and suspition soon breaking out between Leicester and the States Partly from the jealousie of his affecting an Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary disposal of all Offices But chiefly of the Queen's Intentions to make a Peace with Spain And the easie loss of some of their Towns by Governours placed in them by the Earl of Leicester encreased their discontents Notwithstanding this ill intercourse the Queen re-assures them in both those points disapproves some of Leicester's proceedings receives franc and hearty assistances from them in her Naval Preparations against the Spaniards and at length upon the disorders encreasing between the Earl of Leicester and the States commands him to resign his Government and release the States of the Oath they had taken to obey him And after all this had past the Queen easily sacrificing all particular resentments to the Interest of her Crown continued her Favour Protection and Assistances to the States during the whole course of Her Reign which were return'd with the greatest deference and veneration to her Person that was ever paid by them to any Forreign Prince and continues still to her Name in the remembrance and frequently in the mouths of all sorts of people among them After Leicester's departure Prince Maurice was by the consent of the Union chosen their Governour but with a reservation to Queen Elizabeth and enter'd that Command with the hopes which he made good in the execution of it for many years proving the greatest Captain of his Age famous particularly in the discipline and ordonance of his Armies and the ways of Fortification by him first invented or perfected and since his time imitated by all But the great breath that was given the States in the heat of their Affairs was by the sharp Wars made by Queen Elizabeth upon the Spaniards at Sea in the Indies and the Expeditions of Lisbon and Cadiz and by the declining-affairs of the League in France for whose support Philip the Second was so passionately engaged that twice he commanded the Duke of Parma to interrupt the course of his Victories in the Low-Countreys and march into France for the relief of Roan and Paris Which much augmented the Renown of this great Captain but as much impaired the state of the Spanish Affairs in Flanders For in the Duke of Parma's absence Prince Maurice took in all the places held by the Spaniard on t'other side the Rhine which gave them entrance into the United Provinces The succession of Henry the Fourth to the Crown of France gave a mighty blow to the Designs of King Philip and much greater The general obedience and acknowledgment of him upon his change of Religion With this King the States began to enter a confidence and kindness and the more by that which interceded between Him and the Queen of England who had all their dependance during her life But after her death King Henry grew to have greater credit than ever in the United Provinces though upon the decay of the Spanish Power under the Ascendent of this King the States fell into very early jealousies of his growing too great and too near them in Flanders With the Duke of Parma died all the Discipline and with that all the Fortunes of the Spanish Arms in Flanders The frequent Mutinies of their Soldiers dangerous in effect and in example were more talkt of than any other of their actions in the short Government of Manstsield Ernest and Fuentes Till the old Discipline of their Armies began to revive and their Fortune a little to respire under the new Government of Cardinal Albert who came into Flanders both Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys in the head of a mighty Army drawn out of Germany and Italy to try the last effort of the Spanish Power either in a prosperous War or at least in making way for a necessary Peace But the choice of the Arch-Duke and this new Authority had a deeper root and design than at first appear'd For that mighty King Philip the Second born to so vast Possessions and to so much vaster Desires after a long dream of raising his head into the Clouds found it now ready to lye down in the dust His Body broken with age and infirmities his Mind with cares and distemper'd thoughts and the Royal servitude of a sollicitous life He began to see in the glass of Time and Experience the true shapes of all human Greatness and Designs And finding to what Airy Figures he had hitherto sacrificed his Health and Ease and the Good of his Life He now turn'd his thoughts wholly to rest and quiet which he had never yet allowed either the World or Himself His Designs upon England and his Invincible Armada had ended in smoak Those upon France in Events the most contrary to what he had proposed And instead of mastering the Liberties and breaking the Stomach of his Low-Countrey Subjects He had lost Seven of his Provinces and held the rest by the tenure of a War that cost him more than they were worth He had made lately a Peace with England and desir'd it with France and though he scorn'd it with his revolted Subjects in his own Name yet he wisht it in another's and was unwilling to entail a quarrel upon his Son which had crost