Chapter IV: The Histories

The struggle of the Dutch for religious and political liberty was to have been ‘only an episode’ in Prescott’s _Philip the Second_. Motley’s broad treatment of the theme requires nine octavo volumes. _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_ (in three volumes) covers the time between the abdication of Charles the Fifth and the murder of William of Orange. The _History of the United Netherlands_ (in four volumes) takes up the narrative at the death of William and carries it on to the end of the Twelve Years’ Truce. _John of Barneveld_, is ‘the natural sequel’ to the two preceding works, and ‘a necessary introduction’ to the history of the Thirty Years’ War.

These works from first to last are marked by passionate admiration of the spirit which makes for liberty. Admitting the turbulent character of that spirit in the early history of the Netherlands, the historian does not deplore it. Sedition and uproar meant life. ‘Those violent little commonwealths had blood in their veins! They were compact of proud, self-helping muscular vigor.’ And to Motley ‘the most sanguinary tumults which they ever enacted in the face of day were better than the order and silence born of the midnight darkness of despotism.’

The treatment then is strongly partisan. There is a fervor in the account of the deeds and sufferings of those patriots who thought no sacrifice too great if thereby the sum total of human liberty was increased.

Motley does not pretend that the leaders in this struggle were always disinterested. The motives swaying humanity are wondrously complex. But after all deductions are made, it was a struggle of light against darkness, and with such a struggle it was possible to sympathize unqualifiedly. There are cool-blooded critics who view such an attitude with disdain. This, they say, is not the temper in which history should be written. History must be calm, impartial, scientific. Perhaps the reasonable reply is that history must be of many sorts and the product of many types of mind; that one sort never really excludes the other. Also it is well to remember that a great historical master of our time,[50] and one whose creed was by no means narrow, pleaded always for this deep and passionate motive in the work, and laughed at the modern Oxford product which can balance questions but is able to accomplish nothing.

Motley’s historic canvas is crowded with figures. The eye is at first drawn toward the personages, the military, ecclesiastical, and princely chiefs, William of Orange (who is Motley’s hero), Egmont, Alva, and Granvelle; but the eye does not rest on these alone. Surrounding them are the multitudes of aspiring, suffering people becoming more and more a preponderant force in the life of the nation, refusing to be disposed of in the lump, or driven about like a flock of sheep to be sheared or slaughtered at the whim of a monarch.

Here lies Motley’s sympathy. His indignation flames out when misery is brought upon thousands, by the caprice of kings or the selfishness of secular and ecclesiastical politicians. Note his sarcasm on the battle of Saint Quentin, a game in which ‘the players were kings and the people were stakes--not parties.’ Note his fine scorn of that type of government ‘which was administered exclusively for the benefit of the government.’ Note his loathing for that type of vanity which presumes to dictate how a man shall worship God. The temper in which Motley writes is admirably epitomized in the picture of Caraffa, as papal legate, making his entry into Paris, showering blessings upon the people, ‘while the friends who were nearest him were aware that nothing but gibes and sarcasms were falling from his lips.... It would no doubt have increased the hilarity of Caraffa ... could the idea have been suggested to his mind that the sentiments, or the welfare of the people throughout the great states ... could have any possible bearing upon the question of peace or war. The world was governed by other influences. The wiles of a cardinal--the arts of a concubine--the speculations of a soldier of fortune--the ill temper of a monk--the mutual venom of Italian houses--above all, the perpetual rivalry of the two great historical families who owned the greater part of Europe between them as their private property--such were the wheels on which rolled the destiny of Christendom. Compared to these, what were great moral and political ideas, the plans of statesmen, the hopes of nations? Time was to show.... Meanwhile a petty war for petty motives was to precede the great spectacle which was to prove to Europe that principles and peoples still existed, and that a phlegmatic nation of merchants and manufacturers could defy the powers of the universe, and risk all their blood and treasure, generation after generation, in a sacred cause.’[51]

The historian is a hard hitter. The enemies of liberty and their agents are not spared. Philip, Granvelle, Alva, and a score besides are characterized in withering terms. Of Philip, for example, Motley says: ‘It is curious to observe the minute reticulations of tyranny which he had begun already to spin about a whole people, while cold, venomous, and patient he watched his victims from the center of his web.’ The historian is fiery in denouncing the tortuous and Machiavellian politics of the Sixteenth Century. It was an age when honesty, plain speaking, and respect for a promise had nothing to do with the conduct of affairs of state. He who could lie most adroitly was the best man. Granvelle fills his letters with innuendoes against Egmont and Orange, all the while protesting that he would not have a hair of their heads injured. It is he, according to Motley, who puts into Philip’s mind the thoughts he is to think, almost in the words in which he is to utter them. Philip had his own strength, but he was slow to come to a conclusion. Granvelle knew how to clarify that muddy stream of ideas.

