The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1574-84 | Page 2

imprisonment of the Council of
State at Brussels. This event, however, belongs to a subsequent page of
this history.
Noircarmes had argued, from the tenor of Saint Aldegonde's letters,
that the Prince would be ready to accept his pardon upon almost any
terms. Noircarmes was now dead, but Saint Aldegonde still remained in
prison, very anxious for his release, and as well disposed as ever to
render services in any secret negotiation. It will be recollected that, at
the capitulation of Middelburg, it had been distinctly stipulated by the
Prince that Colonel Mondragon should at once effect the liberation of
Saint Aldegonde, with certain other prisoners, or himself return into
confinement. He had done neither the one nor the other. The patriots
still languished in prison, some of them being subjected to exceedingly
harsh treatment, but Mondragon, although repeatedly summoned as an
officer and a gentleman, by the Prince, to return to captivity, had been
forbidden by the Grand Commander to redeem his pledge.
Saint Aldegonde was now released from prison upon parole, and
despatched on a secret mission to the Prince and estates. As before, he
was instructed that two points were to be left untouched--the authority
of the King and the question of religion. Nothing could be more
preposterous than to commence a negotiation from which the two
important points were thus carefully eliminated. The King's authority
and the question of religion covered the whole ground upon which the
Spaniards and the Hollanders had been battling for six years, and were
destined to battle for three-quarters of a century longer. Yet, although
other affairs might be discussed, those two points were to be reserved
for the more conclusive arbitration of gunpowder. The result of
negotiations upon such a basis was easily to be foreseen. Breath, time,
and paper were profusely wasted and nothing gained. The Prince
assured his friend, as he had done secret agents previously sent to him,
that he was himself ready to leave the land, if by so doing he could
confer upon it the blessing of peace; but that all hopes of reaching a
reasonable conclusion from the premises established was futile. The
envoy treated also with the estates, and received from them in return an

elaborate report, which was addressed immediately to the King. The
style of this paper was bold and blunt, its substance bitter and
indigestible. It informed Philip what he had heard often enough before,
that the Spaniards must go and the exiles come back, the inquisition be
abolished and the ancient privileges restored, the Roman Catholic
religion renounce its supremacy, and the Reformed religion receive
permission to exist unmolested, before he could call himself master of
that little hook of sand in the North Sea. With this paper, which was
entrusted to Saint Aldegonde, by him to be delivered to the Grand
Commander, who was, after reading it, to forward it to its destination,
the negotiator returned to his prison. Thence he did not emerge again
till the course of events released him, upon the 15th of October, 1574.
This report was far from agreeable to the Governor, and it became the
object of a fresh correspondence between his confidential agent,
Champagny, and the learned and astute Junius de Jonge, representative
of the Prince of Orange and Governor of Yeere. The communication of
De Jonge consisted of a brief note and a long discourse. The note was
sharp and stinging, the discourse elaborate and somewhat pedantic.
Unnecessarily historical and unmercifully extended, it was yet bold,
bitter, and eloquent: The presence of foreigners was proved to have
been, from the beginning of Philip's reign, the curse of the country.
Doctor Sonnius, with his batch of bishops, had sowed the seed of the
first disorder. A prince, ruling in the Netherlands, had no right to turn a
deaf ear to the petitions of his subjects. If he did so, the Hollanders
would tell him, as the old woman had told the Emperor Adrian, that the
potentate who had no time to attend to the interests of his subjects, had
not leisure enough to be a sovereign. While Holland refused to bow its
neck to the Inquisition, the King of Spain dreaded the thunder and
lightning of the Pope. The Hollanders would, with pleasure, emancipate
Philip from his own thraldom, but it was absurd that he, who was
himself a slave to another potentate, should affect unlimited control
over a free people. It was Philip's councillors, not the Hollanders, who
were his real enemies; for it was they who held him in the subjection by
which his power was neutralized and his crown degraded.
It may be supposed that many long pages, conceived in this spirit and
expressed with great vigor, would hardly smooth the way for the more
official negotiations which were