his Fortunes and busied his thoughts all the course of his Reign He therefore resolved to commit these two Designs to the management of Arch-Duke Albert with the stile of Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys to the end that if he could reduce the Provinces to their old subjection He should govern them as Spanish Dominions If that was once more in vain attempted He should by a Marriage with Clara Isabella Eugenia King Philip's beloved Daughter receive those Provinces as a Dowry and become the Prince of them with a condition only of their returning to Spain in case of Isabella's dying without Issue King Philip believed that the presence of a natural Prince among his Subjects That the Birth and Customs of Arch-Duke Albert being a German The generous and obliging dispositions of Isabella might gain further upon this stubborn people than all the Force and Rigor of his former Counsels And at the worst That they might make a Peace if they could not a War and without interessing the Honour and Greatness of the Spanish Crown In pursuit of this determination like a wise King while he intended nothing but Peace He made Preparations as if he design'd nothing but War knowing that his own desires of Peace would signifie nothing unless he could force his Enemies to desire it too He therefore sent the Arch-Duke into Flanders at the head of such an Army that believing the Peace with France must be the first in order and make way for either the War or Peace afterward in the Low-Countreys He marcht into France and took Amiens the chief City of Picardy and thereby gave such an Alarm to the French Court as they little expected and had never received in the
mutual trust among private men so it cannot grow or thrive to any great degree without a confidence both of publique and private safety and consequently a trust in the Government from an opinion of its Strength Wisdom and Justice Which must be grounded either upon the Personal Virtues and Qualities of a Prince or else upon the Constitutions and Orders of a State It appears to every mans eye who hath travel'd Holland and observed the number and vicinity of their great and populous Towns and Villages with the prodigious improvement of almost every spot of ground in the Countrey And the great multitudes constantly employ'd in their Shipping abroad and their Boats at home That no other known Countrey in the World of the same extent holds any proportion with this in numbers of people And if that be the great foundation of Trade the best account that can be given of theirs will be by considering the Causes and Accidents that have served to force or invite so vast a confluence of people into their Countrey In the first rank may be placed the Civil-Wars Calamities Persecutions Oppressions or Discontents that have been so fatal to most of their Neighbours for some time before as well as since their State began The Persecutions for matter of Religion in Germany under Charles the Fifth in France under Henry the Second and in England under Queen Mary forced great numbers of people out of all those Countreys to shelter themselves in the several Towns of the Seventeen Provinces where the ancient Liberties of the Countrey and Priviledges of the Cities had been inviolate under so long a succession of Princes and gave protection to these oppressed strangers who fill'd their Cities both with People and Trade and raised Antwerp to such a heighth and renown as continued till the Duke of Alva's arrival in the Low-Countreys The fright of this man and the Orders he brought and Armies to execute them began to scatter the Flock of people that for some time had been nested there So as in very few Months above a Hundred thousand Families removed out of the Countrey But when the Seven Provinces united and began to defend themselves with success under the conduct of the Prince of Orange and the countenance of England and France And the Persecutions for Religion began to grow sharp in the Spanish Provinces All the Professors of the Reformed Religion and haters of the Spanish Dominion retir'd into the strong Cities of this Commonwealth and gave the same date to the growth of Trade there and the decay of it at Antwerp The long Civil-Wars at first of France then of Germany and lastly of England serv'd to encrease the swarm in this Countrey not only by such as were persecuted at home but great numbers of peaceable men who came here to seek for quiet in their Lives and safety in their Possessions or Trades Like those Birds that upon the approach of a rough Winter-season leave the Countreys where they were born and bred flye away to some kinder and softer Climate and never return till the Frosts are past and the Winds are laid at home The invitation these people had to fix rather in Holland than in many better Countreys seems to have been at first the great strength of their Towns which by their Maritime scituation and the low flatness of their Countrey can with their Sluces overflow all the ground about them at such distances as to become inaccessible to any Land-Forces And this natural strength has been improv'd especially at