(The Story of Holland)
AMONGST the things for which Protestantism witnesses, we have named, and we have every right to name — Freedom.
It is not the greatest thing, but it is a great thing, for all that. We have ventured to say that no one who has studied history, with anything like impartiality, can deny the services that Protestantism has rendered to the cause of freedom. These are shown in the history of many countries; one will serve as an example — the story of the very smallest of the countries of Europe. This country was not, like the home of the Waldenses, a land of mountains and valleys, where the hunted people could take refuge in their natural caves and fortresses with the song on their lips—
“ For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our father’s God.”
In this land there are no mountains, scarce even any hills. It lies low, flat, level with the sea, from which indeed a good part of it has been rescued by the energy, the skill, and the determination of its inhabitants. Those inhabitants showed early that they had in them the qualities of men, and of brave, strong men. And that little nation, which fought the sea for generations for the possession of that little land, in the sixteenth century fought with Spain, then the greatest of the nations, for a nobler possession — and won it.
Look at Spain on the map, and then look at Holland. The difference in size will strike you at once; but it will give you no idea at all of the difference in power between the two in the days when Holland fought with Spain. For the Spain of the sixteenth century was not the Spain of the twentieth. She was then the greatest Power in Europe; most people would have foretold that the future was with her, and that she was destined for the foremost and grandest place in the modern world.
Spain then seemed the Lucifer of nations, the child of the morning. Her monarch, in whose reign the great drama of the Netherlands began, was also the Emperor of Germany, that Charles V. who presided at the Diet of Worms, who conquered his rival, Francis I., and who crushed the Schmalkaldic League. He was regarded in that age as the successor of the old emperors of Rome. His son, Philippians 2, who succeeded him as King of Spain though not as Emperor of Germany, succeeded also to his hereditary dominions, which comprised the Netherlands. Philip had one immense advantage, added to all his other sources of wealth and power. The treasures of the New World were at his feet. Peru and Mexico yielded up to him and his their untold riches in gold and silver. No empty vaunt was the answer of the Spanish Ambassador to those who boasted to him of the vast resources of France, “My master’s treasury has no bottom.”
Yet the men in that little corner of Europe which we call Holland, fought with Philip and conquered him, and tore their freedom from his reluctant hands. Now if a nation wants to be free there are three things which it ought to have, and which if it has will almost certainly secure its freedom. These three things are: Some men who can die; many men who can fight; one man who can rule. Holland had them all. We will take them in order.
1. Some men who can die. These are the kind of men Protestantism has always made wherever it has found entrance. You remember the saying, “ He who can die cannot be compelled,” and wherever there are men who cannot be compelled, there are sown the ineradicable seeds of freedom.
Into the Netherlands, which included what we now call Holland, and Belgium also, the Protestant Faith found early entrance. The protomartyrs of the Reformation were from the Low Countries, and from that beginning, in 1523, the blood of martyrs never ceased to flow. No part of Europe, probably, had so many martyrs, except France. The author of the “Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family” has put this in a striking way. “Anyone who is in search of relics may take up any handful from the earth of Holland, and be pretty sure it contains the dust of a martyr.” We may call these martyrs indeed not merely numerous, but innumerable.
In old, half-forgotten records we find a crowd of names, but often the names are all we find, and oftener still the very names even are not recorded. It may be said of them, as of the heroes who lived before Homer—
“They had no bard, and died.”
No one sang their praises; no one told the tale of their sufferings and their glory. But these things are recorded elsewhere — as we know.
The “Edicts” under which they suffered emanated first from the Emperor Charles, and were confirmed and strengthened by his bigoted and fanatical son, Philippians 2. If there is any name in history worthy of the execration of humanity it is certainly that of Philippians 2. These edicts against heresy were just as severe as the laws of the Spanish Inquisition. The free-hearted men of Holland complained continually that Spain was imposing the Inquisition upon them. The King of Spain used to answer, “ No, it is not the Inquisition; meaning it was not the Spanish Inquisition — but in fact it was the Inquisition all the same. In some respects it was even worse, if worse could be. In order to be burned at the stake a man had not to profess the doctrines of Luther or Calvin, he had only to read a few chapters of the Bible in his own house and to his own family; he had only to have in his possession a book of Luther’s, even if he had got it out of mere curiosity; he had only to abstain from going to Mass; he had only to utter a few words of compassion for the heretics he saw on their way to the fire, to involve himself in the same terrible doom. Just to give distinctness to our thoughts of this great army of victims we will give one or two personal touches.
