also those Manners and Dispositions that tend to the Peace Order and Safety of all Civil Societies and Governments among men Nor could I ever understand how those who call themselves and the world usually calls Religious Men come to put so great weight upon those points of Belief which men never have agreed in and so little upon those of Virtue and Morality in which they have hardly ever disagreed Nor why a State should venture the subversion of their Peace and their Order which are certain Goods for the propagation of uncertain or contested Opinions One of the great Causes of the first Revolt in the Low-Countreys appeared to be The Oppression of men's Consciences or Persecution in their Liberties their Estates and their Lives upon pretence of Religion And this at a time when there seemed to be a conspiring-disposition in most Countreys of Christendom to seek the reformation of some abuses grown in the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church either by the Rust of Time by Negligence or by Human Inventions Passions and Interests The rigid opposition given at Rome to this general Humour was followed by a defection of mighty numbers in all those several Countreys Who professed to reform themselves according to such Rules as they thought were necessary for the reformation of the Church These persons though they agreed in the main of disowning the Papal Power and reducing Belief from the authority of Tradition to that of the Scripture Yet they differ'd much among themselves in other circumstances especially of Discipline according to the Perswasions and Impressions of the Leading-Doctors in their several Countreys So the Reformed of France became universally Calvinists But for those of Germany though they were generally Lutherans yet there was a great mixture both of Calvinists and Anabaptists among them The first Persecutions of these Reformed arose in Germany in the time of Charles the Fifth and drove great numbers of them down into the Seventeen Provinces especially Holland and Brabant where the Priviledges of the Cities were greater and the Emperor's Government was less severe as among the Subjects of his own Native Countreys This was the occasion that in the year 1566 when upon the first Insurrection in Flanders those of the Reformed Profession began to form Consistories and levy Contributions among themselves for support of their Common Cause It was resolved upon consultation among the Heads of them that for declining all differences among themselves at a time of common exigence The publique Profession of their Party should be that of the Lutherans though with liberty and indulgence to those of different Opinions By the Union of Utrecht concluded in 579 Each of the Provinces was left to order the matter of Religion as they thought fit and most conducing to the welfare of their Province With this provision that every man should remain free in his Religion and none be examined or entrapped for that cause according to the Pacification at Gant But in the year 583 it was enacted by general agreement That the Evangelical Religion should be only professed in all the Seven Provinces Which came thereby to be the establisht Religion of this State The Reasons which seem to induce them to this settlement were many and of weight As first Because by the Persecutions arrived in France where all the Reformed were Calvinists multitudes of people had retired out of that Kingdom into the Low Countreys And by the great commerce and continual intercourse with England where the Reformation agreed much with the Calvinists in point of Doctrine though more with the Lutherans in point of Discipline Those Opinions came to be credited and propagated more than any other among the people of these Provinces So as the numbers were grown to be greater far in the Cities of this than of any other Profession Secondly The Succours and Supplies both of Men and Money by which the weak Beginnings of this Commonwealth were Perserved and Fortified came chiefly from England from the Protestants of France when their affairs were successful and from the Calvinist Princes of Germany who lay nearest and were readiest to relieve them In the next place Because those of this Profession seem'd the most contrary and violent against the Spaniards who made themselves Heads of the Roman-Catholiques throughout Christendom And the hatred of Spain and their Dominion was so rooted in the Hearts of this People that it had influence upon them in the very choice of their Religion And lastly Because by this Profession all Rights and Jurisdiction of the Clergy or Hierarchy being suppressed There was no Ecclesiastical Authority left to rise up and trouble or fetter the Civil Power And all the Goods and Possessions of Churches and Abbies were seized wholly into the hands of the State which made a great encrease of the publique Revenue A thing the most necessary for the support of their Government There might perhaps be added one Reason more which was particular to one of the Provinces For whereas in most if not all other parts of Christendom the Clergy composed one of the Three Estates of the Countrey And thereby shar'd with the Nobles and Commons in their Influences upon the Government That Order never made any part of the Estates in Holland nor had any Vote in their Assembly which consisted only of the Nobles and the Cities and this Province bearing always the greatest sway in the Councils of the Union was most enclined to the settlement of that Profession