A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

History of Holland by George Edmundson

G >> George Edmundson >> History of Holland




The extant correspondence between Maximilian and Margaret, which is of
the most confidential character, on matters of high policy, is a proof
of the high opinion the emperor entertained of his daughter's
intelligence and capacity. In nothing was his confidence more justified
than in the assiduous care and interest that the regent took in the
education of the Archduke Charles and his three sisters, who had been
placed in her charge. In 1515 Charles, on entering his sixteenth year,
was declared by Maximilian to be of age; Margaret accordingly handed
over to him the reins of government and withdrew for the time into
private life. Her retirement was not, however, to be of long
continuance. On January 23, 1516, King Ferdinand of Aragon died, and
Charles, who now became King of Castile and of Aragon, was obliged to
leave the Netherlands to take possession of his Spanish dominions.
Before sailing he reinstated his aunt as governess, and appointed a
council to assist her. This post she continued to hold till the day of
her death, for Charles was never again able to take up his permanent
residence in the Netherlands. During the first years after his
accession to the thrones of Ferdinand and Isabel he was much occupied
with Spanish affairs; and the death of Maximilian, January 12, 1519,
opened out to him a still wider field of ambition and activity. On June
28 Charles was elected emperor, a result which he owed in no small
degree to the diplomatic skill and activity of Margaret. Just a year
later the emperor visited the Netherlands, where Charles of Gelderland
was again giving trouble, and his presence was required both for the
purpose of dealing with the affairs of the provinces and also for
securing a grant of supply, for he was sorely in need of funds. Margaret
had at his request summoned the States-General to meet at Brussels,
where Charles personally addressed them, and explained at some length
the reasons which led him to ask his loyal and devoted Netherland
subjects for their aid on his election to the imperial dignity. The
States-General on this, as on other occasions, showed no niggardliness
in responding to the request of a sovereign who, though almost always
absent, appealed to their patriotism as a born Netherlander, who had
been brought up in their midst and spoke their tongue. Charles was
crowned at Aachen, October 23, 1520, and some three months later
presided at the famous diet of Worms, where he met Martin Luther face to
face. Before starting on his momentous journey he again appointed
Margaret regent, and gave to her Council, which he nominated, large
powers; the Council of Mechlin, the Court of Holland and other
provincial tribunals being subjected to its superior authority and
jurisdiction. By this action the privileges of the provinces were
infringed, but Charles was resolute in carrying out the centralising
policy of his ancestors, the Dukes of Burgundy, and he had the power to
enforce his will in spite of the protests that were raised. And so
under the wise and conciliatory but firm administration of Margaret
during a decade of almost continuous religious and international
strife--a decade marked by such great events as the rapid growth of the
Reformation in Germany, the defeat and capture of Francis I at Pavia,
the sack of Rome by the troops of Bourbon and the victorious advance of
the Turks in Hungary and along the eastern frontier of the empire--the
Netherland provinces remained at peace, save for the restless intrigues
of Charles of Egmont in Gelderland, and prospered. Their wealth
furnished indeed no small portion of the funds which enabled Charles to
face successfully so many adversaries and to humble the power of
France. The last important act of Margaret, like her first, was
connected with the town of Cambray. In this town, as the representative
and plenipotentiary of her nephew the emperor, she met, July, 1529,
Louise of Savoy, who had been granted similar powers by her son Francis
I, to negotiate a treaty of peace. The two princesses proved worthy of
the trust that had been placed in them, and a general treaty of peace,
often spoken of as "the Ladies' Peace," was speedily drawn up and
ratified. The conditions were highly advantageous to the interests of
Spain and the Netherlands. On November 30 of the following year Margaret
died, as the result of a slight accident to her foot which the medical
science of the day did not know how to treat properly, in the 50th year
of her age and the 24th of her regency.

Charles, who had a few months previously reached the zenith of his power
by being crowned with the iron crown of Lombardy and with the imperial
crown at the hands of Pope Clement VII at Bologna (February 22 and 24,
1530), appointed as governess in Margaret's place his sister Mary, the
widowed queen of Louis, King of Hungary, who had been slain by the Turks
at the battle of Mohacs, August 29, 1526.