One man, a schoolmaster, was brought before a particularly zealous inquisitor named Titelman. He prayed to have his case transferred to the civil tribunal, but the inquisitor said, “No, you are my prisoner, and to me, and me alone, you must answer. You have a wife and children; have you no pity for them? Do you not love them?”
“Love my wife and children!” said the martyr. “ God knows that if the world were gold, and I had the whole of it, I would give it all, only to be with them, even if it were on bread and water and in banishment.”
“You have them,” returned the inquisitor, “if you will only renounce your errors.”
“Neither for wife nor children, nor for the whole world, will I renounce my God and His truth,” was the answer.
He was sent to the stake.
Sometimes whole families incurred this doom. A man named Robert Ogler, with his wife and two sons, was brought before the judges on the charge that none of them went to Mass, but read the Bible, and prayed by themselves in their own house. They confessed the offense, and were asked what rites they practiced at home. One of the sons, who was only a boy, answered with boyish simplicity, “ We kneel down and pray to God; we ask Him to enlighten our hearts and to forgive us our sins. Also we pray for our king, and for the magistrates, and for all in authority, that God may protect and preserve them.” The judges were softened; some of them even shed tears. But all the same, both father and son were condemned to the stake. When they came to the place of execution the boy prayed, “Eternal Father, accept the sacrifice of our lives in the name of Thy beloved Son!” And as the flames rose about them, he cried aloud to his father, “Look, my father, all heaven is opening, and I see ten hundred thousand angels rejoicing over us. Let us be glad, for we are dying for the truth.” Eight days later, the mother and the younger son were brought out and burned. “So,” adds the chronicler, “ there was an end of that family.”
On another occasion a man named John de Swarte, and his wife and four children, were surprised in their own house, reading the Bible and praying. There were with them two newly married couples and two other persons. All the twelve were dragged before the judgment-seat, condemned, and burned in one fire.
The story of Dirk Willemzoon deserves mention, if only from its connection with that kind of “romance” which will ever consecrate the “generous deed.” Willemzoon was a Protestant escaping from his pursuers in the depths of winter over a frozen lake. The pursuers were close behind him when the ice broke, and the officer of justice, who was foremost amongst them, fell into the water. The hunted man, hearing his cry, turned back, dragged him out, and placed him in safety. By that time, however, the others had come up. In spite of some faint remonstrance from the man he had saved, Dirk Willemzoon was apprehended, brought back, and condemned. His death was one of unusually terrible and lingering agony. This was the reward man gave him for his act of self-forgetting heroism. Happily, he went to another place where, we may assume, his reward was different.
2. What we need to realize is the great number of these martyrs. The men in the Low Countries who could die were not only “some,” but many — very many. But although it is true that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” it is quite as truly the test of the nation. We think it will be found that as the nations have dealt with God’s witnesses, so God has dealt with them — so they have prospered, or not prospered, afterwards. In some countries the heart of the nation approved the death of the martyrs; they regarded it with solemn satisfaction, as a most right and acceptable sacrifice to God — as in Spain. Or — what was worse — they beheld it with savage joy, counting it a delightful entertainment — as too often in France. But in other countries the heart of the nation was touched — was revolted. It rose up and said to the rulers, “Stop this thing. We will not have it! You must stop it, or we’ll make you.” It was so in Scotland, where men said of the first Reformation martyr, Patrick Hamilton, that “the reek of his burning did infect every spot that it blew upon.” It was so in England also, though it took a longer time and more martyrs to do it. It was so in Holland and the adjacent Provinces. It took a long time to rouse them — but roused they were at last.
Then came the Beggars’ League, with the famous wallet and bowl for its badge and its symbol. The whole dramatic story — does it not live forever in the brilliant pages of Motley’s “Rise of the Dutch Republic?” Then came, in various places, tumultuous risings of the people and efforts to rescue the victims. Then came the fury of the Iconoclasts — the image-breakers— who wrecked cathedrals and churches, and destroyed sacred images and pictures. Not that this was the work of the Reformed, as a body; it was only that of a few fanatics, maddened by persecution and joined by the rabble of the great cities, intent upon satisfying their malice or their greed. And at the worst — their enemies themselves being witnesses — “they took good care not to injure in any way the living images.” But all these things showed that it was time for the many men who could fight to take the matter in hand — and they did.
