The Spanish troops in Flanders—Don Juan sent to Flanders—His projects for invading England—Mutiny of the Spanish troops in Flanders—The Spanish fury—Evacuation of Flanders by the Spanish troops—Perez’s plot against Don Juan—The murder of Escobedo—Don Juan seizes Namur—Renewal of the war—The battle of Gemblours—Desperation of Don Juan—His death—Alexander Farnese.
REQUESENS, the Governor of the Netherlands, had died whilst his policy of conciliation was as yet incomplete. The Catholic Flemings had been to a great extent reconciled by promises of concessions and through their jealousy of the Protestant Dutchmen, but the new governor had been surrounded with insuperable difficulties from the first, legacies from the Duke of Alba. Most of the seamen were disloyal, and the Flemish clergy were disaffected, but withal Requesens had not been unsuccessful amongst the peoples of the Walloon and southern states. No blandishments, however, could win over the stubborn Dutchmen, now that they were fighting for the faith and were supported by English and French Protestants, as well as by the questionable German levies, who generally turned tail at the critical moment. The Spaniards were beaten out of their last foothold on Walcheren by the destruction of Julian Romero’s relieving fleet, and the indomitable determination of the citizens of Leyden overcame attack after a year of siege; but, worst of all, the clamour of the Catholic Flemings that they should be relieved of the presence of the mutinous, murderous, unpaid Spanish soldiery could not be complied with, although promised, for there was no money to pay the troops, and they would not budge without it. Philip, in despair, at one time decided either to drown or burn all the revolting cities of the Netherlands—burning he thought preferable, as it would seem less cruel—but Requesens told him that his army was a mutinous mob, who would not do either without pay. Attempts then were made to come to terms with Orange, but without success, for, said Requesens, they are not fighting for their heresy but for their independence. In despair at last, Requesens died on March 5, 1576. The Spanish troops were more mutinous than ever now, mere bandits most of them, and Philip was made to understand clearly by his most faithful adherents in Flanders that unless these ruffians were withdrawn, Brabant and Hainhault, Artois and Flanders would follow Holland and Zeeland, and slip out of his grasp.
Philip bent to the inevitable, and ordered Don Juan to go to Flanders as governor to carry out the policy of pacification at almost any cost. He was instructed to proceed direct to his new post, and doubtless Philip congratulated himself upon so good an opportunity of removing without offence his ambitious brother from the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean. Escobedo, his mentor, was warned strictly before he left Spain that there must be no nonsense. Peace must be made with the Flemings at all sacrifice and the Spanish troops withdrawn from the country. Don Juan’s ambition, however, was bounded by no frontiers, and the pope (Gregory XIII.) had sent instructions to his nuncio to urge a new plan upon Philip, namely, that he should allow Don Juan to invade England from Flanders, liberate and marry the captive Queen of Scots, and rule over a Catholic kingdom of Great Britain. Philip, as was his wont, was vaguely benevolent to a plan which did not originate with himself, but had no intention of allowing his policy to be dictated or forced by others. Suddenly, to his dismay, Don Juan himself, in disobedience to orders, came to Spain instead of going direct to Flanders, the idea being doubtless to add his influence to that of the pope and to prevail upon Philip to adopt his new plans. The king gently evaded his brother’s importunities and his claims to be treated as an imperial prince, and without losing temper dispatched Don Juan as soon as possible on his uncongenial mission. But in his secret way he was offended at the prince’s disobedience and the attempts to force his hand, and thenceforward kept a sharp eye and a tight rein on Don Juan and his adviser Escobedo. False Perez in the meanwhile wormed himself into the confidence of Don Juan, and learnt that, in despite of the king, he intended to swoop down upon the coast of England with the Spanish troops which were to be withdrawn from Flanders.
But the loss of time by Don Juan’s disobedience and stay in Madrid was fatal. Soon after Requesens’ death the Council of State, nominated by Philip as temporary governors of Flanders, found themselves face to face with a great crisis. The Spanish and Italian troops rebelled for want of pay and broke into open mutiny, plundering friends and foes without distinction. The council consisted mostly of Flemish and Walloon Catholics, and was profoundly divided in sight of the murderous excesses of the king’s soldiers. Brussels was held in the interests of the council by Walloon troops, but they were surrounded by Spanish mutineers outside. During the panic-stricken attempts of the council to bribe the mutineers into obedience, a plot was formed by Barlemont, one of the councillors, to admit the Spaniards into the city; but it was discovered, and Barlemont deprived of the keys. Massacres were reported at Alost and other towns; the excesses of the mutineers grew worse and worse. Flemings of all sorts, Catholic and Protestant, lost patience, and swore they would stand no more of it, but would fight for their lives and homes. The council was forced to side with the Flemings, except the Spanish member Rodas, who assumed alone the character of Philip’s representative, and henceforward the Spanish army of cut-throats, with their commanders, Sancho de Avila, Vargas, Mondragon, and Romero, harried, burnt, and killed right and left.
