WE have seen that Philip had left his Flemish subjects (August 1559) in no very amiable mood. The opulent, independent communities of the Low Countries held firmly by the liberties they enjoyed. Every ruler had to swear—as Philip had done—to uphold and preserve them intact; on that point nobles and burghers were at one, and amongst the rights they prized most was that no foreigner should be appointed to any administrative post. The Burgundian rulers, although foreigners, had got on well enough with them, and so had the emperor. It was more a question of tastes and manners than of blood; superabundant hospitality, heavy eating, deep drinking, and rough speaking quickly commended a man to the Flemings. The Spaniard of that day was, as he still remains, sober and abstemious to the highest degree, reticent, sensitive, and proud, and Philip was a Spaniard to the finger-tips.

The natural want of sympathy between sovereign and people arising out of these circumstances doubtless began the trouble which ended in Spain’s downfall. No part of Philip’s career shows so clearly as his treatment of the Netherlands the limited and inelastic character of his policy, the lack of adaptability of his methods; for how should a man be yielding or conciliatory who supposed that he was part and parcel of Divine Providence, the one man on earth selected by the Almighty to carry out His irresistible decrees? There is no reason to suppose that when he first decided upon the rearrangement of the Flemish dioceses he desired to offend his subjects; it was probably only a step in his persistent policy of bringing the clergy of his dominions under his more immediate control. But in order to pay his new bishops he designed to appropriate the large revenues of the conventual houses, and he thus raised up against him all the cloistered clergy. The pope was bribed to agree to the change, but the Flemings, already sulky, were willing to listen to the monks, who denounced the innovations of the foreigner which were to deprive them of their revenues, and what would have been under other circumstances a not unwelcome reform became a fruitful source of trouble. There is no doubt, moreover, that before the king attended the States-General just prior to his departure he had every intention of withdrawing the Spanish infantry from Flanders now that peace had been made with France, and the men were badly wanted in Naples, where his principal danger at present lay. But when the States-General so roughly demanded of their sovereign the immediate withdrawal of the troops, Philip’s heart must have hardened and his pride revolted that these independent-minded Flemings should question his omnipotence. Another difficulty was that the troops obstinately refused to budge until they were paid, and the treasury was empty. The Flemings, who had been bled freely during the war, professed inability to find any more resources, and the Antwerp bankers shut their money-bags until some of their previous advances were paid. When Philip arrived in Spain, his sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, governess of the Netherlands, ceaselessly urged him to withdraw the troops. She assured him that their further stay would cause trouble, and Granvelle warned him gravely of the results. With the first half of his French wife’s dowry of 400,000 ducats Philip was able to pay the troops in the autumn of 1560, and they left in January 1561; but by that time the evil seed had been sown, and Philip was pestered in every letter with reminders of the various rights and privileges which he had sworn to uphold in the respective states. Most of the unpopularity fell upon Granvelle, who had to carry out the arrangements for the new bishoprics. He found his task so difficult that before long he “wished to God that the erection of these new sees had never been thought of,” although the change made him Primate of the Netherlands, and gave the king the advantage of thirteen nominated members in the Assembly of Nobles. This latter fact, indeed, probably to a great extent was the original aim of the project, and was certainly one of the principal reasons why the Flemish nobles opposed it so bitterly.

Granvelle himself, be it recollected, was a foreigner, a Franche-Comtois, and his luxurious, ostentatious mode of life was an additional reason for his unpopularity. Margaret, on the other hand, whose mother had been a Fleming, and whose masculine manners and purely Flemish tastes commended her to her countrymen, was far from being unpopular.

The nobles who had first distinguished themselves by resisting the further stay of the Spanish troops were William, Prince of Orange, and Count Egmont. The former was not a Fleming in blood or education, his principality of Orange being in the south of France, and his descent mainly German Lutheran. By his county of Nassau, however, he was a Flemish prince, and had been brought up in the court of the emperor, of whom he had been a great favourite. His historical name of “the taciturn” gives a very false idea of his character, especially in his youth. He was like a Southern Frenchman in manners, gay, fascinating, prodigal, and voluble. His religious opinions, if he had any, were extremely lax, and he was as ready to seek his advantage on one side as another. His religion indeed was as purely political as that of Philip, but as a statesman he must be ranked far higher, for he had all Philip’s tenacity and foresight, with an opportunism almost as great as that of Elizabeth herself.

