CHAPTER VIITHE PETITION
The third day of April, which dawned over Brussels fair as refined silver, found Rénèe at her post, leaning from her narrow window, its harsh stone frame serving as a sombre setting for her face, so unconsciously beautiful and so sadly serene.
She saw the Prince ride away with his gentlemen; the long green cloak in which he was wrapped could not quite conceal the glitter of the Order of the Golden Fleece flaming on his breast.
Rénèe knew that he was going to attend the Regent in Council, for this was the day that the Confederates or Covenanters, as they were severally named, were to present their Petition to Madame Parma; and to-day, instead of going downstairs to her duties beside Anne, Rénèe put on a hood and cloak of black cloth over her white linen whimple and her dark yellow gown, and went from the palace and out through the great gates into the street.
She allowed herself this much advantage from the secret hold she had over Anne—this one day's holiday; the night before she had told her mistress of her intention, and Anne had said nothing.
It was strange to be in the streets after the long confinement in the palace and the palace gardens; it was strange to be one of the people, amidst the ordinary life of a great city, after having been so long merely part of the machinery of a princely establishment.
Rénèe received a sense of energy, of hope, of courage in thus finding herself free and one of the crowd. She wished she could learn some trade or art by which she could earn her own living; but she was too old to be taken as an apprentice, and even were she not, she had not sufficient money to keep herself while she acquired it, nor one friend or relation to whom she could appeal to help her.
No, there was no means of life open to Rénèe but the one she was following, especially in these times of ruin and panic, when so many people were out of work, and those who had money were clutching it tight.
But she was not one to be daunted even by hopeless difficulties; she asked so little of life, cared so little when it ended, that if she had been considering only herself she would have left Anne's service and tried to find another great lady to take her, or have gone as a servant into some Protestant family. But she stayed with Anne because to wait on his wife, to control her, to soften her furies, to check her excesses, was the sole poor unknown service she could render the man for whom she would have gladly done anything.
And now that she knew Anne's sordid and shameful secret, she had a power, an influence over her such as none other possessed, and could restrain her and bring her to some reason when all else had failed. The Prince might entreat his wife to appear on some state occasion, and she would rudely refuse; but when Rénèe insisted, she would suffer herself to be attired and go.
So with a sigh Rénèe relinquished her fleeting dreams of freedom and a sane, wholesome life among her own people.
As she moved further into the city she felt with overmastering pain how lonely she was, how unutterably lonely; all the companies she passed—women together, families, men with their wives and sisters—emphasized the terrible feeling of her loneliness.
If it had not been for Philip and the Holy Inquisition, herlife would not have been broken, her heart seared; she would have been as one of these; she would have had parents, money, position, friends, probably a lover—in a word, happiness.
Then she remembered that she was only one of thousands left desolate—perhaps more desolate than she was; fifty thousand, she had heard, had died under the Inquisition and the Edicts, and how many aching, maddened hearts had each of these deaths left behind? Rénèe felt rebuked in her complaint of her loneliness; she shuddered as she went down the hill to the church of Ste Gudule—shuddered though the spring breezes were soft and the spring sun warm.
On the steps of the church she paused and looked down at the city lying in the hollow of the hills, all the spires and vanes of the Town Hall and the palace, of the various guilds in the market-place rising delicate and erect into the pale and pure sky, while on all the irregular tumbled-looking roofs and gables the sun changed lead to gold and casement glass to diamonds.
She turned, lifted the heavy curtain at the low door in the greater door, and entered the church whose twin towers she had watched so constantly that they had come to mean to her the Papist power which dominated the land.
She had not been in a Romish church since she was a child and had crept into the great church of St. Baron at Ghent. She had not meant to enter this now, but a fascinated sense of horror drew her on—horror because she could not regard this faith with toleration; it stood to her for an epitome of idolatry, cruelty, wickedness, oppression, and uncharitableness.
She was not a Protestant by chance; her whole nature detested the Church of Rome. She stepped forward into the gloom, pulling her hood further over her eyes.
At first she could distinguish nothing but the seven thickwax candles burning on the altar and the red lamps flickering their eternal light before the shrines.
Then from the mystical shadows began to loom the shapes of pillars, massive, yet so dimly coloured as to seem impalpable, as if they were beneath the sea; brocades, marbles, altars set with jasper, silver, and chrysolite became visible in the side chapels, here and there the rapt faces of angels showed from some dark painting on the wall, the air was redolent of the incense, the wax smoke, and the scent of flowers. This mingled perfume was near as ancient as the church, which had remained for so long enclosed from the light and air that it seemed as if built underground.
Such light as there was streamed richly from the coloured glass windows where saints and bishops blazed together in wheels and panels of glory.
Rénèe fixed her eyes on the High Altar which was flushed with a shadow like golden-red wine, in the middle of which the flat, gold, ruby-studded doors of the shrine that held the Eucharist flashed and shone like the Eye of God itself. Beyond, the pillars and arches of the Lady Chapel rose up dim, and appearing of a translucent quality in the shade which here, flushed with the light from gold-coloured windows, was sea-green and amber behind the crimson of the altar.
Round the huge candlesticks of dark red Florentine copper were alabaster bowls, almost transparent, veined with violet, which held the first lilies of the year in sweet clusters—the lilies from wood and field called Easter lilies from the time of their coming.
