Chapter IV: Philip's Mandate

William of Orange rode up to the beautiful Brabant palace in company with Egmont, who had been dining with him, and several gentlemen who were in attendance on both the noblemen.

Egmont was silent, uneasy, almost sullen; he felt that Philip was not carrying out the golden promises he had made in Madrid, and that he had been more or less deceived and cajoled; and though his loyalty was not shaken, he was humiliated at appearing as a man of straw in the eyes of William of Orange.

The Prince too was uneasy. He knew, by means of secret information, that the Regent had received dispatches from the King during her son's marriage festivities, and had kept them concealed. He did not think this seemed as if they contained good news; he saw everything very gloomy and black ahead, very troubled and difficult, but at least he hoped that the King had taken up some definite attitude. To a man of William's temperament, Philip's endless irresolution, interminable delays, shifty evasions, blank silences, and long inaction were the most unbearable of policies.

They reached the palace wet with rain and blown with wind, to find most of the other members of the Council there before them, and already gathered in the presence of the Regent in the splendid council chamber of the ancient Dukes of Brabant.

Baron de Barlaymont, the last representative of the fallen party of Granvelle, was there seated humbly in his usual quiet corner, where he was seldom noticed and seldom spoke. His colleague Vigilius, President of the Privy Council, was also present; he had but recently recovered from an almost mortal illness which had seized him while preparing an answer to the Prince of Orange's speech against the Inquisition and the corruption of the Court, and had been left by it almost useless, almost senseless.

Thomas Armenteros, Margaret's Spanish secretary, was there, and Admiral Hoorne, gloomy and sad.

The Duke of Aerschot, the one noble who had unflinchingly supported all Philip's measures, and the Sieur de Glayon, completed, with the arrival of the Prince and Egmont, the members of the Council of State; but the ancient and feeble Vigilius was supported by several of the learned doctors of law who composed the board of the Privy Council of which he was President.

The Regent sat in her usual place at the head of the long table, working nervously at the usual length of embroidery which served to give employment to her restless fingers.

She had aged of late; her face had hardened, and there were strands of white in her thick, heavy hair. The firm set of her powerful jaw and her majestic deportment gave her a resemblance to the Emperor her father, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman overwhelmed and frightened.

When all the councillors were seated, she dropped her work on to her lap and looked keenly and anxiously from one face to another—the dark, handsome face of Orange; the old, feeble face of Vigilius; the downcast, bitter face of Barlaymont; the beautiful, uneasy face of Egmont; the brooding, sullen face of Hoorne; and the sleek, smiling face of Armenteros, the secretary, who held the dispatches in his hand.

Margaret spoke; her shaking voice was rendered half inaudible by the sound of the rain beating on the leaded casements where glowed the arms of Brabant, and the wind struggling with the heavy window-frames.

William rested his hands on the soft Persian cloth that covered the council table, and he, in his turn, looked steadily at the Regent.

But he was not considering, nor reckoning with, Madame Parma; behind the figure of this confused, agitated woman, whose task was too great for her wits, William saw the real master, the pale King going to and fro his masses and his cell in the Escorial, from whence he directed the destinies of the Netherlands.

"You shall hear the Royal commands, seigneurs," finished the Duchess, and she glanced at those two fine shapely hands of William of Orange resting on the cloth in front of him, and her look of fright deepened as if they had held a bared sword towards her breast.

"Read, read," she cried to Armenteros, in great agitation. She caught up her work, but tears were in her eyes, and she could not see the stitches.

The secretary rose. He was a mere clerk, but since Granvelle's downfall he had grown fat on the spoils of the corruption of the Court, and now affected the great lord; he was dressed in the Spanish style, close doublet and short cloak in plain black velvet which disdained the French and Flemish finery of button, lace, and feather, and wore a great ruff of wired cambric so stiff that he could not turn his head.

He bowed, but formally, to the councillors, and announced that the present dispatches had been received a few days before the Parma wedding, had been placed before the Privy Council and by that body reported upon, which report would be read after the Royal commands.

Hoorne glanced at Orange, Egmont kept his eyes down, Vigilius seemed scarcely less agitated than the Regent; he shook as if slightly palsied, and the water stood in his eyes.

