Chapter 71
[780] "Le prince se prepare de longue main a la defense qu'il sera force de faire contre le Roi." Ibid., p. 431.
It was natural that the relations of William with the party of reform should have led to the persuasion that he had returned to the opinions in which ha had been early educated. These were Lutheran. There is no reason to suppose that at the present time he had espoused the doctrines of Calvin. The intimation of Armenteros respecting the prince's change of religion seems to have made a strong impression on Philip. On the margin of the letter he wrote against the pa.s.sage, "No one has said this so unequivocally before;"--"No lo ha escrito nadie asi claro."
[781] "Vos os enganariades mucho en pensar que yo no tubiese toda confianza de vos, y quando hubiese alguno querido hazer oficio con migo en contrario a esto, no soy tan liviano que hubiese dado credito a ello, teniendo yo tanta esperiencia de vuestra lealtad y de vuestros servicios." Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II. p. 171.
[782] "Que le roi, resolu de les tromper tous, commencait par tromper sa sur." Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bays, tom. II. p. 148.
[783] This responsibility is bluntly charged on them by Renom de Francia. "El dia de las predicaciones oraciones y cantos estando concertado, se acordo con las princ.i.p.ales villas que fuese el San Juan siguiente y de continuar en adelante, primero en los Bosques y montanas, despues en los arrabales y Aldeas y pues en las villas, por medida que el numero, la andacia y sufrimiento creciese." Alborotos de Flandes, MS.
[784] "Qui vulgari joco duodecim Apostoli dicebantur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 248.
[785] "S'est mise en une telle colere contre nous, qu'elle a pense crever." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Na.s.sau, tom. II. p. 178.
[786] "Alioqui externa remedia quamvis invitos postrem quaesituros."
Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 248.
[787] The memorials are given at length by Groen, Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Na.s.sau, tom. II. pp. 159-167.
[788] See the letter of Louis to his brother dated July 26, 1566, Ibid., p. 178.
[789] The person who seems to have princ.i.p.ally served her in this respectable office was a "doctor of law," one of the chief counsellors of the confederates. Count Megen, her agent on the occasion, bribed the doctor by the promise of a seat in the council of Brabant.
Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 435.
[790] "Le tout est en telle desordre," she says in one of her letters, "que, en la pluspart du pas, l'on est sans loy, foy, ni roy."
Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 91.
Anarchy could not be better described in so few words.
[791] "Il ne reste plus sinon qu'ils s'a.s.semblent et que, joincts ensemble, ils se livrent a faire quelque sac d'eglises villes, bourgs, ou pas, de quoy je suis en merveilleus.e.m.e.nt grande crainte;"
Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 121.
[792] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 432.
[793] The fullest account of the doings of the council is given by Hopper, one of its members. Recueil et Memorial, pp. 81-87.
[794] "Ceux du conseil d'Etat sont etonnes du delai que le Roi met a repondre." Montigny to Margaret, July 21. Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 434.
[795] "Pour l'inclination naturelle que j'ay toujours eu de traieter mes va.s.saulx et subjects plus par voye d'amour et clemence, que de crainte et de rigeur, je me suis accommode a tout ce que m'a este possible."
Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche,
[796] "Ay treuve convenir et necessaire que l'on concoive certaine aultre forme de moderation de placcart par dela, ayant egard que la saincte foy catholique et mon authorite soyent gardees... et y feray tout ce que possible sera." Ibid., p. 103.
[797] "N'abhorrissant riens tant que la voye de rigeur." Ibid., ubi supra.
[798] "Y a.s.si vos no lo consentais, ni yo lo consentire tan poco."
Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 439.
[799] "Pero no conviene que esto se entienda alla, ni que vos teneis esta orden mia, sino es para lo de agora, pero que la esperais para adelante, no desesperando ellos para entonces dello." Ibid., ubi supra.
[800] Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, pp. 106, 114.
[801] "Comme il ne l'a pas fait librement, ni spontanement, il n'entend etre lie par cette autorisation, mais au contraire il se reserve de punir les coupables, et princ.i.p.alement ceux qui ont ete les auteurs et fauteurs des seditions." Correspondance de Philippe II, tom. I. p. 443.
One would have been glad to see the original text of this protest, which is in Latin, instead of M. Gachard's abstract.
[802] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 236.