which gave least pretence of Power or Jurisdiction to the Clergy and so agreed most with their own ancient Constitutions Since this Establishment as well as before the great Care of this State has ever been To favour no particular or curious Inquisition into the Faith or Religious Principles of any peaceable man who came to live under the protection of their Laws And to suffer no Violence or Oppression upon any Mans Conscience whose Opinions broke not out into Expressions or Actions of ill consequence to the State A free Form of Government either making way for more freedom in Religion Or else having newly contended so far themselves for Liberty in this point they thought it the more unreasonable for them to oppress others Perhaps while they were so threatened and endanger'd by Forreign Armies they thought it the more necessary to provide against Discontents within which can never be dangerous where they are not grounded or fathered upon Oppression in point either of Religion or Liberty But in those two Cases the Flame often proves most violent in a State the more 't is shut up or the longer concealed The Roman-Catholique Religion was alone excepted from the common protection of their Laws Making Men as the States believed worse Subjects than the rest By the acknowledgment of a Forreign and Superior Jurisdiction For so must all Spiritual Power needs be as grounded upon greater Hopes and Fears than any Civil At least wherever the perswasions from Faith are as strong as those
Italy and Greece were stiled so by the Romans but whose Victories in obtaining new Seats and Orders in possessing them might make us allow them for a better polici'd people than they appeared by the vastness of their Multitude or the rage of their Battels VVherever they past and seated their Colonies and Dominions they left a Constitution which has since been called in most European Languages The States consisting of Three Orders Noble Ecclesiastical and Popular under the limited Principality of one Person with the stile of King Prince Duke or Count. The remainders at least or traces hereof appear still in all the Principalities founded by those people in Italy France and Spain and were of a piece with the present Constitutions in most of the great Dominions on t'other side the Rhyne And it seems to have been a temper first introduced by them between the Tyranny of the Eastern Kingdoms and the Liberty of the Grecian or Roman Commonwealths 'T is true the Goths were Gentiles when they first broke into the Roman Empire till one great swarm of this people upon treaty with one of the Roman Emperors and upon Concessions of a great Tract of Land to be a Seat for their Nation embraced at once the Christian Faith After which the same people breaking out of the limits had been allowed them and by fresh numbers bearing all down where they bent their march as they were a great means of propagating Religion in many parts of Europe where they extended their Conquests so the zeal of these new Proselytes warmed by the veneration they had for their Bishops and Pastors and enriched by the spoyls and possessions of so vast Countreys seem to have been the First that introduced the maintenance of the Churches and Clergy by endowments of Lands Lordships and Vassals appropriated to them For before this time the Authority of the Priesthood in all Religions seemed wholly to consist in the peoples opinion of their Piety Learning and Virtues or a reverence for their Character and Mystical Ceremonies and Institutions their Support or their Revenues in the voluntary Oblations of pious men the Bounty of Princes or in a certain share out of the Labours and Gains of those who lived under their Cure and not in any subjection of mens Lives or Fortunes which belonged wholly to the Civil Power And Ammianus though he taxes the Luxury of the Bishops in Valentinian's time yet he speaks of their Riches which occasioned or fomented it as arising wholly from the Oblations of the people But the Devotion of these new Christians introducing this new form of endowing their Churches and afterwards Pepin and Charlemaign King of the Franks upon their Victories in Italy and the favour of the Roman Bishop to their Title and Arms having annexed great Territories and Jurisdictions to that See This Example or Custom was followed by most Princes of the Northern Races through the rest of Europe and brought into the Clergy great possessions of Lands and by a necessary consequence a great share of Temporal Power from the dependances of their Subjects or Tenants by which means they came to be generally one of the Three Orders that composed the Assembly of the States in every Countrey This Constitution of the States had been establisht from time immemorial in the several Provinces of the Low-Countreys and was often assembled for determining Disputes about succession of their Princes where doubtful or contested For deciding those between the great Towns For raising a Milice for the defence of their Countreys in the wars of their Neighbours For Advice in time of Dangers abroad or Discontents at home But always upon the new Succession of a Prince and upon any new Impositions that were necessary on the people The use of this Assembly was another of those Liberties whereof the Inhabitants of these Provinces were so fond and so tenacious The rest besides those ancient Priviledges already mentioned of their Towns were Concessions and Graces of several Princes in particular Exemptions or Immunities Jurisdiction