The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566 part 2 | Page 4

sooner. On the receipt, however, of the public despatches from
Madrid, the administration in Brussels made great efforts to represent
their tenor as highly satisfactory. The papal inquisition was to be

abolished, a pardon was to be granted, a new moderation was to be
arranged at some indefinite period; what more would men have? Yet
without seeing the face of the cards, the people suspected the real truth,
and Orange was convinced of it. Viglius wrote that if the King did not
make his intended visit soon, he would come too late, and that every
week more harm was done by procrastination than could be repaired by
months of labor and perhaps by torrents of blood. What the precise
process was, through which Philip was to cure all disorders by his
simple presence, the President did not explain.
As for the measures propounded by the King after so long a delay, they
were of course worse than useless; for events had been marching while
he had been musing. The course suggested was, according to Viglius,
but "a plaster for a wound, but a drag-chain for the wheel." He urged
that the convocation of the states-general was the only remedy for the
perils in which the country was involved; unless the King should come
in person. He however expressed the hope that by general consultation
some means would be devised by which, if not a good, at least a less
desperate aspect would be given to public affairs, "so that the
commonwealth, if fall it must, might at least fall upon its feet like a cat,
and break its legs rather than its neck."
Notwithstanding this highly figurative view of the subject; and
notwithstanding the urgent representations of Duchess Margaret to her
brother, that nobles and people were all clamoring about the necessity
of convening the states general, Philip was true to his instincts on this
as on the other questions. He knew very well that the states-general of
the Netherlands and Spanish despotism were incompatible ideas, and
he recoiled from the idea of the assembly with infinite aversion. At the
same time a little wholesome deception could do no harm. He wrote to
the Duchess, therefore, that he was determined never to allow the
states- general to be convened. He forbade her to consent to the step
under any circumstances, but ordered her to keep his prohibition a
profound secret. He wished, he said, the people to think that it was only
for the moment that the convocation was forbidden, and that the
Duchess was expecting to receive the necessary permission at another
time. It was his desire, he distinctly stated, that the people should not
despair of obtaining the assembly, but he was resolved never to consent
to the step, for he knew very well what was meant by a meeting of the

States-general. Certainly after so ingenuous but secret a declaration
from the disciple of Macchiavelli, Margaret might well consider the
arguments to be used afterward by herself and others, in favor of the
ardently desired measure, as quite superfluous.
Such then was the policy secretly resolved upon by Philip; even before
he heard of the startling events which were afterwards to break upon
him. He would maintain the inquisition and the edicts; he would
exterminate the heretics, even if he lost all his realms and his own life
in the cause; he would never hear of the national representatives
coming together. What then were likely to be his emotions when he
should be told of twenty thousand armed heretics assembling at one
spot, and fifteen thousand at another, in almost every town in every
province, to practice their blasphemous rites; when he should be told of
the whirlwind which had swept all the ecclesiastical accumulations of
ages out of existence; when he should read Margaret's despairing letters,
in which she acknowledged that she had at last committed an act
unworthy of God, of her King, and of herself, in permitting liberty of
worship to the renegades from the ancient church!
The account given by the Duchess was in truth very dismal. She said
that grief consumed her soul and crimson suffused her cheeks while she
related the recent transactions. She took God to witness that she had
resisted long, that she had past many sleepless nights, that she had been
wasted with fever and grief. After this penitential preface she confessed
that, being a prisoner and almost besieged in her palace, sick in body
and soul, she had promised pardon and security to the confederates,
with liberty of holding assemblies to heretics in places where the
practice had already obtained. These concessions had been made valid
until the King by and with the consent of the states-general, should
definitely arrange the matter. She stated, however, that she had given