The church was empty save for here and there the dark bent figure of a peasant before some side altar.
Rénèe could not bring herself to bend the knee before the idols her father had perished to disown, and, with a trembling in her limbs as if some physical power had seized her and a choking in her throat as if the sweet thick air was poisonous, she turned and fled quickly into the pale sunshine without.
The excited people were already beginning to gather to watch the passing of the petitioners on their way to the palace.
Rénèe did not know which way the procession was to pass, and she was largely ignorant of the city, but she followed the direction in which the great mass of the crowd was going.
She particularly noticed this crowd and its demeanour, the soberness, the earnestness, the silence of these people.
None of them seemed to be treating the occasion as a festival or as a holiday, if they showed a certain satisfaction it was grave and serious; very few of them were armed, and all of them were restrained in gestures and speech.
There were some gentry, on foot and on horse, but the great number were burghers, traders, and apprentices belonging to the seven great guilds of Brussels.
Rénèe following in the wake of this crowd climbed the hill again, left the towers of Ste Gudule below, and came out on the heights above the town where stood the parks and mansions of the great nobles, and the Brabant palace which was the residence of the Regent.
As she passed the palace Rénèe caught sight of the spare figure and excited face of the skryer Duprès, as he pushed his way through the crowd.
Rénèe was disgusted to think the man was still in Brussels; she had hoped that he would find it wise to leave the Netherlands, or at least the town; but probably he had given up his dangerous occupation of rhetoric player and, with the spoils of the Nassau mansion, had established himself as a respectable Papist.
Now a great movement shook the crowd, a low hum rose from the throats of the men, and the women began to tiptoe excitedly and to lift their little children to their shoulders.
Rénèe was at the back and could see nothing, but twomen who had a point of vantage on the steps of a mansion near by gravely helped her up beside them.
One asked her if she was a Fleming?
"My father was hanged for a heretic in Ghent," answered Rénèe, "and I am in the service of the Prince of Orange."
It gave her pleasure to mention the Prince and not his wife; and it was trulyhisservice in which she was.
The two men took off their caps to her.
"The Spaniards will not hang many more Netherlanders," one remarked; and they supported Rénèe against the balustrade of the steps so that she could see over the heads of the closely packed people.
Suddenly the humming changed into a clapping of hands and a deep shouting that made Rénèe's blood tingle with excitement and deep emotion; she pushed back the hood from her flushed face and gazed at the procession which now appeared marching up the street and turning in at the splendid gates of the palace.
All were on foot and unarmed, all were nobles, many of the highest rank, and all were young and gorgeously attired, so that it was a magnificent procession, such as all the great festivals of Brussels had not seen before, which now wound under the portals of the Brabant palace.
"He who goes first," said the man next to Rénèe, "is Philip de Billeuel."
"And some think it an ill augury that he should be lame," remarked the other doubtfully.
Rénèe had indeed remarked that the young nobleman who led the petitioners halted unmistakably.
"And he in the black and blue," added her informant, straining his voice to make it heard above the clapping and the shouting—"with the look of fire, who is answering the cries of the people—is Nicolas de Hammes whom they call Golden Fleece, and he behind in the sable cloak is Ste Aldegonde——"
Rénèe had already recognized these two as well as several others whom she had seen at the Nassau palace, and as the rich and brilliant company of gentlemen passed before her, there were several of the eager, proud, young faces she knew as related to some of the noblest families of the land.
The enthusiasm of the crowd became almost piteous in its eager gratitude to these nobles who were making themselves the champions of the people and protesting so openly and in such an imposing fashion against the loathed Spaniards and the loathed Inquisition.
Encouraging shouts, adjurations, blessings, and thanks were showered on the petitioners, and some of the more reckless, as Golden Fleece and Ste Aldegonde, replied by shouting curses on the Inquisition and the Cardinalists. Rénèe recognized Count Culemburg and Count van der Berg, the Prince of Orange's brother-in-law, glittering in French brocades and Genoese velvet and great chains about their necks and round their hats.
Finally, closing the procession, came the two leaders—Henry Brederode and Louis of Nassau.
They walked alone, arm in arm, the last of all, and for them the affectionate greetings of the crowd arose to a frenzy.
Count Brederode looked fitted to be the hero of such a moment: his tall and noble figure, his military carriage, his handsome face flushed with pleasure and triumph, his eyes sparkling with a reckless fire, the full locks of blond hair streaming on to his falling ruff, gave him the kingly presence of a leader of men.
He wore a suit of rose cloth of silver, and a great mantle of peacock-coloured velvet; in his high black hat was a long heron's feather clasped by a diamond.
Beside his grandeur Louis of Nassau looked very slight and youthful; he was more soberly dressed in dark blood red, with a great ruff of many points rising up above his face.
And whereas Brederode appeared mightily at his ease and greatly pleased with his task and his reception, Louis held himself more modestly and looked grave and even anxious; but there was about him a gallantry almost moving.
And so the last of them went into the palace, and the crowd broke up and stayed about in groups, talking eagerly together in excited voices while they waited for the reappearance of the petitioners.
Rénèe wandered into a side street and entered a baker's shop which was filled with tired women and children.
The waiting-woman bought bread and cake and a kind of sweetmeat, and while she ate she listened to the conversation that flowed round her like many currents of the one river.