Count Egmont, on the other hand, was a dashing and fortunate soldier, chief of the Flemish nobility, handsome, vain, proud, and honest, but of limited intelligence, and exceedingly credulous. The first overt step of these two nobles was to resign the commands they held over the Spanish troops, on the ground that, if they continued to hold them, they would lose all influence in the country. When the Spanish troops had left, Orange and Egmont continued, as usual, to attend the Flemish council of state appointed by Philip to advise Margaret. But the king before he departed had arranged that his own Spanish method of administration should be followed, namely, that the regent and the secretary of state, Granvelle, should practically manage everything, referring to the council only such points as they considered necessary.

As time went on, and Granvelle became more unpopular about the bishoprics, he referred less and less to the council, and in July 1561 Orange and Egmont wrote to the king resigning their seats and complaining bitterly. They had, they said, to bear a share of the unpopularity of the measures adopted, but had no part in controlling the policy of the Government. To this Philip returned, as was usual with him, a temporising answer. He would, he said, consider the matter and reply at length when Count Horn returned from Madrid to Flanders.

Horn’s mission to Flanders was to endeavour to reconcile Granvelle with the nobles, but this was a well-nigh impossible task. It was said that the cardinal and his parasites were plundering right and left, whilst public officers were unpaid and the treasury empty, that he was trying to substitute the unobnoxious inquisition of the Netherlands by the terrible tribunal of Spain, which certainly was not true, and that his arrogance and tyranny had become unbearable. Granvelle indeed was the scapegoat, and had become hateful both to the nobles and to “that perverse animal called the people,” to use his own words. So Horn’s mission was too late, like most of Philip’s attempts at conciliation, and in the spring of 1562 Orange petitioned the Regent Margaret to convoke the States-General. The regent herself, though full of praise for the cardinal in her letters to Philip, had no desire to share his unpopularity, and consented to summon, not the States-General, but a Chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, or in effect the high nobility of Flanders. The pretext for the assembly was that Philip had sent orders that a force of men should be raised in Flanders to be sent to the aid of the Catholic party in France, now in the midst of their first struggle with the Huguenots. The discontented Flemish nobles were in no humour to aid in this, and before the assembly Orange held a private meeting of them, to press upon them the undesirability of allowing Granvelle to have the disposal of troops. This was known to the regent, and she dismissed the assembly as soon as possible, an arrangement being settled for sending a money subsidy to the French Catholics instead of an armed force. But before the nobles separated they decided to send as a delegate to Philip one of their number, Florence de Montmorenci, Baron de Montigny, the brother of Count Horn, to represent to the king the unsatisfactory state of the country with regard to religion and the public finances. He and his brother were Catholics, but firm upholders of the autonomy of the States. Before he left, religious matters were indeed in a disturbed condition. Hainhault, on the French border, with its great commerce and industry in the cities of Tournai, and Valenciennes especially, had largely accepted the Protestant faith from the neighbouring French Calvinists. Philip urged his sister to severity against them, but the magistrates, themselves Flemings, hesitated to torture their fellow-citizens, whose political privileges protected them against such treatment. Margaret threatened the magistrates, and the people of Valenciennes took the matter in their own hands, broke open the prison, and released the accused. Margaret might storm, as she did, Philip might cynically recommend that heads should be lopped, bodies burnt, and mouths gagged, but the Marquis de Bergues, the governor of Hainhault, was a Fleming, and would not countenance any infringement on the rights of his people. Upon him then fell the blame. Nothing that Granvelle could say to the king was bad enough for Bergues, and in return Egmont, Orange, and Horn ceaselessly cast the responsibility upon Granvelle. Letter after letter went to the king in this sense. Philip, as usual, was cool and unmoved. He is not, he says, in the habit of punishing his ministers without just cause. But proud Alba did not take it so coolly. “Every time I see the letters of these three Flemish lords I fall into such a rage, that, if I did not make a great effort to control myself, your Majesty would think me frantic.” Granvelle, on his part, tried to fan the flame. “They want to reduce this country to a sort of republic, in which the king can do more than they like,” and when the Marquis de Bergues was asked by the Duke of Arschot what course he would take if the king would not give way, his reply, as repeated to Philip, was, “By God! we will make him swallow it.”

