History of the United Netherlands, 1585 part 3 | Page 7

in your camp, we were
aware of the paucity of your ships, we had heard of the quarrels in your
army, we were expecting daily to hear of a general mutiny among your
soldiers. Were we to believe that with ten or eleven thousand men you
would be able to block up the city by land and water, to reduce the
open country of Brabant, to cut off all aid as well from the
neighbouring towns as from the powerful provinces of Holland and
Zeeland, to oppose, without a navy, the whole strength of our fleets,
directed against the dyke? Truly, if you had been at the head of fifty
thousand soldiers, and every soldier had possessed one hundred hands,
it would have seemed impossible for you to meet so many emergencies
in so many places, and under so many distractions. What you have
done we now believe possible to do, only because we see that it has
been done. You have subjugated the Scheldt, and forced it to bear its
bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its current, the fury of the

ocean-tides, the tremendous power of the icebergs, the perpetual
conflicts with our fleets. We destroyed your bridge, with great
slaughter of your troops. Rendered more courageous by that slaughter,
you restored that mighty work. We assaulted the great dyke, pierced it
through and through, and opened a path for our ships. You drove us off
when victors, repaired the ruined bulwark, and again closed to us the
avenue of relief. What machine was there that we did not employ? what
miracles of fire did we not invent? what fleets and floating cidadels did
we not put in motion? All that genius, audacity, and art, could teach us
we have executed, calling to our assistance water, earth, heaven, and
hell itself. Yet with all these efforts, with all this enginry, we have not
only failed to drive you from our walls, but we have seen you gaining
victories over other cities at the same time. You have done a thing, O
Prince, than which there is nothing greater either in ancient or modern
story. It has often occurred, while a general was besieging one city that
he lost another situate farther off. But you, while besieging Antwerp,
have reduced simultaneously Dendermonde, Ghent, Nymegen, Brussels,
and Mechlin."
All this, and much more, with florid rhetoric, the burgomaster
pronounced in honour of Farnese, and the eulogy was entirely deserved.
It was hardly becoming, however, for such lips, at such a moment, to
sound the praise of him whose victory had just decided the downfall of
religious liberty, and of the national independence of the Netherlands.
His colleagues certainly must have winced, as they listened to
commendations so lavishly bestowed upon the representative of Philip,
and it is not surprising that Sainte Aldegonde's growing unpopularity
should, from that hour, have rapidly increased. To abandon the whole
object of the siege, when resistance seemed hopeless, was perhaps
pardonable, but to offer such lip-homage to the conqueror was surely
transgressing the bounds of decorum.
His conclusion, too, might to Alexander seem as insolent as the whole
tenor of his address had been humble; for, after pronouncing this
solemn eulogy upon the conqueror, he calmly proposed that the prize of
the contest should be transferred to the conquered.
"So long as liberty of religion, and immunity from citadel and garrison
can be relied upon," he said, "so long will Antwerp remain the most
splendid and flourishing city in Christendom; but desolation will ensue

if the contrary policy is to prevail."
But it was very certain that liberty of religion, as well as immunity
from citadel and garrison, were quite out of the question. Philip and
Parma had long been inexorably resolved upon all the three points.
"After the burgomaster had finished his oration," wrote Alexander to
his sovereign, "I discussed the matter with him in private, very
distinctly and minutely."
The religious point was soon given up, Sainte Aldegonde finding it
waste of breath to say anything more about freedom of conscience. A
suggestion was however made on the subject of the garrison, which the
prince accepted, because it contained a condition which it would be
easy to evade.
"Aldegonde proposed," said Parma, "that a garrison might be
admissible if I made my entrance into the city merely with infantry and
cavalry of nations which were acceptable--Walloons, namely, and
Germans--and in no greater numbers than sufficient for a body-guard. I
accepted, because, in substance, this would amount to a garrison, and
because, also, after the magistrates shall have been changed, I shall
have no difficulty in making myself master of the people, continuing
the garrison, and rebuilding the citadel."
The Prince proceeded to give his reasons why he was willing to accept
the capitulation on what he