Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands

32 A letter containing an advice concerning the state of affairs in the Netherlands, 1 June 1578 ¹

This pamphlet in the form of a letter to Marnix of St Aldegonde contains arguments in favour of making the duke of Anjou sovereign of the Netherlands. The author poses as a German nobleman in

1 Lettre contenant un avis de l'estat auquel sont les affaires des Païs-Bas... (Knuttel, no. 358).

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Cologne who, thanks to a long stay in France, is able to write in French. In 1578 the States General were negotiating with Anjou; this resulted in the conclusion of a treaty in August.

Seeing that supplications and remonstrances have for so long now been vain and dangerous, you have in your extremity had recourse to extreme remedies, that is, to arms and war, and thus you have made clear in a straightforward manner that you refused any longer to accept the tyrant or his accomplices, or any one who bears the name of his country. If this does not mean deposing as unworthy a king from his kingship by public authority I do not know how otherwise to define it.² And matters standing thus I cannot see why you should be in fear of what you have already done, and how you can have forgotten so soon that you actually wished to do what you are still doing every day not because you like it, but because you are driven by the impulse that naturally drives men to seek their self-preservation. Indeed, your safety and salvation are at stake, for as you know, the places have already been appointed where the greater part of those people who are still alive after the civil war will be transported and the towns where new inhabitants from abroad will be sent.³ One of your main privileges, I am sure, allows you to declare that the tyrant is no longer your seignior and you are no longer his subjects. What remains to be established is, whether you are entitled and willing to change the form of your government and may refuse to live under the protection of a good and righteous master.

It really would be doing you an injustice to call this in question. For if hatred of the seigniory and not of the bad seignior has caused you to take up arms, then you are rebels indeed and no prince could help or favour you for fear of setting his own country a pernicious and dangerous example of rebellion.⁴ But you show clearly that this is not at all what you want. You are so accustomed to living under seigniors, that even when you condemned your prince of the crime of tyranny and waged war on him, you claimed to do so in his name and under the authority of a man who was his lieutenant and near relation.⁵ It is much to be doubted if your States acted well and wisely in this matter; I shall soon give you my opinion about this when I discuss our archduke. But I see that the wisest among you already repent of this policy and recognise that they have tried to reconcile two opposite policies, namely to expel a king and at the same time to establish a lieutenant who must represent him. This may be a good joke

2 Philip II himself appears here as a tyrant.

3 Cf. Document 16.

4 Cf. Document 26.

5 Philip's cousin, Archduke Matthias of Austria.

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but this is not the time for jokes. I conclude that you want to have a prince and that you know it is not possible for you to be saved without having one. Whether this is so, because you are perplexed by the chaos around you or rather because of the discord amongst your seigniors, nearly all of whom consider themselves as equal,⁶ is unimportant. What matters is that you must ascertain who will be the most useful and legitimate seignior.

As to usefulness, I have already told you that Monsieur⁷ would be a better choice than all the other neighbours, not only because you need his help but also because your greatest happiness consists in having a seignior who is weak rather than violent, and who will be too busy establishing a modicum of authority to try and subdue you. I do not know anybody else but Monsieur in whom the qualities you need are so well united with each other. He has a natural gentleness as well as very little power and when he arrives in your country everything will be strange to him and he will need a long time to familiarise himself with conditions here. As to the justice of the nomination, there are good arguments to prove it. On the one hand the rights of sovereignty that the house of France has always had in Flanders and Artois, until the treaty of Madrid,⁸ suffice to allow Monsieur to claim that his honour obliges him to revenge the wrong the Spaniard has done his house. On the other hand it is quite natural for you, after rejecting the Spaniard, to call on a prince who is a lineal descendant of the house of Burgundy and who is only one degree less near to the succession than Philip II.⁹ And finally it is your own free will expressed through so many embassies that makes him your just and legitimate seignior. In consequence you need not be afraid of being blamed when you take steps to achieve a happier life and to free yourselves from that monstrous power that has rendered you wretched and miserable. You need fear neither the desires nor the designs of Monsieur Anjou who would never have conceived of becoming your lord had you not asked him first, and who, employing all his means to free you from a great evil, can have no other power than that which is conferred upon him by respect for him personally and by your laws.

6 An allusion to the rivalry among great nobles such as Orange, Aerschot and Lalaing.

7 Francis of Alençon, duke of Anjou, well-known leader of the political centreparty in the French religious wars.

8 The peace concluded between Charles V and Francis I in 1526.

9 Philip II was lineally descended from the Burgundian dukes, the duke of Anjou from the French king, Charles V, brother to the Burgundian duke, Philip the Bold (d. 1404)