The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561-62 | Page 8

oppression in the abstract, without
entering into trivial details? The answer is, that these things are the
history of the Netherlands at this epoch; that these hideous details
furnish the causes of that immense movement, out of which a great
republic was born and an ancient tyranny destroyed; and that Cardinal
Granvelle was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not
open their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise. Because
the great lords "owed their very souls"--because convulsions might help
to pay their debts, and furnish forth their masquerades and banquets--
because the Prince of Orange was ambitious, and Egmont jealous of the
Cardinal--therefore superficial writers found it quite natural that the
country should be disturbed, although that "vile and mischievous
animal, the people," might have no objection to a continuance of the
system which had been at work so long. On the contrary, it was exactly
because the movement was a popular and a religious movement that it
will always retain its place among the most important events of history.
Dignified documents, state papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more
value than the lambskin on which they are engrossed. Ten thousand
nameless victims, in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may build

up great states and alter the aspect of whole continents.
The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it was well for the cause
of the right that, as in the early hours of English liberty, the crown and
mitre were opposed by the baron's sword and shield. Had all the
seigniors made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of
setting their breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and
liberty would have been still more desperate. Nevertheless they were
directed and controlled, under Providence, by humbler, but more
powerful agencies than their own. The nobles were but the gilded hands
on the outside of the dial--the hour to strike was determined by the
obscure but weighty movements within.
Nor is it, perhaps, always better to rely upon abstract phraseology, to
produce a necessary impression. Upon some minds, declamation
concerning liberty of conscience and religious tyranny makes but a
vague impression, while an effect may be produced upon them, for
example by a dry, concrete, cynical entry in an account book, such as
the following, taken at hazard from the register of municipal expenses
at Tournay, during the years with which we are now occupied:
"To Mr. Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, twice, Jean de
Lannoy, ten sous.
"To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, sixty sous. For
having thrown his cinders into the river, eight sous."
This was the treatment to which thousands, and tens of thousands, had
been subjected in the provinces. Men, women, and children were
burned, and their "cinders" thrown away, for idle words against Rome,
spoken years before, for praying alone in their closets, for not kneeling
to a wafer when they met it in the streets, for thoughts to which they
had never given utterance, but which, on inquiry, they were too honest
to deny. Certainly with this work going on year after year in every city
in the Netherlands, and now set into renewed and vigorous action by a
man who wore a crown only that he might the better torture his fellow-
creatures, it was time that the very stones in the streets should be
moved to mutiny.
Thus it may be seen of how much value were the protestations of Philip
and of Granvelle, on which much stress has latterly been laid, that it
was not their intention to introduce the Spanish inquisition. With the
edicts and the Netherland inquisition, such as we have described them,

the step was hardly necessary.
In fact, the main difference between the two institutions consisted in
the greater efficiency of the Spanish in discovering such of its victims
as were disposed to deny their faith. Devised originally for more
timorous and less conscientious infidels who were often disposed to
skulk in obscure places and to renounce without really abandoning their
errors, it was provided with a set of venomous familiars who glided
through every chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside. The
secret details of each household in the realm being therefore known to
the holy office and to the monarch, no infidel or heretic could escape
discovery. This invisible machinery was less requisite for the
Netherlands. There was comparatively little difficulty in ferreting out
the "vermin"--to use the expression of a Walloon historian of that
age--so that it was only necessary to maintain in good working order
the apparatus for destroying the noxious creatures when unearthed. The
heretics of the provinces assembled at each other's houses to practise
those rites described in such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and
denounced under