For the theme was always the same: the executions, the torturings, the ruin falling on trade and work.
And all spoke soberly without laughter or jest, and many had eyes swollen and frayed from weeping.
One only was unconcerned: a small child who stood in a world of his own, oblivious to the talk of death and ruin crossing above his head, while his eyes were fixed with an eager smiling look on the piece of sweetmeat Rénèe held.
She found something marvellous and yet terrible in this utter absorption of the child in his own thoughts, in his calm, and his pleasure.
She put the sweet into his hand and left the shop.
For more than an hour she wandered about the streets, and, when she made her way back to the Brabant palace, the petitioners were beginning to leave.
Reports of their audience, that had been passed from soldiers and servants within the palace to those without, were already rife among the crowd and eagerly repeated from one to the other.
The Regent had wept when Brederode had made his speech, the tears had run down her face while the famousCompromise was read, and when all the members of the deputation had come forward, one by one, to make the "caroale" before the Duchess as a mark of respect, and she had thus had time to severally note their appointments, their importance, and their number, her agitation had increased so that Barlaymont had tried to reassure her: "What, Madame," he had said, "do you fear these beggars, who do not know enough to manage their own estates and then must needs prate of state affairs? Had I my way they should leave the palace quicker than they came!" This the Cardinalist was reported to have uttered loudly enough to reach the ears of some of the gentlemen, who repeated it among themselves with wrath and indignation.
Rénèe waited until the Prince came from the palace; he rode out of the gates with Egmont, looking unhappy and troubled, at his side. The two grandees were greeted less warmly than the confederates. As neither had openly sided with the people, and as Egmont, at least, was a strict Catholic and something of a persecutor, they were not so popular as they had been in the days when they caused the downfall of Cardinal Granvelle.
Rénèe stood in the roadway, where the passing of the Prince cast dust on her gown; she had one glimpse of his dark ardent face and he was gone.
Suddenly she felt very tired; the strangeness, the unnaturalness of her life, without home or ties, without friends or interests or diversions, and always supervised by a dull and ceaseless tyranny, weighed on her with the horror of tragedy. And this deep concealed passion, this strong faith, this devotion that lit this dreary life like a beacon on a desert was not in the nature of comfort, nay, rather it was a light that lit up dullness, dreariness, and barrenness which darkness would have mercifully concealed.
Had not all the suppressed feeling in her breast turned to this worship, she might have been happier, for shewould not have known so keenly what she lacked; as it was she knew not even the peace of apathy.
Clouds were gathering over the April sky as she returned to the palace; every one talked of the Petition and what success it was likely to have; the streets were all filled with murmurs of hope, of doubt, of eagerness, and of expectation.
CHAPTER VIIITHE BANQUET
Twice more in the ensuing days did Brederode and his following present themselves at the Brabant palace, the first time to receive the Petition which was returned to them with Margaret's answer.
Madame Parma, as usual, referred everything to the King; the Petition should be forwarded to His Majesty, from whose well-known clemency there was everything to be hoped.
As for herself, she had no authority to suspend the Inquisition nor the Edicts, but she would give orders to the Inquisitors to behave with discretion; meanwhile she adjured the petitioners to act as men loyal to King and Church.
Brederode's third audience was for the purpose of answering this not very satisfactory concession; he urged the Regent to cease all religious persecution until the decision of the King arrived, to which Her Highness replied she could not go beyond her former answer, but that Count Hoogstraaten should show them the instructions to the Inquisitors, commanding them to moderation.
There was nothing more to be obtained from Madame Parma, and the confederates separated with such hopes as they were able to cherish, and such expectations of the good results of Margaret's letter to the King as their knowledge of Philip allowed them to entertain.
The evening of the day that Brederode had been for the last time to the Brabant palace, the Prince of Orangewas dining with Mansfeld, who was sick with an inflamed eye; his companions were Egmont and Hoorne, and the four nobles discussed with gloom and foreboding the situation which Brederode and his fellow-petitioners had taken with such reckless gaiety.
Egmont was the most uneasy of all; the memory of his late visit to Spain and how deftly Philip had twisted him to his will still rankled in his mind. He had seen that the King had not kept one of the lavish promises he had then made, yet the Count, though conscious of being fooled (he had utterly refused to go again to Madrid), yet could not wholly disbelieve in Philip nor bring himself to any action that might seem disloyal to His Majesty.
He had refused to associate himself in any way with Brederode's party, and he was one of the few Stadtholders who obeyed Philip by using his civil authority to enforce the decrees of the Inquisition.
Yet he saw as well as any man the utter ruin to which Philip's policy was bringing the Netherlands; his Brussels palace was full of refugee heretics, and he was still regarded by the people as their hero and their possible champion.
He even ventured now to predict possible concession as the result of the forwarding of the Request or Petition to Philip.
William glanced at him with smiling eyes in a manner that brought the blood to Egmont's cheek.
"You speak against your own wit," remarked the Prince quietly. "Youknowthat the King will not be moved from his purpose by the Petition of these young men, led by such as Brederode."
"It were better for all," interposed Count Hoorne sourly, "if Brederode had kept out of politics."
"Politics?" smiled William. "Poor Brederode knows little of politics! But he is brave and loyal, Count; I can conceive good uses for Brederode."
