The Unseen World and Other Essays [94]
in the gracious benevolence or intelligent
policy of the King? The very idea must have been practically inconceivable by them. Accordingly, they strove by every available device of chicanery to wheedle the Netherlanders into accepting their independence as a gift from the King of Spain. But to such a piece of self-stultification the clear-sighted Dutchmen could by no persuasion be brought to consent. Their independence, they argued, was not the King's to give. They had won it from him and his father, in a war of forty years, during which they had suffered atrocious miseries, and all that the King of Spain could do was to acknowledge it as their right, and cease to molest them in future. Over this point, so simple to us but knotty enough in those days, the commissioners wrangled for nearly two years. And when the Spanish government, unable to carry on the war any longer without risk of utter bankruptcy, and daily crippled in its resources by the attacks of the Dutch navy, grudgingly a reed to a truce upon the Netherlanders' terms, it virtually acknowledged its own defeat and the downfall of the principles for which it had so obstinately fought. By the truce of 1609 the republican principle was admitted by the most despotic of governments.
Here was the first great triumph of republicanism over monarchy; and it was not long in bearing fruits. For the Dutch revolution, the settlement of America by English Puritans, the great rebellion of the Commons, the Revolution of 1688, the revolt of the American Colonies, and the general overthrow of feudalism in 1789, are but successive acts in the same drama William the Silent was the worthy forerunner of Cromwell and Washington; and but for the victory which he won, during his life and after his untimely death, the subsequent triumphs of civil liberty might have been long, postponed.
Over the sublime figure of William--saevis tranquillus in undis--we should be glad to dwell, but we are not reviewing the "Rise of the Dutch Republic," and in Mr. Motley's present volumes the hero of toleration appears no longer. His antagonist, however,--the Philip whom God for some inscrutable purpose permitted to afflict Europe during a reign of forty-two years,--accompanies us nearly to the end of the present work, dying just in time for the historian to sum up the case against him, and pronounce final judgment. For the memory of Philip II. Mr. Motley cherishes no weak pity. He rarely alludes to him without commenting upon his total depravity, and he dismisses him with the remark that "if there are vices--as possibly there are--from which he was exempt, it is because it is not permitted to human nature to attain perfection in evil." The verdict is none the less just because of its conciseness. If there ever was a strife between Hercules and Cacus, between Ormuzd and Ahriman, between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness, it was certainly the strife between the Prince of Orange and the Spanish Monarch. They are contrasted like the light and shade in one of Dore's pictures. And yet it is perhaps unnecessary for Mr. Motley to say that if Philip had been alive when Spinola won for him the great victory of Ostend, "he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements for poisoning him." Doubtless the imputation is sufficiently justified by what we know of Philip; but it is uncalled for. We do not care to hear about what the despot might have done. We know what he did do, and the record is sufficiently damning. There is no harm in our giving the Devil his due, or as Llorente wittily says, "Il ne faut pas calomnier meme l'Inquisition."
Philip inherited all his father's bad qualities, without any of his good ones; and so it is much easier to judge him than his father. Charles, indeed, is one of those characters whom one hardly knows whether to love or hate, to admire or despise. He had much bad blood in him. Charles the Bold and Ferdinand of Aragon were not grandparents to be proud of. Yet with all this he inherited from his grandmother Isabella much that one can like, and his face,
policy of the King? The very idea must have been practically inconceivable by them. Accordingly, they strove by every available device of chicanery to wheedle the Netherlanders into accepting their independence as a gift from the King of Spain. But to such a piece of self-stultification the clear-sighted Dutchmen could by no persuasion be brought to consent. Their independence, they argued, was not the King's to give. They had won it from him and his father, in a war of forty years, during which they had suffered atrocious miseries, and all that the King of Spain could do was to acknowledge it as their right, and cease to molest them in future. Over this point, so simple to us but knotty enough in those days, the commissioners wrangled for nearly two years. And when the Spanish government, unable to carry on the war any longer without risk of utter bankruptcy, and daily crippled in its resources by the attacks of the Dutch navy, grudgingly a reed to a truce upon the Netherlanders' terms, it virtually acknowledged its own defeat and the downfall of the principles for which it had so obstinately fought. By the truce of 1609 the republican principle was admitted by the most despotic of governments.
Here was the first great triumph of republicanism over monarchy; and it was not long in bearing fruits. For the Dutch revolution, the settlement of America by English Puritans, the great rebellion of the Commons, the Revolution of 1688, the revolt of the American Colonies, and the general overthrow of feudalism in 1789, are but successive acts in the same drama William the Silent was the worthy forerunner of Cromwell and Washington; and but for the victory which he won, during his life and after his untimely death, the subsequent triumphs of civil liberty might have been long, postponed.
Over the sublime figure of William--saevis tranquillus in undis--we should be glad to dwell, but we are not reviewing the "Rise of the Dutch Republic," and in Mr. Motley's present volumes the hero of toleration appears no longer. His antagonist, however,--the Philip whom God for some inscrutable purpose permitted to afflict Europe during a reign of forty-two years,--accompanies us nearly to the end of the present work, dying just in time for the historian to sum up the case against him, and pronounce final judgment. For the memory of Philip II. Mr. Motley cherishes no weak pity. He rarely alludes to him without commenting upon his total depravity, and he dismisses him with the remark that "if there are vices--as possibly there are--from which he was exempt, it is because it is not permitted to human nature to attain perfection in evil." The verdict is none the less just because of its conciseness. If there ever was a strife between Hercules and Cacus, between Ormuzd and Ahriman, between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness, it was certainly the strife between the Prince of Orange and the Spanish Monarch. They are contrasted like the light and shade in one of Dore's pictures. And yet it is perhaps unnecessary for Mr. Motley to say that if Philip had been alive when Spinola won for him the great victory of Ostend, "he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements for poisoning him." Doubtless the imputation is sufficiently justified by what we know of Philip; but it is uncalled for. We do not care to hear about what the despot might have done. We know what he did do, and the record is sufficiently damning. There is no harm in our giving the Devil his due, or as Llorente wittily says, "Il ne faut pas calomnier meme l'Inquisition."
Philip inherited all his father's bad qualities, without any of his good ones; and so it is much easier to judge him than his father. Charles, indeed, is one of those characters whom one hardly knows whether to love or hate, to admire or despise. He had much bad blood in him. Charles the Bold and Ferdinand of Aragon were not grandparents to be proud of. Yet with all this he inherited from his grandmother Isabella much that one can like, and his face,