History of the United Netherlands, 1587d | Page 3

ten
score too many. But what was this against eight hundred heretics

burned, hanged, and drowned, in one Easter week by Alva, against the
eighteen thousand two hundred went to stake and scaffold, as he
boasted during his administration, against the vast numbers of
Protestants, whether they be counted by tens or by hundreds of
thousands, who perished by the edicts of Charles V., in the Netherlands,
or in the single Saint Bartholomew Massacre in France? Moreover, it
should never be forgotten--from undue anxiety for impartiality--that
most of the Catholics who were executed in England, suffered as
conspirators rather than as heretics. No foreign potentate, claiming to
be vicegerent of Christ, had denounced Philip as a bastard and, usurper,
or had, by means of a blasphemous fiction, which then was a terrible
reality, severed the bonds of allegiance by which his subjects were held,
cut him off from all communion with his fellow-creatures, and
promised temporal rewards and a crown of glory in heaven to those
who should succeed in depriving him of throne and life. Yet this was
the position of Elizabeth. It was war to the knife between her and Rome,
declared by Rome itself; nor was there any doubt whatever that the
Seminary Priests --seedlings transplanted from foreign nurseries, which
were as watered gardens for the growth of treason--were a perpetually
organized band of conspirators and assassins, with whom it was hardly
an act of excessive barbarity to deal in somewhat summary fashion.
Doubtless it would have been a more lofty policy, and a far more
intelligent one, to extend towards the Catholics of England, who as a
body were loyal to their country, an ample toleration. But it could
scarcely be expected that Elizabeth Tudor, as imperious and absolute
by temperament as her father had ever been, would be capable of
embodying that great principle.
When, in the preliminaries to the negotiations of 1587, therefore, it was
urged on the part of Spain, that the Queen was demanding a concession
of religious liberty from Philip to the Netherlanders which she refused
to English heretics, and that he only claimed the same right of dictating
a creed to his subjects which she exercised in regard to her own, Lord
Burghley replied that the statement was correct. The Queen permitted--
it was true--no man to profess any religion but the one which she
professed. At the same time it was declared to be unjust, that those
persons in the Netherlands who had been for years in the habit of
practising Protestant rites, should be suddenly compelled, without

instruction, to abandon that form of worship. It was well known that
many would rather die than submit to such oppression, and it was
affirmed that the exercise of this cruelty would be resisted by her to the
uttermost. There was no hint of the propriety--on any logical basis-- of
leaving the question of creed as a matter between man and his Maker,
with which any dictation on the part of crown or state was an act of
odious tyranny. There was not even a suggestion that the Protestant
doctrines were true, and the Catholic doctrines false. The matter was
merely taken up on the 'uti possidetis' principle, that they who had
acquired the fact of Protestant worship had a right to retain it, and could
not justly be deprived of it, except by instruction and persuasion. It was
also affirmed that it was not the English practice to inquire into men's
consciences. It would have been difficult, however, to make that very
clear to Philip's comprehension, because, if men, women, and children,
were scourged with rods, imprisoned and hanged, if they refused to
conform publicly to a ceremony at which their consciences revolted-
unless they had money enough to purchase non-conformity--it seemed
to be the practice to inquire very effectively into their consciences.
But if there was a certain degree of disingenuousness on the part of
Elizabeth towards the States, her attitude towards Parma was one of
perfect sincerity. A perusal of the secret correspondence leaves no
doubt whatever on that point. She was seriously and fervently desirous
of peace with Spain. On the part of Farnese and his master, there was
the most unscrupulous mendacity, while the confiding simplicity and
truthfulness of the Queen in these negotiations was almost pathetic.
Especially she declared her trust in the loyal and upright character of
Parma, in which she was sure of never being disappointed. It is only
doing justice to Alexander to say that he was as much deceived by her
frankness as she by his falsehood. It never entered his head that a royal
personage and the trusted counsellors of a great kingdom could be
telling the truth in a secret international transaction, and he justified the
industry with which his master