When resistance to tyranny began, at first measures were taken to put it down by force, and the prospects of the patriots looked dark, very dark indeed. In the year 1568 a thing was done in Spain by the tribunal of the Inquisition which in these days can hardly be believed. What do you think was the greatest death sentence ever pronounced in the world? I have no doubt it was this one. The Inquisition actually doomed to death the whole population of the country — men, women, and children — numbering three millions. Three millions of people doomed to death in three lines! Only a few exceptions were made, by name. Ten days’ later Philip confirmed by his royal authority this stupendous Death Sentence. And to show that it was no mere bravado, no threat to frighten the rebellious into submission, he sent an army, presumably to execute it. This army was under the command of the ferocious Duke of Alva, whose name is familiar to us all. For five terrible years his iron grip was on the nation’s throat, and the history of these years is “written within and without with mourning and lamentation and woe.” Truly indeed was “the earth like a winepress trod.” Horrible as had been the atrocities of the preceding years, these five outdid them all.
It was a carnival of violence, injustice, and cruelty. But it came to an end, and that soon— because God gave to the nation, not only some men who could die and many men who could fight, but the third requisite for achieving freedom — one man who could rule.
3. Will you, for a little while, turn back your thoughts some fifteen years, to the striking and dramatic scene in the great Hall of Brussels, where the Emperor Charles V., of his own free will, is laying down the heavy burden of his double sovereignty? There he stands, before that splendid and most illustrious assembly, an old and broken man — though his years were but fifty-five — to speak his words of farewell, and make his solemn Act of Abdication. On his right stands his son, Philip, the heir of his Spanish dominions — yet looking anything but like a Spaniard, for he is of fair complexion, and equally unlike a king, for he is undersized, mean-faced, without distinction of bearing, and with the repulsive hanging under-lip and prominent jaw which characterized his race. On the left of the Emperor stands a young man of twenty-two, on whose arm he is leaning. Tall, splendidly handsome, of noble bearing, dark-complexioned like a Spaniard and magnificently attired, you might have thought him more fit than Philip to be the king of Spain.
Very different, however, was to be the destiny of William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. But just then he knew not of it. Life was opening out its fairest prospects before him. Rich, gifted, brilliant, ambitious, he already enjoyed the special favor of the Emperor, whose page he had been from his childhood. Charles, an excellent judge of character, used to allow him, when only fifteen, to be present, as his personal attendant, at his most secret Councils, because he knew that, even then, he was utterly to be trusted. Even then he knew how to keep silence — a quality which won for him in after years the name of William the Silent — not that he was silent in conversation; on the contrary, he was said to be particularly bright, ready, and genial. In his youth he threw himself heartily into the pursuits of ambition and into the pleasures of his age, and seemed bent on enjoying life to the uttermost. But He whom he knew not then, knew him, and had other work prepared for him.
A few years after the Emperor’s abdication, when peace was made between France and Spain, William was sent to France as one of the hostages, the other being the terrible Duke of Alva. During his stay, the King of France, Henry II., was concocting with his former enemy, Philip of Spain, a secret plot for the destruction of the Protestants of both countries. As said before, this meant nothing short of their absolute and utter extermination. Alva was in the secret but, for sufficient reasons, it had not been entrusted to William of Orange.
One day Henry was riding at the Chase in the Forest of Vincennes, and finding himself alone with William, began to talk to him about the plot, not knowing, or forgetting, his ignorance of it. What he heard struck home with a great horror to the young man’s heart. He was no Protestant, he was a Catholic, like all those around him; but, as he himself said afterwards, “the thought of so many innocent and virtuous people being put to death struck into my heart with a sense of horror.” So prudent was he, however, that he not only held his peace at the time, allowing Henry fully to unfold his plan, but did not for long afterward mention it to anyone. It is said to have been this incident which especially procured him the name of William the Silent. It did more; it seems to have awakened in his strong and generous heart a steadfast determination to help and save the persecuted Protestants, wherever he could, and especially in the Provinces of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, of which he was hereditary Stadtholder. Holland was the largest and most powerful of these, and therefore it has given its name not only to the three, but to the seven which, under his auspices, succeeded in gaining their independence, and which now compose the kingdom of Holland.
