Chapter VIII: Part 8

Alexander introduced Greek civilisation as an important element in his civil government, and established Greek colonies with political rights throughout his conquests. During 250 years the Greeks were the dominant class in Asia, and the corrupting influence of this predominance was extended to the whole frame of society in their European as well as their Asiatic possessions. The great difference which existed in the social condition of the Greeks and Romans throughout their national existence was that the Romans formed a nation with the organisation of a single city. The Greeks were a people composed of a number of rival states, and the majority looked with indifference on the loss of their independence. The Romans were compelled to retain much of the civil government, and many of the financial arrangements which they found existing. This was a necessity, because the conquered were much further advanced in social civilisation than the conquerors. The financial policy of Rome was to transfer as much of the money circulating in the provinces, and the precious metals in the hands of private individuals, as it was possible into the coffers of the state.

Hence, the whole empire was impoverished, and Greece suffered severely under a government equally tyrannical in its conduct and unjust in its legislation. The financial administration of the Romans inflicted, if possible, a severer blow on the moral constitution of society than on the material prosperity of the country. It divided the population of Greece into two classes. The rich formed an aristocratic class, the poor sank to the condition of serfs. It appears to be a law of human society that all classes of mankind who are separated by superior wealth and privileges from the body of the people are, by their oligarchical constitution, liable to rapid decline.

The Greeks and the Romans never showed any disposition to unite and form one people, their habits and tastes being so different. Although the schools of Athens were still famous, learning and philosophy were but little cultivated in European Greece because of the poverty of the people and the secluded position of the country.

In the changes of government which preceded the establishment of Byzantium as the capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the Greeks contributed to effect a mighty revolution of the whole frame of social life by the organisation which they gave to the Church from the moment they began to embrace the Christian religion. It awakened many of the national characteristics which had slept for ages, and gave new vigour to the communal and municipal institutions, and even extended to political society. Christian communities of Greeks were gradually melted into one nation, having a common legislation and a common civil administration as well as a common religion, and it was this which determined Constantine to unite Church and State in strict alliance.

From the time of Constantine the two great principles of law and religion began to exert a favourable influence on Greek society, and even limited the wild despotism of the emperors. The power of the clergy, however, originally resting on a more popular and more pure basis than that of the law, became at last so great that it suffered the inevitable corruption of all irresponsible authority entrusted to humanity.

Then came the immigration and ravages of the Goths to the south of the Danube, and that unfortunate period marked the commencement of the rapid decrease of the Greek race, and the decline of Greek civilisation throughout the empire. Under Justinian (527-565), the Hellenic race and institutions in Greece itself received the severest blow. Although he gave to the world his great system of civil law, his internal administration was remarkable for religious intolerance and financial rapacity. He restricted the powers and diminished the revenues of the Greek municipalities, closed the schools of rhetoric and philosophy at Athens, and seized the endowments of the Academy of Plato, which had maintained an uninterrupted succession of teachers for 900 years. But it was not till the reign of Heraclius that the ancient existence of the Hellenic race terminated.

_II.--The Byzantine and Greek Empires_

The history of the Byzantine Empire divides itself into three periods strongly marked by distinct characteristics. The first commences with the reign of Leo III., the Isaurian, in 716, and terminates with that of Michael III., in 867. It comprises the whole history of the predominance of iconoclasm in the established church, of the reaction which reinstated the Orthodox in power, and restored the worship of pictures and images.

It opens with the effort by which Leo and the people of the empire saved the Roman law and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracen. It embraces the long and violent struggle between the government and the people, the emperors seeking to increase the central power by annihilating every local franchise, and to constitute themselves the fountains of ecclesiastical as completely as of civil legislation.

The second period begins with the reign of Bazil I., in 867, and during two centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members of his family. At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of external power and internal prosperity. The Saracens were pursued into the plains of Syria, the Bulgarian monarchy was conquered, the Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated, Byzantine commerce filled the whole of the Mediterranean. But the real glory of the period consisted in the respect for the administration of justice which purified society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding era of the history of the world.

The third period extends from the accession of Isaac I., in 1057, to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders, in 1204. This is the true period of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire. The separation of the Greek and Latin churches was accomplished. The wealth of the empire was dissipated, the administration of justice corrupted, and the central authority lost all control over the population.