Amsterdam by all the Art and Expence that could any ways contribute towards the defence of the place Next was the Constitution of their Government by which neither the States-General nor the Prince have any power to invade any man's Person or Property within the precincts of their Cities Nor could it be fear'd that the Senate of any Town should conspire to any such violence nor if they did could they possibly execute it having no Soldiers in their pay and the Burgers only being employ'd in the defence of their Towns and execution of all Civil Justice among them These Circumstances gave so great a credit to the Bank of Amsterdam And that was another invitation for people to come and lodg here what part of their Money they could transport and knew no way of securing at home Nor did those people only lodg Moneys here who came over into the Countrey but many more who never left their own Though they provided for a retreat or against a storm and thought no place so secure as this nor from whence they might so easily draw their money into any parts of the World Another Circumstance was the general Liberty and Ease not only in point of Conscience but all others that serve to the commodiousness and quiet of life Every man following his own way minding his own business and little enquiring into other mens Which I suppose happen'd by so great a concourse of people of several Nations different Religions and Customs as left nothing strange or new And by the general humour bent all upon Industry whereas Curiosity is only proper to idle men Besides it has ever been the great Principle of their State running through all their Provinces and Cities even with emulation To make their Countrey the common refuge of all miserable men From whose protection hardly any Alliance Treaties or Interests have ever been able to divert or remove them So as during the great dependance this State had upon France in the time of Henry the Fourth All the persons disgraced at that Court or banisht that Countrey made this their common retreat Nor could the State ever be prevail'd with by any instances of the French Ambassadors to refuse them the use and liberty of common life and air under the protection of their Government This firmness in the State has been one of the circumstances that has invited so many unhappy men out of all their Neighbourhood and indeed from most parts of Europe to shelter themselves from the blows of Justice or of Fortune Nor indeed does any Countrey seem so proper to be made use of upon such occasions not only in respect of safety but as a place that holds so constant and easie correspondencies with all parts of the World And whither any man may draw whatever money he has at his disposal in any other place Where neither Riches expose men to danger nor Poverty to contempt But on the contrary where Parsimony is honourable whether it be necessary or no and he that is forced by his Fortune to live low may here alone live in fashion and upon equal terms in appearance abroad with the chiefest of their Ministers and richest of their Merchants Nor is it easily imagin'd how great an effect this Constitution among them may in course of time have had upon the encrease both of their People and their Trade As the two first invitations of people into this Countrey were the strength of their
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
taking on him the Government some new protection was necessary to this Infant-State that had not legs to support it against such a storm as was threatned upon the return of the Spanish and Italian Forces to make the Body of a formidable Army which the Duke of Parma was framing in Namur and Luxenburgh Since the Conference of Bayonne between the Queen-Mother of France and her Daughter Queen of Spain Those two Crowns had continued in the Reign of Francis and Charles to assist one another in the common Design there agreed on of prosecuting with violence those they called the Hereticks in both their Dominions The Peace held constant if not kind between England and Spain so as King Philip had no Wars upon his hands in Christendom during these Commotions in the Low-Countreys And the boldness of the Confederates in their first Revolt and Union seemed greater at such a time than the success of their Resistances afterwards when so many occasions fell in to weaken and divert the Forces of the Spanish Monarchy For Henry the Third coming to the Crown of France and at first only fetter'd and control'd by the Faction of the Guises but afterwards engaged in an open War which They had raised against him upon pretext of preserving the Catholique Religion and in a conjunction of Councels with Spain was forced into better measures with the Hugonots of his Kingdom and fell into ill intelligence with Philip the Second so as Queen Elizabeth having declined to undertake openly the protection of the Low-Countrey Provinces It was by the concurring-resolution of the States and the consent of the French Court devolved upon the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henry the Third But this Prince entered Antwerp with an ill presage to the Flemings