THE SILENT PRINCE
INTRODUCTION.
It was Christmas morning in Brussels in the year of grace 1565. For twenty-four hours the snow had been steadily falling, but now the storm had ceased, and the stars shone clear and bright from the frosty sky. The streets of the capital were deserted, if we except a few belated travellers who were hurriedly seeking shelter from the piercing northwest wind.
The festivities incident to Christmas Eve had ceased. The good people of Brussels were quietly sleeping with joyful anticipations of a brighter tomorrow. Well might the nation rejoice, and the denizens of the city peacefully repose. Had not a signal victory been gained? Was not the hated Cardinal Granvelle recalled to Madrid, and had not the Spanish troops been removed from the Netherlands?
Ten years had passed since the eyes of the world had been directed to that unique spectacle, which custom had not rendered stale—an imperial abdication. The crown which had begun to press too heavily upon the ambitious head of Charles the Fifth, emperor of Germany and king of Spain, was now formally laid aside and the sceptre was confided to younger hands. It was a rich and powerful kingdom which the abdication of Charles had placed in the hands of Philip the Second. The Netherlands comprised seventeen of the most flourishing provinces in Europe. For commercial pursuits, their situation in close proximity to the sea was unrivalled. The soil, which the industry and perseverance of the thrifty people had wrested from old ocean, was fertile and yielded rich harvests. The Netherlanders themselves were an honest, peaceable folk, yet when aroused they were the most belligerent and excitable population on the continent. The reformed religion, which had been crushed in Spain by the Inquisition, had developed in the Netherlands a kind of sacred patriotism, and freedom both of speech and of conscience was an established fact among all classes of society. The policy which had worked like magic in Spain, was a dismal failure in the Netherlands. Spain might be lurid with the flames of the auto da fé, and one by one the gentle voices of her noble Protestant martyrs might be silenced; in the Netherlands the love of religious liberty had taken fast root, and neither Philip's commands, the pope’s threats, nor the grand inquisitor’s bloody deeds could stamp it out of existence.
When the Emperor Charles entered the royal palace at Brussels, and leaning on the arm of William of Orange, delivered his valedictory address in broken accents to the assembled throng, the people wept and applauded. They forgot, in that hour, that it was his hand which had planted the Inquisition in their midst. His faithful subjects remembered only that he was a Fleming, and that his preference for the language and customs of his native land, neither the imperial crown of Germany, nor the Spanish diadem which destiny had added to the coronet of his fatherland, could diminish in the slightest degree. They readily took the oath of allegiance to support his son, and at the time they were sincere in their pledges of fealty.
Ten years wrought many changes. Philip the Second was soon detested by the Netherlanders as much as his father was revered. These provinces, so passionate in their desire for civil and religious liberty, had become the property of an utter stranger—a prince foreign to their blood, their tongue, their religion; to one whose oft-repeated maxim was, “Better not rule at all, than to rule over a nation of heretics.”
Philip had entrusted the subjugation of the Netherlands to two persons, the Regent, Margaret of Parma, and Cardinal Granvelle. The Regent was but a puppet in the hands of the King and the ambitious ecclesiastic. The people soon found that one by one their municipal privileges were withdrawn, their ancient charters annulled, religious persecution redoubled, and as a crowning insult, thousands of Spanish soldiers were quartered upon them in a time of peace.
Cardinal Granvelle was personally responsible for many of these evils. His zeal for the crown, combined with his arrogance, provoked the wrath of the nobles. Even the Regent, wearied with discord and strife, prayed for his dismissal. For five years Philip joined issue with the people of the Netherlands in a struggle of life and death. At last the nation, Catholics and Protestants alike, rose as one man and demanded the removal of Granvelle. Philip was compelled to discharge the hated prelate, and the latter left Brussels never to return.
An exultant shout went up from the Netherlands: “Granvelle has gone! The victory is ours!” A victory forsooth! yet one which was to be purchased only with the blood of eighty years of civil strife.
The herald angels sang once more on this Christmas morning their hallelujah chorus: “Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good will to men.” Tears must have mingled with hymn of praise, as they saw in the Netherlands “ Humanity bleeding but not killed, standing at bay and defying her hunters.”
But God's deliverer was at hand. Out of the gloomy background there rose a figure, at first indistinct, shadowy, but as the contest proceeded, becoming clearly defined. It was the figure of a man, who in this bigoted age loved and exercised tolerance in the affairs of conscience; a man, who to his latest breath contended that freedom of inquiry was an inalienable right of the human race; a man whose magnanimity and self-abnegation for the cause of freedom well deserved the double glory of exalted position and final martyrdom.
This man was William of Orange, the Silent Prince.