Part 11 (1/2)

As soon as hostilities were resumed, in 1621, it became apparent that Philip IV would not support Belgium any more energetically than his father had done. Spinola, who had the whole responsibility of the defence of the country after the death of Archduke Albert (1621), succeeded in taking Breda (1625). With the Spanish general's disgrace, owing to a court intrigue, the armies of the United Provinces were once more successful in consolidating their situation in Northern Brabant and Limburg, which they considered as the bulwarks of their independence. Frederick Henry of Na.s.sau, who had succeeded his brother in the command of the Republic's armies, took Bois-le-Duc in 1629, and Venloo, Ruremonde and Maestricht in 1632. He was supported, in these last operations, by Louis XIII, who, prompted by Richelieu, took this opportunity of humiliating the Hapsburg dynasty. The Spanish commander, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, proved so inefficient that some Belgian patriots tried to take matters into their own hands and to deliver their country from a foreign domination which was so fatal to its interests. It soon became clear, however, that any step taken against Spain would deliver Belgium into the hands of either the French or the Dutch. A first ill-considered and hasty attempt was made by Henry, Count of Bergh, and Rene de Renesse, who opened secret negotiations at The Hague with some Dutch statesmen and the French amba.s.sador. On June 18th they attempted a rising at Liege, but were obliged to take refuge in the United Provinces. A more serious conspiracy was entered into, almost at the same time, by Count Egmont and Prince d'Epinoy, who, with some followers, formed a Walloon League. Their aim was to drive the Spaniards out of the country with the help of the French and to found a ”Belgian Federative and Independent State.” On being denounced to the Government, the conspirators were obliged to take flight before their plans had matured.

[_THE STATES GENERAL_]

The fall of Maestricht had induced Isabella to a.s.semble once more the States General. After thirty-two years' silence, the latter put forward the same grievances concerning the restoration of old privileges and the defence of the country by native troops, together with new complaints referring to the recent Spanish administration. The people had become so restless that the Marquis of Santa Cruz and Cardinal de La Cueva, the representative of Philip IV in the Low Countries, were obliged to fly from Brussels. Under pressure of public opinion, Isabella allowed the States General to send a deputation to The Hague to negotiate peace (September 17, 1632). The deputies left the town amid great rejoicings. With undaunted optimism, the Belgians hoped that where the Spanish armies had failed their representatives would be successful, and that the new negotiations would bring them at last peace and independence, for they realized that they could not obtain one without the other. According to a contemporary, they believed that they saw ”the dawn of the day of peace and tranquillity after such a long and black night of evil war.” But they had reckoned without the exigencies of the Dutch, whose policy was even then to secure their own safety, independence and prosperity by drastically sacrificing the interests of the Southern provinces. The delegates were met with the proposal of establis.h.i.+ng in Belgium a Catholic Federative Republic at the price of heavy territorial concessions both to Holland and to the French. They could obtain independence, but on such conditions that they would never have been able to defend it.

The following year (1633), after the death of Isabella, Philip IV recalled the Belgian delegates. He dissolved the States General a few months later (1634). From this time to the end of the eighteenth century, during the Brabanconne revolution, the representatives of the Belgian people were no longer consulted and had no share in the central Government of Belgium.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TWELVE YEARS' TRUCE

The truce of 1609-21 was used by the Government and the people to restore as far as possible the economic prosperity of the Catholic Netherlands. The relative success with which these efforts were crowned shows that some energy was left in the country, in spite of the blockade imposed on her trade and of the emigration of some of her most prominent sons to the United Provinces. It is a common mistake to presume that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, all economic and intellectual life left the Southern provinces and was absorbed by the Northern. The contrast was indeed striking between the young republic which was becoming the first maritime Power in Europe and the mother-country from which it had been torn, and which had ceased to occupy a prominent rank in European affairs. A medal was struck, in 1587, showing, on one side, symbols of want and misery, applied to the Catholic Netherlands, and, on the other, symbols of riches and prosperity, applied to the Northern Netherlands, whilst the inscriptions made it clear that these were the punishment of the impious and the reward of the faithful. But a careful study of the period would show that her most valuable treasure, the stubborn energy of her people, did not desert Belgium during this critical period, and that in a remarkably short time she succeeded in rebuilding her home, or at least those parts of it which she was allowed to repair.

At the end of the sixteenth century the situation, especially in Flanders and Brabant, was pitiful. The dikes were pierced, the polders were flooded and by far the greater part of the cultivated area left fallow. The amount of unclaimed land was so large in Flanders that the first new-comer was allowed to till it. Wild beasts had invaded the country, and only a mile from Ghent travellers were attacked by wolves.