Among those who urged the king to violent measures, no one was so importunate as Fray Lorenzo de Villacancio, an Augustin monk, who distinguished himself by the zeal and intrepidity with which he ventured into the strongholds of the Reformers, and openly denounced their doctrines. Philip, acquainted with the uncompromising temper of the man, and his devotion to the Catholic Church, employed him both as an agent and an adviser in regard to the affairs of the Low Countries. where Fray Lorenzo was staying in the earlier period of the troubles. Many of the friar's letters to the king are still preserved in Simancas, and astonish one by the boldness of their criticisms on the conduct of the ministers, and even of the monarch himself, whom Lorenzo openly accuses of a timid policy towards the Reformers.
In a memorial on the state of the country, prepared, at Philip's suggestion, in the beginning of 1566, Fray Lorenzo urges the necessity of the most rigorous measures towards the Protestants in the Netherlands. "Since your majesty holds the sword which G.o.d has given to you, with the divine power over our lives, let it be drawn from the scabbard, and plunged in the blood of the heretics, if you do not wish that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed by these barbarians, and the blood of the innocent Catholics whom they have oppressed, should cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance on the sacred head of your majesty!... The holy king David showed no pity for the enemies of G.o.d. He slew them, sparing neither man nor woman. Moses and his brother, in a single day, destroyed three thousand of the children of Israel. An angel, in one night, put to death more than sixty thousand enemies of the Lord. Your majesty is a king, like David; like Moses, a captain of the people of Jehovah; an angel of the Lord,--for so the Scriptures style the kings and captains of his people;--and these heretics are the enemies of the living G.o.d!"
And in the same strain of fiery and fanatical eloquence he continues to invoke the vengeance of Philip on the heads of his unfortunate subjects in the Netherlands.
That the ravings of this hard-hearted bigot were not distasteful to Philip may be inferred from the fact that he ordered a copy of his memorial to be placed in the hands of Alva, on his departure for the Low Countries. It appears that he had some thoughts of sending Fray Lorenzo to join the duke there,--a project which received little encouragement from the latter, who probably did not care to have so meddlesome a person as this frantic friar to watch his proceedings.
An interesting notice of this remarkable man is to be found in Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II., Rapport, pp. xvi.-1.
[803] "Y por la priesa que dieron en esto, no ubo tiempo de consultarlo a Su Santidad, como fuera justo, y quiza avra sido asi mejor, pues no vale nada, sino quitandola Su Santidad que es que la pone; pero en esto conviene que aya el secreto que puede considerar." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 445.
[804] "Y en esto conviene el mismo secreto que en lo de arriba." Ibid., ubi supra.
These injunctions of secrecy are interpolations in the handwriting of the "prudent" monarch himself.
[805] "Perdere todos mis estados, y cien vidas que tuviesse, porque yo no pienso ni quiero ser senor de hereges." Ibid., p. 446.
[806] "Et, au regard de la convocation des dicts Estats generaulx, comme je vous ay escript mon intention, je ne treuve qu'il y a matiere pour la changer ne qu'il conviengne aulcunement qu'elle se face en mon absence, mesmes comme je suis si prest de mon partement." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 165.
[807] Brantome, uvres, tom. III. p. 321.
[808] "Accendunt animos Ministri, fugienda non animo mod, sed et corpore idola: eradicari, extirpari tantam summi Dei contumeliam opportere affirmant." Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 236.
[809] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. pp. 250-252.--Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 232 et seq.--Hopper, Recueil et Memorial, p.
96.--Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, pp. 183, 185.
[810] "Si Mariette avait peur, qu'elle se retirat sitot en son nid."
Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II., Preface, p. lii.
[811] Ibid., ubi supra.
[812] "Nullus ex eo numero aut casu afflictus, aut ruina oppressus decidentium ac transvolantium fragmentorum, aut occursu collisuque festinantium c.u.m fabrilibus armis levissime sauciatus sit." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 257.
"No light argument," adds the historian, "that with G.o.d's permission the work was done under the immediate direction of the demons of h.e.l.l!"
[813] Ibid., pp. 255-258.--Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 237 et seq.--Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p.
193.--Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II., Preface, pp.
liii, liv.
[814] "Pro focis pugnatur interdum acrius quam pro aris." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 260.
[815] Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p. 201.