Things thus went from bad to worse. Granvelle at length saw that he must bend before the storm, and offered concessions to the nobles. But it was too late. Nearly all the nobles, governors, and Knights of Golden Fleece had now sworn to stand together to overthrow the hated foreign cardinal, and a formal letter was sent to the king in March 1563, signed by Orange, Egmont, and Horn, resigning all share in the government. The reply was again in Philip’s temporising vein. He was coming to Flanders himself shortly, and would then inquire into their complaints. In the meanwhile he could not dismiss Granvelle. The nobles sent another, and a stronger, letter to the king in answer to this (July 29, 1563), and said that in future they should absent themselves from the council. At the same time a formal “remonstrance” was addressed to the regent, and thenceforward she and Granvelle were left to govern alone. Margaret had no wish to be dragged down by the impending fall of the minister, and bluntly told Philip, by her trusty secretary, Armenteros, that, if the cardinal were maintained against the will of nobles and people, a revolution might result. Granvelle was assured by the king’s secretary that Philip would rather lose the States than sacrifice his minister. The king sent a curt peremptory letter to the nobles reproaching them for deserting the council for a trifle, and assured the cardinal that he would not deprive himself of his services. But they arranged between them that the cardinal should beg for leave of absence to visit his mother in the Franche ComtÉ and, after much pretended reluctance on the part of Philip, Granvelle was allowed to depart, to the open rejoicing of the nobles, the people, and even of the regent. An elaborate appearance of his departure being spontaneous and only temporary was made, but when two years afterwards his leave of absence had expired and he wanted to go back, the king advised him to pass a short time in Rome, and then he knew for certain that disgrace had fallen upon him. He would go thither—or to the farthest end of the world—he said, if the king ordered him, but he much feared that his absence from Flanders would not mend matters.

He had departed from Brussels in the spring of 1564, and the three nobles at once wrote dutiful letters to Philip, who replied graciously. They once more took an active part in the government, and in the first few months after Granvelle left, the relief and rejoicing were great. But the sore still remained behind. Granvelle, indeed, had only carried out the policy inaugurated by Philip of governing Flanders as a Spanish province. The policy was not dead though the instrument was disgraced. Such a system of government, where popular control is loosened, invariably leads to corruption; and this case was no exception to the rule. Granvelle’s parasites—Morillon, Bave, Bordey, and the rest of them—had made his patronage a crying scandal, the judges were shamelessly bought and sold, the administration was a sink of iniquity, the inquisitor Titelmans was ferociously hounding to death inoffensive citizens, even good Catholics, without legal form of trial, and now Margaret of Parma herself, and her pet secretary, Armenteros, thought it was time that they should reap a fat harvest; so, after the first joy of Granvelle’s retreat had passed, it was decided by the nobles to send Egmont to Spain to explain to the king how the rights he swore to maintain were still being violated. Egmont might take with him the vigorous protest of his peers, but Egmont was one of those men whom princes like Philip have no cause to fear. He was vain and superficial, and easily soothed into satisfaction. Philip made much of him, promised him “mounts and marvels,” chided him a little; and sent him home rejoicing, full of praises for the generosity and magnanimity of the king. But Philip’s policy was not varied a hair’s-breadth nevertheless. On the contrary, there is no room for doubt that he had now made up his mind to break the spirit of the stubborn Flemings for once and for all, and to stamp out the rebellious talk about rights and privileges which he had sworn to maintain. There were no mundane rights and privileges that should stand against the will of God’s own vice-regent upon earth. “God and his Majesty” had willed that the Flemings must be governed like the Spaniards, and that was enough. No sooner had Egmont left Madrid than the king sent strict orders that nothing was to be changed, and that heresy was to be pursued without mercy or truce. Thousands of industrious citizens were flocking over to England, carrying their looms and their household gods with them, and English Protestants looked more sourly than ever upon Philip and all his works. Philip remained unmoved. The fewer heretics there were in Flanders the easier would it be for him to have his way later. “Kill! kill!” wrote one of Philip’s Spanish friars to him; “we must kill 2000 people all over the States. Your Majesty has the weapon which God has placed in your hand. Draw it, bathe it in the blood of heretics, unless you wish the blood of Christ to cry to God. Moderation touches not your Majesty. Let them seek moderation in their heresies to save their lives.”