On the coming of Alva, William left the country, or he would most certainly never have lived to do anything more for it. His friends, Egmont and Horn, in spite of his earnest entreaties, chose to stay, confident in their innocence, and both died on the scaffold.
But he went to come back again. He gathered in Germany a little army of volunteers, and with this he came to the help of the brave people who had already begun the fight for faith and freedom. Already the “Sea Beggars,” as they were called — the wild sea rovers, half pirates, half patriots, who were an outcome and offshoot of the famous Beggars’ League — had taken the seaport of Brill, and towns here and there were rising against the Spaniards. Still, the enterprise was desperate. While his expedition was preparing, friends in Germany asked him, “But what alliances have you? Which of the kings or princes will take your part? How do you intend to keep up this war?”
William’s answer showed that great thoughts had been at work within him. Much was changed there, since the Emperor leaned on his arm in Brussels, and even since King Henry talked with him in the Forest of Vincennes. “Before I ever took up the cause of the oppressed Christians in these Provinces,” he said, “I had entered into a close alliance with the King of kings, and I am firmly convinced that all who put their trust in Him shall be saved by His Almighty hand.” True; but those who trust Him have to wait for His salvation — and sometimes, as it seems to us, to wait long for it. Twice was his little army discomfited, and lie himself driven out of the country by the overwhelming Spanish forces. But he came again the third time — and this time he came to stay. When asked what he would do if conquered, he said, “I will die in the last ditch.”
The story of the long and desperate war that followed abounds in thrilling scenes and incidents, and will amply repay an attentive perusal. We cannot give it here; we can only take one episode as a sample of the rest — the siege of Leyden. The town is about fifteen miles from the sea-coast; and those miles have been mostly rescued from the waters by the courage and industry of the inhabitants. The sea is kept back by a wonderful and cunning arrangement of dykes and barriers; and at the time of the war those fifteen miles were a smiling country, well-watered, full of cereal crops and other good fruits of the earth. Leyden had already undergone a short and ineffectual siege, which was raised by means of Count Louis of Nassau, the brother of William, who had come from France to help the good cause. The Spaniards had to abandon the siege and march to oppose him, so for that time the town was delivered. William had four brothers, all true friends of Holland and of Protestantism. Three of them died in battle, only one was left with him to the end, to be his trusted friend and counselor. They had a good mother, still living at this time, a truly Christian woman, who helped them by her counsel and her prayers.
It was in March, 1574, that the first siege of Leyden was raised. But in May, after the defeat and death of Louis of Nassau, the Spaniards came back in great force, and the town was besieged again. Unhappily, the people thought, when the first danger had passed, that they were quite safe and all would go well. So they neglected to lay in a sufficient stock of provisions, and the Spaniards took them unprepared. Still, it was of the utmost importance that they should hold out to the last, for the sake of the whole country, to which Leyden might be called the key, and also for their own. For whenever the Spaniards took a town they committed the most horrible cruelties upon the defenseless inhabitants. Haarlem, for instance, after a brilliant resistance in which women and children fought on the ramparts beside the men, capitulated on the solemn promise that all lives should be spared, which promise the Spaniards broke with horrible treachery, putting to death 2,300 persons in cold blood. That was a good warning, not for Leyden alone, but for the whole country.
It was on the 26th of May that the siege began. The citizens had sent word to William, “We will hold out for one month with bread, and for another month without bread.” In fact, they had only bread for one month in the city, and that was by reducing every one’s allowance — each citizen got only half a pound a day. At the end of the first month the bread was gone, and for another month they made shift with malt-cake. Still no prospect of relief. They were able, by means of carrier pigeons, to hold occasional communication with their friends outside, to tell them their condition, and receive messages from them. William, with his small, inadequate army, was burning to deliver them; but what could he do? At last, from toil and sorrow and anxiety, he fell into a fever, and was “nigh unto death.” Still he kept on counselling and encouraging the men of Leyden, and trying to help them. He took care that they should not know of his illness, which would almost have driven them to despair. Under his directions the Dutch Admiral, Boisot, collected a fleet and brought it to the sea-coast, fifteen miles away. But there it had to stay, for ships do not sail over land. Then William came to the heroic resolution that he would have all the dykes cut, that the sea might overflow the land and bring the ships to the city. Of course this involved the destruction of the crops, the fruits— everything that grew upon the ground—in fact, the ruin of the whole district. But William said, “Better a drowned land than a lost land,” and so, with the consent of the owners of the property, the dykes were cut. But this was a serious business, and a long one. So ingenious and so complicated was the system contrived to keep the waters out, that it was by no means easy to let them in, even when people wanted to do it.