But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. Then followed the Crusades, the first three inflicting permanent evils on the Greek race; while the fourth, which was organised in Venice, captured and plundered Constantinople. A treaty entered into by the conquerors put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire, and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was elected emperor of the East. The conquest of Constantinople restored the Greeks to a dominant position in the East; but the national character of the people, the political constitution of the imperial government, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Orthodox Church were all destitute of every theory and energetic practice necessary for advancing in a career of improvement.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century a small Turkish tribe made its first appearance in the Seljouk Empire. Othman, who gave his name to this new band of immigrants, and his son, Orkhan, laid the foundation of the institutions and power of the Othoman Empire. No nation ever increased so rapidly from such small beginnings, and no government ever constituted itself with greater sagacity than the Othoman; but no force or prudence could have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with such rapidity to power if it had not been that the Greek nation and its emperors were paralysed by political and moral corruption. Justice was dormant in the state, Christianity was torpid in the Church, orthodoxy performed the duties of civil liberty, and the priest became the focus of political opposition. By the middle of the fourteenth century the Othoman Turks had raided Thrace, Macedonia, the islands of the Aegean, plundered the large town of Greece, and advanced to the shores of the Bosphorus.

At the end of the fourteenth century John VI. asked for efficient military aid from Western Europe to avert the overthrow of the Greek Empire by the Othoman power, but the Pope refused, unless John consented to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches and the recognition of the papal supremacy. In 1438 the Council of Ferrara was held, and was transferred in the following year to Florence, when the Greek emperor and all the bishops of the Eastern Church, except the bishop of Ephesus, adopted the doctrines of the Roman Church, accepted the papal supremacy, and the union of the two Churches was solemnly ratified in the cathedral of Florence on July 6, 1439. But little came of the union. The Pope forgot to sent a fleet to defend Constantinople; the Christian princes would not fight the battles of the Greeks.

Then followed the conquest, in May 1453, of Constantinople, despite a desperate resistance, by Mohammed II., who entered his new capital, riding triumphantly past the body of the Emperor Constantine. Mohammed proceeded at once to the church of St. Sophia, where, to convince the Greeks that their Orthodox empire was extinct, the sultan ordered a moolah to ascend the Bema and address a sermon to the Mussulmans announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque set apart for the prayers of true believers. The fall of Constantinople is a dark chapter in the annals of Christianity. The death of the unfortunate Constantine, neglected by the Catholics and deserted by the Orthodox, alone gave dignity to the final catastrophe.

_III.--Othoman and Venetian_

The conquest of Greece by Mohammed II. was felt to be a boon by the greater part of the population. The sultan's government put an end to the injustices of the Greek emperors and the Frank princes, dukes, and signors who for two centuries had rendered Greece the scene of incessant civil wars and odious oppression, and whose rapacity impoverished and depopulated the country. The Othoman system of administration was immediately organised. Along with it the sultan imposed a tribute of a fifth of the male children of his Christian subjects as a part of that tribute which the Koran declared was the lawful price of toleration to those who refused to embrace Islam. Under these measures the last traces of the former political institutions and legal administration of Greece were swept away.

The mass of the Christian population engaged in agricultural operations were, however, allowed to enjoy a far larger portion of the fruits of their labour under the sultan's government than under that of many Christian monarchs. The weak spots in the Othoman government were the administration of justice and of finance. The naval conquests of the Othomans in the islands and maritime districts of Greece, and the ravages of Corsairs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reduced and degraded the population, exterminated the best families, enslaved the remnant, and destroyed the prosperity of Greek trade and commerce.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century ecclesiastical corruption in the Orthodox Church increased. Bishoprics, and even the patriarchate were sold to the highest bidder. The Turks displayed their contempt for them by ordering the cross which until that time had crowned the dome of the belfry of the patriarchate to be taken down. There can be no doubt, however, that in the rural district the secular clergy supplied some of the moral strength which eventually enabled the Greeks successfully to resist the Othoman power. Happily, the exaction of the tribute of children fell into disuse; and, that burden removed, the nation soon began to fed the possibility of improving its condition.

The contempt with which the ambassadors of the Christian powers were treated at the Sublime Porte increased after the conquest of Candia and the surrender of Crete in 1669, and the grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, declared war against Austria and laid siege to Vienna in 1683. This was the opportune moment taken by the Venetian Republic to declare war against the Othoman Empire, and Greece was made the chief field of military operations.

