The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1569-70 | Page 3

of having
favored the Reformation. As they were men of some local eminence, it
was determined that they should be executed with solemnity. They

were condemned to the flames, and as they were of the ecclesiastical
profession, it was necessary before execution that their personal
sanctity should be removed. Accordingly, on the 27th May, attired in
the gorgeous robes of high mass, they were brought before the Bishop
of Bois le Duc. The prelate; with a pair of scissors, cut a lock of hair
from each of their heads. He then scraped their crowns and the tips of
their fingers with a little silver knife very gently, and without inflicting
the least injury. The mystic oil of consecration was thus supposed to be
sufficiently removed. The prelate then proceeded to disrobe the victims,
saying to each one as he did so, "Eximo tibi vestem justitiae, quem
volens abjecisti;" to which the oldest pastor, Arent Dirkzoon, stoutly
replied, "imo vestem injustitiae." The bishop having thus completed the
solemn farce of desecration, delivered the prisoners to the Blood
Council, begging that they might be handled very gently. Three days
afterwards they were all executed at the stake, having, however,
received the indulgence of being strangled before being thrown into the
flames.
It was precisely at this moment, while the agents of the Duke's
government were thus zealously enforcing his decrees, that a special
messenger arrived from the Pope, bringing as a present to Alva a
jewelled hat and sword. It was a gift rarely conferred by the Church,
and never save upon the highest dignitaries, or upon those who had
merited her most signal rewards by the most shining exploits in her
defence. The Duke was requested, in the autograph letter from his
Holiness which accompanied the presents, "to remember, when he put
the hat upon his head, that he was guarded with it as with a helmet of
righteousness, and with the shield of God's help, indicating the
heavenly crown which was ready for all princes who support the Holy
Church and the Roman Catholic faith." The motto on the sword ran as
follows, "Accipe sanctum gladium, menus a Deo in quo dejicies
adversarios populi mei Israel."
The Viceroy of Philip, thus stimulated to persevere in his master's
precepts by the Vicegerent of Christ, was not likely to swerve from his
path, nor to flinch from his work. It was beyond the power of man's
ingenuity to add any fresh features of horror to the religious persecution
under which the provinces were groaning, but a new attack could be
made upon the poor remains of their wealth.

The Duke had been dissatisfied with the results of his financial
arrangements. The confiscation of banished and murdered heretics had
not proved the inexhaustible mine he had boasted. The stream of gold
which was to flow perennially into the Spanish coffers, soon ceased to
flow at all. This was inevitable. Confiscations must, of necessity, offer
but a precarious supply to any treasury. It was only the frenzy of an
Alva which could imagine it possible to derive a permanent revenue
from such a source. It was, however, not to be expected that this man,
whose tyranny amounted to insanity, could comprehend the intimate
connection between the interests of a people and those of its rulers, and
he was determined to exhibit; by still more fierce and ludicrous
experiments, how easily a great soldier may become a very paltry
financier.
He had already informed his royal master that, after a very short time,
remittances would no longer be necessary from Spain to support the
expenses of the array and government in the Netherlands. He promised,
on the contrary, that at least two millions yearly should be furnished by
the provinces, over and above the cost of their administration, to enrich
the treasury at home. Another Peru had already been discovered by his
ingenuity, and one which was not dependent for its golden fertility on
the continuance of that heresy which it was his mission to extirpate. His
boast had been much ridiculed in Madrid, where he had more enemies
than friends, and he was consequently the more eager to convert it into
reality. Nettled by the laughter with which all his schemes of political
economy had been received at home, he was determined to show that
his creative statesmanship was no less worthy of homage than his
indisputable genius for destruction.
His scheme was nothing more than the substitution of an arbitrary
system of taxation by the Crown, for the legal and constitutional right
of the provinces to tax themselves. It was not a very original thought,
but it was certainly a bold one. For although a country so prostrate
might suffer the imposition of any fresh amount of tyranny, yet it was
doubtful whether she had