sent sooner, might have reconciled the pared that in six years he had put to death ties. But it is the remark of contempora18,000 persons by the hands of the hang- ries, that this step of Spain towards concession became fruitless, and perhaps mis*Grot. Ann. lib. ii. p. 40. edit. 8vo. Amstelodami, 1658. Ichievous, by being delayed beyond the

propitious moment, which flies before ant The massacre of Paris, on St. Bartholoobstinate government sees it. The im- mew's eve, is the most memorable statepolicy of delay was now rendered apparent crime of a century characterized by public by its exposing affairs to danger from un- atrocities. The murders of Sinigaglia sink foreseen accident. Mutinies of the ill-paid into a minor delinquency, when compared garrisons in the Belgic towns palsied the with it. Cæsar Borgia, under the mask arm of the conciliatory viceroy. After his of negotiation, entrapped and strangled death, don Juan of Austria-popular by his four persons, his avowed enemies, and recent victory at Lepanto over the Turks familiar as himself with perfidy and cruelty. -was sent to the Netherlands, to lure the Charles IX., inspired by his mother's counBelgians into the snares of their ancient sels and his own heart, surprised and oppressors. The speciousness of the project, slaughtered, without distinction of sex or and the recent negotiations for his mar- age, many thousands of his subjects, whilst riage with the queen of Scots, alarmed they obeyed him as their sovereign, conElizabeth so much, that she determined fided in him as their protector, and offendat last, in the year 1577, openly to succor ed only in rejecting his dogmas as a theolothe insurgents. A defensive and offensive gian. The politic tyrant may equal or suralliance between the queen and the states- pass the religious bigot in utter recklessgeneral was concluded at Brussels, in Jan-ness of good faith and pity; but the bigot, uary, 1578; in which, besides the common armed with supreme power, is immeasurconditions of so close an union, it was ably the more grievous scourge of the hustipulated that the states should conclude man race. Some writers would extenuate no other treaty, nor adopt any important this transcendant crime by maintaining measure, without the assent of the queen that it was the result of circumstances, and of England; to whose determination, in an emergency, not of long premeditation; the event of disputes between the prov- and by charging the horrors of indiscrimiinces, it was agreed that all parties should nate slaughter upon the ungovernable imsubmit.t pulses of a savage populace, not upon the It now becomes necessary to return to policy of extermination adopted by an inhuan incident in the year 1572, which con- man court. Contradictory judgments and nects the civil wars of France with those historic doubts on points so material, reof the Netherlands, and throws a strong vived and multiplied at the present day,T light upon the origin of both in the treaty together with the direct bearing of the of Bayonne. Shortly after the taking of massacre on the position and counsels of Brille, count Louis of Nassau surprised Elizabeth, demand a more than passing Mons, a place then of great importance, notice of it in this place. from its position near the French frontiers, The extirpation of Protestantism in which facilitated the co-operation of the France and the Low Countries, if not acProtestants with those of the Netherlands. tually concerted, was at least brooded over In August, Alva besieged this fortress; and by Catherine of Medicis and the duke of the prince of Orange advanced to relieve Alva, in 1565, at Bayonne. From that One evening, when it had become period to the pacification of 1570, whilst dark, the prince was astonished at the ex- Alva was frankly fulfilling his mission by traordinary demonstrations of joy and tri- fire and sword in Flanders, no step apumph in the camp of Alva; where three peared to be taken by Catherine, in the rounds of musketry were discharged, mar- spirit of her particular counsels,** in tial music swelled into its most exulting France. Hence a presumption has been tones, and bonfires were lighted on all the advanced against the alleged object of the rising grounds around the encampment. interview of Bayonne, and the existence His wonder was changed into horror when of premeditation, so early as 1565. But St. he learned from his scouts that those military rejoicings were on account of a massacre of several thousand Huguenots, which had taken place two days before at Paris.

it.

*Grot. Ann. lib. iii, sub initio. † Rym. Fœdera, xv. 784. May 25. 1572. Strada, De Bello Belgico, lib. vii. edit. 1651. Mogunt. p. 250. The cool judgment of this eloquent jesuit, written in his study at Rome about sixty years after the event, deserves the attention of the reader:-"Insigne certè facinus, sed MERITUM CONJURATE IN REGEM FACTIONI SUPPLICIUM." The last words, that though the massacre "was a signal deed, yet it was a punishment deservedly incurred by a faction of conspirators against their sovereign,”|

would have imported that it was a deliberate act, if they had been used by a more precise and less rhe

torical writer.

See Machiavelli, Modo tenuto dal' Ducá Valentino, &c.

See Lingard's Hist. vol. viii. Edin. Rev. No. 87. Lingard's Vindication. Allen's Reply. Châteaubriand, Mél. Lit. M. Mignet, one of the most decidedly able and popular historians of his age, declares against premeditation, so far as he has yet proceeded with the work which he is preparing on the reIt remains to be seen ligious wars of France. Whether the theory which he has applied with a coup-d'œil so philosophical to the great popular movements of the French revolution, be equally applicable to the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

** See page 385, antè.