A.D. 1581.]

Portuguese were defeated at Alcantara, and Antonio after hiding for some months, succeeded in escaping to Calais in January, 1581. Philip II. then entered Portugal, and received the homage of the Portuguese States assembled at Tomar. He took measures to secure his new possessions, and Europe looked on with seeming indifference at this vast accession to the power of Spain.

It must be remembered that the dependencies of Portugal in various parts of the world went with Portugal itself; so that by the brief war of 1580 an unscrupulous monarch had acquired, in addition to his own immense dominions, an Empire such as no other Power, except Spain itself, could boast of ruling. France and England were especially concerned in this act of rapacity and violence : France, because Spain under the House of Austria was animated by a feeling of hereditary antagonism; England, because Philip II. was the great champion of the Romish Church, and an inveterate conspirator against English Protestantism and English liberty. Yet neither country was in a position to save the lesser kingdom from the grasp of the greater. France, indeed, furnished some military and naval succours to Don Antonio in his attempt to hold the Azores; but the movement was crushed in a great naval battle fought on the 26th of July, 1582, in which the allies were totally worsted by the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz. Antonio once more escaped, and, taking up a position at Terceira, one of the Azores, maintained a desperate resistance until 1583, when Philip succeeded in reducing the whole of these western islands to subjection. In 1589, the Portuguese hero combined with Sir Francis Drake in another attempt to re-establish the independence of his country; but his operations were as unfortunate as those of previous years, and in 1595 he died at Paris. No war had been declared between France and Spain in respect of Don Antonio; so that, when Santa Cruz took a number of French prisoners, he put them to death, on the ground that they could be regarded only as pirates -a contention which it would not have been easy to dispute. France and England were manifestly in dread of Spain; yet both sought to do covertly what they dared not openly avow. Philip II. retaliated by frequent plots against Henry III. of France and Elizabeth of England. He even, at one time, intrigued with the Huguenots, in the hope of effecting a revolution in France; but Henry of Navarre honourably acquainted the French sovereign with the offers made to him from Madrid.

The conquest of Portugal by Spain did much towards retrieving the military reputation of the

225

latter country, which had suffered by the revolt of the Netherlands, and the inability of the royal commanders to restore the authority of their master in that region. After the Pacification of Ghent, in November, 1576, the Low Countries enjoyed a brief period of repose, due, however, more to the temporary paralysis of Spanish power than to any sense of justice or humanity on the part of Philip. For eight months. no successor to the Regent Requesens was appointed by the Government at Madrid, and, in the meanwhile, the predominance of Spain had no very distinct representative among the Dutch and Flemings. At length Philip nominated his half-brother, Don John of Austria, to the vacant post; but the revolution had by this time attained such serious proportions that the victor of Lepanto found it necessary to enter the Netherlands in the disguise of a Moorish slave. He saw that he could do little against the will of an armed and resolute people; and in January, 1577, the Union of Brussels, by confirming the arrangements that had been concluded at Ghent two months earlier, gave further guarantees that the Netherlanders would not rest until the Spaniards had been expelled. Don John made various flattering concessions, but with no other design than to throw the patriots off their guard. His real intentions were apparent from intercepted letters, which fell into the hands of William the Silent; and on this account the leader of the revolution maintained an attitude of hostility, which to some appeared unreasonable.

The mass of the people, however, never lost faith in the Prince of Orange, and, in a progress through Holland and West Friesland, made in the year 1577, he was received with affectionate exclamations of "Father William." The Brabanters elected him to a position of so much authority that it was generally reserved for the heir to the throne. This position he accepted, while refusing the Stadtholdership of Flanders, which was likewise offered him. On the 7th of December, 1577, the States-General formally deposed Don John, and, on the 18th of January, 1578, the Archduke Matthias, a brother of the Emperor Rodolph II., was inaugurated at Antwerp as Governor-General of the Netherlands, with William of Orange as his Lieutenant-General. Queen Elizabeth, who in 1575 had, for prudential reasons, refused the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand, was now beginning to render some military assistance to the revolted Protestants of the Low Countries. A treaty with this view was signed on the 7th of January, 1578; according to the terms of which, the English sovereign was to send five thousand

foot, and one thousand horse, into Flanders, and to advance a sum of £100,000 on the security of the chief cities. The English commander, Sir John Norris, was to be received into the Council of the States, and the expenses of the entire force were charged on the Netherlanders. The bargain was not a very generous one, but it answered the purposes of the struggling patriots.

