Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands

30 Answer to a pamphlet entitled ‘Declaration of the opinion of lord Don John of Austria’, 1578 ¹

This is a reaction to the declaration published by Don John on 25 January 1578, shortly before he beat the army of the States General in the battle of Gembloux. It was written by Marnix of St Aldegonde, who sat on the new Council of State, under governor Matthias. It was published on 18 March 1578 by the famous Antwerp printer Plantin.

Don John says that he desires two things only: the conservation of the

1 Antwoorde op een cleyn boecxken... ghenoemt de Declaratie van de meyninge van heer Don Jan van Oostenrijck (Knuttel, no. 343).

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Roman Catholic religion and the re-establishment of the king's authority. However, as religion is a gift of God and cannot be implanted or impressed on people's minds by force of arms, how can one reasonably say that Don John wanted to preserve the Roman Catholic religion or to maintain it by taking up arms? For how will he do this? Will he put to death all those who will not recognise this religion? If he takes this course then we shall again find ourselves in the hell of civil wars. For there are many people and towns who would rather be cut into pieces than await the fury of these executions. The results clearly show how little the late emperor Charles, blessed be his memory, achieved in Germany by taking up arms for the same reason. And already three kings in France² and the duke of Alva and the commander of Castile³ in Holland and Zeeland have to our great harm made us wiser by experience. Shall we always be tripped up by the same stone, trying to eradicate by force what is hidden in the depths of our souls and can be reshaped by God alone? Perhaps. However, this much is certain: the inquisition will be re-established, the old edicts will be renewed, scaffolds and gallows will be set up again and everywhere in the country great multitudes of poor people will be burned to death and hanged and robbed: people, who wish to be loyal subjects to His Majesty and to perform their duties to their fellow-creatures, as long as they may serve God in accordance with their conscience. But what kind of peace and quiet will there be? Shall we not see that the country will thus be submitted to a greater tyranny than ever before? Nevertheless, if by such means the Roman Catholic religion could be preserved, then there might be some justification for these policies; in reality, however, they will totally destroy it. For experience proves convincingly that nothing is more harmful to its conservation than force of arms and violent persecution. Nothing makes the clergy more hated and consequently brings them into greater danger than their public refusal to side with the rest of the population. This was manifest in Holland and Zeeland where the expulsion of the clergy was (as the inhabitants declare) caused by the fact that the clergy, in violation of the alliance they had concluded, refused to join the others. They had daily secret dealings with the Spaniards and this for reasons of security led the States of the province to deliver the country from them completely.⁴ And if despite the conclusion of the Pacification of Ghent and

2 The brothers Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III, who succeeded each other on the throne of France after 1559.

3 The Spanish governor, Requesens.

4 This passage refers to the treatment of the Roman Catholic clergy in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland after the revolt of the year 1572.

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its ratification by a firm union, this weed of discord and dispute is again sown here among the common people and if one wants to exterminate either the one or the other party contrary to the promises made in the Pacification, it is greatly to be feared that discord will again burst into the flames of civil war and bring about the ruin of the country in general, and of the clergy in particular, for the clergy, being rich and free from many taxes, is much exposed to hatred.

This brings me to suppose that Don John appears so stubborn on the point of religion because he hopes to use it as a means to sow dissension in the country and, as his councillor Escovedo says, to set the inhabitants by the ears.⁵ For Don John knows of course that the real way to conserve the Roman Catholic religion is through solid unity and firm mutual solidarity, without partiality over religion. The example of Germany clearly proves this.⁶ There the adherents of both religions daily associate with each other; nevertheless there is no country in the world where the clergy are more respected or richer or more powerful.

This is why the bishops and universities in the Netherlands were quite right in holding that the Pacification of Ghent was conducive to the conservation of the Roman Catholic religion and did not tend to harm or ruin it as Don John himself made people think.⁷ If Don John wants to preserve the Roman Catholic religion in the way prescribed by the Pacification, then there is no need to take up arms. For all on whom he is waging war, whichever religion they profess, support the Pacification, as they have often made clear especially in their recent declaration in the States General and as they have also proved by their deeds.⁸ But if he intends to preserve religion by raising new disturbances, murders and civil wars, which ruin the country and its honest inhabitants by arson and bloodshed, then we must assume that religion is only a pretext to cover his malevolence towards these countries, which he desires to destroy even if this also causes the fall of the Roman Catholic religion. For it is certain that since the conclusion of the Pacification of Ghent, the adherents of the religion called ‘reformed’ have behaved with greater discipline and discretion than under the duke of Alva or any of the other previous governors: they have not introduced any innovation or made any change or alteration however small. On the contrary in obstinately taking up arms under

5 See Document 27.

6 Since the religious peace of Augsburg of 1555.

7 This declaration by the bishops in the Netherlands and by the theological and juridical faculties of the university of Louvain was inserted into the text of the Perpetual Edict.

8 At the Second Union of Brussels of December 1577.

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cover of maintaining the Roman Catholic religion Don John runs a great risk bringing us into great disorder and confusion.