CHAPTER IVPHILIP'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 thefallen 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 clothwith 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 firstcandles 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."
CHAPTER VTHE KNIGHT-ERRANT
AS the Prince of Orange returned to his palace he passed a mansion which defied the stormy night with light and music, and from the great doors, which emitted rays of rose and gold on to the bitter rain, a band of young cavaliers came forth, mounted, and turned their several ways, with joyous farewells to each other.
William recognized the persons and voices of several—Brederode, Hoogstraaten, Culemburg, Nicolas de Hammes, commonly called Golden Fleece, and his own brother Louis, who was newly come to Brussels.
The Prince reined up his wet and steaming horse and waited for the Count, who bared his head to the rain at sight of his brother.
"From the Council?" he asked, as he brought his horse long-side his brother.
"Yes," said William briefly, and neither spoke again as, bending before the weather, they made their way to the Nassau palace.
For once the Prince did not appear at the almost public table he kept, but dined alone with Louis in his private apartments.
The princely chamber was warmly lit by the yellow glow of fair wax candles; the gay tapestries, the heavy furniture gleamed with gold; among the crystal and lace of the dining-table gold shone too, and in the brocade of the chairs and in the great heart of the fire burningbehind the sparkling brass and irons on the wide brick hearth.
In the magnificence of their persons the two young men were worthy of the gorgeous setting. The tawny velvet and violet silk of the Prince's attire was drawn and purfled with gold, the triple ruff that framed his dark face as high as the close waves of hair above the small ears was edged with gold lace, gold flashed again in the chain which was twisted in heavy links round and round his neck.
Louis wore black satin cut over yellow velvet and a falling ruff of Malines lace; his fair and charming face was as fresh as a flower, his eyes flashed as brightly as any gold in the room, and the ruby clasps fastening his doublet rose and fell with his eager and impatient breaths.
William usually ate with a hearty appetite, and enjoyed the luxurious pleasure of a richly set meal; but to-night he let the courses pass almost untouched, and broke the pieces upon his plate and left them.
Neither did he speak much, though it was not his habit to be taciturn. After he had given his brother a brief account of the momentous Council he was silent.
But Louis glowed with swift anger and boundless enthusiasm.
"We have not been idle," he declared. "The festivities, the weddings of Parma and Montigny, have been a fair pretext for our meetings. We have already a league among ourselves."
"I know something of that," answered William. "It will be as dangerous a matter as Egmont's livery."
"Do you bid me hold back—now?" cried Louis impetuously.
"I bid no man hold back," replied the Prince quietly. "Who are with you in this design?"
"Brederode, Ste Aldegonde, Culemburg, Hoogstraaten, de Hammes, Montigny—all the younger nobility——"
"Montigny!" said William softly, "and he has just taken a wife."
"Is she not a beautiful creature?" answered Louis. "Half of those who jousted before her would have given half their rents to win Hélène d'Espinoy. Montigny loves his wife," he added, in a lower voice. "Did you not notice it at the jousts?"
"I hope he will not go to Madrid," remarked William. "I hear that he and Berghen think of undertaking an embassy to Philip."
"Egmont—will he not go again?" asked Louis.
"No—he is still sore at the success of his last mission."
The Prince rose and crossed to the hearth, resting his elbow against the chimney-side and his face in his hand.
Louis, still seated at the table, glanced at his brother wistfully.
"You take my news coldly," he said in a tone of disappointment. "I thought that you would be rejoiced to hear that there was this league to protect the rights of the nobles and the liberties of the people."
"It was no news to me," answered William. "I knew your designs. You are all young and ardent and reckless—God keep you all."
Louis bit his lip and drank the last drop of yellow wine that lay like liquid amber in his sparkling crystal glass.
"We do what we can," he said, with great emotion, "and none but a coward would do less at such a time as this."
William was silent; his face was turned away from his brother and his shoulders drooped a little.
The young Count flushed all over his sensitive face at what he thought the Prince's disapproval.
He rose and stood before the brilliant disorder of the dining-table in the attitude of a man justifying himself.
