History of the United Netherlands, 1585 part 1 | Page 2

by the
masterly diplomacy and liberal bribery which have been related in a
former work. Artois, Hainault, Douay, Orchies, with the rich cities of
Lille, Tournay, Valenciennes, Arras, and other important places, were
now the property of Philip. These unhappy and misguided lands,
however, were already reaping the reward of their treason. Beggared,
trampled upon, plundered, despised, they were at once the prey of the
Spaniards, and the cause that their sister-states, which still held out,
were placed in more desperate condition than ever. They were also,
even in their abject plight, made still more forlorn by the forays of
Balagny, who continued in command of Cambray. Catharine de'
Medici claimed that city as her property, by will of the Duke of Anjou.
A strange title--founded upon the treason and cowardice of her
favourite son--but one which, for a time, was made good by the
possession maintained by Balagny. That usurper meantime, with a
shrewd eye to his own interests, pronounced the truce of Cambray,
which was soon afterwards arranged, from year to year, by permission
of Philip, as a "most excellent milch-cow;" and he continued to fill his
pails at the expense of the "reconciled" provinces, till they were
thoroughly exhausted.
This large south-western section of the Netherlands being thus
permanently re-annexed to the Spanish crown, while Holland, Zeeland,
and the other provinces, already constituting the new Dutch republic,
were more obstinate in their hatred of Philip than ever, there remained
the rich and fertile territory of Flanders and Brabant as the great
debateable land. Here were the royal and political capital, Brussels, the
commercial capital, Antwerp, with Mechlin, Dendermonde, Vilvoorde,
and other places of inferior importance, all to be struggled for to the
death. With the subjection of this district the last bulwark between the
new commonwealth and the old empire would be overthrown, and
Spain and Holland would then meet face to face.
If there had ever been a time when every nerve in Protestant
Christendom should be strained to weld all those provinces together
into one great commonwealth, as a bulwark for European liberty, rather
than to allow them to be broken into stepping-stones, over which

absolutism could stride across France and Holland into England, that
moment had arrived. Every sacrifice should have been cheerfully made
by all Netherlanders, the uttermost possible subsidies and auxiliaries
should have been furnished by all the friends of civil and religious
liberty in every land to save Flanders and Brabant from their impending
fate.
No man felt more keenly the importance of the business in which he
was engaged than Parma. He knew his work exactly, and he meant to
execute it thoroughly. Antwerp was the hinge on which the fate of the
whole country, perhaps of all Christendom, was to turn. "If we get
Antwerp," said the Spanish soldiers--so frequently that the expression
passed into a proverb--"you shall all go to mass with us; if you save
Antwerp, we will all go to conventicle with you."
Alexander rose with the difficulty and responsibility of his situation.
His vivid, almost poetic intellect formed its schemes with perfect
distinctness. Every episode in his great and, as he himself termed it, his
"heroic enterprise," was traced out beforehand with the tranquil vision
of creative genius; and he was prepared to convert his conceptions into
reality, with the aid of an iron nature that never knew fatigue or fear.
But the obstacles were many. Alexander's master sat in his cabinet with
his head full of Mucio, Don Antonio, and Queen Elizabeth; while
Alexander himself was left neglected, almost forgotten. His army was
shrinking to a nullity. The demands upon him were enormous, his
finances delusive, almost exhausted. To drain an ocean dry he had
nothing but a sieve. What was his position? He could bring into the
field perhaps eight or ten thousand men over and above the necessary
garrisons. He had before him Brussels, Antwerp, Mechlin, Ghent,
Dendermonde, and other powerful places, which he was to subjugate.
Here was a problem not easy of solution. Given an army of eight
thousand, more or less, to reduce therewith in the least possible time,
half-a-dozen cities; each containing fifteen or twenty thousand men
able to bear arms. To besiege these places in form was obviously a
mere chimera. Assault, battery, and surprises--these were all out of the
question.
Yet Alexander was never more truly heroic than in this position of vast
entanglement. Untiring, uncomplaining, thoughtful of others, prodigal
of himself, generous, modest, brave; with so much intellect and so

much devotion to what he considered his duty, he deserved to be a
patriot and a champion of the right, rather than an instrument of
despotism.
And thus he paused for a moment--with much work already
accomplished, but his hardest life-task before him; still in the noon