both in choice and exercise of Magigistracy and Civil Judicature within themselves or else in the customs of using none but Natives in Charges and Offices and passing all weighty Affairs by the great Council composed of the great Lords of the Countrey who were in a manner all Temporal there being but three Bishops in all the Seventeen Provinces till the time of Philip the second of Spain The Revenues of these Princes consisted in their ancient Demesnes in small Customs which yet grew considerable by the greatness of Trade in the Maritime Towns and in the voluntary Contributions of their Subjects either in the States or in particular Cities according to the necessities of their Prince or the affections of the people Nor were these frequent for the Forces of these Counts were composed of such Lords who either by their Governments or other Offices or by the tenure of their Lands were obliged to attend their Prince on Horse-back with certain numbers of men upon all his wars or else of a Milice which was call'd Les gens d' ordonnance who served on foot and were not unlike our Train-bands the use or at least stile whereof was renewed in Flanders upon the last VVar with France in 1667 when the Count Egmont was made by the Governour General de gens d' ordonnance These Forces were defrayed by the Cities or Countreys as the others were raised by the Lords when occasion required and all were licensed immediately when it was past so that they were of little charge to the Prince His wars were but with other Princes of his own size or Competitors to his Principality or sometimes with the Mutineys of his great Towns Short though violent and decided by one Battel or Siege unless they fell into the quarrels between England and France and then they were engaged but in the skirts of the VVar the gross of it being waged between the two Kings and these smaller Princes made use of for the credit of Alliance or sometimes the commodiousness of a Diversion rather than for any great weight they made in the main of the Affair The most frequent VVars of the Counts of Holland were with the Frisons a part of the old Saxons and the fiercest battels of some of the Counts of Flanders were with the Normans who past that way into France and were the last of those Nations that have infested the more Southern parts of Europe I have sometimes thought how it should have come to pass that the infinite swarm of that vast Northern-Hive which so often shook the world like a great Tempest and overflowed it like a great Torrent changing Names and Customs and Government and Language and the very face of Nature wherever they seated themselves which upon record of story under the name of Gauls pierced into Greece and Italy sacking Rome and besieging the Capitol in Camillus his time under that of the Cimbers marcht through France to the very confines of
among them and the Sums only disputed between the Prince and the States To establish the Fourteen Bishops he had agreed with the Pope should be added to the Three that were anciently in the Low-Countreys To revive the Edicts of Charles the Fifth against Luther publish't in a Diet of the Empire about the year 1550 but eluded in the Low-Countreys even in that Emperor's time and thereby to make way for the Inquisition with the same course it had received in Spain of which the Lutherans here and the Moors there were made an equal pretence And these Points as they came to be owned and executed made the first Commotions of mens minds in the Provinces The hatred of the people against the Spaniards and the Insolencies of those Troops with the charge of their support made them look't upon by the Inhabitants in general as the Instruments of their Oppression and Slavery and not of their Defence when a general Peace had left them no Enemies And therefore the States began here their Complaints with a general Consent and Passion of all the Nobles as well as Towns and Countrey And upon the Delays that were contrived or fell in the States first refused to raise any more moneys either for the Spaniards pay or their own standing-Troops and the people run into so great despair that in Zealand they absolutely gave over the working at their Digues suffering the Sea to gain every Tide upon the Countrey and resolving as they said rather to be devoured by that Element than by the Spanish Soldiers So that after many Disputes and Intrigues between the Governess and the Provinces the King upon her Remonstrances was induced to their removal which was accordingly performed with great joy and applause of the people The erecting of Fourteen new Bishops Sees raised the next Contest The great Lords lookt upon this Innovation as a lessening of their Power by introducing so many new men into the great Council The Abbots out of whose Lands they were to be endowed pleaded against it as a violent usurpation upon the Rights of the Church and the Will of the Dead who had given those Lands to a particular use The Commons murmured at it as a new degree of Oppression upon their Conscience or Liberty by the erecting so many new Spiritual Courts of Judicature and so great a number of Judges being Seventeen for Three that were before in the Countrey and those depending absolutely upon the Pope or the King And all men declaimed against it as a breach of the Kings Oath at his accession to the Government for the preserving the Church and the Laws in the same state he found them However this Point was gain'd intirely by the Governess and carried over the