Bands of robbers infested the land, and in 1599 an order was issued to fell all the woods along roads and ca.n.a.ls, in order to render travelling more secure. In Brabant, many villages had lost more than half their houses, the mills were destroyed and the flocks scattered.

The conditions in several of the towns were still worse. At Ghent the famine was so acute among the poor that they even ate the garbage thrown in the streets. The population of Antwerp, from 100,000 in the fifteenth century, had fallen to 56,948 in 1645. Lille, on account of its industry, and Brussels, owing to the presence of the court, were the only centres which succeeded in maintaining their prosperity. The excesses of the foreign garrisons, often ill-paid and living on the population, added still further to the misery. The English traveller Overbury, who visited the seventeen provinces at the beginning of the truce, declared that, as soon as he had pa.s.sed the frontier, he found ”a Province distressed with Warre; the people heartlesse, and rather repining against their Governours, then revengefull against the Enemies, the bravery of that Gentrie which was left, and the Industry of the Merchant quite decayed; the Husbandman labouring only to live, without desire to be rich to another's use; the Townes (whatsoever concerned not the strength of them) ruinous; And to conclude, the people here growing poore with lesse taxes, then they flourish with on the States side.”

[_BLOCKADE_]

The truce had declared the re-establishment of commercial liberty, but the blockade of the coast remained as stringent as ever. Flus.h.i.+ng, Middleburg and Amsterdam had inherited the transit trade of Antwerp, now completely abandoned by foreign merchants. In 1609 only two Genoese and one merchant from Lucca remained in the place, while the last Portuguese and English were taking their departure. The Exchange was now so completely deserted that, in 1648, it was used as a library. The docks were only frequented by a few Dutch boats which brought their cargo of corn and took away manufactured articles. Any foreign boat laden for Antwerp was obliged to discharge its cargo in Zeeland, the Dutch merchant fleet monopolizing the trade of the Scheldt.

The Belgians could not alter this situation themselves. They could only appeal to Spanish help, and Spain was neither in a situation nor in a mood to help them. Most of its naval forces had been destroyed during the Armada adventure, and neither the few galleys brought by Spinola to Sluis, before the taking of this town by Maurice of Na.s.sau (1604), nor the privateers from Dunkirk were able to do more than hara.s.s Dutch trade. With the defeat of the reorganized Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs, the last hope of seeing the Dutch blockade raised vanished. Not only was the Lower Scheldt firmly held, but enemy s.h.i.+ps cruised permanently outside Ostend, Nieuport and Dunkirk. The attempts made by the Government to counter these measures by the closing of the land frontier were equally doomed to failure, since the Dutch did not depend in any way on their Belgian market, while the Belgians needed the corn imported from the Northern provinces. The extraordinary indifference of the Spanish kings to the trade of their Northern possessions is made evident by the fact that, while the treaty of 1609 allowed the Dutch to trade with the Indies, it was only thirty-one years later that the Belgians received the same permission.

Thwarted in this direction, the activity of the people and of the Government concentrated on industry and agriculture. Dikes were rebuilt, marshes drained and cattle brought into the country. Though trade had been ruined, the raw material remained. The region of Valenciennes, Tournai and Lille was the first to recover. The wool which could no longer come through Antwerp was imported from Rouen, a staple being fixed at St. Omer. In 1597 an enthusiastic contemporary compared Lille to a small Antwerp. The Walloon provinces had been less severely tried, and the coal industry, as well as the foundries, in the Meuse valley soon recovered their former activity. Tapestry-making was also resumed in Oudenarde and Brussels, copper-working in Malines, dyeing in Antwerp and linen-weaving in the Flemish country districts.

But the economic upheaval caused by the civil wars had given the death-blow to the decaying town industries, paralysed by the regime of the corporations. The coppersmiths of Dinant and Namur were now completely ruined, and the cloth industry in Ghent had become so insignificant that, in 1613, the cloth hall of the town was ceded to the society of the ”Fencers of St. Michael.” Rural industry and capitalist organization, which had made such strides at the beginning of the sixteenth century, had now definitely superseded mediaeval inst.i.tutions.

It was on the same lines that the new industries which developed in the country at the time were organized by their promoters. The manufacture of silk stuffs started in Antwerp, while the State attempted the cultivation of mulberry-trees to provide raw material. Similar attention was devoted by Albert and Isabella to lace-making, which produced one of the most important articles of export. Gla.s.s furnaces were established in Ghent, Liege and Hainault, paper-works in Huy, the manufacture of iron cauldrons began in Liege, and soap factories and distilleries were set up in other places.