Philip was in deep distress at the news. Money should be sent; Don Juan would soon arrive; the offended Flemings should have justice done to them, and so forth. But the blood-lust of the mutineers could not be slaked now with fine promises. The council’s troops were defeated again and again, town after town was ravaged, and at last came the time when the bands of savage soldiers effected a junction and fell upon the richest prey of all—the city of Antwerp. On the fatal November 4, 1576, six thousand mutinous troops, panting for blood and plunder, swooped down from the citadel on to the town. The citizens had done their best. Barricades had been raised, the burgesses stood to their arms, and brave Champigny, the governor,—De Granvelle’s brother, and hitherto a staunch friend of the Spaniards,—worked heroically. But the Walloons fled, young Egmont was captured, the citizens, unused to arms, were no match for the veteran infantry of Sancho de Avila, and Antwerp soon lay a panting quarry under the claws of the spoiler. Neither age, sex, nor faith was considered, and when the fury had partly subsided it was found that 6000 unarmed people, at least, had been slaughtered, 6,000,000 ducats’ worth of property stolen, and as much again burnt. The States troops were all killed or had fled, and the only armed forces in the country were the unbridled Spanish mutineers and the troops of Orange. Flemings of each faith were welded together now against the wreckers of their homes, and even those nobles who through all the evil past had stood by Spain were at one with Orange and the Protestants of the north.
Don Juan had posted through France in the guise of a Moorish slave to prevent delay and discovery, but when he reached Luxembourg he was given to understand by the States that he could only be received as Philip’s governor now, on certain terms to be dictated to him. This was gall and wormwood to the proud young prince. Orange knew all about the fine plans for the invasion of England, secret though they were thought to be, and at his instance the States insisted upon the Spanish troops being withdrawn overland, and not by sea. During the winter of 1576 and early spring of 1577 Don Juan was kept haggling over the terms upon which he was to be allowed by the Flemings to assume his governorship. The States-General were assembled at Ghent, and consulted Orange at every turn. They said that they had bought their liberty now with their blood, and were not going to sell it again to a new master. Passionate prayers from Don Juan and his secretary came to Philip by every post that they should be allowed to fight it out; imploring requests for money and arms to beat into “these drunken wineskins of Flemings” a sense of their duty; often wild, incoherent, half-threatening expressions of disgust and annoyance at the uncongenial task committed to the victor of Lepanto. He was a soldier, he said, and could not do it; the more he gave way the more insolent the Flemings became; a woman or a child could do the work better than he. Escobedo’s letters to Perez, which of course were shown to the king, were more desperate still. On February 7, 1577, he wrote: “Oh, I am ready to hang myself, if I were not hoping to hang those who injure us so. O Master Perez! how stubborn and hateful these devils have been in hindering our plan. Hell itself must have spewed forth this gang to thwart us so.” Don Juan himself was just as violent in his letters. “O Antonio!” he wrote, “how certain for my sorrow and misfortune is the frustration of our plans, just as they were so well thought out and arranged.” Herein, it is clear, was the grievance; and Philip’s grim face must have darkened as he saw the deceit his brother sought to practise upon him, and how he was to be dragged by the ambition of a bastard into a struggle with England, at a time when his treasury was empty, his own states of Flanders in rebellion, and his mind bent upon far-reaching combinations, which would all be frustrated if his hand had thus been forced. Humiliating reconciliation with the Catholic Flemings was nothing to this; and to his brother’s wild remonstrance and protest he had but one answer, cold and precise—peace must be made with any sacrifice, consistent only with his continued sovereignty. At last by pledging his own honour and credit—for he insolently told the king that no money could be obtained on his—Escobedo borrowed means sufficient to persuade the troops to march, and the mutinous rascals who had disgraced the name of soldiers crossed the frontier to Italy amidst the curses of all Flanders. Then Don Juan entered Brussels at last with the frantic rejoicing of a people who had emancipated their country by their firmness. But his own face was lowering, and rage and disappointment were at his heart. He had been threatening for months to come back to Spain whether the king liked it or not, and Perez ceaselessly whispered to Philip that now that the prince’s ambition had been thwarted in one direction, it would strike higher in another. We now know that Perez garbled and misrepresented Don Juan’s words, suppressed portions of his letters, and persuaded Philip that his brother designed treachery to him in Spain. The reason for this is obvious. Don Juan and Escobedo had definitely drifted away from the old party of Ruy Gomez, and his return to Spain would have secured a preponderance to the Duke of Alba, and probably caused Perez’s downfall. The principal members of the camarilla now were Perez’s friends, the Marquis de los Velez and Cardinal Quiroga, both of whom where in favour of peace; but with Don Juan and Alba present they would be overruled, especially as Zayas, the other secretary of state, was a creature of Alba.