Mary, who had passed her early life in the Netherlands under the care of
her aunt Margaret, proved herself in every way her worthy successor. She
possessed, like Margaret, a strong character, statesmanlike qualities
and singular capacity in the administration of affairs. She filled the
difficult post of regent for the whole period of twenty-four years
between the death of Margaret and the abdication of Charles V in 1555.
It was fortunate indeed for that great sovereign that these two eminent
women of his house should, each in turn for one half of his long reign,
have so admirably conducted the government of this important portion of
his dominions, as to leave him free for the carrying out of his
far-reaching political projects and constant military campaigns in other
lands. Two years after Mary entered upon her regency Charles appointed
three advisory and administrative bodies--the Council of State, the
Council of Finance and the Privy Council--to assist her in the
government. The Council of State dealt with questions of external and
internal policy and with the appointment of officials; the Council of
Finance with the care of the revenue and private domains of the
sovereign; to the Privy Council were entrusted the publication of edicts
and "placards," and the care of justice and police.

When Charles succeeded Philip the Fair only a portion of the Netherlands
was subject to his sway. With steady persistence he set himself to the
task of bringing all the seventeen provinces under one sovereign. In
1515 George of Saxe-Meissen sold to him his rights over Friesland. Henry
of Bavaria, who in opposition to his wishes had been elected Bishop of
Utrecht, was compelled (1528) to cede to him the temporalities of the
see, retaining the spiritual office only. Charles thus added the Upper
and Lower _Sticht_--Utrecht and Overyssel--to his dominions. He made
himself (1536) master of Groningen and Drente after a long and obstinate
struggle with Charles of Gelderland, and seven years later he forced
Charles' successor, William of Juelich and Cleves, to renounce in his
favour his claims to Gelderland and Zutphen. During the reign of Charles
V the States-General were summoned many times, chiefly for the purpose
of voting subsidies, but it was only on special and solemn occasions,
that the representatives of all the seventeen provinces were present, as
for instance when Philip received their homage in 1549 and when Charles
V announced his abdication in 1555. The names of the seventeen provinces
summoned on these occasions were Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg,
Gelderland, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Artois, Hainault, Namur, Lille
with Douay and Orchies, Tournay and district, Mechlin, Friesland,
Utrecht, Overyssel with Drente and Groningen. The bishopric of Liege,
though nominally independent, was under the strict control of the
government at Brussels. The relations of Charles' Burgundian domains
to the empire were a matter of no small moment, and he was able to
regulate them in a manner satisfactory to himself. Several times during
his reign tentative attempts were made to define those relations, which
were of a very loose kind. The fact that the head of the house of
Habsburg was himself emperor had not made him any less determined than
the Burgundian sovereigns, his ancestors, to assert for his Netherland
territories a virtual independence of imperial control or obligation.
The various states of which the Netherlands were composed were as much
opposed as the central government at Brussels to any recognition of the
claims of the empire; and both Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary
ventured to refuse to send representatives to the imperial diets, even
when requested to do so by the emperor. At last in 1548, when all the
Netherland provinces had been brought under the direct dominion or
control of one sovereign prince, a convention was drawn up at the diet
of Augsburg, chiefly by the exertions of the Regent Mary and her tried
councillors Viglius and Granvelle, by which the unity of the Netherland
territories was recognised and they were freed from imperial
jurisdiction. Nominally, they formed a circle of the empire,--the
Burgundian circle--and representatives of the circle were supposed to
appear at the diets and to bear a certain share of imperial taxation in
return for the right to the protection of the empire against attacks by
France. As a matter of fact, no representatives were ever sent and no
subsidy was paid, nor was the protection of the empire ever sought or
given.

This convention, which in reality severed the shadowy links which had
hitherto bound the Netherlands to the empire, received the sanction of
the States-General in October, 1548; and it was followed by the issuing,
with the consent of the Estates of the various provinces, of a
"Pragmatic Sanction" by which the inherited right of succession to the
sovereignty in each and every province was settled upon the male and
female line of Charles' descendants, notwithstanding the existence of
ancient provincial privileges to the contrary. In 1549 the emperor's
only son Philip was acknowledged by all the Estates as their future
sovereign, and made a journey through the land to receive homage.