The preceding work shows the Dutch states in the beginning and progress of their struggle against the tyranny of Philip; the _United Netherlands_ shows Holland as a rising hope of Protestantism, as a nation to be reckoned with in the diplomacy of Europe.

The Spanish king is still writing letters, still concocting schemes for conquest, still enmeshing friends and enemies alike in a web of falsehood. He is drawn off for the moment from his mission in the Netherlands to extend his conquests elsewhere. These proposed conquests have exactly one object--to enable the spirit of despotism ‘to maintain the old mastery of mankind.’ ‘Countries and nations being regarded as private property to be inherited or bequeathed to a few favored individuals, ... it had now become right and proper for the Spanish monarch to annex Scotland, England, and France to the very considerable possessions which were already his own.’

A picturesque episode of the attempt upon England was the Armada. To this enterprise Motley gives one of his best and most thrilling chapters. Equally fascinating is the account of the attempt upon France, the battle of Ivry (when the white plume of Henry of Navarre carried the hopes of all liberal-minded men), and the terrible siege of Paris which almost immediately followed. ‘Rarely have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against foreign oppression with more heroism than that which was manifested by the Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious toleration, and in obeying a foreign and priestly despotism.’

Perhaps there are not to be found in the historian’s works more striking passages than those in which are described the last days of Philip the Second. To Philip’s fortitude, in agony as poignant as any he had visited upon his miserable victims, the historian gives unstinted praise. The account, which rests upon documentary basis, presents an accumulation of horrors from which a Zola or a Flaubert might have learned a lesson. The king died with a clear conscience, having upon his soul the blood of uncounted numbers of human beings, and providing in his will that ‘thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul.’

‘It seems like mere railing to specify his crimes,’ says Motley. ‘The horrible monotony of his career stupefies the mind until it is ready to accept the principle of evil as the fundamental law of the land.’ Motley’s conclusion is that Philip the Second of Spain was Machiavelli’s greatest pupil.

What remains of the book after Philip’s death lacks neither literary interest nor historic value. But we have something akin to the feeling which comes over us when the chief character in a play dies before the last act; we question for a moment whether the interest will hold. That dominant and sinister personality leaves a void which the exploits of Prince Maurice hardly serve to fill. With these exploits, however, and a discussion of the causes leading to the Twelve Years’ Truce, Motley concluded the _History of the United Netherlands_.

In the last of his three great works, _John of Barneveld_, Motley gave full expression to his generous partisanship of all that seemed to him to stand for the spirit of liberty. With a contempt for the subtleties of theological speculation, the historian was by instinct ‘Remonstrant,’ that is, anti-Calvinistic, and found in Barneveld one of his heroes. He has painted a wonderful picture of the old advocate’s trial and death. Hounded daily by twenty-four judges, many of them his personal enemies, compelled to rely on his powerful memory in reviewing the events and explaining the acts of his forty-three years of public service, denied books, denied counsel, denied a knowledge in advance of the charges made against him, denied access to the notes of his examination as it proceeded, denied everything suggested by the words ‘law’ and ‘justice,’ Barneveld came out of the ordeal so triumphantly that the announcement of his sentence might well have moved him to say: ‘I am ready enough to die, but I cannot comprehend why I am to die.’

In characterization of men, in searching analysis of causes and motives, in brilliant description, and in manly eloquence, Motley’s _John of Barneveld_ equals its predecessors, while the note of passion is if anything intensified by the bitter experiences through which the historian had so recently passed.

* * * * *

A fitting postlude to Motley’s work as a whole may be found in the last sentence of the _United Netherlands_. It makes clear the motives other than scholarly and creative which led to the writing of these splendid narratives. Says the historian: ‘If by his labors a generous love has been fostered for that blessing, without which everything that this earth can afford is worthless,--freedom of thought, of speech, and of life,--his highest wish has been fulfilled.’

FOOTNOTES:

[46] O. W. Holmes.

[47] _Merry-Mount_ is more readable than its predecessor. Such
characters as Sir Christopher Gardiner and his ‘cousin,’
Thomas Morton with his hawks and his classical quotations,
Esther Ludlow and Maudsley, Walford the smith, Blaxton the
hermit, together with the human grotesques Peter Cakebread,
Bootefish, and Canary-Bird, repay one for the trouble he
takes to make their acquaintance.

[48] For a defence of the part played by the Secretary of State in
this affair see John Bigelow’s paper entitled ‘Mr. Seward and
Mr. Motley,’ in the ‘International Review,’ July-August, 1878.

[49] John Jay: ‘Motley’s Appeal to History,’ in the ‘International
Review’ for November-December, 1877.

[50] J. R. Green.

[51] _Dutch Republic_, i, 162.