His ardent gaiety had gone; he was passionately grave, passionately in earnest.
"If Your Highness will not support me in what I do, I must go on alone. I too am one of these doomed people, I too am a heretic. I am one of those whom theChurch and Philip have thrice cursed, thrice damned; and every poor artisan whose flesh smokes above the market-place, and every wandering preacher who is tortured to death, is my brother in God. I cannot speak of these things without tears. We may tourney and dance and feast, but the nation is bleeding to death from a thousand wounds, and I cannot go on in my own easy safety——"
"It is not your country, Louis, nor your quarrel."
"Yes, it is my quarrel," returned the young Count eagerly, "because I too am a heretic. This cause I espouse, to this quarrel I devote myself."
"You are knight-errant," said the Prince.
Louis flushed again.
"No, I am nothing but a poor soldier, as which I shall live and die."
William suddenly moved so as to face him.
"How far will you go?" he demanded.
"As far as any."
"Would you take up arms against the King?"
"With all my heart and, I think, God's blessing," answered the young man gravely. "If Egmont should lead a rising against the King——"
"Egmont!" said William quickly. "Egmont never will—Egmont is a good Catholic. Egmont is loyal to Philip."
"Even now?"
"Even now—he is not the man of this moment."
"Brederode will lead us, then," replied Louis.
"Brederode is reckless, imprudent——"
"He is popular, loyal, brave. Then there is Ste Aldegonde——"
"Another fiery spirit—a poet, too!"
"Culemburg, then De Hammes."
"Too low in rank—you yourself are better suited than any of these."
Louis replied soberly—
"If I am called, I am willing to serve—to the death."
"I know," said William, "I know."
Louis stood doubtful, distressed, his brown fingers pulling nervously at the edge of the fine tablecloth.
"Would you not be willing for me to take this charge upon myself?" he asked earnestly and imploringly.
The Prince did not reply; his face seemed drained of blood beneath the brown skin, his dark eyes were black with the dilation of the pupils.
"And you, you?" urged Louis. "What will you do? Bow the neck to Philip?"
He moved away from the table, crushing his hands together.
William turned now and spoke; he made an effort with his words. Choosing them carefully, arranging them exactly, often faltering in the endeavour to force his wide and far-reaching thoughts into speech; in all he said was great patience, great sincerity, great gentleness.
"You must not think me cold. Indeed I am not cold. I know Spain and Philip better than you—better than your friends. I know his power, his resources, his persistency—above all his power! 'Tis the King of half the world. And now he has spoken, he will not go back from his word. Do you think the Regent will long serve his turn? Before this present crisis she will fail utterly. A dull woman. Philip will send Alva and an army—the finest army in the world, Louis. It was Alva who advised this stern decree. I know that—a great soldier, the Duke of Alva, a loyal Catholic—he will come. Nothing will stop Philip now. No laws, no charters, no promises—he has condemned to death the Netherlands, and he will not fail to send the executioner."
Louis listened intently, one hand pressing the ruby buttons on his breast, his eyes eagerly on his brother's face.
"I have been like a watchman over this land since King Henry spoke to me in Vincennes wood. I have seen havoc and ruin and desolation coming nearer and nearer," continued the Prince mournfully; "I see it very near now.I see this country overwhelmed as if the dikes had been cut down and the sea were rushing in—a flood no man can withstand—and do you think I wish to see all I love dash forward vainly, to be swept away by the first wave of this deluge? Ah, Louis," he added, in a tone of anguish, "what is your defiance against Philip's might—what are all the gentlemen of Flanders against Alva's army? But a stone in the way to be flung aside and forgotten."
"Are we, then, to submit?" asked Louis in a low voice.
The Prince took a restless turn about the room.
"Philip is not to be defeated by knight-errantry, but by subtle ways, like to his own—by policy, by patience, by long years of endeavour and waiting. He is not to be met openly in the field, but snared in secret places."
"Meanwhile, we shall grow old and palsied," cried Louis, "and all the hot blood in us will go for nothing."