The doctrines of the Reformation had early obtained a footing in
various parts of the Netherlands. At first it was the teaching of Luther
and of Zwingli which gained adherents. Somewhat later the Anabaptist
movement made great headway in Holland and Friesland, especially in
Amsterdam. The chief leaders of the Anabaptists were natives of Holland,
including the famous or infamous John of Leyden, who with some thousands
of these fanatical sectaries perished at Muenster in 1535. Between 1537
and 1543 a more moderate form of Anabaptist teaching made rapid progress
through the preaching of a certain Menno Simonszoon. The followers of
this man were called Mennonites. Meanwhile Lutheranism and Zwinglianism
were in many parts of the country being supplanted by the sterner
doctrines of Calvin. All these movements were viewed by the emperor
with growing anxiety and detestation. Whatever compromises with the
Reformation he might be compelled to make in Germany, he was determined
to extirpate heresy from his hereditary dominions. He issued a strong
placard soon after the diet of Worms in 1521 condemning Luther and his
opinions and forbidding the printing or sale of any of the reformer's
writings; and between that date and 1555 a dozen other edicts and
placards were issued of increasing stringency. The most severe was the
so-called "blood-placard" of 1550. This enacted the sentence of death
against all convicted of heresy--the men to be executed with the sword
and the women buried alive; in cases of obstinacy both men and women
were to be burnt. Terribly harsh as were these edicts, it is doubtful
whether the number of those who Suffered the extreme penalty has not
been greatly exaggerated by partisan writers. Of the thousands who
perished, by far the greater part were Anabaptists; and these met their
fate rather as enemies of the state and of society, than as heretics.
They were political as well as religious anarchists.

In the time of Charles the trade and industries of the Netherlands were
in a highly prosperous state. The Burgundian provinces under the wise
administrations of Margaret and Mary, and protected by the strong arm of
the emperor from foreign attack, were at this period by far the richest
state in Europe and the financial mainstay of the Habsburg power.
Bruges, however, had now ceased to be the central market and exchange of
Europe, owing to the silting up of the river Zwijn. It was no longer a
port, and its place had been taken by Antwerp. At the close of the reign
of Charles, Antwerp, with its magnificent harbour on the Scheldt, had
become the "counting-house" of the nations, the greatest port and the
wealthiest and most luxurious city in the world. Agents of the principal
bankers and merchants of every country had their offices within its
walls. It has been estimated that, inclusive of the many foreigners who
made the town their temporary abode, the population of Antwerp in 1560
was about 150,000. Five hundred vessels sailed in and out of her harbour
daily, and five times that number were to be seen thronging her wharves
at the same time.

To the north of the Scheldt the condition of things was not less
satisfactory than in the south, particularly in Holland. The commercial
prosperity of Holland was in most respects different in kind from that
of Flanders and Brabant, and during the period with which we are dealing
had been making rapid advances, but on independent lines. A manufactory
of the coarser kinds of cloth, established at Leyden, had indeed for a
time met with a considerable measure of success, but had fallen into
decline in the time of Mary of Hungary. The nature of his country led
the Hollander to be either a sailor or a dairy-farmer, not an artisan or
operative. Akin though he was in race to the Fleming and the Brabanter,
his instincts led him by the force of circumstances to turn his energies
in other directions. Subsequent history has but emphasised the
fact--which from the fourteenth century onwards is clearly evident--that
the people who inhabited the low-lying sea-girt lands of dyke, canal and
polder in Holland and Zeeland were distinct in character and temper from
the citizens of Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Brussels or Mechlin, who were
essentially landsmen and artisans. Ever since the discovery of the art
of curing herrings (ascribed to William Beukelsz), the herring fishery
had acquired a great importance to the Hollanders and Zeelanders, and
formed the chief livelihood of a large part of the entire population of
those provinces; and many thousands, who did not themselves sail in the
fishing fleets, found employment in the ship and boat-building wharves
and in the making of sails, cordage, nets and other tackle. It was in
this hazardous occupation that the hardy race of skilled and seasoned
seamen, who were destined to play so decisive a part in the coming wars
of independence, had their early training. The herring harvest, through
the careful and scientific methods that were employed in curing the
fish and packing them in barrels, became a durable and much sought for
article of commerce. A small portion of the catch served as a supply of
food for home consumption, the great bulk in its thousands of barrels
was a marketable commodity, and the distribution of the cured herring to
distant ports became a lucrative business. It had two important
consequences, the formation of a Dutch Mercantile Marine, and the growth
of Amsterdam, which from small beginnings had in the middle of the
sixteenth century become a town with 40,000 inhabitants and a port
second only in importance in the Netherlands to Antwerp. From its
harbour at the confluence of the estuary of the Y with the Zuyder Zee
ships owned and manned by Hollanders sailed along the coasts of France
and Spain to bring home the salt for curing purposes and with it wines
and other southern products, while year by year a still larger and
increasing number entered the Baltic. In those eastern waters they
competed with the German Hanseatic cities, with whom they had many
acrimonious disputes, and with such success that the Hollanders
gradually monopolised the traffic in grain, hemp and other "Eastland"
commodities and became practically the freight-carriers of the Baltic.
And be it remembered that they were able to achieve this because many of
the North-Netherland towns were themselves members of the Hanse League,
and possessed therefore the same rights and privileges commercially as
their rivals, Hamburg, Luebeck or Danzig. The great industrial cities of
Flanders and Brabant, on the other hand, not being members of the League
nor having any mercantile marine of their own, were content to transact
business with the foreign agents of the Hanse towns, who had their
counting-houses at Antwerp. It will thus be seen that in the middle of
the sixteenth century the trade of the northern provinces, though as yet
not to be compared in volume to that of the Flemings and Walloons, had
before it an opening field for enterprise and energy rich in
possibilities and promise for the future.