Thus threatened on all hands, Philip II. assembled a large army of veterans under the command of Alexander Farnese, son of the Duke of Parma, and of Margaret, the sister of Philip, who had formerly acted as her brother's Regent in the Netherlands. The patriotic forces were attacked near Gemblours, in the county of Namur, on the 31st of January, 1578, when the royalists were completely successful. Several towns were afterwards reduced by Don John; but the important city of Amsterdam, which had previously held aloof from the revolt, now sided with William of Orange. On the 1st of August, Don John was defeated at Rymenants, chiefly owing to the good generalship of Sir John Norris, and the valour of his English troops. Two months later, Don John died in the vicinity of Namur, and was succeeded in his position by Alexander Farnese, the nephew of the Spanish King. Shortly after the battle of Rymenants, the Catholic party in the Walloon provinces called in the Duke of Anjou, as a substitute for the Archduke Matthias, who had proved a failure, and who was, indeed, too youthful to exercise any important authority. Queen Elizabeth, disliking the extension of French influence over the Netherlands, advised the States to solicit the protection of John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine; and she even advanced money to pay the German troops whom he should bring with him. The interposition of the Duke of Anjou (which, however, was to be repeated at a later date) came to a speedy end; that of John Casimir was even less distinguished. The former, after a few exploits as a soldier, retired from the Netherlands, in deference to the wish of Elizabeth, whom he hoped to espouse; the latter had no military talents, and seems to have acted without any sincere regard for the cause he nominally championed. The Netherlands now fell into a state of anarchy, owing to the violence of influential demagogues in Ghent and other towns, and to the antagonism existing between the Catholic Walloons in the Western provinces, and the Protestants of Holland and Zealand. Brussels Union came to an end, and the Walloons showed symptoms of a desire to make terms with Farnese. In January, 1579, they concluded a

The

separate league at Arras, while, by the Union of Utrecht, promoted by the Prince of Orange, the provinces of Holland, Zealand, Guelderland, and Groningen, subsequently reinforced by those of Friesland, Overyssel, and Drenthe, bound themselves to mutual support against the tyranny of Spain. The sovereignty of Philip was still acknowledged ; but the national liberties were asserted as the supreme object of the combination. The Walloon provinces concluded a treaty with Farnese on the 17th of May, 1579; but, while the authority of the King was restored, it was placed under distinct limitations, tending to the preservation of local freedom.

On

After a gallant defence of three months, Maestricht was taken by Farnese on the 29th of June, 1579. The citizens were surprised in their sleep, and for three days the victorious Spaniards pursued the congenial work of slaughter and pillage. the other hand, William the Silent persuaded the Flemish provinces to join the Union of Utrecht, and order was soon restored in Ghent, where both religions were tolerated by the liberal policy of the Government. The Spanish King perceived how powerful an antagonist he had found in the leader of the Protestant cause; and, in the course of 1580, William of Orange was proscribed as an enemy of the human race. A price of 25,000 gold crowns was set upon his head, and his assassination was specifically suggested by a promise that whoever compassed his death should be pardoned for any crime he might have committed, and be advanced to the rank of the nobility, if he were not already in that order. William replied by publishing a vindication of his actions, accompanied by a fiery indictment of his enemy for divers crimes which he had certainly committed, and some, perhaps, of which he was not really guilty. The Prince of Orange had at length determined to repudiate even that slight connection with the Spanish monarchy which he had hitherto preserved; but, considering that some degree of foreign support was necessary under such extreme circumstances, he once more solicited the patronage of the Duke of Anjou. That prince was made Stadtholder of the Netherlands, with the exception of Holland and Zealand, to which the Prince of Orange had an hereditary claim. The StatesGeneral, sitting at the Hague on the 26th of July, 1581, proclaimed Francis of Valois sovereign lord of Flanders and Brabant, and, as we have already related, he retained that position until June, 1583, though with little satisfaction to the people who had besought his help. Much more important in its ultimate effects than the appointment of this

A.D. 1582.]

prince was the publication by the States of a solemn Act of Abjuration, by which Philip was deposed from his sovereignty. The document is especially remarkable because it proclaimed for the first time (apart from the interested reasonings of priests) that doctrine of popular supremacy over the arrogant claims of kings from which all modern ideas of political right and reason have legitimately proceeded. The deposition of Philip was justified by an appeal to the law of Nature; and it was plainly asserted that subjects were not created by God to be the mere tools of the prince, but that the latter is bound to govern according to justice, and may be dismissed if he rule as a tyrant. This remarkable act, which was drawn up by Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde, a great friend of William the Silent, and a man of varied accomplishments, is an anticipation of the celebrated declaration by which, nearly two centuries later, the English colonies of North America declared their independence of the mother-country. It was in truth a statement of principles calculated to have an immense effect on the future course of civilised nations.