"You see the glory of the combat, I see the anguish of the defeat," said William slowly. "You remember the skryer in Leipsic? How he saw the future in the crystal—and the end, all blood and blackness? To me too it seems like that—darkness ahead and death—the sacrifice of all our house."
"Speak words of good import," cried the Count. "Why should God utterly forsake us? Will He not set high the standard of the good cause?"
William looked at him thoughtfully.
"Yea, if one gave all one had, if one suffered and waited, if one sacrificed—all—for what one dared to think the right, perhaps God might help one—God! But doth He help, or rather leave us to depend on our own poor energies?"
Louis was startled by the emotion in his brother's voice, by the look of his pallid face on which the dews of anguish had started.
"What do you mean? What will you do?"
"I do not know," said William. "I do not know. I say I see it all dark ahead—last night the stars were red and flashing through the blackness of hideous clouds, andmethought it needed no great fancy to believe these tales of spectral battalions who nightly combat in the skies and rain blood upon the earth. Two days ago at Leyden the sentries felt warm blood upon their hands and heard the shouts of battle overhead."
Louis shuddered.
"At Utrecht and Haarlem they saw armed men fighting in the air," he answered; "one told the very pattern of the flint-locks and the manner of caps they wore."
"I would consult my skryer," smiled William sadly, "but the strange rogue has left me on the sudden. And we need no skryer to warn us of what is before us, and no portents in the air to prepare us."
"And I, what must I do?" asked Louis, with a noble and winning deference to the other.
"Wait," replied the Prince. "Wait—persuade the others to do so too. Put no other check upon yourselves but prudence—be secret, take only those on whom you can rely into your League—watch Ste Aldegonde, Brederode, and de Hammes; they are too reckless—do not trust Charles Mansfeld—rely on Hoogstraaten and Culemburg——Ah, what can I say!" He passionately caught the young Count by the shoulders. "I leave it to your own heart, your own judgment; but remember that you will be needed, do not fling yourself away."
"Princely brother," answered Louis, and the tears stood in his eyes, "I am always at your service, and only ask leave to die at your feet."
William kissed him on the brow, then releasing him, drew from the gilded pocket that hung at his own waist a curious iron ring set with a large opal the colour of milk, and holding blood and fire in the heart.
"Wear this," said the Prince. "It is an Eastern talisman which shall protect you from evil."
Louis slipped it on his signet finger.
"When another than myself brings you this, you will know that I am dead," he smiled.
"God grant that I may never see it save on your hand!" exclaimed the Prince. "And now I give you leave to go—you are due at Hoogstraaten's supper?"
"Yes; will you not come?"
"Not to-night—my duty to all. Until to-morrow, adieu."
They touched hands again, and each looked at the other with a certain wistfulness, as if their hearts were full of a yearning affection they did not dare express.
When Louis had gone William returned to the fire, which was falling into ashes at the edges.
Of all the conversation with his brother one phrase suddenly leapt to his mind unbidden; he seemed to read it in the dying heart of the flame—
"Montigny loves his wife."
The four words gave the Prince a strange pang in the remembrance; he crossed the room and looked at a little painting of Anna van Buren, the first Princess of Orange, which hung on the opposite wall.
The pale prim face, her gentle eyes, her drooping mouth, the very dress she wore, and the jewel round her neck which he had given—he recalled her so clearly—even as she was painted now—yet how remote she was; she had made no impression on his life, and he never thought of her now save as he might think of some playmate of his youth—for they had been married at seventeen, and she had died almost before he had reached full manhood; but she had been to him what the wives of most great nobles were to their husbands—a little more than the wives of Hoorne and Brederode were to them, a little less than Egmont's wife was to him. In the misery and humiliation of his present marriage he could recall her gratefully.
But love—"Montignyloveshis wife"—the words came again to him like the echo in a shell held to the ear, and sounded sadly in the loneliness of the Prince's heart. "If a man had great difficulties and a hard and toilsometask, a loving wife would be a marvellous comfort," he thought. Then he laughed at his own fancies. "A man must not depend on women. There are things to be done in which no woman can help."
He went to the window, opened the shutters and looked out upon the storm.
