History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 38 (2/2)
Thus by the hand of the common executioner perished these two unfortunate n.o.blemen, who, by their rank, possessions, and personal characters, were the most ill.u.s.trious victims that could have been selected in the Netherlands. Both had early enjoyed the favor of Charles the Fifth, and both had been intrusted by Philip with some of the highest offices in the state. Philip de Montmorency, Count Hoorne, the elder of the two, came of the ancient house of Montmorency in France.
Besides filling the high post of Admiral of the Low Countries, he was made governor of the provinces of Gueldres and Zutphen, was a councillor of state, and was created by the emperor a knight of the Golden Fleece.
His fortune was greatly inferior to that of Count Egmont; yet its confiscation afforded a supply by no means unwelcome to the needy exchequer of the duke of Alva.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF EGMONT.]
However nearly on a footing they might be in many respects, Hoorne was altogether eclipsed by his friend in military renown. Lamoral, Count Egmont, inherited through his mother, the most beautiful woman of her time,[1175] the t.i.tle of prince of Gavre,--a place on the Scheldt, not far from Ghent. He preferred, however, the more modest t.i.tle of count of Egmont, which came to him by the father's side, from ancestors who had reigned over the duchy of Gueldres. The uncommon promise which he early gave served, with his high position, to recommend him to the notice of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, in 1544, honored by his presence Egmont's nuptials with Sabina, countess-palatine of Bavaria. In 1546, when scarcely twenty-four years of age, he was admitted to the order of the Golden Fleece,--and, by a singular coincidence, on the same day on which that dignity was bestowed on the man destined to become his mortal foe, the duke of Alva.[1176] Philip, on his accession, raised him to the dignity of a councillor of state, and made him governor of the important provinces of Artois and Flanders.
But every other t.i.tle to distinction faded away before that derived from those two victories, which left the deepest stain on the French arms that they had received since the defeat at Pavia. ”I have seen,” said the French amba.s.sador, who witnessed the execution of Egmont, ”I have seen the head of that man fall who twice caused France to tremble.”[1177]
Yet the fame won by his success was probably unfortunate for Egmont. For this, the fruit of impetuous valor and of a brilliant _coup-de-main_, was very different from the success of a long campaign, implying genius and great military science in the commander. Yet the _eclat_ it gave was enough to turn the head of a man less presumptuous than Egmont. It placed him at once on the most conspicuous eminence in the country; compelling him, in some sort, to take a position above his capacity to maintain. When the troubles broke out, Egmont was found side by side with Orange, in the van of the malecontents. He was urged to this rather by generous sensibility to the wrongs of his countrymen, than by any settled principle of action. Thus acting from impulse, he did not, like William, calculate the consequences of his conduct. When those consequences came, he was not prepared to meet them; he was like some unskilful necromancer, who has neither the wit to lay the storm which he has raised, nor the hardihood to brave it. He was acted on by contrary influences. In opposition to the popular movement came his strong feeling of loyalty, and his stronger devotion to the Roman Catholic faith. His personal vanity cooperated with these; for Egmont was too much of a courtier willingly to dispense with the smiles of royalty.
Thus the opposite forces by which he was impelled served to neutralize each other. Instead of moving on a decided one of conduct, like his friend, William of Orange, he appeared weak and vacillating. He hesitated where he should have acted. And as the storm thickened, he even retraced his steps, and threw himself on the mercy of the monarch whom he had offended. William better understood the character of his master,--and that of the minister who was to execute his decrees.[1178]
Still, with all his deficiencies, there was much both in the personal qualities of Egmont and in his exploits to challenge admiration. ”I knew him,” says Brantome, ”both in France and in Spain, and never did I meet with a n.o.bleman of higher breeding, or more gracious in his manners.”[1179] With an address so winning, a heart so generous, and with so brilliant a reputation, it is not wonderful that Egmont should have been the pride of his court and the idol of his countrymen. In their idolatry they could not comprehend that Alva's persecution should not have been prompted by a keener feeling than a sense of public duty or obedience to his sovereign. They industriously sought in the earlier history of the rival chiefs the motives for personal pique. On Alva's first visit to the Netherlands, Egmont, then a young man, was said to have won of him a considerable sum at play. The ill-will thus raised in Alva's mind was heightened by Egmont's superiority over him at a shooting-match, which the people, regarding as a sort of national triumph, hailed with an exultation that greatly increased the mortification of the duke.[1180] But what filled up the measure of his jealousy was his rival's military renown; for the Fabian policy which directed Alva's campaigns, however it established his claims to the reputation of a great commander, was by no means favorable to those brilliant feats of arms which have such attraction for the mult.i.tude. So intense, indeed, was the feeling of hatred, it was said, in Alva's bosom, that, on the day of his rival's execution, he posted himself behind a lattice of the very building in which Egmont had been confined, that he might feast his eyes with the sight of his mortal agony.[1181]
The friends of Alva give a very different view of his conduct. According to them, an illness under which he labored, at the close of Egmont's trial, was occasioned by his distress of mind at the task imposed on him by the king. He had written more than once to the court of Castile, to request some mitigation of Egmont's sentence, but was answered, that ”this would have been easy to grant, if the offence had been against the king; but against the faith, it was impossible.”[1182] It was even said that the duke was so much moved, that he was seen to shed tears as big as peas on the day of the execution![1183]
[Sidenote: CONDUCT OF ALVA.]
