Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands

31 Answer from the States General of the Netherlands to a proposition from His Imperial Majesty, 1578 ¹

This reply by the States General to the mediatory proposals of the emperor, Rudolph II, transmitted by the ambassador Otho Henry count of Schwartzenberg in January 1578, was published at Plantin's on the same day as the previous document. Marnix may also have been the author of this document.

Thus it is clear that His Majesty, who is far away from these provinces and ill-informed, ordained (or rather it was ordained in his name) and presented to the States conditions which cannot be fulfilled without harming the interests of His Majesty or bringing about the destruction of the whole country, and which are moreover totally contrary to the king's declaration and promise.² And yet Don John does not cease proclaiming these conditions everywhere, and using the pretext of religion and of the obedience due to the king - such peaceful and beautiful matters - to sow discord and dissension among the inhabitants of the country and to set them by the ears so that they will ruin each other (as Escovedo explicitly writes to the king of Spain).³ That is why the States, putting an end to the extravagantly subtle and dangerous religious disputes, are forced to unite more strongly and to ask for the help and assistance of other nations, even to ally themselves with foreign princes.⁴

As the king decided to ruin the men who so far rendered him allegiance, obedience and gallant service and still are doing so and promise to do so in future and as he deprives them of their hope of a peaceful settlement, what remains to these poor people but to have recourse to what both divine and secular right allows in such matters, what nature commands,

1 Antwoorde van de generale Staten van de Nederlanden op de propositie ghedaen van weghen de Keyserlijcke Maiesteyt...(Knutttel, no. 347).

2 When he accepted the Pacification in 1577.

3 See Document 27.

4 Queen Elizabeth and the duke of Anjou.

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what reason prescribes and law permits, that is, to taking up arms and providing for their prosperity and safety by all means that present themselves and staving off the great dangers which threaten them? As long as they breathe they will try to shake off the yoke of this miserable foreign enslavement and to secure their possessions from pillage, their wives and children from rape, themselves from the senseless cruelty of the most cruel enemies in the world. What else can they do as they see that the duke of Alva and all other authors and perpetrators of these wretched manoeuvres have great influence in the king's high and secret council⁵ and that Don John follows almost exclusively the advice of people whom he solemnly swore to punish as an example to others? His advisers are the men who set fire to the most beautiful and famous towns in the country and stole their treasures, who destroyed the king's provinces and whose hands are stained with the blood of his most faithful and best subjects. It is they whom Don John holds in the greatest respect and who settle things to their liking. This is an outrage to all well-disposed people. What hope can they entertain when they see that all decisions are being taken by the most cruel murderers who are appointed as judges of their lives and inherited possessions? They have seen such deceptions for so many years and so many shocking examples of hypocrisy and dissimulation that they know they cannot now seek the protection of Don John's government unless they should wish willingly and knowingly to strike a rock and be shipwrecked ten times and cause all nations in the world to mock at their deplorable and foolish credulity.

5 After his return to Spain in 1573 Alva remained one of Philip II's chief counsellors.