The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566 part 1 | Page 6

his age he had mastered only that he might accomplish the
noblest purposes to which a great and good man can devote his life-the
protection of the liberty and the religion of a whole people against
foreign tyranny. His intrigue served his country, not a narrow personal
ambition, and it was only by such arts that he became Philip's master,
instead of falling at once, like so many great personages, a blind and
infatuated victim. No doubt his purveyors of secret information were

often destined fearfully to atone for their contraband commerce, but
they who trade in treason must expect to pay the penalty of their traffic.
Although, therefore, the great nobles held themselves aloof from the
confederacy, yet many of them gave unequivocal signs of their dissent
from the policy adopted by government. Marquis Berghen wrote to the
Duchess; resigning his posts, on the ground of his inability to execute
the intention of the King in the matter of religion. Meghen replied to
the same summons by a similar letter. Egmont assured her that he
would have placed his offices in the King's hands in Spain, could he
have foreseen that his Majesty would form such resolutions as had now
been proclaimed. The sentiments of Orange were avowed in the letter
to which we have already alluded. His opinions were shared by
Montigny, Culemburg, and many others. The Duchess was almost
reduced to desperation. The condition of the country was frightful. The
most determined loyalists, such as Berlaymont, Viglius and Hopper,
advised her not to mention the name of inquisition in a conference
which she was obliged to hold with a deputation from Antwerp. She
feared, all feared, to pronounce the hated word. She wrote despairing
letters to Philip, describing the condition of the land and her own agony
in the gloomiest colors. Since the arrival of the royal orders, she said,
things had gone from bad to worse. The King had been ill advised. It
was useless to tell the people that the inquisition had always existed in
the provinces. They maintained that it was a novelty; that the institution
was a more rigorous one than the Spanish Inquisition, which, said
Margaret, "was most odious, as the King knew." It was utterly
impossible to carry the edicts into execution. Nearly all the governors
of provinces had told her plainly that they would not help to burn fifty
or sixty thousand Netherlanders. Thus bitterly did Margaret of Parma
bewail the royal decree; not that she had any sympathy for the victims,
but because she felt the increasing danger to the executioner. One of
two things it was now necessary to decide upon, concession or armed
compulsion. Meantime, while Philip was slowly and secretly making
his levies, his sister, as well as his people, was on the rack. Of all the
seigniors, not one was placed in so painful a position as Egmont. His
military reputation and his popularity made him too important a
personage to be slighted, yet he was deeply mortified at the lamentable
mistake which he had committed. He now averred that he would never

take arms against the King, but that he would go where man should
never see him more.
Such was the condition of the nobles, greater and less. That of the
people could not well be worse. Famine reigned in the land. Emigration,
caused not by over population, but by persecution, was fast weakening
the country. It was no wonder that not only, foreign merchants should
be scared from the great commercial cities by the approaching
disorders; but that every industrious artisan who could find the means
of escape should seek refuge among strangers, wherever an asylum
could be found. That asylum was afforded by Protestant England, who
received these intelligent and unfortunate wanderers with cordiality,
and learned with eagerness the lessons in mechanical skill which they
had to teach. Already thirty thousand emigrant Netherlanders were
established in Sandwich, Norwich, and other places, assigned to them
by Elizabeth. It had always, however, been made a condition of the
liberty granted to these foreigners for practising their handiwork, that
each house should employ at least one English apprentice. "Thus," said
a Walloon historian, splenetically, "by this regulation, and by means of
heavy duties on foreign manufactures, have the English built up their
own fabrics and prohibited those of the Netherlands. Thus have they
drawn over to their own country our skilful artisans to practise their
industry, not at home but abroad, and our poor people are thus losing
the means of earning their livelihood. Thus has clothmaking,
silk-making and the art of dyeing declined in this country, and would
have been quite extinguished but by our wise countervailing edicts."
The writer, who derived most of his materials and his wisdom from the
papers of Councillor d'Assonleville,