"His present uses," said Egmont bitterly, "seem to be to embroil us all. You know of this banquet to-night?"
"Yes," answered Mansfeld bitterly. "My son is there—I would to God he were elsewhere."
"There will be much treason talked," said Hoorne. "And Brederode in wine is no better than a madman."
William glanced at the clock in the corner.
"We are almost due at the council chamber," he said, rising.
"You work late," remarked Mansfeld.
"And to little purpose," said Hoorne, gloomily pulling at his black beard. "Eh, Prince?"
"To little purpose, truly," replied William gravely. "The affairs of the Netherlands are settled in Philip's Cabinet in Madrid, not in the council chamber at Brussels."
He smiled to himself thoughtfully and picked up his long velvet mantle from one of the brocade chairs.
"We will go round by the horse market," he added, "and see how this banquet progresses."
"Nay, I beseech you," said Mansfeld eagerly. "Keep away from all such dangerous sport!"
"Not sport nor pleasure," replied the Prince, "but Hoogstraaten is there and I would bring him away. And if the company is riotous I will disperse them," he added, with a sure and entirely unconscious certainty of power.
Mansfeld shrugged his shoulders; his inflamed and bandaged eye irritated him, and he was deeply vexed at his son's connexion with the confederates.
"This is an affair well enough for boys," he returned peevishly—"boys and roysterers—but the Regent's councillors had best keep away."
William knew perfectly well what Brederode's banquet was likely to be, and how it would be regarded by the government; he knew also that Hoogstraaten had been persuaded to attend against his will, and wished to save him from too deep an implication in the riots in which the feast would undoubtedly end; nor was William without some kindly feeling for Brederode and a desire to check him in his dangerous recklessness.
Hoorne disliked Brederode, but he would gladly have done a service to the gallant Hoogstraaten, and Egmont was always eager to curb any display against the Government, so the three nobles, on taking leave of Mansfeld, set out towards the Culemburg palace where Brederode held his dangerous feast.
They had no sooner dismounted and crossed the courtyard of the mansion than the tumultuous uproar that reached their ears more than justified their apprehensions.
The banquet of the confederates had indeed degenerated into a riot and an orgy.
An argument had been raised as to what name the party, now so loosely designated, was to be called, and at the height of the discussion Brederode had sprung to his feet and related what Barlaymont had said when they first came into the presence of Madame Parma—
"'What, is Your Highness afraid of these beggars! People of little power who cannot manage their own estates!'"
When this sarcasm of one of their greatest enemies was repeated to them, the company, inflamed with wine, were strung up to a fever pitch of fury at the insult which had been offered them—all gentlemen of rank and noble blood.
Brederode seized the moment; taking a leathern wallet and a wooden bowl from one of his pages, he held them aloft over the glittering feast.
"Very well!" he cried. "They call us beggars! We will make them fear that word! We will contend against the Inquisition, and be loyal to the King until we are beggars indeed!"
He then filled the bowl with wine and drained it to the health of the beggars.
The party name was received with mad enthusiasm; it took the humour of all present; amid yells of approval and shouts of applause the wooden bowl was handed from one to another and each drank to the new party name. When the circuit of the table had been completed the bowland wallet were fastened to one of the pillars which supported the ceiling, and the rites by which the petitioners received their new name were concluded by each member of the company hurling some salt and bread into his goblet, and repeating two lines of doggerel which some one's heated wits had instantly produced——
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront quoy qu'on se fache!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront quoy qu'on se fache!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront quoy qu'on se fache!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,
Les gueulx ne changeront quoy qu'on se fache!"
This ceremony was at the height of unrestrained and reckless merriment, furious and unlimited enthusiasm, when the three nobles entered the banqueting hall.
It was a wild and gorgeous sight on which they looked—a sight all of them would rather not have beheld.
It was the chamber in which Francis Junius had preached to a group of young Protestant nobles on Alexander of Parma's wedding day, but it was more suited to the present scene of unlicensed revelry than it had been to that sincere and ardent gathering.
The ceiling and the upper portion of the walls had been painted by an Italian artist in the precise and airy style of decoration which adorned the Roman palaces—delicate scroll-work, arabesques, birds and animals interwoven wonderfully on a ground of deep blue and burnished gold.
The lower part of the walls were hung with tapestry of Arras on brass rods, each panel representing a scene in the life of Jason, and between the tapestries were pillars with candle sconces in heavy copper and brass, fashioned as flowers and figures, which lit the vast apartment that was almost entirely occupied by an immense table at which three hundred gentlemen were seated.
At either end of the room, each side of the folding-doors, stood buffets, still loaded with fruit, sweets, and wines, and attended by pages; round the wall, at intervals, stood the servants in groups of twos and threes.
The table itself was lit by a huge lamp of rock crystal supported by four flying harpies, half gold, and half silver,with wings and tails shining in red enamel. This magnificent light illuminated the whole table and left in shadow only the extreme centre, where stood a gorgeous piece of confectionery, the master-effort of Count Culemburg's cook, representing the confederacy entering the gates of the Brabant palace, the little figures—each of which was a portrait—being moulded out of sugar, cunningly coloured and adorned with cuttings of candied fruits.