Such was the state of affairs political, religious and economical when
in the year 1555 the Emperor Charles V, prematurely aged by the heavy
burden of forty years of world-wide sovereignty, worn out by constant
campaigns and weary of the cares of state, announced his intention of
abdicating and retiring into a monastery. On October 25, 1555, the act
of abdication was solemnly and with impressive ceremonial carried out
in the presence of the representatives of the seventeen provinces of the
Netherlands specially summoned to meet their sovereign for the last time
in the Great Hall of the Palace at Brussels. Charles took an affecting
farewell of his Netherland subjects and concluded by asking them to
exhibit the same regard and loyalty to his son Philip as they had always
displayed to himself. Much feeling was shown, for Charles, despite the
many and varied calls and duties which had prevented him from residing
for any length of time in the Netherlands, had always been at pains to
manifest a special interest in the country of his birth. The Netherlands
were to him throughout life his homeland and its people looked upon him
as a fellow-countryman, and not even the constant demands that Charles
had made for financial aid nor the stern edicts against heresy had
estranged them from him. The abdication was the more regretted because
at the same time Mary of Hungary laid down her office as regent, the
arduous duties of which she had so long and so ably discharged. On the
following day, October 26, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the members
of the Councils and the deputies of the provinces took the oath of
allegiance to Philip, the emperor's only son and heir; and Philip on his
side solemnly undertook to maintain unimpaired the ancient rights and
privileges of the several provinces.

* * * * *




CHAPTER III

THE PRELUDE TO THE REVOLT


Philip at the time of his accession to the sovereignty of the
Netherlands was already King of Naples and Sicily, and Duke of Milan,
and, by his marriage in 1554 to Mary Tudor, King-consort of England, in
which country he was residing when summoned by his father to assist at
the abdication ceremony at Brussels. A few months later (January 16,
1556) by a further act of abdication on the part of Charles V he became
King of Castile and Aragon. It was a tremendous inheritance, and there
is no reason to doubt that Philip entered upon his task with a deep
sense that he had a mission to fulfil and with a self-sacrificing
determination to spare himself no personal labour in the discharge of
his duties. But though he bore to his father a certain physical
likeness, Philip in character and disposition was almost his antithesis.
Silent, reserved, inaccessible, Philip had none of the restless energy
or the geniality of Charles, and was as slow and undecided in action as
he was bigoted in his opinions and unscrupulous in his determination to
compass his ends. He found himself on his accession to power faced with
many difficulties, for the treasury was not merely empty, it was
burdened with debt. Through lack of means he was compelled to patch up
a temporary peace (February 5, 1556) with the French king at Vaucelles,
and to take steps to reorganise his finances.