Armenteros read the dispatches in a high-pitched clear voice, which rose above the outer tumult of the wind and rain; his dark, precise figure showed clear-cut in the grey winter light against the dark panelled walls of the council chamber.

Philip's dispatches were prolix as always, but this time they were neither obscure nor irresolute nor enigmatical. The King had hesitated long, but now he was resolved, and he spoke out his resolution with no uncertain words.

The decrees of the Council of Trent were to be enforced with full rigour, the Inquisition was to be given full power and authority, all the placards and edicts against heretics issued by the late Emperor were to be enforced, such heretics as were at present in confinement awaiting judgment were to be at once executed.

In brief, the ancient religion was to be re-established by sword and fire and faggot, by fine, by banishment, by ruin; if need be, by the extermination of a whole people.

There was to be no further temporizing, no appeal; the secular judges were commanded to give all possible assistance to the Inquisitors, and the Stadtholders were abjured to protect them; all loyal subjects of the King were to assist him in his ardent desire to uproot heresy, or to be reckoned among those they protected.

The passionate sincerity of the writer, "who would rather die a hundred deaths than be the lord of heretics," illumined the diffuse and rambling letter as a flame does darkness; the fierceness and force of this tremendous decision was a mighty thing, the power of one overmastering passion giving to a little man the semblance, the terror of greatness.

When the secretary folded up the letter and sat down, a sound like a sob went through the room; then bitter protest, like a cry of despair, broke from the pale lips of Egmont.

"This is not what His Majesty told me, this is not what was promised—before God it is not!"

"His Majesty has written to you, Count," said Margaret hurriedly.

"Yes," admitted Egmont, "and the written words were different enough from the spoken ones; yet I hoped—I still hoped——Ah!" he broke out again passionately, "by Christ, I hoped for something better than this!"

So had Margaret; the emphatic severity of the King's mandate, the now obvious hopelessness of his ever coming in person to the Netherlands, the ruin ahead of the whole country if the Royal orders were obeyed—these things had kept Madame Parma from rest and ease ever since she had first read the fatal dispatches; and now her doubt, fear, and vexation were beyond concealment.

Hoorne spoke now; he was not given to many words, and his speech was commonly to the point.

"What do you intend to do, Madame?" he asked grimly, and his usual disdain of women was heightened by the sight of Margaret's obvious weakness.

"His Majesty must be obeyed," said Barlaymont and Aerschot almost in a breath; Vigilius and the secretary murmured an assent; only William of Orange remained silent, still looking down at his peaceful hands folded on the edge of the table.

"Read the comments of the Privy Council," said the Regent desperately; and the secretary rose again, and in his clear, expressionless voice read out the tedious report of the Privy Council, which merely amounted to a strong recommendation to the State Council to endorse the Royal commands. When he had finished a passionate murmur broke from Hoorne and Egmont.

"What can I do?" asked Margaret, answering them before they spoke. "I have made all representations to His Majesty—I have told him the state of the country, your own protests. You, Count Egmont, have yourself been to Madrid and laid the case of the Netherlands before His Majesty."

"I will undertake no such mission again!" cried the Stadtholder of Flanders stormily.

"It were wise not to," said the Seigneur de Glayon, with meaning.

"What is to be done?" asked Margaret weakly, and she looked at Armenteros, the man on whom she had learnt to rely, and he in his turn gazed at the rain-splashed panes of the tall window at his side.

William of Orange spoke for the first time since he had entered the council room.

"There is nothing to be done," he said, "but to obey the mandate of the King."

They all looked at him, half in terror, half in relief, Egmont almost incredulously.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You who were ever so hot against the Inquisition, against religious oppression—you who would leave the very weavers and labourers free to choose their faith?"

"What I have said I maintain—I think you know, Count Egmont, that I maintain my words—but I have said already, at this very Board, all I can say. And now the King's attitude is clear, his commands are definite, his wishes unmistakable—let them be fulfilled."

So saying, the Prince turned his dark eyes on Margaret, and there was an expression of challenge, of reserved strength and judgment in them that caused the Regent to feel doubtful of the support William so calmly offered.

"To obey is to put a match to straw," she said in real terror, "but to refuse is impossible."