Morosini, the commander of the Venetian mercenary army, successfully conducted a series of campaigns between 1684 and 1687, but with terrible barbarity on both sides. The Venetian fleet entered the Piraeus on September 21, 1687. The city of Athens was immediately occupied by their army, and siege laid to the Acropolis. On September 25 a Venetian bomb blew up a powder magazine in the Propylæa, and the following evening another fell in the Parthenon. The classic temple was partially ruined; much of the sculpture which had retained its inimitable excellence from the days of Phidæas was defaced, and a part utterly destroyed. The Turks persisted in defending the place until September 28, when, they capitulated. The Venetians continued the campaign until the greater part of Northern Greece submitted to their authority, and peace was declared in 1696. During the Venetian occupation of Greece through the ravages of war, oppressive taxation, and pestilence, the Greek inhabitants decreased from 300,000 to about 100,000.

Sultan Achmet III., having checkmated Peter the Great in his attempt to march to the conquest of Constantinople, assembled a large army at Adrianople under the command of Ali Cumurgi, which expelled the Venetians from Greece before the end of 1715. Peace was concluded, by the Treaty of Passarovitz, in July 1718. Thereafter, the material and political position of the Greek nation began to exhibit many signs of improvement, and the agricultural population before the end of the eighteenth century became, in the greatest part of the country, the legal as well as the real proprietors of the soil, which made them feel the moral sentiment of freemen.

The increased importance of the diplomatic relations of the Porte with the Christian powers opened a new political career to the Greeks at Constantinople, and gave rise to the formation of a class of officials in the Othoman service called "phanariots," whose venality and illegal exactions made the name a by-word for the basest servility, corruption, and rapacity.

This system was extended to Wallachia and Moldavia, and no other Christian race in the Othoman dominions was exposed to so long a period of unmitigated extortion and cruelty as the Roman population of these principalities. The Treaty of Kainardji which concluded the war with Russia between 1768 and 1774, humbled the pride of the sultan, broke the strength of the Othoman Empire, and established the moral influence of Russia over the whole of the Christian populations in Turkey. But Russia never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty. During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia assuming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Yassi in 1792, which decided the partition of Poland.

Meanwhile, the diverse ambitions of the higher clergy and the phanariots at Constantinople taught the people of Greece that their interests as a nation were not always identical with the policy of the leaders of the Orthodox Church. A modern Greek literature sprang up and, under the influence of the French Revolution, infused love of freedom into the popular mind, while the sultan's administration every day grew weaker under the operation of general corruption. Throughout the East it was felt that the hour of a great struggle for independence on the part of the Greeks had arrived.

_IV.--The Greek Revolution_

The Greek revolution began in 1821. Two societies are supposed to have contributed to accelerating it, but they did not do much to ensure its success. These were the Philomuse Society, founded at Athens in 1812, and the Philiké Hetaireia, established in Odessa in 1814. The former was a literary club, the latter a political society whose schemes were wild and visionary. The object of the inhabitants of Greece was definite and patriotic.

The attempt of Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of the Greek Hospodar of Wallachia, under the pretence that he was supported by Russia, to upset the Turkish government in Moldavia and Wallachia was a miserable fiasco distinguished for massacres, treachery, and cowardice, and it was repudiated by the Tsar of Russia. Very different was the intensity of the passion with which the inhabitants of modern Greece arose to destroy the power of their Othoman masters. In the month of April 1821, a Mussulman population, amounting to upwards of 20,000 souls, was living dispersed in Greece employed in agriculture. Before two months had elapsed the greater part--men, women, and children--were murdered without mercy or remorse. The first insurrectional movement took place in the Peloponnesus at the end of March. Kalamata was besieged by a force of 2,000 Greeks, and taken on April 4. Next day a solemn service of the Greek Church was performed on the banks of the torrent that flows by Kalamata, as a thanksgiving for the success of the Greek arms. Patriotic tears poured down the cheeks of rude warriors, and ruthless brigands sobbed like children. All present felt that the event formed an era in Greek history. The rising spread to every part of Greece, and to some of the islands.

Sultan Mahmud II. believed that he could paralyse the movements of the Greeks by terrific cruelty. On Easter Sunday, April 22, the Patriarch Gregorios and three other bishops were executed in Constantinople--a deed which caused a thrill of horror from the Moslem capital to the mountains of Greece, and the palaces of St. Petersburg. The sultan next strengthened his authority in Thrace and in Macedonia, and extinguished the flames of rebellion from Mount Athos to Olympus.

In Greece itself the patriots were triumphant. Local senates were formed for the different districts, and a National Assembly met at Piada, three miles to the west of the site of the ancient Epidaurus, which formulated a constitution and proclaimed it on January 13, 1822. This constitution established a central government consisting of a legislative assembly and an executive body of five members, with Prince Alexander Mavrocordato as President of Greece.