head of all opposition though not without leaving a general discontent In the midst of these ill Humours stirring in Flanders the Wars of Religion breaking out in France drove great numbers of Calvinists into all those parts of the Low-Countreys that confine upon France as the Troubles of Germany had before of Lutherans into the Provinces about the Rhyne and the Persecutions under Queen Mary those of the Church of England into Flanders and Brabant by the great commerce of this Kingdom with Bruges and Antwerp These Accidents and Neighbourhoods filled these Countreys in a small tract of time with swarms of the Reformed Professors And the admiration of their Zeal the opinion of their Doctrine and Piety the compassion of their Sufferings the infusion of their Discontents or the Humour of the Age gain'd them every day many Proselytes in the Low-Countreys some among the Nobles many among the Villages but most among the Cities whose Trade and Riches were much encreased by these new Inhabitants and whose Interest thereby as well as Conversation drew them on to their favour This made work for the Inquisition though moderately exercised by the prudence and temper of the Governess mediating between the rigor of Granvell in straining up to the highest his Master's Authority and the execution of his Commands upon all occasions And the resoluteness of the Lords of the Provinces to temper the King's Edicts and protect the Liberties of their Countrey against the admission of this New and Arbitrary Judicature unknown to all ancient Laws and Customs of the Countrey and for that not less odious to the people than for the cruelty of their executions For before the Inquisition the care of Religion was in the Bishops and before that in the Civil Magistrates throughout the Provinces Upon angry Debates in Council but chiefly upon the universal Ministry of Granvell a Burgundian of mean birth grown at last to be a Cardinal and more famous for the greatness of his Parts than the goodness of his Life The chief Lords of the Countrey among whom the Prince of Orange Counts Egmont and Horn the Marquess of Bergen and Montigny were most considerable grew to so violent and implacable a hatred of the Cardinal whether from Passion or Interest which was so universally spread through the whole Body of the People either by the Causes of it or the Example That the Lords first refused their attendance in Council protesting Not to endure the sight of a man so absolute there and to the ruin of their Countrey And afterwards petitioned the King in the name of the whole Countrey for his removal Upon the delay whereof and the continuance of the Inquisition the people appeared upon daily occasions and accidents heated to that degree as threatned a general Combustion in the whole Body when ever the least Flame should break out in any part But the King at length consented to Granvell's recess by the opinion of the Dutchess of Parma as well as the pursuit of the Provinces Whereupon the Lords reassumed their places in Council Count Egmont was sent into Spain to represent the Grievances of the Provinces and being favourably dispatcht by the King especially by remitting the rigor of the Edicts about Religion and the Inquisition All noise of discontent and tumult was appeased the Lords were made use of by the Governess in the Council and conduct of Affairs and the Governess was by the Lords both obeyed and honoured In the beginning of the year 1565 there was a Conference at Bayonne between Katharine Queen-Mother of France and her Son Charles the Ninth though very young with his Sister Isabella Queen of Spain In which no other person but the Duke of Alva interven'd being deputed thither by Philip who excused his own presence and thereby made this Enterview pass for an effect or expression of kindness between the Mother and her Children Whether great Resolutions are the more suspected where great Secresie is observed or it be true what the Prince of Orange affirmed to have by accident discovered That the extirpation of all Families which should profess the New Religion in the French or Spanish Dominions was here agreed on with mutual assistance of the two Crowns 'T is certain and was owned
Dutchess of Parma against the Inquisition and for some liberty in point of Religion Those persons which attended him looking mean in their Clothes and their Garb were called by one of the Courtiers at their entrance into the Palace Gueses which signifies Beggars a Name though raised by chance or by scorn yet affected by the Party as an Expression of Humility and Distress and used ever after by both sides as a Name of distinction comprehending all who dissented from the Roman Church how different soever in opinion among themselves These men spread in great numbers through the whole extent of the Provinces by the accidents and dispositions already mentioned After the appeasing of their first Sedition were broken in their common Counsels and by the Cruelty of the Inquisition and Rigor of Alva were in great multitudes forced to retire out of the Provinces at least such as had means or hopes of subsisting abroad Many of the poorer and more desperate fled into the Woods of the upper Countreys where they are thick and wild and liv'd upon spoil and in the first descent of the Prince of Orange his Forces did great mischiefs to all scatter'd parties of the Duke of Alva's Troops in their march through those parts But after that attempt of the Prince ended without success and he was forced back