This, on the huge raised comport of embossed gold, was untouched, but for the rest the table was in the wildest disorder.
Almost every thread of the cloth of Brussel's lace was stained with wine; gold goblets, crystal beakers, dishes of fruit, of cakes, of sweetmeats were scattered right and left; at one end two young men were dancing on the table, clinging to each other, while their unsteady feet knocked over glasses and plates; several had mounted on the backs of their chairs, and sat with their feet on the table edge, while they shouted at the top of their voices; others, their caps turned inside out and their doublets torn open, danced about the room vowing eternal friendship to each other and eternal fidelity to the party; a few retained their places at the table and, with beakers at their lips, pledged again and again the party of "the beggars"; most of them had baptized a neighbour into the confederacy by pouring wine over his shoulders and head, so that flushed faces, rich clothes, and tumbled locks alike dripped red.
The whole scene seemed coloured red—the bright red of wine sparkling over gold.
At the head of the table sat Count Brederode; his doublet of scarlet velvet was covered with a network of fine gold strung with pearls; every thread of his ruff was gold, it came up to his ears and was scattered with brilliants; from his shoulders hung a short mantle of silver cloth lined with white fur; he leant his elbows on the table and clasped between his jewelled hands a gold goblet carved with grapes and vine leaves. As he emptied it, the page athis elbow refilled it; the wine splashed down his ruff, his doublet, and his sleeves; he laughed long and merrily, and now and then shouted at the top of his powerful voice—
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront, quoy qu'on se fache!Vivent le roi et les gueulx! vivent les gueulx!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront, quoy qu'on se fache!Vivent le roi et les gueulx! vivent les gueulx!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,Les gueulx ne changeront, quoy qu'on se fache!Vivent le roi et les gueulx! vivent les gueulx!"
"Par le sel, par le pain, par le besache,
Les gueulx ne changeront, quoy qu'on se fache!
Vivent le roi et les gueulx! vivent les gueulx!"
Such was the scene that met the eyes of William and his companions as they entered the Culemburg banqueting hall.
The Prince said nothing, but glanced to where Hoogstraaten sat, half-vexed, half-amused, near his host, whom he was endeavouring to restrain; Egmont uttered an exclamation of annoyance and dismay; Hoorne frowned bitterly, and darted a look of contempt from under his heavy brows at the laughing Count Brederode.
As soon as the three great nobles, the most powerful grandees in the Kingdom, were recognized, they were hailed with shouts of welcome and surrounded by a crowd of intoxicated youngsters, who took their presence as a good augury for the newly named party.
"No, no," said the Prince, putting aside the beakers that were being forced upon him. "I have come but for the length of amiserere—we are here for the Seigneur Hoogstraaten."
That nobleman rose, glad of an excuse to retire, and Brederode, turning, saw the three new-comers.
"Ah, Highness!" he cried, staggering to his feet. "Will you not come and drink the health of the beggars? Be seated—here on my right"—then looking at Hoorne with whom he had recently quarrelled, he added, "and the Admiral also! I did not look to see your sober face at any feast of mine, Count Hoorne!"
At this taunt the Admiral, who had been glancing at the saturnalia with genuine disgust and sincere vexation, flushed to his bald head, and fixed his dark eyes menacingly on the speaker.
"I have come to save a better man than you, Count Brederode," he answered, "from the consequences of your folly. Folly? Is it not more than folly—is it not near madness and treason?"
The dark blue eyes of Brederode blazed.
"Think you your caution will save you, Count Hoorne? I tell you Philip will spare you as little as he will spare any man in this room, and Granvelle holds you as damned as any heretic who ever ate a sausage on a Good Friday!"
The sinister truth of these rude words made Egmont blench, but the Admiral received them with gloomy scorn; he felt quite secure in his own loyalty.
William, assailed by cries of "Long live the beggars!" the meaning of which was utterly unknown to him, made his way through the revellers to where Brederode stood.
The sight of the well-known slender figure, the calm earnest face, the air of authority, the immense attraction and power that the Prince possessed, sobered the reckless young nobles, the two dancing on the table were pulled down, those seated were dragged to their feet, the uproarious shouting was partly hushed.
"By Heaven this goes too far, Count!" said William, in a low voice. "The reckless things you have said to-night you will forget to-morrow when you have slept off your wine, but there are those who will not forget."
"Spies!" muttered Brederode. "Spies!"
"Among these stupid seeming lackeys, maybe," replied the Prince drily. "Why, man, you are not a fool; you know the Escorial has spies everywhere."
"I care not," said Brederode, with a certain grandeur in his recklessness; "why should we cringe to Spain's certain wrath? Nothing could bring us into favour at Madrid; let us then defy monk and Spaniard and prove we can defend our own!"
"Defiance of Spain given in this manner will be short-lived," answered the Prince. "Do you think you serve the Netherlands this way? So you only gain laughter."
"Let them laugh," returned the Count; "when the time comes they shall see I can fight as well as I can feast."
And he was seizing his replenished bowl, with the toast, "Damnation to the Inquisition and the Spaniards," forming on his lips, when William sternly took the wine from him and turned it on the floor, sending the beaker after it on to the Persian rug.