"Ay, impossible," said William. He pointed to the dispatches lying before Armenteros on the many-coloured cloth. "There is Philip's mandate. Let it be obeyed."

"We have no excuse to disobey," admitted Hoorne sourly. "But what will the Netherlanders do?"

"What will any of us do?" smiled William. "Let His Majesty's wishes be put in force, and then it will be seen what all will do."

These words seemed to further frighten Margaret, who had always been in awe of the powerful Prince of Orange.

"I count on Your Highness to support me in these troubles," she said anxiously, and her tired eyes, full of tears, fixed searchingly on William's serene and inscrutable face.

He slightly bowed his head, without replying; Egmont traced the lines of a yellow tulip in the pattern of the cloth with his forefinger; Hoorne stared desolately in front of him; Aerschot, Glayon, Barlaymont appeared amazed and frightened; an air of gloom, of foreboding, of dismay rested on all. With the exception of the Prince of Orange, all seemed like men confused.

Margaret turned desperately to the secretary: "The edicts and placards of the Inquisition, the decrees of the Council of Trent, must be published in every village, immediately——"

Then Vigilius rose. He had been one of Granvelle's hottest partisans, one of the sternest upholders of the Inquisition, one of the most uncompromising believers in the extermination of the heretics; but now that the fiat had gone forth, now that the die was finally cast, he was afraid—afraid of a whole nation driven to the extreme of agony and despair.

In a long, confused, and wearisome speech he feebly spoke for delay, for compromise, for the avoidance of scandal and riot; in general, for further evasion of that final issue which Philip had suddenly forced.

He shook with age and sickness, his hands beat the air with palsied movements, he altered and retracted his words—the burden of his speech was fear, fear and terror obvious in every sentence.

When he at last sat down, wiping the tears from his eyes, the other councillors moved impatiently. All felt that the moment had come; the sword so long suspended over the Netherlands had fallen, and further procrastination was useless.

"The matter is now between the King and the people," said the Prince of Orange. "Put before them the King's commands—and hear their answer."

Again Margaret trembled to hear him speak; her blurred eyes strove to pierce the fast-encroaching winter dusk that was descending on the council chamber, so that she might read his expression.

"His Highness is right," said Egmont. "The placards and edicts must be issued."

"I see us all ruined," muttered Hoorne, tugging at his black beard, "but we must obey."

All agreed; no one supported Vigilius, who sat shaking in his chair, counselling "a little delay—a little delay."

"You have resigned, learned President," William answered him. "Before this storm breaks, you may be safely in shelter."

"Methinks this will be a storm from which there will be no shelter," murmured the old man.

"Speak encouraging words, or hold your peace, good sir," cried Margaret distractedly; and turning to Armenteros she gave the orders for the enforcement of the edicts and placards.

No one noticed the increasing darkness, which now almost prevented them seeing each other's faces; no one heard the sound and wrath of the storm without, the whirling of the waters, the combat of the winds. All were listening to the scratching of the Spaniard's quill while he took down the instructions which were practically the death-warrants of a whole nation; all watched him as he leant sideways to catch the light—him, and the white blur of the paper over which his quill was moving.

At length it was done; the Regent bent from her chair, took the pen, and blindly signed.

William of Orange drew a great breath.

"Now we shall see the beginning of the most terrible tragedy the world has known!" he whispered to Hoorne, and his tone was almost one of exultation, the tone of a man who sees his enemy face to face, out in the open, at last.

The Admiral crossed himself in silence; Egmont gave a passionate ejaculation; the rest were dumb and motionless in the darkness.

And so the thing was done, and Philip's mandate obeyed.

Margaret rose and called for candles; Armenteros put up his papers; the councillors got to their feet.

Severally they took leave of the Regent; when the first candles were brought in, William of Orange was at her side, and she saw his face, pale and extraordinarily aglow with some inner emotion.

He took his leave with no added word, and she could find none with which to detain him, though she longed to try and test him.

He was on the palace steps with Lamoral Egmont at his side; they paused a second watching the loose, fiercely driven clouds flying over the seven churches and proud palaces of Brussels, the long broken lances of the rain dashing on shining wet roof and spire.

"'Tis the Angel of Death riding the whirlwind—the clouds of havoc gather from the four corners of the earth," said the Prince. "God send us a good deliverance."