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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
,. , California State Library
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'Ira
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^^^^
0. M. CI.AYES, STATE PRINTER.
THE
M MITYRS OF SPAIN,
Airo THE
LIBERATORS OF HOLLAND,
THE !
\
MARTYRS OF SPAIN
AND THE
LIBERATORS OF HOLLAND.
BY THE AUTHOR OP
"THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY."
y^i^. Ofu^^j^^jj^ -)
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
No. 530 BEOADWAT.
1865.
U 7 6
EDWARD O. JENKTKS,
^rtnttr & Stcrrntaper,
No. 20 North William St.
PR
CONTENTS.
THE MARTYKS OF SPAIN.
CHAPTEE PAGE
I. — A Castilian Holiday, .... 9
II. — Treasure Trove, 25
III. — Contraband Wares, . . . .44
IV. — Light through Leon and Castile, . 59
v.— The First Three, . . . . 7T
VI. — The Martyrs of Valladolid, . . 92
VII. — The Martyrs, of Seville, , . .120
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
I. — The New World, .... 145
II.— The New May, 155
III. — Old Scenes Renewed — Spanish
Drama, with a Flemish Audience, 166
. 182
. 193
. 206
. 225
. 236
. 254
. 263
IV.— The Cardinal's Dismissal,
V. — The Gueux, .
VI. — The Public Preachings,
VII. — William the Silent, .
VIII. — The Iconoclasts, .
IX. — A Lull, ....
X. — The Storm, .
8326SS
VI CONTENTS.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER TAGS
I. — The Journey, 389
II. — The Anabaptists of Friesland, , . 301
III. — The Refuge in Holland, . . .315
IV. — The Siege of Leyden, .... 353
PREFACE
The awakening of some hearts in Spain, in
these latter days, to embrace and suffer loss
of all things for the faith which inspired Span-
ish Martyrs three hundred years ago, en-
courages us once more to look on the sad but
heroic story of the sufferings of those early
Confessors. It seems no longer like the last
page of the history of pure Christian life in
their country.
The narrative of the conflict between the
Keformed faith and the Inquisition in Spain
naturally links itself with the story of the
renewal of that conflict in Holland, where its
termination was so different.
The facts on which the first of these sketches
are founded are drawn from Llorente's " His-
toria de la Inquisicion de Espana," " Dr.
M' Cries "Reformation in Spain," and De
Vlll PREFACE.
Castro's " Spanish Protestants." The historical
authorities for the. facts of the second have
been Brandt's " Reformation in and about the
Low Countries," Van Braght's " Martyrology
of the Baptists," Prescott's " History of the
Reign of Philip the Second," Motley's " Dutch
Republic," and his "Netherlands," with other
well-known histories of those times.
THE
MARTYRS OF 8PAIK
CHAPTER I.
"irOW that it is all over, and the light which
--' we thought would have been life to Spain
has been quenched in blood, or, scattered far
and wide, faintly shines in other happier lands,
they wish that I should recall what I can remem-
ber of the tragic history in which so many of
our race have perished.
At first, when all was fresh, and for many
years after my escape to Holland, I could not
have borne to tear open the old wound and
renew the anguish of those days. But now that
gray hairs are on my head, the white blossoms
of a better spring, it is different. I can think
of the Church more in her eternal unity, and see
how glorious the other side must be of the
cloud which was darkness and desolation to
us.
My mother was a Cazalla. The name is infa-
(9)
10 THE MAKTTRS OF SPAIN,
mous ill my country, but I think it is not
unknown in heaven, and is not infamous there.
My mother's name was Constanza de Vibero
Cazalla. My father was an Ortiz, comptroller
of the kino-'s customs. We were " new Chris-
tians" of Jewish descent. Thus our infamy is
of double dye among the " old Christians" of
Spain ; we are tainted with the heresies both of
the Old Testament and the New. Our home
was at Valladolid. We have no home there
now; but an empty space is there, where the
house of my grandmother, Leanor de Vibero,
once stood. It was razed to the ground, and
a pillar stands on the site, engraved with her
name. It is not a pillar of glory, at lease it
is not esteemed such in Valladolid. But I am
anticipating my story.
The first thing which stands out distinctly in
my memory, detached from the sunny days of
my childhood, was an evening in the year 1544.