It is impossible here to go into the details of the war of independence which was carried on from 1822 to 1827. The outstanding incidents were the triple siege and capitulation of the Acropolis at Athens; the campaigns of Ibrahim Pasha and his Egyptian army in the Morea; the defence of Mesolonghi by the Greeks with a courage and endurance, an energy and constancy which will awaken the sympathy of free men in every country as long as Grecian history endures; the two civil wars, for one of which the Primates were especially blamable; the dishonesty of the government, the rapacity of the military, the indiscipline of the navy; and the assistance given to the revolutionaries by Lord Byron and other English sympathisers. Lord Byron arrived at Mesolonghi on January 5, 1824. His short career in Greece was unconnected with any important military event, for he died on April 19; but the enthusiasm he awakened perhaps served Greece more than his personal exertions would have done had his life been prolonged, because it resulted in the provision of a fleet for the Greek nation by the English and American Philhellenes, commanded by Lord Cochrane.

By the beginning of 1827 the whole of Greece was laid waste, and the sufferings of the agricultural population were terrible. At the same time, the greater part of the Greeks who bore arms against the Turks were fed by Greek committees in Switzerland, France, and Germany; while those in the United States directed their attention to the relief of the peaceful population. It was felt that the intervention of the European powers could alone prevent the extermination of the population or their submission to the sultan. On July 6, 1827, a treaty Between Great Britain, France, and Russia was signed at London to take common measures for the pacification of Greece, to enforce an armistice between the Greeks and the Turks, and, by an armed intervention, to secure to the Greeks virtual independence under the suzerainty of the sultan. The Greeks accepted the armistice, but the Turks refused; and then followed the destruction of the Othoman fleet by the allied squadrons under Admiral Sir Edward Coddrington at Navarino, on October 21, 1827.

In the following April, Russia declared war against Turkey, and the French government, by a protocol, were authorised to dispatch a French army of 14,000 men under the command of General Maison. This force landed at Petalidi, in the Gulf of Coron. Ibrahim Pasha withdrew his army to Egypt, and the French troops occupied the strong places of Greece almost without resistance from the Turkish garrisons.

France thus gained the honour of delivering Greece from the last of her conquerors, and she increased the debt of gratitude due by the Greeks by the admirable conduct of her soldiers, who converted mediæval strongholds into habitable towns, repaired the fortresses, and constructed roads. Count John Capodistrias, a Corfiot noble, who had been elected President of Greece in April 1827 for a period of seven years by the National Assembly of Troezen, arrived in Greece in January 1828. He found the country in a state of anarchy, and at once put a stop to some of the grossest abuses in the army, navy, and financial administration.

_V.--The Greek Monarchy_

The war terminated in 1829, and the Turks finally evacuated continental Greece in September of the same year. The allied powers declared Greece an independent state with a restricted territory, and nominated Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Belgians) to be its sovereign. Prince Leopold accepted the throne on February 11, but resigned it on May 17. Thereafter Capodistrias exercised his functions as president in the most tyrannical fashion, and was assassinated on October 9, 1831; from which date till February 1833 anarchy prevailed in the country.

Agostino Capodistrias, brother of the assassinated president, who had been chosen president by the National Assembly on December 20, 1831, was ejected out of the presidency by the same assembly in April 1832, and Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected King of Greece. Otho, accompanied by a small Bavarian army, landed from an English frigate in Greece at Nauplia on February 6, 1833. He was then only seventeen years of age, and a regency of three Bavarians was appointed to administer the government during his minority, his majority being fixed at June 1, 1835.

The regency issued a decree in August 1833, proclaiming the national Church of Greece independent of the patriarchate and synod of Constantinople and establishing an ecclesiastical synod for the kingdom on the model of that of Russia, but with more freedom of action. In judicial procedure, however, the regency placed themselves above the tribunals. King Otho, who had come of age in 1835, and married a daughter of the Duke of Oldenburg in 1837, became his own prime minister in 1839, and claimed to rule with absolute power. He did not possess ability, experience, energy, or generosity; consequently, he was not respected, obeyed, feared, or loved. The administrative incapacity of King Otho's counsellors disgusted the three protecting powers as much as their arbitrary conduct irritated the Greeks.