And now that there was no more bread, no more malt-cake even, what were the men of Leyden to do? They began to eat any sort of thing they could lay their hands upon. The leaves were soon stripped from all the trees that grew in the town. And, as their need increased, far worse things came to be eaten — things horrible and revolting. A small number of cows had been kept for the sick and the infants, and a few of these were slaughtered every day, and their flesh distributed in the smallest morsels. Every drop of blood was used, and the very skins were boiled and eaten. Like shadows of their former selves, the miserable inhabitants stole about the streets. Sometimes they fell down dead as they walked. Children died like flies, and old people too. Delicate ladies used to go and search the dung-heaps, in the hope of finding some eatable morsel there. Dogs and cats, rats and mice were esteemed rare luxuries.
Meanwhile the besiegers, knowing what the besieged must be suffering, and beginning to see how hard they were to conquer, tried to tempt them to surrender. They would spare their lives; they would treat them very gently; they would give them favorable terms — if only they would yield the city. The answer was this: “You call us eaters of dogs and cats. Very well. So long, then, as in this city you hear a dog bark or a cat mew, you may know we will not yield. And when all else is done, we will eat our left arms and keep our right to fight for our Country, our Faith, and our God. At last, if we have to die, we will set fire to the city and perish in the flames.”
These indeed were men who could die; and the women were brave also, sometimes even braver than the men.
All this time there was the fleet lying in the offing, the dykes were cut, the land submerged and ruined, but still the waters would not rise enough to float the ships. The men of Leyden, in their misery, used to climb to the top of the high tower of St. Pancras, whence they could see the ships all laden with food, while they were starving and their anguish passing slowly into utter despair. We cannot suppose that everyone in the city had the spirit of a hero or a martyr; so we need not wonder that some of the citizens, half mad with hunger, and seeing their dear ones suffer with them, said in their hearts, “What use in resisting anymore? The Spaniards must have us in the end. And better first than last. Death will come the quicker.”
But the burgomaster, Van der Werf, was a true hero. With the help of Van der Does, the like-minded commandant, he had directed the Defense and kept order in the city, bravely sustaining all the time the courage of the people. But at last a tumult arose. An angry crowd gathered round him in the market-place, and cried aloud — in the rage that was half despair — “We can bear it no longer. You must yield — you must yield — or we will make you! We are starving!”
Van der Werf took off his broad-brimmed hat and waved it, to ask for silence. Then he said, “Citizens and brothers, I would feed you, but I cannot. I am as hungry as you. But this I know and say: I have sworn to God that I would keep this city — and keep it I will. I will not surrender. I care nothing for my own life. Kill me; tear my flesh in pieces, and let the most hungry among you devour it! But yield this city I will not.”
The people, moved to the heart, vowed that they would stand by him to the last — and they did. Worse and worse the suffering grew. At this time, unhappily, the wind was easterly, so it blew the waters away from the land instead of upon it; and the despairing citizens, looking from the tower of St. Pancras, could only fix their glazing eyes on the distant ships, and think they were going to die of hunger with help and plenty in their very sight.
There was a strong dyke within five miles of the city, called the Landscheideng. With a great effort the soldiers of freedom outside had got possession of this, and cut it. But still the waters would not rise, and still the foe was beneath the walls. And moreover, the Spaniards had erected forts close to the city — especially one strong one, called the Lammen fort — from which, even if the waters should rise, it would be very difficult to dislodge them. On every side hope seemed cut off.
It came to the night of the 1St of October. That night the wind changed. The despairing people thanked God when they had climbed to St. Pancras tower, and, weak with hunger as they were, found it hard to stand against the freshening breeze that was now blowing from the west. It grew and strengthened until it became a gale, bearing towards them the waters— the welcome waters, the blessed waters, the waters of deliverance — upon which was the fleet, laden with the food they were dying for! Oh, but there would still be that fort, right in the way of the deliverers — how were they to pass it?