We were thirteen brothers and sisters at home,
and every day to us, no doubt, was full of child-
ish plans and plays, which seemed to us as iraj^or-
tant as the schemes of emperors and inquisitors
to them ; and, no doubt, thousands of important
events were transpiring around us which were
to us of as little moment as our plays and plans
to the wise people around us. But the scenes
of that day and the next are as vivid and clear
to me as those of yesterday. Perhaps it is my
having spent that day alone, away from the
THE MARTYES OF SPAIK. 11
merry home party, wliicli has helped to hnpress
it on my memory. I was staying Avith my fostei*-
mother, Antonia Minguez, whose husband and
his sister Isabel were in the service of my aunt,
Beatrix ^e Vibero Cazalla. My foster-parents
had a market-garden in the neighbourhood of the
town, and we were returning to my home, which
was situated in the middle of the town, with
their donkey laden with panniers of vegetables
and fruit. I Avas seated. on a cushion between
the panniers, and felt as proud as a queen on her
palfrey. When we entered the gates, a soldier
rudely stopped my foster-father and snatched
from him the short knife or dagger which he
wore in his girdle. My foster-father had all
the pride of a Castilian peasant and an old
Christian, in whose veins no tainted drop of
Jewish or Moorish blood flowed. He raised his
hand to resist, but a magic sentence arrested
him :
" It is the eve of the anto. No one can bear
arms in Valladolid to-day."
" I will leave my arms with you, then," he
said, " but let me pass with my vegetables.
They are for a noble house in the city, to which
this little girl belongs, and by to-morrow they
will be spoilt."
The officer of the guard had joined us. " Turn
the fellow back," he said, " who cares for nobles
or princes on the eve of an auto ? We have the
orders of the Church. No horse or coach, if it
12 THE MARTTES OF SPAIX.
were the king's own, can pass tliroiigh the gate
streets to-day. Restore the man his arms, and
turn him back."
Resistance was useless, and we returned to
the cottage in the garden.
I was much disappointed at losing my ride
through the city, but my foster-mother comforted
me by promising to take me to the show that
evening, and on the following day. That even-
ing, therefore, she wrapped me up closely and
took me through back streets into a house which
overlooked the Great Square.
We waited there some time, gazing down the
empty street, until 1 was tired of sitting still,
when in the distance I descried the flare of
torches' following something black and gloomy.
I remember giving a little scream of pleasure
that the show I had waited for so lonaf was com-
ing at last, but I was hushed very gravely ; every
one spoke in whispers, and for the rest of the
time I felt like being in church. The procession
drew nearer. First came a large bier on which
lay something hidden under a heavy pall of
black velvet. The black drapery almost reached
the ground. I was terrified to think what might
be underneath, but I Avas too much awed to ask
any questions. Behind this bier came a great
number of men, all marching slowly and silent-
ly, and each one carrying a large white taper
(such as I had seen at church) taller than
himself; and after these rode a trooj) of sol-
THE MARTYES OF SPAI^T. 13
diers. Hitherto all had been silent, but as the
procession entered the square, there was a sud-
den burst of music ; clarionets and trumpets
pealed forth together a solemn march.
The j^rocession stopped at a scaffold erected in
the centre of the square, and then the sound of
the clarionets and trumpets ceased, and there was
silence again. My eyes were fixed on that ter-
rible gigantic bier. It seemed the object of
every one's attention. The tapers kept close to
it; the soldiers formed around it. At length
the Dominican monks, the Black Friars, ap-
proached it, and lifted the pall. I trembled to
see what would be discovered beneath. But to
my great relief nothing appeared but an enor-
mous green cross, which the monks reverentially
placed on the altar in the midst of the scaffold.
Beside it were erected twelve tall white tapers,
and then, while the cross was being placed on the
altar, a chorus of choristers' voices suddenly
burst forth in the hymn —
" Vexilla Regis prodeunt,
Fulget Crucis mysterinm,
• Quo carne carnis conditor
Suspensiis est patibulo."
" The Banner of the King goes forth —
The Cross, the radiant mystery —
"Where, in a frame of human birtli,
Man's Maker suffers on the tree."
It was a favorite hymn of my mother's, and I
knew it well. The grand music suited the
2
14 THE MAETTES OF SPAIIST.
mournful yet triumjihant words so well. We
had often sung it at home ; but after that day I
never remember singing it again.
When the clear ringing voices ceased, there
was silence again ; the crowd dispersed, the bier
was removed. Only the great green cross re-
mained on the altai-, lighted by the twelve ta-
pers, and guarded by the Black Friars and a
squadron of lancers sitting immovably on their
horses, with their lances in rest. No sound
broke the stillness of the night but the rattling of
the bit or caparison of a restless horse, and I was
very glad when my foster-mother rose and took
me away with her.
" Did you like it, little one ?" she said.
"It Avas so sombre, Antonia. It was like a
funeral."
" Ah !" she said, " but to-morroAv wUl be an-
other thing. My darling shall have her best
dress on, and it will be daylight, and the princes
and nobles will be there, and the bishops and the
beautiful ladies, and my little one shall be as gay
as any of them. We shall see if she is pleased
then."