When therefore Escobedo rushed over to Spain in July 1577 to arrange about the payment of the loan he had guaranteed, Perez, after making two unsuccessful attempts to poison him, had him stabbed one night (March 31, 1578) in the streets of Madrid. Perez asserted that the king had authorised him to have the deed done six months before, and in this, no doubt, he told the truth. In any case, great events followed upon this apparently unimportant crime, as will be related in the proper place. The Spanish troops had marched out of Flanders in the spring of 1577, and before many weeks had passed Don Juan again found his position intolerable. The tone of the Catholic Flemings had quite changed now. They were loyal and cordial to him, but they let him see that they had the whip hand, and meant to keep it. His plans had all miscarried; his brother was cold and irresponsive and kept him without money; he was isolated, powerless, and heartsick, and determined to end it. Margaret de Valois, Catharine de Medici’s daughter, had gone to Hainhault on a pretended visit to the waters of Spa, but really to sound the Catholic Flemings about their accepting her brother AlenÇon for their sovereign. Don Juan feigned the need to receive her, but he had plotted with Barlemont to get together a force of Walloons upon whom he could depend. They were hidden in a monastery, and after the prince had hastily greeted Margaret, he suddenly collected his men, threw himself into the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. Then began a fresh war, in which Orange himself for the first time since his rebellion became the arbiter of the Catholic Flemish States. Here was a fresh blow to Philip. It was evident that his brother was one of those flighty, vaguely ambitious, turbulent people, who are the worst possible instruments of an absolute ruler. For over three months no letter reached Don Juan from the king, whilst he chafed in Namur. “If,” he wrote to a friend, “God in His goodness does not protect me, I do not know what I shall do, or what will become of me. I wish to God I could, without offending my conscience or my king, dash my brains out against a wall, or cast myself over a precipice. They neglect me even to the extent of not answering my letters.” In the meanwhile Orange entered Brussels in triumph, and Catholics and Protestants made common cause for a time. But not for long. The extreme Catholic party, under the Duke of Arschot, invited secretly Philip’s young nephew and brother-in-law, the Archduke Mathias, to assume the sovereignty of Flanders. The young prince—he was only twenty, and a fool—escaped from Vienna and arrived at Brussels on October 26, 1577. This was a blow to Don Juan in Namur, to Orange in Brussels, and to Philip in Madrid. Philip met the danger at first by masterly inactivity—in fact the solution might have been made not altogether distasteful to him; Orange cleverly took the young archduke under his wing, patronised, adopted, and disarmed him; and Don Juan busied himself in his fortress settling with his friends outside the recruiting of a Catholic force, whilst he was still quarrelling with the States by letter. But by the end of October the Protestants in the south, encouraged by the turn of affairs and the presence of Orange in Brussels, turned upon their Catholic fellow-townsmen in Ghent, Bruges, and elsewhere, and sought to avenge the cruelties perpetrated upon them in the past by the Catholic Church. The Duke of Arschot and the representatives of the Catholic States were seized and imprisoned whilst in session at Ghent, and everywhere the Protestants and Orange seemed to be sweeping the board. This was too much for Philip. The Archduke Mathias as tributary sovereign under him of a Catholic Flanders, he might have accepted, but the Prince of Orange and the Lutherans paramount from Zeeland to the French frontier he could not stomach. So the veteran Spanish and Italian infantry who had scourged Flanders before, were recalled, under Alexander Farnese, the son of Margaret, who had been the ruler of Flanders when the dissensions began, to the help of Don Juan and to crush the Protestants. When Alexander and his troops approached Namur, Orange and Mathias, side by side, were entering Brussels in state. Elizabeth had insisted upon Orange being made lieutenant-general with the real power, as a condition of her continued aid to the States, for she was quite determined upon two points—first, that no matter what union was effected between the States, the Catholic party should never be paramount; and secondly, that the French should not gain a footing there except under her patronage. She had some fear on this latter point, for Catharine de Medici had long been intriguing to obtain the sovereignty for her young son AlenÇon, who was already on the frontier with a force of Huguenots, whilst the Guises had been actively helping Don Juan in his recruiting of Catholics. When Parma had arrived, and Don Juan’s new levies were ready, he marched out of Namur on the last day of January 1578. The States troops, mostly Netherlanders and German mercenaries, mustered 20,000 men, and Don Juan’s forces about the same number. The prince, with Parma, led the centre of the latter with the pope’s sacred banner floating over their heads. The same spirit that had led him against the infidel inspired him now, and the banner testified to it, for it bore the words under a crucifix: “Under this emblem I vanquished the Turks; under the same will I conquer the heretics.” And he did so, for on the plain of Gemblours the States troops under De Goigny, with Egmont, Bossu, Champigny, La Marck, and Arschot’s brother HavrÉ, were routed completely, without loss on the Spanish side. The honour of the day belongs to Alexander Farnese, who with a dashing cavalry charge broke the enemy at a critical moment, the only men who made any real resistance being the Scottish levies, 600 strong, under Colonel Balfour. These were saved from the carnage by Don Juan’s intercession, but of the rest 6000 men were killed in fight, and the prisoners hanged to a man.