[_NEW Ca.n.a.lS_]

The solicitude of the central Government was not limited to industry.

Roads and ca.n.a.ls were repaired all over the country and new important public works were undertaken. Though the project of a Rhine-Scheldt Ca.n.a.l, favoured by Isabella, had to be given up owing to Dutch opposition, the ca.n.a.ls from Bruges to Ghent (1614), from Bruges to Ostend (1624-66) and from Bruges to Ypres (1635-39) were completed at this time. Navigation on the Dendre was also improved, and it was in 1656 that the project was made to connect Brussels with the province of Hainault by a waterway. This plan was only realized a century later.

The conditions prevailing in the Catholic Low Countries during the first part of the seventeenth century were, therefore, on the whole, favourable. With regard to world trade and foreign politics the country was entirely paralysed, but the activity of the people and the solicitude of the sovereigns succeeded in realizing the economic restoration of the country as far as this restoration depended upon them. The real economic decadence of Belgium did not occur on the date of the separation, but fifty years later, during the second half of the seventeenth century, when its exports were reduced by the protective tariffs of France, when the Thirty Years' War ruined the German market and when Spain remained the only country open for its produce.

[_SOCIAL LIFE_]

This relative prosperity extended beyond the twelve years of the truce.

For, even when hostilities were resumed, they did not deeply affect the life of the nation, most of the operations being limited to the frontier. Some Belgian historians have drawn a very flattering picture of this period and extolled the personal qualities of Albert and Isabella. We must, however, realize that, in spite of the archduke's good intentions, the promises made at the peace of Arras were not kept, that the States General were only twice a.s.sembled and that all the political guarantees obtained by the patriots from Farnese were disregarded. Spanish garrisons remained in the country and the representatives of the people had no control over the expenditure. In fact, Belgium was nearer to having an absolutist monarchical regime than it had ever been before. The Council of State was only a.s.sembled to conciliate the n.o.bility, whose loyalty was still further encouraged by the granting of honours, such as that of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and entrusting to them missions to foreign countries. The upper bourgeoisie, on the other hand, were largely permitted to enter the ranks of the n.o.bility by receiving t.i.tles. From 1602 to 1638 no less than forty-one estates were raised to the rank of counties, marquisates and princ.i.p.alities, and a contemporary writer complains that ”as many n.o.bles are made now in one year as formerly in a hundred.” It was among these new n.o.bles, or would-be n.o.bles, who const.i.tuted a cla.s.s very similar to that of the English gentry of the same period, that the State recruited the officers of its army and many officials, whose loyalty was, of course, ensured.

No opposition was likely from the ranks of the clergy. The new bishoprics founded by Philip II had been reconst.i.tuted and the bishops selected by the king exercised strict discipline in their dioceses.

Besides, all religious orders were now united by the necessity of opposing a common front to the attacks of the Protestants, and they felt that the fate of the religion was intimately bound up with that of the dynasty. The principle of the Divine right of Kings was opposed to the doctrine of the right of the people to choose their monarch propounded by the Monarchomaques, and Roman Catholics were, by then, attached to the monarchy just as Calvinists were attached to the Republic. The experiences of the last century prevented any return to the situation existing under Charles V, when, on certain questions, the clergy were inclined to side with the people against the prince. The close alliance of Church and State had now become an accomplished fact, and was destined to influence Belgian politics right up to modern times. The loyalty of the people was even stimulated by this alliance, the work of public charity being more and more taken from the communal authorities to be monopolized by the clergy. Attendance at church and, for children, at catechism and Sunday school was encouraged by benevolence, the distribution of prizes and small favours, while religious slackness or any revolutionary tendency implied a loss of all similar advantages. Here, again, the skilful propaganda against heresy const.i.tuted a powerful weapon in the hands of the State. It must, in all fairness, be added that charity contributed greatly to relieve the misery so widespread during the first years of the century, and that the people were genuinely grateful to such orders as the Recollets and the Capuchins, who resumed the work undertaken with such enthusiasm by the Minor Orders in the previous centuries. They visited the prisoners and the sick, sheltered the insane and the dest.i.tute, and even undertook such public duties as those of firemen. These efforts soon succeeded in obliterating the last traces of Calvinist and republican tendencies, which had never succeeded in affecting the bulk of the population.

As a modern sovereign, bent on increasing the power of the State, Archduke Albert resented the encroachments of the clergy, as Charles V had done before him. But he was as powerless to extricate himself from the circ.u.mstances which identified the interests of his internal policy with those of the Church, as to liberate himself from the severe restrictions with which the Spanish regime paralysed his initiative in foreign matters.

CHAPTER XIX

RUBENS