by an attempt which a Biscainer made the same day upon the Prince of Orange's Life shooting him though not mortally in the head and He continued his short Government with such mutual distasts between the French and the Flemings the Heat and Violence of one Nation agreeing ill with the Customs and Liberties of the other that the Duke attempting to make himself absolute Master of the City of Antwerp by force was driven out of the Town and thereupon retired out of the Countrey with extream resentment of the Flemings and indignation of the French so as the Prince of Orange being not long after assasin'd at Delph and the Duke of Parma encreasing daily in Reputation and in Force and the Malecontent Party falling back apace to his obedience an end was presaged by most men to the Affairs of the Confederates But the Root was deeper and not so easily shaken For the United Provinces after the unhappy Transactions with the French under the Duke of Alencon reassumed their Union in 583 binding themselves in case by fury of the War any point of it had not been observed To endeavour from that time to see it effected In case any doubt had happened to see it clear'd And any Difficulties composed And in regard the Article concerning Religion had been so fram'd in the Union because in all the other Provinces besides Holland and Zealand The Romish Religion was then used but now the Evangelical It was agreed by all the Provinces of the Union That from this time in them all the Evangelical Reformed Religion should alone be openly preached and exercised They were so far from being broken in their Designs by the Prince of Orange's death That they did all the honour that could be to his Memory substituted Prince Maurice his Son though but Sixteen years old in all his Honours and Commands and obstinately refused all Overtures that were made them of Peace resolving upon all the most desperate Actions and Sufferings rather than return under the Spanish Obedience But these Spirits were fed and heighthen'd in a great degree by the hopes and countenance given them about this time from England for Queen Elizabeth and Philip the Second though they still preserved the Name of Peace yet had worn out in a manner the Effects as well as the Dispositions of it whilst the Spaniard fomented and assisted the Insurrections of the Irish and Queen Elizabeth the new Commonwealth in the Low-Countreys Though neither directly yet by Countenance Money voluntary Troops and ways that were equally felt on both sides and equally understood King Philip had lately encreased the greatness of his Empire by the Inheritance or Invasion of the Kingdoms of Portugal upon King Sebastian's loss in Africa But I know not whether he had encreast his Power by the accession of a Kingdom with disputed Title and a discontented People who could neither be used like good Subjects and governed without Armies nor like a Conquered Nation and so made to bear the charge of their forced obedience But this addition of Empire with the vast Treasure flowing every year out of the Indies had without question raised King Philip's Ambition to vaster designs which made him embrace at once the protection of the League in France against Henry the Third and Fourth and the Donation made him of Ireland by the Pope and so embarque himself in a War with both those Crowns while He was bearded with the open Arms and Defiance of his own Subjects in the Low-Countreys But 't is hard to be imagined how far the Spirit of one Great man goes in the Fortunes of any Army or State The Duke of Parma coming to the Government without any footing in more than two of the smallest Provinces collecting an Army from Spain Italy Germany and the broken Troops of the Countrey left him by Don John having all the other Provinces confederated against him and both England and France beginning to take open part in their defence yet by force of his own Valour Conduct and the Discipline of his Army with the dis-interessed and generous Qualities of his mind winning equally upon the Hearts and Arms of the Revolted Countreys and piercing through the Provinces with an uninterrupted course of Successes and the recovery of the most important Towns in Flanders At last by the taking of Anwerp and Groningue reduced the Affairs of the Union to so extream distress that being grown destitute of all hopes and succours from France then deep engaged in their own Civil Wars They threw themselves wholly at the feet of Queen Elizabeth imploring her Protection and offering her the Soveraignty of their Countrey The Queen refused the Dominion but enter'd into Articles with their Deputies in 585 obliging her self to very great Supplies of Men and of Moneys lent them upon the security of the Briel Flussing and Ramekins which were performed and Sir John Norrice sent over to command her Forces and afterwards in 87 upon the War broken out with Spain and the mighty threats of the Spanish Armada she sent over yet greater Forces under the Earl of Leicester whom the States admitted and swore obedience to him as Governour of their United Provinces But this Government lasted not long distastes