into Germany the Count of Marcke a violent and implacable Enemy to the Duke of Alva and his Government with many others of the broken Troops whom the same fortune and disposition had left together in Friezland mann'd out some Ships of small force and betook themselves to Sea and with Commissions from the Prince of Orange began to prey upon all they could master that belonged to the Spaniards They sometimes sheltered and watered and sold their Prizes in some Crekes or small Harbours of England though forbidden by Queen Elizabeth then in peace with Spain sometimes in the River Ems or some small ports of Friezland till at length having gain'd considerable Riches by these Adventures whether to sell or to refresh whether driven by storm or led by design upon knowledg of the ill blood which the new Taxes had bred in all the Provinces they landed in the Island of the Briel assaulted and carried the Town pull'd down the Images in the Churches professed openly their Religion declared against the Taxes and Tyranny of the Spanish Government and were immediately followed by the revolt of most of the Towns of Holland Zealand and West-Friezland who threw out the Spanish Garrisons renounced their obedience to King Philip and swore Fidelity to the Prince of Orange The Prince returned out of Germany with new Forces and making use of this fury of the people contented himself not with Holland and Zealand but marcht up into the very heart of the Provinces within five Leagues of Brussels seizing upon Mechlin and many other Towns with so great Consent Applause and Concourse of people that the whole Spanish Dominions seemed now ready to expire in the Low-Countreys if it had not been revived by the Massacre of the Protestants at Paris which contrived by joynt Councels with King Philip and acted by a Spanish party in the Court of France and with so fatal a blow to the contrary Faction encouraged the Duke of Alva and dampt the Prince of Orange in the same degree so that one gathers strength enough to defend the heart of the Provinces and the other retires into Holland and makes that the seat of the War This Countrey was strong by its nature and seat among the Waters that encompass and divide it but more by a rougher sort of people at that time less softned by Trade or by Riches less used to Grants of Money and Taxes and proud of their ancient Fame recorded in the Roman Stories of being obstinate Defenders of their Liberties and now most implacable haters of the Spanish Name All these dispositions were encreased and hardened in the War that ensued under the Duke of Alva's Conduct or his Sons By the slaughter of all innocent persons and sexes upon the taking of Naerden where the Houses were burnt and the Walls levelled to the ground By the desperate defence of Haerlem for ten months with all the practises and returns of ignominy cruelty and scorn on both sides while the very Women listed themselves in companies repaired breaches gave alarms and beat up quarters till all being famisht Four hundred Burgers after the surrender were kill'd in cold blood among many other Examples of an incensed Conqueror Which made the Humour of the parties grow more desperate and their hatred to Spain and Alva incurable The same Army broken and forced to rise from before Alcmaer after a long and fierce siege in Alva's time and from before Leyden in the time of Requisenes where the Boors themselves opened the Sluyces and drown'd the Countrey resolving to mischief the Spaniards at the charge of their own ruin gave the great turn to Affairs in Holland The King grows sensible of Danger and apprehensive of the total defection of the Provinces Alva weary of his Government finding His violent Counsels and Proceedings had raised a Spirit which was quiet before he came and was never to be laid any more The Duke is recalled and the War goes under Requisenes who dying suddenly and without provisions made by the King for a Successor the Government by customs of the Countrey devolved by way of interim upon the great Council which lasted some time by the delay of Don John of Austria's coming who was declared the new Governour But in this Interim the strength of the Disease appears for upon the Mutiny of some Spanish Troops for want of their pay and their seizing Alost a Town near Brussels the people grow into a rage the Trades-men give over their Shops and the Countrey-men their Labour and all run to Arms In Brussels they force the Senate pull out those men they knew to be most addicted to the Spaniards kill such of that Nation as they meet in the streets and all in general cry out for the expulsion of Forreigners out of the Low-Countreys and the assembling of the States to which the Council is forced to consent In the mean time the chief persons of the Provinces enter into an agreement with the Prince of Orange to carry on the common Affairs of the Provinces by the same Counsels so as when the Estates assembled at Ghent without any contest they agreed upon that Act which was called The Pacification of Ghent in the year 1576 whereof the chief Articles were The expulsion of all Forreign Soldiers out of the Provinces Restoring all the ancient Forms of Government And referring matters of Religion in each Province to the Provincial Estates And that for performance hereof the rest of the Provinces should for ever be confederate with Holland and Zealand And this made the first period of the Low-Countrey Troubles proving to King Philip a dear Experience how little the best Conduct