I must confess, I have never seen any account that would warrant a belief in the report that Alva witnessed in person the execution of his prisoners. Nor, on the other hand, have I met with any letter of his deprecating the severity of their sentence, or advising a mitigation of their punishment. This, indeed, would be directly opposed to his policy, openly avowed. The reader may, perhaps, recall the homely simile by which he recommended to the queen-mother, at Bayonne, to strike at the great n.o.bles in preference to the commoners. ”One salmon,” he said, ”was worth ten thousand frogs.”[1184] Soon after Egmont's arrest, some of the burghers of Brussels waited on him to ask why it had been made. The duke bluntly told them, ”When he had got together his troops, he would let them know.”[1185] Everything shows that, in his method of proceeding in regard to the two lords, he had acted on a preconcerted plan, in the arrangement of which he had taken his full part. In a letter to Philip, written soon after the execution, he speaks with complacency of having carried out the royal views in respect to the great offenders.[1186] In another, he notices the sensation caused by the death of Egmont; and ”the greater the sensation,” he adds, ”the greater will be the benefit to be derived from it.”[1187]--There is little in all this of compunction for the act, or of compa.s.sion for its victims.
The truth seems to be, that Alva was a man of an arrogant nature, an inflexible will, and of the most narrow and limited views. His doctrine of implicit obedience went as far as that of Philip himself. In enforcing it, he disdained the milder methods of argument or conciliation. It was on force, brute force alone, that he relied. He was bred a soldier, early accustomed to the stern discipline of the camp.
The only law he recognized was martial law; his only argument, the sword. No agent could have been fitter to execute the designs of a despotic prince. His hard, impa.s.sible nature was not to be influenced by those affections which sometimes turn the most obdurate from their purpose. As little did he know of fear; nor could danger deter him from carrying out his work. The hatred he excited in the Netherlands was such, that, as he was warned, it was not safe for him to go out after dark. Placards were posted up in Brussels menacing his life if he persisted in the prosecution of Egmont.[1188] He held such menaces as light as he did the entreaties of the countess, or the arguments of her counsel. Far from being moved by personal considerations, no power could turn him from that narrow path which he professed to regard as the path of duty. He went surely, though it might be slowly, towards the mark, crus.h.i.+ng by his iron will every obstacle that lay in his track. We shudder at the contemplation of such a character, relieved by scarcely a single touch of humanity. Yet we must admit there is something which challenges our admiration in the stern, uncompromising manner, without fear or favor, with which a man of this indomitable temper carries his plans into execution.
It would not be fair to omit, in this connection, some pa.s.sages from Alva's correspondence, which suggest the idea that he was not wholly insensible to feelings of compa.s.sion,--when they did not interfere with the performance of his task. In a letter to the king, dated the ninth of June, four days only after the death of the two n.o.bles, the duke says: ”Your majesty will understand the regret I feel at seeing these poor lords brought to such an end, and myself obliged to bring them to it.[1189] But I have not shrunk from doing what is for your majesty's service. Indeed, they and their accomplices have been the cause of very great present evil, and one which will endanger the souls of many for years to come. The Countess Egmont's condition fills me with the greatest pity, burdened as she is with a family of eleven children, none old enough to take care of themselves;--and she too a lady of so distinguished rank, sister of the count-palatine, and of so virtuous, truly Catholic, and exemplary life.[1190] There is no man in the country who does not grieve for her! I cannot but commend her,” he concludes, ”as I do now, very humbly, to the good grace of your majesty, beseeching you to call to mind that if the count, her husband, came to trouble at the close of his days, he formerly rendered great service to the state.”[1191] The reflection, it must be owned, came somewhat late.
In another letter to Philip, though of the same date, Alva recommends the king to summon the countess and her children to Spain; where her daughters might take the veil, and her sons be properly educated. ”I do not believe,” he adds, ”that there is so unfortunate a family in the whole world. I am not sure that the countess has the means of procuring a supper this very evening!”[1192]
Philip, in answer to these letters, showed that he was not disposed to shrink from his own share of responsibility for the proceedings of his general. The duke, he said, had only done what justice and his duty demanded.[1193] He could have wished that the state of things had warranted a different result; nor could he help feeling deeply that measures like those to which he had been forced should have been necessary in his reign. ”But,” continued the king, ”no man has a right to shrink from his duty.[1194]--I am well pleased,” he concludes, ”to learn that the two lords made so good and Catholic an end. As to what you recommend in regard to the countess of Egmont and her eleven children, I shall give all proper heed to it.”[1195]
[Sidenote: FATE OF EGMONT'S FAMILY.]