The second day came, and the second night. During that night a tremendous noise was heard, which intensified the alarm and horror of the citizens, who, in the thick darkness, could not tell what had happened. But at daybreak a boy came to the burgomaster and said, “Sir, I want to tell you I was standing on the rampart, and as I looked towards the Lammen fort I saw many lights — a long line of lights — and they were moving away from it. Sir, I think the Spaniards are gone.”
“That cannot be,” said Van der Werf. “They would never abandon their most important fort like that. It is impossible.”
“But I am sure of it, sir,” the boy persisted. “If you give me leave I will go out and see.”
“No,” was the answer, “you must not go, for you would certainly be killed. It would be throwing your life away.”
“I must die anyway,” the boy returned, “for I am starving. Oh, sir, I pray of you, let me go!”
The burgomaster let him go. By and by the watchers on the rampart saw a boy standing at the top of the Lammers fort and wildly waving his cap. It was quite true. The fort was abandoned. The mysterious noise in the night — which was really caused by the fall of a part of the city wall — had created a panic in the garrison, already alarmed by the rising of the waters, and they thought it better not to wait to be drowned. A man, wading breast-high through the water, bore the joyful news to the fleet, which had now begun to move. The last obstacle to its coming was no more.
In the abandoned fort the boy found a pot filled with vegetables — carrots, turnips, and onions — which some Spanish soldier had prepared for a late supper or an early breakfast. He took up the pot, and carried it into the town; and that was the first food that came into Leyden after the siege. That pot is still preserved in the Leyden Museum.
The people, now full of hope, crowded down to the quay. And there, when the sun arose, a sight yet more glorious met their view — the ships of their deliverers moving upon the waters, those blessed waters! What words can tell the rapture of that sight! Even before the ships touched the quay the men in them threw out food — bread and herrings — to the starving people. When they reached it, the first to land was Admiral Boisot. The heroic burgomaster, Van der Werf, stood on the quay awaiting him, and the two — the admiral an old, white-haired man, the burgomaster not old, but worn with toil and care and suffering — fell into each other’s arms, and wept and sobbed aloud. So did those around them. Yet the first thing the people thought of was to give thanks to God. Deliverers and delivered together, they streamed with one impulse to the largest church in the town, the church of St. Peter. The pastor offered a thanksgiving prayer — then the mass of voices rose in song — probably in Luther’s immortal hymn, the Marseillaise of the Reformation—
“Our God is our strong Hiding-place,
Our sole Defense and Tower;
He helps us freely by His Grace
In every evil hour.”
The hymn was never finished, the whole multitude broke down and wept together like children. But no doubt He to whom they turned in joy, as they had done in sorrow—
“ Discerned, in speechless tears, both prayer and praise.”
That was the 3rd of October, 1574; and to the present time that day is kept in Leyden as a festival and a holiday. Everyone makes it a point to partake of a dish of carrots and other vegetables in memory of the first food brought into the town after the siege. And, what is more important, everyone goes to church and thanks God for His mercies. It is good for us all to say, “O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that Thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them.”
The resistance of Leyden, and other events of the war which showed the same indomitable spirit, seem to have convinced Philip of Spain that it would not be very easy to execute his famous Death Sentence, and that after all it might be expedient rather to make terms with the delinquents. Accordingly, he published an Amnesty, in which he graciously promised to forgive all their sins and all their transgressions; and that upon the sole condition that they should return to the fold of the Catholic Church. He told them how often he had longed to gather them under his protection, “as a hen doth gather her chickens under her wings.” One may just remark in passing that if Philippians 2 was a Hen, he was certainly the most bloodthirsty fowl that has ever been heard of since the world began! The Amnesty proved a complete failure. The patriots treated it with contempt. Not for anything he could promise, or threaten, would they violate their consciences or forsake their religion.
Still, after the deliverance of Leyden, dark days came again, and their faith was long and sorely tried. William of Orange stood by them and upheld them through all. He had now openly joined the Reformed Communion, to which thenceforth he adhered with heart and soul. He had become, what in his youth he certainly was not, a deeply religious man.