A revolution naturally followed. Otho was compelled to abandon absolute power in order to preserve his crown, and in March 1844 he swore obedience to a constitution prepared by the National Assembly, which put an end to the government of alien rulers under which the Greeks had lived for two thousand years. The destinies of the race were now in the hands of the citizens of liberated Greece. But the attempt was unsuccessful. The corruption of the government and the contracted views of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the constitution to his expulsion in 1862 a period of national stagnation. In October 1862 revolt broke out, and on the 23rd a provisional government at Athens issued a proclamation declaring, in his absence, that the reign of King Otho was at an end.

When Otho and his queen returned in a frigate to the Piraeus they were not allowed to land. Otho appealed to the representatives of the powers, who refused to support him against the nation, and he and his queen took refuge on board H.M.S. Scylla, and left Greece for ever.

The National Assembly held in Athens drew up a new constitution, laying the foundations of free municipal institutions, and leaving the nation to elect their sovereign. Then followed the abortive, though almost unanimous, election as king of Prince Alfred of England. Afterwards the British Government offered the crown to the second son of Prince Christian of Holstein-Glücksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously elected King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2, 1864.

* * * * *

J.L. MOTLEY

The Rise of the Dutch Republic

John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was born at
Dorchester, Massachusetts, now part of Boston, on April 15,
1814. After graduating at Harvard University, he proceeded to
Europe, where he studied at the universities of Berlin and
Göttingen. At the latter he became intimate with Bismarck, and
their friendly relations continued throughout life. In 1846
Motley began to collect materials for a history of Holland,
and in 1851 he went to Europe to pursue his investigations.
The result of his labours was "The Rise of the Dutch
Republic--a History," published in 1856. The work was received
with enthusiasm in Europe and America. Its distinguishing
character is its graphic narrative and warm sympathy; and
Froude said of it that it is "as complete as industry and
genius can make it, and a book which will take its place among
the finest stories in this or any language." In 1861 Motley
was appointed American Minister to Austria, where he remained
until 1867; and in 1869 General Grant sent him to represent
the United States in England. Motley died on May 29, 1877, at
the Dorsetshire house of his daughter, near Dorchester.

_I.--Woe to the Heretic_

The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German Ocean to the Ural Mountains is occupied by the countries called the Netherlands. The history of the development of the Netherland nation from the time of the Romans during sixteen centuries is ever marked by one prevailing characteristic, one master passion--the love of liberty, the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and excitable population in Europe.

For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian, Charles V., in turn assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and more determined combat than the world had ever seen.

On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet, what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political liberties.

Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language. In 1548 he had made his first appearance in the Netherlands to receive homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and to exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.

One of the earliest measures of Philip's reign was to re-enact the dread edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop of Arras. The edict set forth that no one should print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places any book or writing by Luther, Calvin, and other heretics reprobated by the Holy Church; nor break, or injure the images of the Holy Virgin or canonised saints; nor in his house hold conventicles, or be present at any such, in which heretics or their adherents taught, baptised, or formed conspiracies, against the Holy Church and the general welfare. Further, all lay persons were forbidden to converse or dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures openly or secretly, or to read, teach, or expound them; or to preach, or to entertain any of the opinions of the heretics.

Disobedience to this edict was to be punished as follows. Men to be executed with the sword, and women to be buried alive if they do not persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they are to be executed with fire, and all their property in both cases is to be confiscated to the crown. Those who failed to betray the suspected were to be liable to the same punishment, as also those who lodged, furnished with food, or favoured anyone suspected of being a heretic. Informers and traitors against suspected persons were to be entitled on conviction to one-half of the property of the accused.

At first, however, the edict was not vigorously carried into effect anywhere. It was openly resisted in Holland; its proclamation was flatly refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. This disobedience was in the meantime tolerated because Philip wanted money to carry on the war between Spain and France which shortly afterwards broke out. At the close of the war, a treaty was entered into between France and Spain by which Philip and Henry II. bound themselves to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate by all means in their power, and to extinguish the increasing heresy in both kingdoms. There was a secret agreement to arrange for the Huguenot chiefs throughout the realms of both, a "Sicilian Vespers" upon the first favourable occasion.

Henry died of a wound received from Montgomery in a tournay held to celebrate the conclusion of the treaty, and Catherine de Medici became Queen-Regent of France, and deferred carrying out the secret plot till St. Bartholomew's Day fourteen years after.

_II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free_

Philip now set about the organisation of the Netherlands provinces. Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was appointed regent, with three boards, a state council, a privy council, and a council of finance, to assist in the government. It soon became evident that the real power of the government was exclusively in the hands of the Consulta--a committee of three members of the state council, by whose deliberation the regent was secretly to be guided on all important occasions; but in reality the conclave consisted of Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards Cardinal Granvelle. Stadtholders were appointed to the different provinces, of whom only Count Egmont for Flanders and William of Orange for Holland need be mentioned.

An assembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain. The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a "request" for three million gold florins "to be spent for the good of the country." He made a violent attack on "the new, reprobate and damnable sects that now infested the country," and commanded the Regent Margaret "accurately and exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the extirpation of all sects and heresies." The Estates of all the provinces agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of the "request," but made it a condition precedent that the foreign troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable burden, should be withdrawn. This enraged the king, but when a presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the foreign soldiers, the king was furious. He, however, dissembled at a later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.

Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip, the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war. As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion, Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors. To sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept in the provinces indefinitely.

Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign soldiery. The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient charters and constitutions. Foremost in resistance was the Prince of Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle. Finally, Granvelle was recalled by Philip. But the Netherlands had now reached a condition of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.

The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support. Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter, dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without delay throughout the Netherlands. By these decrees the heretic was excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation. The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for ever be abolished. Their day was over; the Netherlands were free provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.

The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution constantly at work. Fifty thousand persons were put to death in obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to England. Famine reigned in the land. Then followed the revolt of the confederate nobles and the episode of the "wild beggars." Meantime, during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites. The duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the instant suppression of these assemblies and the arrest of the preachers. This brought the popular revolt to a head.

_III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign_

There were many hundreds of churches in the Netherlands profusely adorned with chapels. Many of them were filled with paintings, all were peopled with statues. Commencing on August 18, 1556, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for plunder, but for destruction.

It began at Antwerp, on the occasion of a great procession, the object of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin. The rabble sacked thirty churches within the city walls, entered the monasteries burned their invaluable libraries, and invaded the nunneries. The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of fiendish Calvinists. The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these transactions was that neither insult nor injury was offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense amount of property was appropriated. Similar scenes were enacted in all the other provinces, with the exception of Limburg, Luxemburg, and Namur.

The ministers of the reformed religion, and the chiefs of the liberal party, all denounced the image-breaking. The Prince of Orange deplored the riots. The leading confederate nobles characterised the insurrection as insensate, and many took severe measures against the ministers and reformers. The regent was beside herself with indignation and terror. Philip, when he heard the news, fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. "It shall cost them dear!" he cried. "I swear it by the soul of my father!"

The religious war, before imminent, became inevitable. The duchess, inspired by terror, proposed to fly to Mons, but was restrained by the counsels of Orange, Horn, and Egmont. On August 25 came the crowning act of what the reformers considered their most complete triumph, and the regent her deepest degradation. It was found necessary, under the alarming aspect of affairs, that liberty of worship, in places where it had been already established, should be accorded to the new religion. Articles of agreement to this effect were drawn up and exchanged between the government and Louis of Nassau and fifteen others of the confederacy.

A corresponding pledge was signed by them, that as long as the regent was true to her engagement they would consider their previously existing league annulled, and would cordially assist in maintaining tranquillity, and supporting the authority of his majesty. The important "Accord" was then duly signed by the duchess. It declared that the Inquisition was abolished, that his majesty would soon issue a new general edict, expressly and unequivocally protecting the nobles against all evil consequences from past transactions, and that public preaching according to the forms of the new religion was to be practised in places where it had already taken place.

Thus, for a fleeting moment, there was a thrill of joy throughout the Netherlands. But it was all a delusion. While the leaders of the people were exerting themselves to suppress the insurrection, and to avert ruin, the secret course pursued by the government, both at Brussels and at Madrid, may be condensed into the formula--dissimulation, procrastination, and, again, dissimulation.

The "Accord" was revoked by the duchess, and peremptory prohibition of all preaching within or without city walls was proclaimed. Further, a new oath of allegiance was demanded from all functionaries. The Prince of Orange spurned the proposition and renounced all his offices, desiring no longer to serve a government whose policy he did not approve, and a king by whom he was suspected. Terrible massacres of Protestant heretics took place in many cities.