"End this, Brederode," he commanded, and his eyes shone dark with anger. "This is not a pot-house—there are some high interests in our several keepings—for the sake of these reckless boys you have brought here to-night, stop before you endanger all beyond help. Oh, Brederode," he added, with a sudden smile, "go to bed—for you are very drunk."
Brederode stared at him, suddenly laughed, then sat down silently, his glittering figure drooping back in the wide-armed chair.
Egmont and Hoogstraaten endeavoured to prevail on the rest of the company to disperse; intoxicated and excited as most of these were, they yet retained sufficient wit to rouse to a sense of their own foolishness; to more than one the red wine running over floor and table and staining each others' faces and garments became a prediction of the red blood that might be flowing soon.
They well knew that Philip was as prodigal of blood as Netherland nobles of their wine; the sobriety and slight awe that had come over the gathering with the entry and remonstrances of the three was heightened by one of those trivial incidents that highly affect overwrought minds.
The sugar foundation of the elaborate and costly sweetmeat in the centre of the table suddenly gave way; the heat had melted it unperceived, and as its support flowed in sickly thick streams over the golden comport and the stained cloth, the little figures of the confederates fell here and there, mere crushed lumps of sweet, and nothingremained of the gorgeous piece of triumphal confectionery but a sticky discoloured mess.
"Men of sugar, men of sugar," muttered the Admiral. "So shall this company melt away."
The ugly omen was noticed by several; in twos and threes they smoothed their disordered habits and departed.
Only Brederode remained where he was, wrapt in a sudden melancholy.
"I shall die a poor soldier at the feet of Count Louis," he kept muttering; then: "Capon and sausage on Friday! Who says I did eat it lies twenty feet down in his throat!"
Seeing the company was now dispersed, the three nobles took their leave, Hoogstraaten accompanying them.
They came out into the calm April night, which was moonless and full of sweetness; the stars lay entangled in little wisps of clouds, an under-breeze came fragrantly from the spring fields of Brabant.
William glanced back at the brilliantly lit mansion behind them.
"There is a silly short prologue to a long dull tragedy!" he remarked.
"Tragedy!" echoed Lamoral Egmont angrily. "You speak always as if we were on disaster, Prince."
William made no answer; they turned their horses' heads towards the Brabant palace, where Margaret, frightened and angry, debated matters of heaven and earth with Vigilius and Barlaymont.
CHAPTER IXMONTIGNY'S WIFE
Count Hoogstraaten and the Baron Montigny were playing tennis in the pleasant courts of the Prince's palace gardens.
May was now fully in bloom, and at midday the sun was warm; the trees, newly covered with glossy leaves, cast a pleasant shade over the smooth lawns.
At the foot of one, a splendid beech, Montigny's wife sat on silk cushions and rugs, and resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee, looked, with a certain wistfulness, at the figure of her husband as he moved lightly to and fro after the ball.
Leaning against the tree was the Prince of Orange, and close by, on a seat shaded by a high box hedge, sat Anne, attended by Rénèe and the little German girl.
Already utterly forgetful that she was there to entertain the young bride, Anne was dozing in the sun, her head falling forward in an ugly fashion.
The Prince took no notice of her, did not even glance in her direction; he was talking earnestly with Hélène d'Espinoy, the Baroness Montigny.
This lady, though her marriage festivities had but just concluded, and she seemed a creature made for joy and carelessness, followed with an interest almost pathetic the great and terrible events in which her husband moved.
She was talking now of the field-preachings and camp-meetings which had spread with irresistible force allover the country—the answer of the heretics to the decrees of the Council of Trent.
"It is a wonderful thing, is it not, Prince," she said in her soft voice, that seemed only fitted to sing to a lute, "that people will do this for their faith? The penalty is death alike to all; yet they go, men, women, and children—risking death and torture, to stand in the fields to hear some unfrocked monk preach! Is it the Devil makes them so strong?"
"You might rather call it God," said William, looking down at her.
She lifted her face now—a delicate, rather sad face, with beautiful eyes. She fingered her ruff and eased it where it pressed against her cheek, and sighed.
"You seem dismayed, Madame," said the Prince gently.
"Yes," she answered at once. "Because my lord goes to Spain."
"He has resolved on that, then, finally?" asked William quickly.
"Yes—he and Marquis Berghen go this month." She tried to smile. "Is it not hard? I have had him so short a time."
"He might refuse to go," answered the Prince, with some eagerness.
"He is reluctant, but he has accepted," said the lady, and again her glance turned towards the tennis court. "But I," she added suddenly, "I dread that he should go to Madrid!"
"You must not fancy disaster, Madame," returned William.
"I am not foolish," she quickly defended herself. "But I know he has offended the King by refusing to enforce the Inquisition in his provinces——"
"Ah, as to that, console yourself," said the Prince. "Philip has a long arm—your husband will be as safe in Madrid as his brother is here, Madame."
"You mean neither are safe?" she asked swiftly. "But there is special danger in Spain—ah, it is to walk into the lion's mouth for a Netherlander to go to Madrid! Count Egmont will not go again."
"That will not save him if he has incurred Spanish wrath," remarked William, with a sigh.
Montigny's wife rose with an agitated movement.
"What will happen?" she asked. "Hewill tell me nothing—Your Highness will be kinder, and tell me what will happen?"
She stood like a child before him, with her childish request on her lips and her little hands clasped on her white silk bodice.