So we returned to the cottage, and I fell
asleep with my head full of brilliant visions of
the morrow. They were a peri:)etual festival to
me — the child of the town — these visits to my
foster-mother m the country. To awake in the
morning in a garden, with birds singing, and
the morning sunbeams looking in at my tiny
THE MAETTES OF SPAIN. 15
window through the leaves of the vines, and
then to go out and feed the poultry, and smell
all the sWeet flowers and the breath of Antonia's
cows tethered in the little field near, it was a
constant fete to me. The country around Valla-
dolid is not beautiful, but flat and parched, with
only the faint outline of hills in the distance.
But to me the country was my foster-mother's
garden, and I wished for nothing more beautiful
0 7 C7
in the world than her rows of vegetables, wa-
tered carefully by tiny channels from the little
spring; the old well, with its stone seat, and
trough slowly filling and trickUng over, the great
oak tree above it, and the vines on the slopes of
the little hollow at the bottom of which the cot-
tage stood.
But to-day was to be a/e7e in the town. We
were all awake at sunrise, and there was no time
to think of any thing but how to make the most
of all the treasures contained in Antonia's family
chest. The girls of the family were attiring
themselves in their gay festival bodices and pet-
ticoats, their one rohe de fete ; but Antonia's own
costume was soon arranged, and all her stores of
imagination and finery were ransacked to make
me, the little lady of the party, look as I ought.
She despoiled herself of her own ancestral ear-
rings and neck ornaments to deck my little jDcr-
son. She garlanded my dark hair with white
roses, and fastened an enormous bouquet in my
bosom, which Avas my great pride, and, like
16 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN.
many other treasures, also my greatest encum-
brance all the clay. How happy I was when the
donkey was led to the door, not, as yesterday,
laden with commercial panniers, but decorated
with flowers and ribbons, and looking as proud
as I felt when they seated me on his back, and
my foster-father, with his dagger in a bright new
sheath in his belt, held the bridle !
We left the donkey with a friend near the
gate, and then my foster-father carried me
through the streets, which were crowded with
people all in holiday attire. But we pressed
through, and reached safely the house in the
Great Square where we had been the night be-
fore. All the great church-bells were tolling
solemnly.
There stood the scaffold in the middle of the
square, with the great green cross on it, and the
twelve tapers. They had looked solemn and
terrible to me in the darkness of the night be-
fore, but now they lay like dull red spots on the
brilliant sunshine which flashed from the lances
of the soldiers and the jewels of the court-ladies
who sate under a canopy on a stage opposite
to us.
The procession soon aj^proached. At first the
cathedral cross under a veil ; then the clergy, in
black and white, crimson and gold ; then the
magistrates and great men of the city, walking
in their gorgeous robes and gold chains ; and
afterwards the nobles on their prancing horses,
THE MAETYRS OF SPAIlsr. 17
and a very grave gentleman, who, they told me,
was the Alguazil mayor of the Inquisition, also
on horseback. I liked best the beautiful horses,
champing their bits, with flashing eyes and long
manes and tails ; but altogether the procession
was certainly much more brilliant and amusing
than on the evening before. And the choristers
chanted the liturgy, and sometimes trumj^ets
l^ealed. But immediately after the cathedral
cross came a number of downcast-looking men,
in all kinds of strang-e dresses. At first Ithouajht
they must have put them on in jest to amuse us ;
but when I asked Antonia, she said I was a
foolish little prattler, and told me to ask no more
questions. Accordingly I kept quiet, and threw
all my soul into my eyes, reserving my questions
for the future. These men were so strangely
dressed, and people mocked and pointed at
them as they passed, and some looked angry,
and lifted up their hands in horror. I felt sorry
for the men, only they looked so very ridiculous.
Some had lialters round their necks, some bore
extinguished torches, and some carried crosses,
and were dressed more quietly in black; but
others wore a loose vest or zamarra of bright
yellow, with a conical pasteboard cap written all
over with large letters. Two or three were still
more strangely attired ; their bright yellow
robes were painted from head to foot with large
red and yellow tongues of flame, the points of
the flames turning downwards. One man, how-
2*
18 THE MAETTHS OP SPAIN.
ever, seemed to attract more attention than all
the rest.
"Look at him !" exclaimed Antonia; "that is
San Roman, the heretic."
He wore the same frightful, yet ridiculous
yellow robe, painted all over, like those of the
others, with flames ; only on his robe I noticed
that the flames were turned upwards, as real
flames always are. A number of the Black
Friars were thronging around him, talking fast
and loud, and gesticulating violently, pointing
to the flames on his robe, and then thrusting
their crosses forward in his face. He seemed to
reply nothing, but I thought his lips moved.