_IV.--Alva the Terrible_

It was determined at last that the Netherland heresy should be conquered by force of arms, and an army of 10,000 picked and veteran troops was dispatched from Spain under the Duke of Alva. The Duchess Margaret made no secret of her indignation at being superseded when Alva produced his commission appointing him captain-general, and begging the duchess to co-operate with him in ordering all the cities of the Netherlands to receive the garrisons which he would send them. In September, 1567, the Duke of Alva established a new court for the trial of crimes committed "during the recent period of troubles." It was called the "Council of Troubles," but will be for ever known in history as the "Blood Council." It superseded all other courts and institutions. So well did this new and terrible engine perform its work that in less than three months 1,800 of the highest, the noblest, and the most virtuous men in the land, including Count Egmont and Admiral Horn, suffered death. Further than that, the whole country became a charnal-house; columns and stakes in every street, the doorposts of private houses, the fences in the fields were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, beheaded. Within a few months after the arrival of Alva the spirit of the nation seemed hopelessly broken.

The Duchess of Parma, who had demanded her release from the odious position of a cipher in a land where she had so lately been sovereign, at last obtained it, and took her departure in December for Parma, thus finally closing her eventful career in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alva took up his position as governor-general, and amongst his first works was the erection of the celebrated citadel of Antwerp, not to protect, but to control the commercial capital of the provinces.

Events marched swiftly. On February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted; and a proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.

The Prince of Orange at last threw down the gauntlet, and published a reply to the active condemnation which had been pronounced against him in default of appearance before the Blood Council. It would, he said, be both death and degradation to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the infamous "Council of Blood," and he scorned to plead before he knew not what base knaves, not fit to be the valets of his companions and himself.

Preparations were at once made to levy troops and wage war against Philip's forces in the Netherlands. Then followed the long, ghastly struggle between the armies raised by the Prince of Orange and his brother, Count Louis of Nassau, who lost his life mysteriously at the battle of Mons, and those of Alva and the other governors-general who succeeded him--Don Louis de Requesens, the "Grand Commander," Don John of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The records of butcheries and martyrdoms, including those during the sack and burning of Antwerp by the mutinous Spanish soldiery, are only relieved by the heroic exploits of the patriotic armies and burghers in the memorable defences of Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmaar, and Mons. At one time it seemed that the Prince of Orange and his forces were about to secure a complete triumph; but the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris brought depression to the patriotic army and corresponding spirit to the Spanish armies, and the gleam faded. The most extraordinary feature of Alva's civil administration were his fiscal decrees, which imposed taxes that utterly destroyed the trade and manufactures of the country.

There were endless negotiations inspired by the States-General, the German Emperor, and the governments of France and England to secure peace and a settlement of the Netherlands affairs, but these, owing mostly to insincere diplomacy, were ineffective.

_V.--The Union of the Provinces_

In the meantime, the union of Holland and Zealand had been accomplished, with the Prince of Orange as sovereign. The representatives of various provinces thereafter met with deputies from Holland and Zealand in Utrecht in January, 1579, and agreed to a treaty of union which was ever after regarded as the foundation of the Netherlands Republic. The contracting provinces agreed to remain eternally united, while each was to retain its particular privileges, liberties, customs, and laws. All the provinces were to unite to defend each other with life, goods, and blood against all forces brought against them in the king's name, and against all foreign potentates. The treaty also provided for religious peace and toleration. The Union of Utrecht was the foundation of the Netherlands Republic, which lasted two centuries.

For two years there were a series of desultory military operations and abortive negotiations for peace, including an attempt--which failed--to purchase the Prince of Orange. The assembly of the united provinces met at The Hague on July 26, 1581, and solemnly declared their independence of Philip and renounced their allegiance for ever. This act, however, left the country divided into three portions--the Walloon or reconciled provinces; the united provinces under Anjou; and the northern provinces under Orange.

Early in February, 1582, the Duke of Anjou arrived in the Netherlands from England with a considerable train. The articles of the treaty under which he was elected sovereign as Duke of Brabant made as stringent and as sensible a constitutional compact as could be desired by any Netherland patriot. Taken in connection with the ancient charters, which they expressly upheld, they left to the new sovereign no vestige of arbitrary power. He was the hereditary president of a representative republic.

The Duke of Anjou, however, became discontented with his position. Many nobles of high rank came from France to pay their homage to him, and in the beginning of January, 1583, he entered into a conspiracy with them to take possession, with his own troops, of the principal cities in Flanders. He reserved to himself the capture of Antwerp, and concentrated several thousands of French troops at Borgehout, a village close to the walls of Antwerp. A night attack was treacherously made on the city, but the burghers rapidly flew to arms, and in an hour the whole of the force which Anjou had sent to accomplish his base design was either dead or captured. The enterprise, which came to be known as the "French Fury," was an absolute and disgraceful failure, and the duke fled to Berghem, where he established a camp. Negotiations for reconciliation were entered into with the Duke of Anjou, who, however, left for Paris in June, never again to return to the Netherlands.