"If I could tell!" smiled the Prince. "All is a confusion: the Regent is bewildered; she has no power to enforce her authority—the King is silent."
He did not add that he knew what was behind the King's silence: that Philip was slowly and elaborately preparing the most exact and far-reaching punishment for those who had opposed his policy in the Netherlands, and that the Duke of Alva, with an army at his back, was soon to take the place of the overwhelmed and uneasy Margaret.
To change the lady's thoughts, he reverted again to the field-preachings, to the courage of these men, who with their swords at their side went out to hear a man with a price on his head preach Jesus Christ.
Sometimes they met in barns or houses, but more often in the open fields, outside the city walls, where preaching was forbidden.
They went in hundreds, in thousands, so that sometimes the city would be empty and the hymns of Clement Marot would rise as fearlessly as if there was no Inquisition waiting for them with faggot and chain, sword and axe.
William spoke warmly and with a lively sympathy.
"The mind and the soul are not in the keeping of kingnor priest—no man has a lordship over another man's conscience," he said. "All history has proved that."
Hélène d'Espinoy had never thought of this. She was sorry for all these people who had to die, so sorry she did not care to dwell on the thought, but questions of ethics were unknown to her; she only wanted peace, and her own happiness secure in a happy world.
She looked at the garden, so fresh and lovely; at the sky, so serene and soft; at the two young nobles laughing over their game; at her own luxurious apparel—and she wished, in a sad and simple way, that these things could endure and that nothing would ever come to disturb them.
"Ah, Seigneur," she said, "why cannot all men believe in the one true God?"
"Each man's God is one and true to him, Madame. The weaver of Tournay burnt to death over a slow fire for casting the wafer out of the priest's hand found his God as true as Philip finds his—for to the last he called on Him and even smiled. I wonder," added the Prince thoughtfully, "if Philip in torment would find support in his faith!"
"It is all terrible," answered Hélène d'Espinoy in a shaken voice, "and these people have power—they will fight, they will resist. It will not be so easy to subdue them."
"Easy enough for Alva," thought William. "The Duchess is only helpless because she is without money and without men."
"Easy to subdue," he repeated aloud; and went on to tell Madame Montigny of the camp-meetings at Tournay, where the Reformers were six to one against the Catholics, and when the Regent sent orders to the trained bands to arrest the worshippers, it was found that all of them—the crossbowmen of St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the sword-players of St. Christopher—were themselves heretics, who eagerly attended the preachingof Ambrose Wille, the famous disciple of John Calvin, and new come from Geneva.
"Since they are so much in earnest, these people," said Montigny's wife, "might not His Majesty allow them their faith and their preaching?"
"His Majesty will no more ever allow the preaching than the people will ever give it up; and there is the great tragedy—these few poor people and the greatest king in the world!"
Montigny now left the tennis court and came towards the two under the shadow of the beech tree.
His face, which had the dark colouring, the look of reserve and strength of his brother, Count Hoorne, but none of that nobleman's joyless gravity, flushed with a look of love as he glanced at his wife. It was to the Prince he spoke.
"Tennis is a childish sport for these open days of spring—we should be trying hound and falcons in the open campaign."
He put his arm lovingly round the Prince's shoulder and drew him aside. Hoogstraaten, the intimate friend of both, followed them.
Hélène d'Espinoy glanced round for the Princess, and Rénèe, with the watchfulness of one in charge of a puppet whose strings must be pulled at a given signal, touched her mistress on the shoulder and roused her attention.
As soon as the three young men were out of hearing of the women, Montigny left talk of hounds and falcons to speak at once of the state of things in his Stadtholdership and of the immense increase of the daring and power of the heretics. It was indeed a subject which no man, from the humblest to the highest, could long keep from his mind and lips.
Montigny was inclined to think that the Netherlanders had successfully asserted themselves; they had proved that they were too numerous to be stopped by force from exercising what religion they chose, and too courageousto be frightened by threats and punishment into abandoning their faith, and persecution for the moment had slackened. Brederode's party, "the beggars," were strong and much to the front; their Petition or Request was now before Philip. That monarch was silent—might he not be considering it reasonably?
Thus Montigny, who shared the stubborn loyalty of his brother Hoorne and the credulous optimism of Lamoral Egmont.
William saw the other side of the picture: he knew that the famous Petition and the long deliberations which had followed had only resulted in the "moderation" decree, which the people instantly named "murderation," since the only concession it made was to sometimes substitute hanging for a more horrible means of death; and this was without Philip's sanction, and only flung as a sop to the people by Margaret while she waited for her brother's instructions.
The Prince saw too that the persecutions had only slackened because the Regent found herself without men or money, and that, whenever possible, the heretic preachers were hunted down like wild beasts. Brederode might rejoice, Montigny might be hopeful, but William of Orange saw that the present lull was but the prelude to a more awful vengeance on those who disobeyed Philip than any that had yet befallen.
He knew that the Regent's attitude of moderation, her affected kindness to the nobles, her loud-voiced desire for concord and peace, was but a farce, and that probably in her secret letters she was denouncing all of them to Philip.
These things William did not say to Montigny, he had warned him so often; but he suddenly stopped in the middle of the flower garden and said earnestly—
"Do not go to Spain—it is so useless."
