Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands

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33 A supplication to His Highness and to members of the Council of State handed in by the inhabitants of these Netherlands, who protest that they desire to live according to the reformation of the Gospel, 22 June 1578 ¹

This supplication was drafted during the national synod of the reformed church held at Dordrecht in June 1578. Peter Loyseleur de Villiers, the prince of Orange's court-chaplain, is held to be the author.

The Protestants cannot immediately make generally known their great wish to live peacefully and quietly with their fellow-citizens and compatriots but they hope to produce a very convincing proof of this in course of time when suspicion and distrust has been removed, and they promise before God to do so. Meanwhile they pray your Highness² and you, gentlemen, very humbly that you may be pleased to propose such measures for their security as you may think suitable and they will be willing to conform to your good counsels and obey you in everything to the best of their ability. They hope that they will find some princes, great lords and friends of these provinces,³ who will do them the honour of vouching for the truth and constancy of their promise.

And all things considered, the said Protestants pray very humbly with all their hearts and in all submissiveness that Your Highness and you gentlemen, to whom this state has been entrusted, and for which you are obliged to account to God and men, may be pleased to take away all reasons for suspicion and distrust among the poor inhabitants of these Netherlands who raise their eyes to you. They ask you to devise and to deliberate upon means by which with good will and to every one's satisfaction the exercise of the one and the other religion may be permitted to the same extent until God will be pleased (conquering by His mercy our manifold sins, which are the only reason of so much evil and misfortune)

1 Supplicatie aen sijn Hoocheyt ende heeren des Raets van State overgegeven door de inwoonders deser Nederlanden, welcke protesteren, dat sy begeren te leven nae de Reformatie des Evangeliums (Knuttel, no. 363).

2 The Archduke Matthias.

3 These must be either the queen of England, the elector Palatine or the duke of Anjou.

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to conciliate the contradictory opinions prevalent in these provinces in the matter of religion by means of a good, sacred and free or at least national council.⁴ They hope that by your wise counsel and prudence you may prevent the disasters and misfortunes which have befallen our neighbours⁵ who may hardly take breath so far and that by your prudence you may stop the outrages of the enemy who under the pretext of our dissent tries to plunge us into an abysss of disorder. They hope that by your mature deliberation you may give satisfaction to the poor inhabitants who feel and know the illness but who expect from you, their chosen physician, the medicine beneficial to their health and hope that they will be led by you, whom they have raised to be their rulers, to a safe haven. May you be pleased to attend to the examples of our neighbours and others, some of whom have prevented the threatening disaster by their wise prudence,⁶ others (grown wise by their distress and misery) have preferred to apply a remedy even when the long-lasting illness was in an advanced state rather than, doubtful of their prosperity and health, to bring utter ruin upon themselves.⁷

Have pity upon those who have put themselves under your protection and apart from God can expect no relief but from you. Therefore see to it that by a sacred law of pardon and oblivion all things done by both parties be totally forgotten so that in the future none shall be examined or molested because of any matter that may arise from the religious difference. In such a manner the Protestants shall promise to subject themselves to all reasonable conditions and to keep inviolate and to confirm as well as possible all conditions it may please Your Highness to propose. And though the said Protestants are ready to sacrifice themselves, their lives and possessions to the fatherland, yet they very humbly pray you to remember that for many years they have suffered greatly for their fatherland and that since the union of the provinces their loyalty and obedience has been great.⁸ And if any of them has done anything which was not universally approved,⁹ then appropriate counter-measures can be taken.

4 According to the Pacification of Ghent the States General were to decide on a religious settlement; here it is proposed that a church-meeting should perform this task.

5 In France in particular during the wars of religion.

6 The Empire since the religious peace of Augsburg of 1555.

7 In France religious edicts of 1576 and 1577 had created better conditions for the Huguenots.

8 Since the Pacification of Ghent of 1576.

9 This passage may refer to the actions of the Calvinists at Ghent, which were a matter of great concern to the prince of Orange.

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Those mistakes are not mortal sins such as those commit who, feigning zeal for the common good, go openly over to the enemy. And if any wrong should be done to the Protestants (which is not to be hoped) then by the grace of God they are not the less intent upon persevering in what they know they owe to the fatherland.