The sovereignty of Holland and Zealand was conferred on William of Orange a few days before the Act of Abjuration was published, and, on the 18th of March, 1582, he nearly fell a victim to the murderous incitements of Philip II. William was shot on that day by a fanatical clerk named Jaurégni. The wound was most serious, and for three weeks the life of William the Silent hung trembling in the balance. Ultimately he recovered, but his wife died of anxiety. The assassin was slain on the spot: unfortunately, his fate did not deter another and more successful conspirator from repeating the same crime two years later. The Duke of Anjou was suspected of some complicity in the act of Jaurégni; but the belief was unjust, for the papers found on the assassin clearly proved that the design had been concocted in Spain. Anjou nevertheless became extremely unpopular, and a savage tumult at Antwerp, on the 17th of January, 1583, in which the Flemings came into collision with the French soldiers of the Duke, led to the retirement of that potentate from the country which he had injudiciously undertaken to rule. The power of the Spaniards was successfully❘ exerted shortly afterwards in many parts of the Netherlands, and in the latter days of 1584 the Protestant cause appeared doomed to extinction, except in the Dutch provinces. By this time, William of Orange had been removed from the scene. In the early summer, he had accepted the dignity of sovereign Count of Holland and Zealand, and on the 10th of July the great leader of the

227

Netherlanders was assassinated by a Burgundian named Balthazar Gérard, who was encouraged in his project by Alexander Farnese. He was shot while going upstairs, after dining in a lower apartment of his palace, and expired on the instant. Gérard was executed, after being put to the torture; and the promised reward was conferred by Philip on his parents, who thenceforward took their place among the landed aristocracy of Franche-Comté. William was buried at Delft with almost regal honours, and later times have reognised in him one of the greatest assertors of national independence and religious toleration that the world had then produced. The simplicity of his personal habits recommended him to a people whose tastes were homely, rather than ornate; but the geniality of his nature shone through the cautious self-control which earned for him the often-misunderstood appellation of William the

Silent.

When the Prince of Orange thus succumbed to the bullet of an assassin, his eldest son, Maurice, was only eighteen years of age; yet, as a testimony of respect to the father, the States appointed him Stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, and High Admiral of the Union; at the same time giving the actual command of the land forces to Count Hohenlohe. The cause of the patriots required firm and experienced guidance, for Alexander Farnese, a man of high military genius, was pressing the war with great energy, and his siege of Antwerp takes rank among the most extraordinary episodes of the whole struggle. To facilitate his operations, Farnese constructed, in spite of the desperate and prolonged opposition of the citizens and their vessels, a vast military bridge across the Scheldt This causeway was partially blown up by fireships, when many hundreds of the besiegers were killed and wounded; but the work was soon made stronger than before, and the people of Antwerp, having suffered a severe defeat on the dyke of Kowenstyn, where they had executed a sortie, capitulated on the 17th of August, 1585. The city never recovered its full prosperity after that disastrous time. Many of the citizens removed to Amsterdam and Middelburg, and the centre of commerce in the north-west of Europe shifted to a district less threatened by the ruinous hand of war.

After the murder of William the Silent, the States again offered the Netherlands to Queen Elizabeth. She once more declined the sovereignty, but now resolved to support the Protestants by an open and declared alliance. The Earl of Leicester was sent to the Low Countries with a body of six

Flushing and Briel should be placed temporarily in the hands of Elizabeth. The selection of Leicester for the chief command was unfortunate, as his military acquirements were very slight, and in Farnese-who had now, by the death of his father, succeeded to the Dukedom-he had a most formidable and vigorous opponent. After some operations in which little was achieved, the Earl of Leicester laid siege to Zutphen, when, on the 23rd of September, 1586, Sidney was wounded

dying soldier, with the memorable words, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine "an utterance not surpassed, for moral beauty and nobleness, in any period of the world's history. Sidney expired at Arnheim on the 16th of October, bequeathing to his countrymen, though barely thirty-two years of age, a brilliant reputation as a poet, a romancewriter, a critic, a courtier, and a knight. Unfortunately for the credit of England, and for the well-being of the Netherlands, Leicester was a

some respects he appears to have acted treacherously, with an eye to his own interests and predominance; and the States sent warm remonstrances to Queen Elizabeth. The Earl, however, as one of the favourites of royalty, was able to make a sufficiently plausible defence; and, after a brief visit to England, he returned to the Low Countries in 1587, with the reinforcements that had then become necessary.

The cause of independence was seriously prejudiced by divisions in the counsels of the patriotic party, and almost the whole of Flanders was recovered by the Duke of Parma Ostend and Sluys still held

officers) continued until the 4th of August, when, after a most determined resistance, the garrison was obliged to capitulate. Leicester and Prince Maurice, acting together, had made some attempts to relieve the town; but the operations were feebly pressed, and the former animosities broke out again. The States believed that their cause was being betrayed by the English Earl; Leicester, on the other hand, accused the States of not supporting him sufficiently. In any case, his mission had conferred little glory on himself, and but slight advantage on the Netherlanders. At the end of 1587, he returned to England, and Prince Maurice