The History of the Revolt of the Netherlands | Page 3

Dinoth, has also been of service to
me by the many extracts he gives from the pamphlets of the day, which
have been long lost. I have in vain endeavored to procure the
correspondence of Cardinal Granvella, which also would no doubt have
thrown much light upon the history of these times. The lately published
work on the Spanish Inquisition by my excellent countryman, Professor

Spittler of Gottingen, reached me too late for its sagacious and
important contents to be available for my purpose.
The more I am convinced of the importance of the French history, the
more I lament that it was not in my power to study, as I could have
wished, its copious annals in the original sources and contemporary
documents, and to reproduce it abstracted of the form in which it was
transmitted to me by the more intelligent of my predecessors, and
thereby emancipate myself from the influence which every talented
author exercises more or less upon his readers. But to effect this the
work of a few years must have become the labor of a life. My aim in
making this attempt will be more than attained if it should convince a
portion of the reading public of the possibility of writing a history with
historic truth without making a trial of patience to the reader; and if it
should extort from another portion the confession that history can
borrow from a cognate art without thereby, of necessity, becoming a
romance.
WEIMAR, Michaelmas Fair, 1788.

INTRODUCTION.
Of those important political events which make the sixteenth century to
take rank among the brightest of the world's epochs, the foundation of
the freedom of the Netherlands appears to me one of the most
remarkable. If the glittering exploits of ambition and the pernicious lust
of power claim our admiration, how much more so should an event in
which oppressed humanity struggled for its noblest rights, where with
the good cause unwonted powers were united, and the resources of
resolute despair triumphed in unequal contest over the terrible arts of
tyranny.
Great and encouraging is the reflection that there is a resource left us
against the arrogant usurpations of despotic power; that its
best-contrived plans against the liberty of mankind may be frustrated;
that resolute opposition can weaken even the outstretched arm of

tyranny; and that heroic perseverance can eventually exhaust its fearful
resources. Never did this truth affect me so sensibly as in tracing the
history of that memorable rebellion which forever severed the United
Netherlands from the Spanish Crown. Therefore I thought it not
unworth the while to attempt to exhibit to the world this grand
memorial of social union, in the hope that it may awaken in the breast
of my reader a spirit-stirring consciousness of his own powers, and give
a new and irrefragible example of what in a good cause men may both
dare and venture, and what by union they may accomplish. It is not the
extraordinary or heroic features of this event that induce me to describe
it. The annals of the world record perhaps many similar enterprises,
which may have been even bolder in the conception and more brilliant
in the execution. Some states have fallen after a nobler struggle; others
have risen with more exalted strides. Nor are we here to look for
eminent heroes, colossal talents, or those marvellous exploits which the
history of past times presents in such rich abundance. Those times are
gone; such men are no more. In the soft lap of refinement we have
suffered the energetic powers to become enervate which those ages
called into action and rendered indispensable. With admiring awe we
wonder at these gigantic images of the past as a feeble old man gazes
on the athletic sports of youth.
Not so, however, in the history before us. The people here presented to
our notice were the most peaceful in our quarter of the globe, and less
capable than their neighbors of that heroic spirit which stamps a lofty
character even on the most insignificant actions. The pressure of
circumstances with its peculiar influence surprised them and forced a
transitory greatness upon them, which they never could have possessed
and perhaps will never possess again. It is, indeed, exactly this want of
heroic grandeur which renders this event peculiarly instructive; and
while others aim at showing the superiority of genius over chance, I
shall here paint a scene where necessity creates genius and accident
makes heroes.
If in any case it be allowable to recognize the intervention of
Providence in human affairs it is certainly so in the present history, its
course appears so contradictory to reason and experience. Philip II., the

most powerful sovereign of his line--whose dreaded supremacy
menaced the independence of Europe--whose treasures surpassed the
collective wealth of