History of the United Netherlands, 1595 | Page 2

sword through that country in order to avert
the unutterable woe which the crimes of the heretic Prince of Bearne
were bringing upon all mankind.
It was a solace for Philip to call the legitimate king by the title borne by
him when heir-presumptive, and to persist in denying to him that
absolution which, as the whole world was aware, the Vicar of Christ
was at that very moment in the most solemn manner about to bestow
upon him.
More devoted to the welfare of France than were the French themselves,
he was determined that a foreign prince himself, his daughter, or one of
his nephews--should supplant the descendant of St. Louis on the French
throne. More catholic than the pope he could not permit the heretic,
whom his Holiness was just washing whiter than snow, to intrude
himself into the society of Christian sovereigns.
The winter movements by Bouillon in Luxembourg, sustained by Philip
Nassau campaigning with a meagre force on the French frontier, were
not very brilliant. The Netherland regiments quartered at Yssoire, La
Ferte, and in the neighbourhood accomplished very little, and their
numbers were sadly thinned by dysentery. A sudden and successful
stroke, too, by which that daring soldier Heraugiere, who had been the
chief captor of Breda, obtained possession of the town, and castle of
Huy, produced no permanent advantage. This place, belonging to the
Bishop of Liege, with its stone bridge over the Meuse, was an
advantageous position from which to aid the operations of Bouillon in
Luxembourg. Heraugiere was, however, not sufficiently reinforced, and
Huy was a month later recaptured by La Motte. The campaigning was
languid during that winter in the United Netherlands, but the
merry-making was energetic. The nuptials of Hohenlo with Mary,
eldest daughter of William the Silent and own sister of the captive
Philip William; of the Duke of Bouillon with Elizabeth, one of the
daughters of the same illustrious prince by his third wife, Charlotte of
Bourbon; and of Count Everard Solms, the famous general of the
Zeeland troops, with Sabina, daughter of the unfortunate Lamoral
Egmont, were celebrated with much pomp during the months of
February and March. The States of Holland and of Zeeland made

magnificent presents of diamonds to the brides; the Countess Hohenlo
receiving besides a yearly income of three thousand florins for the lives
of herself and her husband.
In the midst of these merry marriage bells at the Hague a funeral knell
was sounding in Brussels. On the 20th February, the governor-general
of the obedient Netherlands, Archduke Ernest, breathed his last. His
career had not been so illustrious as the promises of the Spanish king
and the allegories of schoolmaster Houwaerts had led him to expect. He
had not espoused the Infanta nor been crowned King of France. He had
not blasted the rebellious Netherlands with Cyclopean thunderbolts, nor
unbound the Belgic Andromeda from the rock of doom. His brief year
of government had really been as dismal as, according to the
announcement of his sycophants, it should have been amazing. He had
accomplished nothing, and all that was left him was to die at the age of
forty-two, over head and ears in debt, a disappointed, melancholy man.
He was very indolent, enormously fat, very chaste, very expensive,
fond of fine liveries and fine clothes, so solemn and stately as never to
be known to laugh, but utterly without capacity either as a statesman or
a soldier. He would have shone as a portly abbot ruling over peaceful
friars, but he was not born to ride a revolutionary whirlwind, nor to
evoke order out of chaos. Past and Present were contending with each
other in fierce elemental strife within his domain. A world was in dying
agony, another world was coming, full-armed, into existence within the
hand-breadth of time and of space where he played his little part, but he
dreamed not of it. He passed away like a shadow, and was soon
forgotten.
An effort was made, during the last illness of Ernest, to procure from
him the appointment of the elector of Cologne as temporary successor
to tho government, but Count Fuentes was on the spot and was a man
of action. He produced a power in the French language from Philip,
with a blank for the name. This had been intended for the case of Peter
Ernest Mansfeld's possible death during his provisional administration,
and Fuentes now claimed the right of inserting his own name.
The dying Ernest consented, and upon his death Fuentes was declared
governor-general until the king's further pleasure should be known.
Pedro de Guzman, Count of Fuentes, a Spaniard of the hard and antique
type, was now in his sixty-fourth year. The pupil and near relative of

the Duke of Alva, he was already as odious