History of the United Netherlands, 1585 part 1 | Page 6

that discipline
could be restored.
And into this scene of wild and deafening confusion came Philip de
Marnix, Lord of Sainte Aldegonde.
There were few more brilliant characters than he in all Christendom.
He was a man, of a most rare and versatile genius. Educated in Geneva
at the very feet of Calvin, he had drunk, like mother's milk, the strong
and bitter waters of the stern reformer's, creed; but he had in after life
attempted, although hardly with success, to lift himself to the height of
a general religious toleration. He had also been trained in the severe
and thorough literary culture which characterised that rigid school. He
was a scholar, ripe and rare; no holiday trifler in the gardens of learning.
He spoke and wrote Latin like his native tongue. He could compose
poignant Greek epigrams. He was so familiar with Hebrew, that he had
rendered the Psalms of David out of the original into flowing Flemish
verse, for the use of the reformed churches. That he possessed the
modern tongues of civilized Europe, Spanish, Italian, French, and
German, was a matter of course. He was a profound jurisconsult,
capable of holding debate against all competitors upon any point of
theory or practice of law, civil, municipal, international. He was a
learned theologian, and had often proved himself a match for the
doctors, bishops, or rabbin of Europe, in highest argument of dogma,
creed, or tradition. He was a practised diplomatist, constantly employed
in delicate and difficult negotiations by William the Silent, who ever
admired his genius, cherished his friendship, and relied upon his
character. He was an eloquent orator, whose memorable harangue,
beyond all his other efforts, at the diet of Worms, had made the German
princes hang their heads with shame, when, taking a broad and
philosophical view of the Netherland matter, he had shown that it was
the great question of Europe; that Nether Germany was all Germany;
that Protestantism could not be unravelled into shreds; that there was
but one cause in Christendom-- that of absolutism against national
liberty, Papacy against the reform; and that the seventeen Provinces
were to be assisted in building themselves into an eternal barrier
against Spain, or that the "burning mark of shame would be branded

upon the forehead of Germany;" that the war, in short, was to be met by
her on the threshold; or else that it would come to seek her at home--a
prophecy which the horrible Thirty Years' War was in after time most
signally to verify.
He was a poet of vigour and originality, for he had accomplished what
has been achieved by few; he had composed a national hymn, whose
strophes, as soon as heard, struck a chord in every Netherland heart,
and for three centuries long have rung like a clarion wherever the
Netherland tongue is spoken. "Wilhelmus van Nassouwe," regarded
simply as a literary composition, has many of the qualities which an
ode demands; an electrical touch upon the sentiments, a throb of
patriotism, sympathetic tenderness, a dash of indignation, with
rhythmical harmony and graceful expression; and thus it has rung from
millions of lips, from generation to generation.
He was a soldier, courageous, untiring, prompt in action, useful in
council, and had distinguished himself in many a hard-fought field.
Taken prisoner in the sanguinary skirmish at Maaslandssluys, he had
been confined a year, and, for more than three months, had never laid
his head, as he declared, upon the pillow without commending his soul
as for the last time to his Maker, expecting daily the order for his
immediate execution, and escaping his doom only because William the
Silent proclaimed that the proudest head among the Spanish prisoners
should fall to avenge his death; so that he was ultimately exchanged
against the veteran Mondragon.
From the incipient stages of the revolt he had been foremost among the
patriots. He was supposed to be the author of the famous "Compromise
of the Nobles," that earliest and most conspicuous of the state-papers of
the republic, and of many other important political documents; and he
had contributed to general literature many works of European celebrity,
of which the 'Roman Bee-Hive' was the most universally known.
Scholar, theologian, diplomatist, swordsman, orator, poet, pamphleteer,
he had genius for all things, and was eminent in all. He was even
famous for his dancing, and had composed an intelligent and
philosophical treatise upon the value of that amusement, as an agent of
civilisation, and as a counteractor of the grosser pleasures of the table
to which Upper and Nether Germans were too much addicted.
Of ancient Savoyard extraction, and something of a southern nature, he

had been born in Brussels, and was national to the heart's core.
A man of interesting, sympathetic presence; of a physiognomy where
many of