The rain had ceased, and the bitter winds were tearing the black clouds apart and hurling them across the heavens; the curled thread of the new moon glimpsed here and there amid the vapours like a frail barque amid the wreckage of a hideous sea.
The fair fields of Brabant and the proud gay town of Brussels were blotted out in the darkness, but a faint strain of melody rose fitfully on the winds: it was the carillon from some hidden clock tower.
William of Orange stood silent, holding the window casement open with either hand and listening to the storm that for him held the sound of gathering armies, the tramp of feet, the galloping of horses, the flapping of banners straining at their poles—the coming of great multitudes onrushing in the agony and the exultation of supreme conflict.
CHAPTER VITHE EDICTS
Throughout the Netherlands the Inquisition was again formally and officially proclaimed; it was answered by a cry of passionate wrath and hate, and bitter despair and agony, intense enough to have reached Philip in the cells of the Escorial.
Foreign merchants and workers fled, houses of business were shut up, shops closed, banks ruined; commerce—nay, the ordinary business of life—was almost suspended; whole districts emigrated, abandoning their work and their property. In a short time famine threatened, riots broke out, and the daily barbarous executions were scenes of frantic rage on the part of the maddened population which the officers of the Crown sometimes found it difficult or impossible to repress; more than once the victims were rescued from the very stake.
Brabant hotly protested that the introduction of the Inquisition was illegal and expressly against the distinct provisions of "the joyous entry," and the four principal cities came forward with a petition to Margaret which she could not ignore. The matter was referred to the Council of Brabant; even the creatures of the Government had to admit that no ecclesiastical tribunal had ever been allowed jurisdiction in Brabant, and the great province was declared free of the Inquisition—with the result that it was soon overcrowded with desperate refugees from all other parts of the ravaged Netherlands.
Pasquils, lampoons, open letters issued by the thousandfrom the secret presses, and every morning saw fresh ones pasted on the gates of the great nobles in Brussels. Egmont and Orange, as the most powerful and most popular nobles, were passionately called upon to come forward and protect the country.
Nor did these people—middle-class artisans, weavers, tanners, dyers, printers, carvers, merchants, shop-keepers, farmers, all the great mass of the population, the industrious, sober, quiet men who were slowly building up the prosperity of the country—lack for generous championship, even from those nobles who were Catholics.
Baron Montigny, in the first flush of his joyous marriage, the Marquis Berghen, who had always been unflinching in his refusal to acknowledge the Inquisition, the younger Mansfeld, refused to enforce the Edicts within their provinces.
Egmont lent his authority to the work of persecution in Flanders, but Orange declined to support the Inquisition within his Stadtholderships.
Meanwhile Louis of Nassau was consolidating the famous Compromise or League of which he and Ste Aldegonde had laid the foundations during their meeting at Spa, and which had been joined by a considerable number of the younger nobility; while Hoorne and Orange, Hoogstraaten and Montigny, had been jousting in the lists at theChâteaud'Antoine before the beautiful bride, Hélène d'Espinoy, Louis and Ste Aldegonde were going from tent to tent, from cavalier to cavalier, laughing, jesting, and secretly obtaining promises of signatures to the Compromise, which consisted of a vow to resist "the tyranny of foreigners, and especially the Holy Inquisition, as contrary to all laws human and divine, and the mother of all iniquity and disorder."
By early in the new year, the energies of Louis and Ste Aldegonde, both of whom had been active during the extravagant marriage feasts of the proud ParmaPrince, had secured over two thousand signatures from the younger nobility.
The great nobles and Stadtholders they did not attempt to approach; the secret Compromise, being so zealously passed from one eager young hand to another, was scarcely a document anyone in authority could sign.
But Montigny and Berghen knew of the League, and were prepared to protect the members; the Prince of Orange, if he did not openly encourage, at least made no effort to check the ardent labours of his brother.
The full details of the scheme, nor the heights of daring to which the covenanters had gone, were not disclosed to him; Louis feared the disapproval of the Prince's wise patience, and the other young nobles were even doubtful as to which side His Highness would ultimately espouse, so delicately did his discretion hold the balance, so completely was every one in the dark as to his final intentions.