"You too?" cried Montigny. "All warn me—but how refuse? I have a conscience clear of disloyalty."
"That will not help you in the Escorial," said William, with some impatience.
"I have not offended His Majesty," persisted the Stadtholder of Tournay and Tournaisis.
"Ah, Baron!" cried Hoogstraaten, "you offended all Spain when you refused to burn the poor heretics!"
"I detest and spurn the Inquisition," answered Montigny warmly. "I go to Madrid to protest against it—but never, Count, have I done anything to anger Church or King."
"That is known only to Philip and to Granvelle!" said William, looking down at the bed of flowers at his feet. "Do not go—it is so useless!"
"Count Egmont failed," urged Hoogstraaten.
"I shall not be so easily caressed," returned Montigny.
"The worse for you," answered the Prince. "Those the Spanish cannot fool they will win another way. And your going is for nothing. If Philip will pay no heed to what the Regent writes, will he pay heed to what you and Berghen say? Did he pay heed to you before? Does he heed any argument?"
"I am not hopeful," admitted Montigny, with a slight sadness in his voice. "But I have been chosen, and I cannot, without disloyalty, refuse."
The Prince still stood looking down at the flowers which were gently waving their soft heavy heads together.
"Do not go," he said for the third time. "Let another man take this mission. You are young, you are just wed——"
"Give me words of good omen!" cried Montigny, with a laugh and a frown.
"Good omen!" said William firmly. "I find no words of good omen in my heart. Yet"—he sought for the same consolation which he had given Hélène d'Espinoy—"it is true that Philip can reach one here as easily as in Madrid——"
They turned now towards the house, to which the women had already gone; and presently the Montignystook their leave, he being due at his last audience with the Regent.
Hoogstraaten lingered a little after him to question the Prince anxiously.
"He is infatuate—do you think he goes into great danger?"
"I think neither he nor Berghen will return," answered William. "And I am sorry for that poor child, his wife—sorry beyond words."
He turned away quickly, then turned back again and caught Count Hoogstraaten warmly by the hand.
"Youwill not leave me, Antony?"
"I am your poor servant always," replied the Count, with great affection; "content to be guided by you, and you alone, in all these troubles."
Then he too left. William watched his little, gallant figure ride away, and then returned to the antechamber where he had parted from Montigny and his wife.
There sat Anne in the same listless attitude in which he had left her, with her elbows propped on a table covered with a rich tapestry and her face sunk in her small, large-veined hands.
And behind her, as always, was Rénèe, motionless, like her shadow.
It was usual for the Prince to pass his wife in silence when he thus met her by chance, but now, though with an obvious effort, he came across the room.
"Madame," he said; then, "Anne."
She looked up; her sallow face flushed and she glanced down again, spreading out her hands on her skirt.
Rénèe turned to go, but the Prince said, "Stay." He stood looking at his wife in a silence that held no judgment; he gazed at her rather as if he sought to throw the protection of tenderness over her sickly unloveliness, her miserable melancholy. Always in the Prince's attitude towards his wife there had been this gentleness, which was at once gallant and touching.
"Anne, I have been wishing to speak to you."
She made no response.
"You always disliked Brussels, did you not, Madame?" he added.
"Why do you ask that?" she demanded, with instant suspicion.
"Because I find it necessary that you should go to my house at Breda," he answered kindly. "There is no need for me to keep open this mansion—few of us live in Brussels now; and when I must come, I can lodge more simply. At Breda you will be safer than here."
"Ah, this is your economy, your retrenchment!" exclaimed Anne bitterly. "Do you not think I see how miserable this establishment has become? Half the servants we had formerly, and those with worn liveries; the stables half empty, the gardens neglected, and nothing increasing but debts!"
The Princess exaggerated, but there was truth in what she said—as Rénèe knew, and as it gave her a strange pang to know.
But William answered lightly—
"I am not as rich a man as I was, Anne, and shall be, likely enough, poorer before the tale is told. But if I do not spend what I did, it is not through niggardliness, but because I may need money for other purposes than that of magnificence. You shall be well enough at Breda."
"Not the Devil and all his legions shall drag me to Breda!" answered Anne, with great violence.
"Nay, but your husband will," answered William, smiling.
His good-nature, that arose from neither weakness nor indifference, but from a warm compassion and a deep sympathy for others, never failed him; not once had Rénèe seen him angry or rude to man or animal, and towards women he was always softly gentle.
Anne seemed to recognize this quality in him; to realize that all her fret and fury might be expended in vain againsthis serenity. She rose and without another word or look left him.
The Prince turned to Rénèe as she was following her mistress.
"You are very faithful," he said, "and I know that you have no easy service."
In these words, in his voice and his face, she read the bitterness of his sorrow and humiliation in his wife. She noticed how tired he looked, how plain, even careless, was his dress. He was already much changed from the splendid cavalier who had mounted the stairs to greet his bride that St. Bartholomew's Day in Leipsic.
"It is my one pleasure to serve," she answered; "there is no other interest in my life."
He looked curiously at her warm beauty, on which her words seemed such a strange commentary.
"I may be called to Antwerp, where there is great trouble," he said; "in my absence speak to the Princess anent Breda—for there she must truly go, shortly."
He looked away out of the window as if he had already forgotten the waiting-woman, and Rénèe silently withdrew.