The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1564-65 | Page 2

As to the council of state, the limited powers of that
body, under the administration of the Cardinal, had formed one of the
principal complaints against that minister. The justice and finance
councils were sinks of iniquity. The most barefaced depravity reigned
supreme. A gangrene had spread through the whole government. The
public functionaries were notoriously and outrageously venal. The
administration of justice had been poisoned at the fountain, and the
people were unable to slake their daily thirst at the polluted stream.
There was no law but the law of the longest purse. The highest
dignitaries of Philip's appointment had become the most mercenary
hucksters who ever converted the divine temple of justice into a den of
thieves. Law was an article of merchandise, sold by judges to the
highest bidder. A poor customer could obtain nothing but stripes and
imprisonment, or, if tainted with suspicion of heresy, the fagot or the
sword, but for the rich every thing was attainable. Pardons for the most
atrocious crimes, passports, safe conducts, offices of trust and honor,
were disposed of at auction to the highest bidder. Against all this sea of
corruption did the brave William of Orange set his breast, undaunted
and unflinching. Of all the conspicuous men in the land, he was the
only one whose worst enemy had never hinted through the whole
course of his public career, that his hands had known contamination.
His honor was ever untarnished by even a breath of suspicion. The
Cardinal could accuse him of pecuniary embarrassment, by which a
large proportion of his revenues were necessarily diverted to the
liquidation of his debts, but he could not suggest that the Prince had
ever freed himself from difficulties by plunging his hands into the
public treasury, when it might easily have been opened to him.
It was soon, however, sufficiently obvious that as desperate a struggle
was to be made with the many-headed monster of general corruption as
with the Cardinal by whom it had been so long fed and governed. The
Prince was accused of ambition and intrigue. It was said that he was
determined to concentrate all the powers of government in the state

council, which was thus to become an omnipotent and irresponsible
senate, while the King would be reduced to the condition of a Venetian
Doge. It was, of course, suggested that it was the aim of Orange to
govern the new Tribunal of Ten. No doubt the Prince was ambitious.
Birth, wealth, genius, and virtue could not have been bestowed in such
eminent degree on any man without carrying with them the
determination to assert their value. It was not his wish so much as it
was the necessary law of his being to impress himself upon his age and
to rule his fellow-men. But he practised no arts to arrive at the
supremacy which he felt must always belong to him, what ever might
be his nominal position in the political hierarchy. He was already,
although but just turned of thirty years, vastly changed from the
brilliant and careless grandee, as he stood at the hour of the imperial
abdication. He was becoming careworn in face, thin of figure, sleepless
of habit. The wrongs of which he was the daily witness, the absolutism,
the cruelty, the rottenness of the government, had marked his face with
premature furrows. "They say that the Prince is very sad," wrote
Morillon to Granvelle; "and 'tis easy to read as much in his face. They
say he can not sleep." Truly might the monarch have taken warning that
here was a man who was dangerous, and who thought too much.
"Sleekheaded men, and such as slept o' nights," would have been more
eligible functionaries, no doubt, in the royal estimation, but, for a brief
period, the King was content to use, to watch, and to suspect the man
who was one day to be his great and invincible antagonist. He
continued assiduous at the council, and he did his best, by entertaining
nobles and citizens at his hospitable mansion, to cultivate good
relations with large numbers of his countrymen. He soon, however, had
become disgusted with the court. Egmont was more lenient to the foul
practices which prevailed there, and took almost a childish pleasure in
dining at the table of the Duchess, dressed, as were many of the
younger nobles, in short camlet doublet with the wheat-sheaf buttons.
The Prince felt more unwilling to compromise his personal dignity by
countenancing the flagitious proceedings and the contemptible
supremacy of Armenteros, and it was soon very obvious, therefore, that
Egmont was a greater favorite at court than Orange. At the same time
the Count was also diligently cultivating the good graces of the middle
and lower classes in Brussels, shooting with the burghers