One of Philip's first acts was the appointment of Emmanuel Philibert,
Duke of Savoy, to the post vacated by his aunt Mary; but it was a
position, as long as the king remained in the Netherlands, of small
responsibility. Early in 1556 he summoned the States-General to Brussels
and asked for a grant of 1,300,000 florins. The taxes proposed were
disapproved by the principal provinces and eventually refused. Philip
was very much annoyed, but was compelled to modify his proposals and
accept what was offered by the delegates. There was indeed from the very
outset no love lost between the new ruler and his Netherland subjects.
Philip had spent nearly all his life in Spain, where he had received
his education and early training, and he had grown up to manhood, in the
narrowest sense of the word, a Spaniard. He was as unfamiliar with the
laws, customs and privileges of the several provinces of his Netherland
dominions as he was with the language of their peoples. He spoke and
wrote only Castilian correctly, and during his four years' residence at
Brussels he remained coldly and haughtily aloof, a foreigner and alien
in a land where he never felt at home. Philip at the beginning of his
reign honestly endeavoured to follow in his father's steps and to carry
out his policy; but acts, which the great emperor with his conciliatory
address and Flemish sympathies could venture upon with impunity, became
suspect and questionable when attempted by the son. Philip made the
great mistake of taking into his private confidence only foreign
advisers, chief among whom was Anthony Perrenot de Granvelle, Bishop of
Arras, a Burgundian by birth, the son of Nicholas Perrenot, who for
thirty years had been the trusted counsellor of Charles V.

The opening of Philip's reign was marked by signal military successes.
War broke out afresh with France, after a brief truce, in 1557. The
French arms however sustained two crushing reverses at St Quentin,
August 10, 1557, and at Gravelines, July 13, 1558. Lamoral, Count of
Egmont, who commanded the cavalry, was the chief agent in winning these
victories. By the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis peace was concluded, in
which the French made many concessions, but were allowed to retain, at
the cost of Philip's ally, the town of Calais which had been captured
from the English by a surprise attack in 1558. By the death of Queen
Mary, which was said to have been hastened by the news of the loss of
Calais, Philip's relations with England were entirely changed, and one
of the reasons for a continuance of his residence in the Netherlands was
removed. Peace with France therefore was no sooner assured than Philip
determined to return to Spain, where his presence was required. He chose
his half-sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, to be regent in place of the
Duke of Savoy. In July he summoned the Chapter of the Order of the
Golden Fleece--destined to be the last that was ever held--to Ghent in
order to announce his intended departure. A little later the
States-General were called together, also at Ghent, for a solemn
leave-taking. On August 26, Philip embarked at Flushing, and quitted the
Netherlands, never again to return.

Philip's choice of Margaret as governess-general was a happy one. She
was a natural daughter of Charles V. Her mother was a Fleming, and she
had been brought up under the care of her aunts, Margaret of Austria and
Mary of Hungary. She resembled those able rulers in being a woman of
strong character and statesmanlike qualities, and no doubt she would
have been as successful in her administration had she had the same
opportunities and the same freedom of action as her predecessors.
Philip, however, though henceforth he passed the whole of his life in
Spain, had no intention of loosening in any way his grasp of the reins
of power or of delegating any share of his sovereign authority. On his
return to Madrid he showed plainly that he meant to treat the Netherland
provinces as if they were dependencies of the Spanish crown, and he
required from Margaret and her advisers that all the details of policy,
legislation and administration should be submitted to him for
supervision and sanction. This necessitated the writing of voluminous
despatches and entailed with a man of his habits of indecision
interminable delays. Margaret moreover was instructed that in all
matters she must be guided by the advice of her three councils. By far
the most important of the three was the Council Of State, which at this
time consisted of five members--Anthony Granvelle, Bishop of Arras;
Baron de Barlaymont; Viglius van Zwychem van Aytta; Lamoral, Count of
Egmont; and William, Prince of Orange. Barlaymont was likewise
president of the Council of Finance and Viglius president of the Privy
Council. By far the most important member of the Council of State, as he
was much the ablest, was the Bishop of Arras; and he, with Barlaymont
and Viglius, formed an inner confidential council from whom alone the
regent asked advice. The members of this inner council, nicknamed the
_Consulta_, were all devoted to the interests of Philip. Egmont and
Orange, because of their great influence and popularity with the people,
were allowed to be nominally Councillors of State, but they were rarely
consulted and were practically shut out from confidential access to the
regent. It is no wonder that both were discontented with their position
and soon showed openly their dissatisfaction.

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi - "Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.)"

Holman Day - "The Ramrodders"

Various - "Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature"

James Napier - "Folk Lore"