The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1580-82 | Page 7

his heart to the
assassin, his soul, as it was hoped, to the Father of Evil. The rupture
being thus complete, it was right that the "wretched hypocrite" should
answer ban with ban, royal denunciation with sublime scorn. He had
ill-deserved, however, the title of hypocrite, he said. When the friend of
government, he had warned them that by their complicated and
perpetual persecutions they were twisting the rope of their own ruin.
Was that hypocrisy? Since becoming their enemy, there had likewise
been little hypocrisy found in him--unless it were hypocrisy to make
open war upon government, to take their cities, to expel their armies
from the country.
The proscribed rebel, towering to a moral and even social superiority
over the man who affected to be his master by right divine, swept down
upon his antagonist with crushing effect. He repudiated the idea of a
king in the Netherlands. The word might be legitimate in Castillo, or
Naples, or the Indies, but the provinces knew no such title. Philip had
inherited in those countries only the power of Duke or Count--a power
closely limited by constitutions more ancient than his birthright.

Orange was no rebel then--Philip no legitimate monarch. Even were the
Prince rebellious, it was no more than Philip's ancestor, Albert of
Austria, had been towards his anointed sovereign, Emperor Adolphus
of Nassau, ancestor of William. The ties of allegiance and conventional
authority being, severed, it had become idle for the King to affect
superiority of lineage to the man whose family had occupied illustrious
stations when the Habsburgs were obscure squires in Switzerland, and
had ruled as sovereign in the Netherlands before that overshadowing
house had ever been named.
But whatever the hereditary claims of Philip in the country, he had
forfeited them by the violation of his oaths, by his tyrannical
suppression of the charters of the land; while by his personal crimes he
had lost all pretension to sit in judgment upon his fellow man. Was a
people not justified in rising against authority when all their laws had
been trodden under foot, "not once only, but a million of times?"--and
was William of Orange, lawful husband of the virtuous Charlotte de
Bourbon, to be denounced for moral delinquency by a lascivious,
incestuous, adulterous, and murderous king? With horrible distinctness
he laid before the monarch all the crimes of which he believed him
guilty, and having thus told Philip to his beard, "thus diddest thou," he
had a withering word for the priest who stood at his back. "Tell me," he
cried, "by whose command Cardinal Granvelle administered poison to
the Emperor Maximilian? I know what the Emperor told me, and how
much fear he felt afterwards for the King and for all Spaniards."
He ridiculed the effrontery of men like Philip and Granvelle; in
charging "distrust" upon others, when it was the very atmosphere of
their own existence. He proclaimed that sentiment to be the only
salvation for the country. He reminded Philip of the words which his
namesake of Macedon-- a schoolboy in tyranny, compared to
himself--had heard from the lips of Demosthenes--that the strongest
fortress of a free people against a tyrant was distrust. That sentiment,
worthy of eternal memory, the Prince declared that he had taken from
the "divine philippic," to engrave upon the heart, of the nation, and he
prayed God that he might be more readily believed than the great orator
had been by his people.
He treated with scorn the price set upon his head, ridiculing this project
to terrify him, for its want of novelty, and asking the monarch if he

supposed the rebel ignorant of the various bargains which had
frequently been made before with cutthroats and poisoners to take away
his life. "I am in the hand of God," said William of Orange; "my
worldly goods and my life have been long since dedicated to His
service. He will dispose of them as seems best for His glory and my
salvation."
On the contrary, however, if it could be demonstrated, or even hoped,
that his absence would benefit the cause of the country, he proclaimed
himself ready to go into exile.
Would to God," said he, in conclusion, that my perpetual banishment,
or even my death, could bring you a true deliverance from so many
calamities. Oh, how consoling would be such banishment--how sweet
such a death! For why have I exposed my property? Was it that I might
enrich myself? Why have I lost my brothers? Was it that I might find
new; ones? Why have I left my son so long a prisoner? Can you give
me another? Why have I put my life so often in, danger? What reward,
can I hope after my long services, and the almost total wreck, of my
earthly