But Philip was in no hurry; he only told his sister that nothing was to be changed. “You know,” answered she, “how the Spanish Inquisition is hated here. I have already told you that to suppress heresy here I am asked to cast into the flames 60,000 or 70,000 people, and the governors of the provinces will not allow it. They wish to resign, and I also shall be obliged to do so.”

Philip’s answer in a few words gives a clearer idea of his character than a volume could do. For months he did not answer at all, and then wrote, “Why all these disquietudes? Are not my intentions understood? Is it believed that I have any intentions than the service of God and the good of the States?” Persecution might crush Latin peoples if continued long enough, but it could not crush the stubborn Dutchmen. There arose now a new element in the strife. Hitherto the motive power had mostly been the great nobles, Catholics nearly all of them, whose object was to prevent the extinction of the political liberties of the States; but now the religious power of resistance was aroused, and the bourgeoisie stood shoulder to shoulder crying aloud that no papist should burn them or theirs for the faith. Many such had fled to England, but the towns of Holland and Zeeland were full of them still. First the landed gentlemen protested, under the leadership of Orange’s brother, Louis of Nassau, and Saint Aldegonde, against the proceedings of the Inquisition; and they bound themselves by solemn oath to follow the recent example of the Neapolitans and withstand the “gang of strangers,” who were seeking to impose the Spanish form of the Holy Office upon them. Then Brederode, the man of highest lineage and most insatiable thirst in Holland, joined them, and together they went, a couple of hundred of them, to hand their solemn protest to the regent. Tears fell from Margaret’s eyes as they filed past her, for she knew now that her brother’s stubborn spirit had met its match, and in future it must be war to the knife. Then the Gargantuan banquet at the hostelry of Culemburg unlocked their tongues still further, and tippling Brederode gave his memorable toast to the “Beggars.” No one knew what he meant, perhaps he did not himself know at the end of such an orgy, but the name caught on, and the sturdy “Beggars” arose thenceforward from their dykes and marshes to be quelled no more for good, but to hold for all time to come the country which they themselves had rescued from the sea.

The new turn of affairs did not please the great nobles. They were Catholics, though patriots, and they saw that the championship of the national cause was about to fall into the hands of the Protestants; so Egmont, Horn, Montigny, Arschot, and the rest of them did their best to stem the tide. All but Orange. He knew Philip better than any of them, and he foresaw that there would be no surrender or conciliation from him. Why should there be? Could the lieutenant of the Most High stoop to palter with sottish Brederode and his crew? If Philip had spies in Flanders, so had Orange in Madrid, and nothing passed without his knowledge. He had learned of the king’s plans of vengeance, but he could not afford yet to cast himself into the scale alone with Brederode and the little gentry, leaving the great nobles on the side of the Spaniard; so for the moment he stood aloof saying no word either of praise or condemnation, but seeking to moderate the storm on both sides. But the spark had caught the tinder. Protestant fervour blazed up in every town in Flanders in open defiance of the edicts. The regent was powerless. She could not punish all Flanders, and violent councillors of the Alba school whispered distrust to Philip even of her, for she wrote ceaselessly to her brother urging him to gentler methods. His action was characteristic: at first he authorised his sister to pardon the confederates and suppress the Inquisition, and with reassuring words sought to gain Orange to his side. But only a week after (August 9, 1566) he signed a solemn document before a notary, setting forth that he was not bound by his promise, and would punish all those who had directly or indirectly aided the disturbances. He avowed to the pope that the Inquisition in Flanders should be upheld at all costs, and that his promise to suppress it was void. “Before allowing any backsliding in religion, or in the service of God, I will lose all my dominions and a hundred lives, if I had them, for I will never be a ruler of heretics.” Thus Philip threw down the gage. Then came the sacking of Catholic churches by the mob in Antwerp, St. Omer, Malines, and elsewhere, sacred images profaned, sacrilegious mockeries perpetrated, holy mysteries blasphemously parodied, and priceless treasures of art wantonly wrecked. The Protestant mob, in fact, was paramount, and the regent and her inquisition could only look on in dismay, until the former fell ill and lost all heart. Philip was very far from doing that. Away in distant Spain, trying to pull the wires that move humanity from his work-room, his only policy was extermination of heresy, utter and complete.