On the very day of the Parma wedding, while the princely couple were being united with the full magnificence of the rites of the Catholic Church, twenty gentlemen of the Reformed Faith gathered in the house of Count Culemburg on the horse market and listened to the preaching of a famous Huguenot, Francis Junius, the pastor of a secret congregation at Antwerp. This man, young, brave, eloquent, already in hiding, combined with Louis of Nassau to draw up a petition or protest to the Government on the ever-important subject of the Edicts.
So came in the first stormy months of the year 1566.
The price of grain rose to hitherto unheard-of figures, for the ground was untilled, the harvests unsown; all business with foreign lands was at a standstill, for no stranger would venture into a country which lay under such a ban, nor trust their goods in Dutch ports. Industry was paralysed; the great busy cities, formerly some of the finest and busiest in the world, were silent, deserted, and desolate under the monstrous tyranny which had overwhelmed them.
The Inquisitors-General, De Bay and Tiletanus, had received personal letters of encouragement from the King; Peter Titelmann too received the Royal praise; and the three continued their work of horror and terror, agony and blood.
Towards the beginning of the year Berghen resigned his posts, pleading his inability to obey His Majesty in the matter of religion; Meghem soon followed his example; Egmont lamented that he had not resigned all his offices when in Spain—"As he would have done," he declared, "had he known what His Majesty's intentions were."
He, however, maintained his official position, and continued to behave with severity against the heretics in Flanders; so he vacillated, pleasing neither the nobles nor the Regent, neither of whom dared rely on him.
William addressed a letter of remonstrance and protest to the Duchess, plainly avowing his views, pointing to the state of the land, and condemning the policy of the King.
Margaret, in despair, wrote to Philip, putting all these things before him, and beseeching him to reconsider the decision with regard to the Inquisition.
Philip did not answer, and William of Orange, who did not lack spies in Madrid, knew why: the King was preparing the levies with which Alva was to try his hand at bringing the rebellious Netherlands to subjection.
But if Philip was making busy preparations in secret, William was not inactive; still hoping by calm and patience to avert the worst of the disaster that still threatened—the arrival, namely, of Alva's army—he summoned a meeting of the nobles and grandees at Breda, and in a series of conferences, disguised as hunting parties, endeavoured to bring all to concur in some reasonable petition to be presented to the Regent, the main scope of which was to be an appeal for the convocation of the States-General.
But this project was too daring for the loyal nobles and too quiet for the leaguers; the conferences endedwith no result, save that of sending Meghem, alarmed and disgusted by the violence of the younger nobles, definitely over to the side of the Government.
Indeed, soon after Meghem announced to Margaret his discovery of a widespread conspiracy among the heretics, who were ready, he declared, to the number of thirty-five thousand armed men to march against Brussels, and he placed before the Regent a copy of the Compromise.
These extravagant statements were supported by Egmont, who declared that there were great tumults preparing among the heretics, and that the Government must act without delay.
The alarm of the Regent was intense and was scarcely soothed by the Prince of Orange's calm recital of the sober truth—namely, that a great number of nobles and gentlemen were coming to Brussels to lay a petition or request at the feet of the Regent.
Meeting after meeting of councillors, of grandees, of Knights of the Golden Fleece, were now held, while the question was hotly argued whether or no the covenanters were to be suffered to present their petition—the Prince of Orange claiming that they were entitled to all respect; Meghem, Aremberg, and Barlaymont insisting that the palace doors should be closed in their faces. The case grew so desperate that the Duchess proposed to fly to Mons, and was only with difficulty persuaded to hold her post.
As to the petitioners, it was decided they should be admitted, but unarmed; the guards at the city gates being strengthened to prevent any armed followers gaining the entrance to the city.
Brussels ran mad with joy at this concession; it was almost as if the Inquisition had been abolished.