Philip had had enough of his turbulent brother. He had promised the envoys from the Catholic States that he should be withdrawn, and it was privately understood when Alexander Farnese was appointed to go thither that he should succeed the prince. But the latter for the present still continued in command, reducing the towns of South Flanders one after the other, and again issuing a proclamation in Philip’s name offering peace to the States, on condition of the recognition of the Spanish sovereignty and the predominance of the Catholic religion. The latter condition meant the extermination of the Protestants by fire and sword, and Orange could never accept it.
By the pacification of Ghent, which Don Juan had in principle confirmed, religious toleration had been secured, and the States refused to go back from that position, and again demanded the withdrawal of the impracticable governor. Philip was, in fact, at his wits’ end what to do with his brother. Perez had succeeded in persuading the king that Don Juan’s object was to raise a revolution in Spain and try to grasp the crown. He could not, therefore, be allowed to come back freely, nor would the States endure him longer on any terms. He himself felt the position to be an impossible one, and his letters to his private friends in Madrid constantly hint at suicide as the only way out of the difficulty, for he knew now that his faithful secretary Escobedo had been assassinated in Madrid, and anticipated a similar shameful end for himself. War to the knife against the States was his only resource, for he was no diplomatist, but Philip, over his head, left no stone unturned to try to tempt Orange to abandon his cause. Orange had a restive team to drive, what with the Catholic majority and nobles, the Protestant Dutchmen, the extreme Puritans, like Saint Aldegonde; Elizabeth of England, the French Huguenots, the German mercenaries, and poor Mathias, now an acknowledged failure. Nothing but the most consummate statesmanship would serve him, and that he employed. Philip’s temptations and Don Juan’s storming were equally disregarded. AlenÇon and the Frenchmen were invited across the frontier to replace Mathias as sovereign, and HavrÉ was sent to Elizabeth to assure her that, unless she helped the States effectually with men and money, they would be obliged to accept the Frenchmen. This they knew she would never stand. She disarmed Catharine de Medici with fresh approaches for a marriage with AlenÇon, whilst she threatened to help Philip if the French were allowed to set foot in Flanders except under her auspices. She smiled upon Philip’s new ambassador Mendoza, and so managed that very shortly AlenÇon had to retrace his steps to France, and the States had to look to her alone for assistance, which she doled out judiciously, and so kept them firm against the Spaniards. All through the spring and summer of 1578 Don Juan struggled in toils from which he had not wit enough to free himself. Heartrending appeals to his brother for guidance, for money to organise a sufficient force to crush the States for good and for all, prayers to be allowed to retire, were met with cold irresponsiveness by Philip, prompted by Perez’s slanders, for Don Juan must be ruined or Perez himself must fall. At last his chafing spirit wore out his body. Constant fevers beset him, and in his letters to his friends he began to predict that his days were drawing to an end, whatever doctors might say. By the end of September he was delirious, and on October 1 he died of malignant fever. There were naturally whispers of poison, even from his confessor, but the details of his illness given by the physicians in attendance leave no doubt that he died a natural death, although his death certainly relieved Philip of an unendurable position, and allowed Farnese, an infinitely superior man, to take advantage of the strong Catholic national feeling in Belgium to separate the nobles and peoples of the south from Orange and the Dutchmen, and so eventually to reserve Catholic Flanders to the Spanish connection for many years to come.