But even he, though he knew and felt that he and his would never yield, sometimes came to fear that they must die. Remember that now the only insuperable difference between them and Philip was that of religion; if they would become Catholics all else would be conceded. But if not — Ah, do you remember another “But if not,” in that wonderful story in the Book of Daniel? The answer of William of Orange and the men of Holland to the King of Spain was almost as heroic as that of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to the King of Babylon: “Rather than forsake our Faith we will open all the dykes in our country — the dykes our forefathers spent their lives in making — we will give our whole land back to the sea it was taken from. And we ourselves, with our women and children, will crowd into every ship we can find, and go away into the New World, there to seek a place where we can worship God in peace and freedom.” Did ever a nation come to a braver resolve than that? But they were not put to the test. God gave them their country — and their freedom too.
How in the end they won it must be read elsewhere. The little space that remains to us here must be given to the one man who, because he could rule, enabled the many men who could fight to gain the victory. Philip, who could not conquer him, put him “under the Ban” — outlawed him in fact, though he was a sovereign prince like himself. He did more — he set a price upon his head. In this Ban, which was published everywhere, he promised that anyone who should take the life of William of Nassau should receive as a reward the sum of twenty-five thousand crowns in gold. “And,” adds the King, “ if he have committed any crime, however heinous, we promise to pardon him; and if he be not already noble, we will ennoble him for his valor.” This was nothing less than a call to all the rascality of his dominions, and indeed of all Europe, to arm itself against the life of a single man, with a king’s ransom for the assassin’s reward. Philip’s own General and relative, the Prince of Parma, remarked very meaningly, “I fear the world will say of us, that when we were unable to conquer the Prince of Orange we arranged to have him assassinated.”
Two attempts were made upon the life of the Prince. The first time he was shot through the head; but, after a long and dangerous illness and much suffering, he recovered.
There is one thing about this matter which is worth recording, as it throws light upon the character of William, and upon something else also. Tremendous issues, in those days, hung upon the lives of kings and princes, so it is no wonder these were continually aimed at, and that the hands of a host of fanatics and desperadoes were armed against them. They must have lived in perpetual fear of assassination; which could not have been very pleasant, as life was at least as dear to them as to other people. Most of them took all the precautions they could; and who could blame them?
One of these precautions was to make things very unpleasant — very remarkably unpleasant indeed — for their would-be assassins, when they succeeded in catching them. The accounts of the punishments inflicted upon those who murdered, or tried to murder, any great personage, are exceedingly painful reading. Yet, when two of the miscreants who had plotted the murder of William were arrested, he gave directions that their trial should be conducted with strict regard to the forms of law, and that no torture should be used; and after they were condemned he wrote from his sick-bed — which was likely then to have been his death-bed—requesting as a personal favor that they should not be put to any torturing death, but simply hanged like ordinary malefactors. That, under the circumstances and considering the extreme and perpetual danger of assassination in which he stood, was a heroic thing to do. It is not unconnected with our subject. You will find that it was in Protestant countries that the use of torture to extract evidence, and also of touring aggravations of the death penalty, were earliest discontinued. Interesting details on this subject are given in Dr. Kidd’s remarkable book on “Social Evolution.”
We pass on to the last day of William’s life. Perhaps some of us have seen, in that old house in Delft, the very room where he died. He had been dining with his family, and conversing cheerfully, as was his wont. He had left the dining-hall, and was going upstairs to the room above. As he put his foot on the third stair, an assassin, concealed in a dark alcove, fired three balls at him from a pistol. He was brought back into the dining-room and laid on a couch. His wife was there, and his sister. “God have mercy on me,” he said. “God have mercy on my soul, and on this unfortunate nation!” So, to the very last, he thought of the people he had lived and was dying for. His wife — the widowed daughter of Admiral Coligny — was overwhelmed with grief and horror, but his sister bent over him and asked, “Do you commit your soul to Jesus Christ? “He whispered “Yes,” and his spirit passed.
So fell William of Orange, the founder of the Dutch Republic. In the “Apology,” which was his answer to the Ban of Philip of Spain, he had written, “God in His mercy will maintain my innocence and my honor during my life and in future days; while, as to my fortune and my life, I have dedicated both, long since, to His service. He will do what pleaseth Him for His glory and for my salvation.”
God has maintained his honor and his innocence: — in his own generation, where “during his life he had been the heart and soul of a great nation, and at his death the little children cried in the streets;” and also in future days, for “Never shall he be in praise by wise and good forsaken”
wherever throughout the world truth, righteousness, and courage are honored and admired; while in his own country he is still called, in grateful reverence, “Father William.”
“I shall pass, my work will fail.”
TENNYSON.