Margaret of Parma, sick with agitation and dread, shut herself up in her chamber and wept by the hour together. To her brother she wrote that the time had now come to either use force or withdraw the Inquisitionand the Edicts. Philip, intent on gathering together Alva's army, kept his sister in an agony of suspense, and neither let her know that her successor was already preparing to take her place, nor that he had finally decided to crush the Netherlands under the weight of the secular sword, since the spiritual authority of the Inquisition had failed.
All through the tumultuous, anxious days, March sweetening into April, Rénèe le Meung watched the comings and goings of the Prince from the window of her high little chamber.
Early in the morning she would be awake and watching till the hour when he rode forth. Well she came to know that early view of Brussels wrapt in the blue haze of morning with the gleam of the faint spring sun on the twin towers of Ste Gudule; well did she come to know the figure of the man she watched for, his way of sitting the saddle, the trick of throwing his cloak, the fashion of touching up his horse as he passed the gates.
Sometimes he did not come before she was called to her duties, and the vigil would have been in vain; sometimes she was not able to get back to her post before he returned; but there was hardly a day passed that she did not contrive to see him once—if it was only that distant glimpse.
She had not spoken to him since he had caught the pigeon for her, and her days were now entirely occupied with Anne, whose melancholy and fury daily increased. Since Duprès and all appertaining to him had left the palace, the Princess hated Rénèe with a bitter, cowering hate that sometimes cringed and sometimes threatened and sometimes railed, and at all times made life a torment for the waiting-woman—a torment which was only endurable because of those moments when she could escape to her room, and perhaps also because of some inner and consoling conviction that she was standing at the post of duty, and that perhaps in the great events, the terrible events so rapidly shaping, she too might take a not unworthy part.
The very spring itself seemed sad that year; the green on the trees, the violets and daffodils in the Prince's gardens brought no joyousness with them; the low winds were laden with melancholy; the long pale days, the chill nights, the cloudless sunsets, the cold dawns held no comfort nor cheer.
In Rénèe's mind, as in the mind of every other man and woman of the Netherlands, was the thought of the fires in the market-places, of the daily hideous executions, of the cries of agony and despair, bereavement and madness rising from every town, from every village; of the exiles fleeing to England, carrying with them their skill, their knowledge, which was the wealth of the nation; of broken fields and unsown harvests, of children starving and lamenting in the streets. She thought of the great, magnificent churches all over the land, where every day costly and solemn ritual was performed, and where in the grave, rich gloom of sanctified beauty, gorgeous music, gorgeous vestures, the loveliness of art, the splendour of texture, marble, silk, tapestry, coloured glass, crystal, gold, jewels were all dedicated to the service of the God to Whom were sent up the flames of the living torches which lit the market-place, to Whom was offered the blood of maids and boys, mothers and children who had no sin beyond their steadfastness to the Truth as they believed it.
"And still He makes no sign," thought Rénèe. "And still He sends none—angel nor man—to smite and deliver."
When the first days of April came, she saw the Confederates, headed by Brederode and Count Louis, go past the Orange palace on their entry into Brussels; the two leaders halted with the Prince, who was entertaining them, and Rénèe, leaning from the window, heard Brederode say as he crossed the courtyard, "Eh, well, here I am, and perhaps I shall depart in another manner."
The splendour of the Nassau mansion was no longer what it had been, though it was still magnificent. Richly appointed tables no longer stood ready for all comers at all hours of the day and night; the great number of servantswas reduced; there were fewer balls, concerts, and feasts; the Prince bought no more tapestries, pictures, statues, rare books, nor costly plants; the jewel and the silk merchants no longer waited every morning in his antechamber, nor were vast sums any longer expended on hawks and hounds.
But for these two guests a generous welcome was prepared, and William himself met them on the stairs, kissing each on either cheek.
Rénèe crept back to Anne, who sat among her German women, lamenting, complaining against her husband, against the Netherlands, against her own miserable fate.
The child played at her knee, but she regarded it with utter indifference. Rénèe picked up the little girl and carried her away; the sound of the Princess's voice travelled across the apartments.
"Am I to be ruined for a parcel of heretics? Curse the day of my birth, curse my marriage day!"