The condition of the countess might well have moved the hardest heart to pity. Denied all access to her husband, she had been unable to afford him that consolation which he so much needed during his long and dreary confinement. Yet she had not been idle; and, as we have seen, she was unwearied in her efforts to excite a sympathy in his behalf. Neither did she rely only on the aid which this world can give; and few nights pa.s.sed during her lord's imprisonment in which she and her daughters might not be seen making their pious pilgrimages, barefooted, to the different churches of Brussels, to invoke the blessing of Heaven on their labors. She had been supported through this trying time by a reliance on the success of her endeavors, in which she was confirmed by the encouragement she received from the highest quarters. It is not necessary to give credit to the report of a brutal jest attributed to the duke of Alva, who, on the day preceding the execution, was said to have told the countess ”to be of good cheer; for her husband would leave the prison on the morrow!”[1196] There is more reason to believe that the Emperor Maximilian, shortly before the close of the trial, sent a gentleman with a kind letter to the countess, testifying the interest he took in her affairs, and a.s.suring her she had nothing to fear on account of her husband.[1197] On the very morning of Egmont's execution, she was herself, we are told, paying a visit of condolence to the countess of Aremberg, whose husband had lately fallen in the battle of Heyligerlee; and at her friend's house the poor lady is said to have received the first tidings of the fate of her lord.[1198]
The blow fell the heavier, that she was so ill prepared for it. On the same day she found herself, not only a widow, but a beggar,--with a family of orphan children in vain looking up to her for the common necessaries of life.[1199] In her extremity, she resolved to apply to the king himself. She found an apology for it in the necessity of transmitting to Philip her husband's letter to him, which, it seems, had been intrusted to her care.[1200] She apologizes for not sooner sending this last and most humble pet.i.tion of her deceased lord, by the extreme wretchedness of her situation, abandoned, as she is, by all, far from kindred and country.[1201] She trusts in his majesty's benignity and compa.s.sion[1202] to aid her sons by receiving them into his service when they shall be of sufficient age. This will oblige her, during the remainder of her sad days, and her children after her, to pray G.o.d for the long and happy life of his majesty.[1203]--It must have given another pang to the heart of the widowed countess, to have been thus forced to solicit aid from the very hand that had smitten her. But it was the mother pleading for her children.
Yet Philip, notwithstanding his a.s.surances to the duke of Alva, showed no alacrity in relieving the wants of the countess. On the first of September the duke again wrote, to urge the necessity of her case, declaring that, if it had not been for a ”small sum that he had himself sent, she and the children would have perished of hunger!”[1204]
The misfortunes of this n.o.ble lady excited commiseration not only at home, but in other countries of Europe, and especially in Germany, the land of her birth.[1205] Her brother, the elector of Bavaria, wrote to Philip, to urge the rest.i.tution of her husband's estates to his family.
Other German princes preferred the same request, which was moreover formally made by the emperor, through his amba.s.sador at Madrid. Philip coolly replied, that ”the time for this had not yet come.”[1206] A moderate pension, meanwhile, was annually paid by Alva to the countess of Egmont, who survived her husband ten years,--not long enough to see her children established in possession of their patrimony.[1207] Shortly before her death, her eldest son, then grown to man's estate, chafing under the sense of injustice to himself and his family, took part in the war against the Spaniards. Philip, who may perhaps have felt some compunction for the ungenerous requital he had made for the father's services, not only forgave this act of disloyalty in the son, but three years later allowed the young man to resume his allegiance, and placed him in full possession of the honors and estates of his ancestors.[1208]
Alva, as we have seen, in his letters to Philip, had dwelt on the important effects of Egmont's execution. He did not exaggerate these effects. But he sorely mistook the nature of them. Abroad, the elector of Bavaria at once threw his whole weight into the scale of Orange and the party of reform.[1209] Others of the German princes followed his example; and Maximilian's amba.s.sador at Madrid informed Philip that the execution of the two n.o.bles, by the indignation it had caused throughout Germany, had wonderfully served the designs of the prince of Orange.[1210]
[Sidenote: SENTIMENT OF THE PEOPLE.]
At home the effects were not less striking. The death of these two ill.u.s.trious men, following so close upon the preceding executions, spread a deep gloom over the country. Men became possessed with the idea that the reign of blood was to be perpetual.[1211] All confidence was destroyed, even that confidence which naturally exists between parent and child, between brother and brother.[1212] The foreign merchant caught somewhat of this general distrust, and refused to send his commodities to a country where they were exposed to confiscation.[1213]
Yet among the inhabitants indignation was greater than even fear or sorrow;[1214] and the Flemings who had taken part in the prosecution of Egmont trembled before the wrath of an avenging people.[1215] Such were the effects produced by the execution of men whom the nation reverenced as martyrs in the cause of freedom. Alva notices these consequences in his letters to the king. But though he could discern the signs of the times, he little dreamed of the extent of the troubles they portended.
”The people of this country,” he writes, ”are of so easy a temper, that, when your majesty shall think fit to grant them a general pardon, your clemency, I trust, will make them as prompt to render you their obedience as they are now reluctant to do it.”[1216]--The haughty soldier, in his contempt for the peaceful habits of a burgher population, comprehended as little as his master the true character of the men of the Netherlands.
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