_VI.--The Assassination of William of Orange_

The Princess Charlotte having died on May 5, 1582, the Prince of Orange was married for the fourth time on April 21, 1583, on this occasion to Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny. In the summer of 1584 the prince and princess took up their residence at Delft, where Frederick Henry, afterwards the celebrated stadtholder, was born to them. During the previous two years no fewer than five distinct attempts to assassinate the prince had been made, and all of them with the privity of the Spanish government or at the direct instigation of King Philip or the Duke of Parma.

A sixth and successful attempt was now to be made. On Sunday morning, July 8, the Prince of Orange received news of the death of Anjou. The courier who brought the despatches was admitted to the prince's bedroom. He called himself Francis Guion, the son of a martyred Calvinist, but he was in reality Balthazar Gérard, a fanatical Catholic who had for years formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange. The interview was so entirely unexpected that Gérard had come unarmed, and had formed no plans for escape. He pleaded to the officer on duty in the prince's house that he wanted to attend divine service in the church opposite, but that his attire was too shabby and travel-stained, and that, without new shoes and stockings, he was unfit to join the congregation. Having heard this, the prince ordered instantly a sum of money to be given to him. With this fund Gérard the following day bought a pair of pistols and ammunition. On Tuesday, July 10, the prince, his wife, family, and the burgomaster of Leewarden dined as usual, at mid-day. At two o'clock the company rose from table, the prince leading the way, intending to pass to his private apartments upstairs. He had reached the second stair when Gérard, who had obtained admission to the house on the plea that he wanted a passport, emerged from a sunken arch and, standing within a foot or two of the prince, discharged a pistol at his heart. He was carried to a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he died in the arms of his wife and sister.

The murderer succeeded in making his escape through a side door, and sped swiftly towards the ramparts, where a horse was waiting for him at the moat, but was followed and captured by several pages and halberdiers. He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed himself and his deed. Afterwards he was subjected to excruciating tortures, and executed on July 14 with execrable barbarity. The reward promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange was paid to the father and mother of Gérard. The excellent parents were ennobled and enriched by the crime of their son, but, instead of receiving the 25,000 crowns promised in the ban issued by Philip in 1580 at the instigation of Cardinal Granvelle, they were granted three seignories in the Franche Comté, and took their place at once among the landed aristocracy.

The prince was entombed on August 3 at Delft amid the tears of a whole nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffected and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being. William the Silent had gone through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. The people were grateful and affectionate, for they trusted the character of their "Father William," and not all the clouds which calumny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind to which they were accustomed in their darkest calamities to look for light.

The life and labours of Orange had established the emancipated commonwealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered hopeless the union of all the Netherlands at that time into one republic.

* * * * *

History of the United Netherlands

"The History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609," published
between 1860 and 1867, is the continuation of the "Rise of the
Dutch republic"; the narrative of the stubborn struggle
carried on after the assassination of William the Silent until
the twelve years' truce of 1609 recognised in effect, though
not in form, that a new independent nation was established on
the northern shore of Western Europe--a nation which for a
century to come was to hold rank as first or second of the sea
powers. While the great Alexander of Parma lived to lead the
Spanish armies, even Philip II. could not quite destroy the
possibility of his ultimate victory. When Parma was gone, we
can see now that the issue of the struggle was no longer in
doubt, although in its closing years Maurice of Nassau found a
worthy antagonist in the Italian Spinola.

_I.--After the Death of William_

William the Silent, Prince of Orange, had been murdered on July 10, 1584. It was natural that for an instant there should be a feeling as of absolute and helpless paralysis. The Estates had now to choose between absolute submission to Spain, the chance of French or English support, and fighting it out alone. They resolved at once to fight it out, but to seek French support, in spite of the fact that Francis of Anjou, now dead, had betrayed them. For the German Protestants were of no use, and they did not expect vigorous aid from Elizabeth. But France herself was on the verge of a division into three, between the incompetent Henry III. on the throne, Henry of Guise of the Catholic League, and Henry of Navarre, heir apparent and head of the Huguenots.

The Estates offered the sovereignty of the Netherlands to Henry; he dallied with them, but finally rejected the offer. Meanwhile, there was an increased tendency to a rapprochement with England; but Elizabeth had excellent reasons for being quite resolved not to accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands. In France, matters came to a head in March 1585, when the offer of the Estates was rejected. Henry III. found himself forced into the hands of the League, and Navarre was declared to be barred from the succession as a heretic, in July.