Wise Granvelle, even the pope himself, warned him that too much severity might defeat his own purpose. The king scornfully and coldly rebuked even the pontiff for his weakness. In the meanwhile Alba was storming in the council at Philip’s delay in giving the orders for extermination. But Philip looked upon himself as one who turned the handle of the wheels of fate, and was in no hurry. He wanted to watch closely which were the tallest heads to be stricken first. The regent was working night and day, making such concessions as she dared, whilst putting down tumult by force of arms. The Catholic nobles too, Egmont especially, were doing their best with their armed Walloons to suppress with a strong hand rebellion at Valenciennes and elsewhere, but Orange was in Antwerp standing apart from both factions, and Saint Aldegonde with a rabble was in arms outside the city. At length even diplomatic Orange had to quit the mask. Distrusted by both parties, but idolised by the peaceful citizens of Antwerp, who only asked to be allowed to live in quietude, he saw the time had come; and early in 1567 reverted to the faith of his fathers, and promised to lead the cause of reform. Tumult immediately ceased; the regent’s severity and conciliation together, and the blind adhesion of the nobles, except Orange and Brederode, had suppressed all disorder by the spring, and “all the cities are coming now to us with halters round their necks.” Orange was in Germany making preparations for the fray, whilst Flemish Protestants were flying to England again by the hundred, crying out that Orange and Brederode had betrayed and abandoned them. Margaret entered Antwerp in state and rejoicing, and all looked calm and happy, except to those who were led to the halter and the stake for the service of “God and his Majesty.” It was but the calm that precedes the storm; and if no one else perceived this, Philip and Orange certainly did so. The former knew that he must crush the national feeling, and the nobles that started it, that he must make Flanders a province of Spain before he could have his own way in all things, and he decided to go himself with Alba and superintend the killing, or at least he announced his intention of making the voyage, which gave him an excuse for raising a considerable fleet and a large force as an escort. The Queen of England affected to rejoice at her “good brother’s” coming; but the English fleet was hastily fitted out, and all England was in a panic of apprehension as to what it might forebode. In vain the Regent Margaret assured the king that all was quiet, and that no more punishment was now needed. The king replied that he wished personally to thank her and others who had brought about the pacification.

At last when all was ready in Spain, vast sums of money collected, and the troops under arms—no longer an escort but an avenging army—Philip announced that he could not go himself, but would send the Duke of Alba alone. Then all the world saw what it meant. The regent protested that the presence of Alba would be fatal, “as he is so detested in this country that his coming itself will be sufficient to make all the Spanish nation hated.” If he comes she must retire; and retire she did. The news of Alba’s coming sped across the Channel by the Protestant fugitives, and Elizabeth at once retorted by renewed severity against the Catholics in England. Huguenots in France, Lutherans in Germany, Protestants in England, all knew now that the time of struggle was approaching for the faith, and messages of help and mutual support crossed from one to another. Philip, slaving night and day at his desk, had quietly planned long before that all the nobles who had dared to raise their voices in the national cause should be struck at first, and then that the brand of Spain should be stamped for ever on the rich and industrious burgesses of the Netherlands.