The monks looked very angry sometimes, and I
felt quite afraid they would hurt him ; but he
did not look wretched. Sometimes his eyes
turned towards the sky, and then I thought he
looked very happy. I scarcely know what riv-
eted my eyes so much on him ; but I was so
busy Avatching him, that, when I looked away,
the whole scene had changed. The two wooden
stages (on each side of the altar in the middle
of the square) Avhich had been empty, were now
filled, one Avith the clergy, the other with the
magistrates. Below Avere ranged the halber-
diers ; and on one side of the square, where they
had erected a flight of steps covered Avith a mag-
nificent carpet, on three seats, draped Avith crim-
son velvet, sate the inquisitors, and near them,
on the throne, Avith the royal arms before it, the
THE MAETYES OP SPAIN". 19
public prosecutor representing the king. The
crimson damask banner of the Inquisition hung
in hehvy folds before these seats, surmounted by
a crucifix of gold and silver. ' All this Antonia
explained to me. It was all very brilliant — the
sunshine, the music, the dresses of the priests
and of the ladies, the peasants in all the various
gay costumes of the neighbouring districts
thronging the square. And on that poor wood-
en stage also, opposite the inquisitors, the. col-
ours were brilliant enough! No Oriental car-
pets, or Italian velvets, or Mexican gold and
silver adorned it; but the yellow san-benitos,
with their flaming colours, were tliere, and that
strange man, the heretic, was there also, and I
could not keep my eyes from watching him.
At first, I had plenty of time. A friar, Don
Bartolome Carranza, ascended one of the pulpits,
and preached a sermon which it seemed to me
would never end. From time to time, as it went
on, the Black Friars, who were on the stage
with the men in yellow robes, whispered and ges-
ticulated to San Roman. Sometimes I thought
he tried to answer them, but they silenced him
at once; and at length he seemed to give up
heeding any thing they said, and stood calm and
still, as if no one had been disturbins: him or
looking at him.
The preacher, I noticed, often turned towards
him.
When the sermon was over, another priest
20 THE MAETYES OF SPAIN.
mounted the other pulpit, and, kneeling down,
began to say something in a loud voice. In-
stantly the whole assembly fell on their knees,
and among the re^t, Antonia made me kneel be-
side her. The ladies in their brilliant dresses on
the court platform, the clergy in white surplices
or gorgeous robes, the magistrates on the stages
by the altar, the great crowd of peasants in the
square, all knelt and repeated something after the
priest in the pulpit. I thought it must be 'the
Angelas, and began to say my Ave Maria ; and
Antonia said I was a good child, but they M'ere
repeating the confession of the holy Roman
faith.
When I looked to the jDlatform where San
Roman was, amongst that multitude of kneeling
figures, he alone was standing. The friars looked
more angry than ever, when they rose and tried
to force him down to kneel before a crucifix.
But although he looked very tottering and hag-
gard, he stood his ground, and would not kneel.
An angry murmur burst from the crowd.
"The wretched heretic!" said Antonia; "he is
worse than a Jew or a pagan. Any one can see
he is no Christian."
Then I began to feel I ought to be angry
with him too — so obstinate, and worse than a
pagan ! But when I looked at his tottering
frame and calm face, I could not feel angry ;
I felt sorry for him, and I wondered what it all
meant.
THE MAETTES OF SPAIN. 21
I had not much time to think. When the
people rose, the halberdiers made a passage
through the crowd from the velvet seats to the
altar ; and the three inquisitors came down and
stood by the altar. Then, one by one, the men
in black robes with the extinguished torches,
and the men in yellow vests painted with re-
versed flames, came and knelt by the altar before
the inquisitors, and were led away by the friars.
These, Antonia said, were the penitents.
I Avatched for San Roman to descend the steps
and kneel before the inquisitors, like the rest.
But one by one went down, and still he did not
stir, until he was left alone on the platform with
the Black Friars. Then again they presented
the crucifix to him, and again he refused to
kneel, and an angry murmur came from the
crowd. I could not quite make out the words ;
but " No Christian ! worse than a pagan ! away
with him ! it is not fit that he should live ! to
the Brasero — to the Brasero !" reached my ears,
as they placed him on an ass in his yellow vest
and a strange conical pasteboard cap, like the
mockery of a mitre. So they led him through the
crowd, amidst the jesting and angry gesticula-
tions of the people, and the day's show was over.
The brilliant dresses vanished one by one from
the platforms, the j^riests from the altars, the
crowd of peasants from the square ; the noise
died away in the distance, and we set off" to re-
turn to our cottage in the garden. As we went
22 THE liTArvTYES OF SrAIX.
home, I hojied all the way we might meet San
Roman ; but we saw no more of him, or of the
crowd.
But as my foster-mother was giving me her
parting kiss that night, I ventured to ask her,
" Where did they take the man in the yellow
robe on the ass ? Shall we see him again ?"
" He is a heretic ; no Christian," said Antonia,
with hesitation ; " no, we shall never see him
again. They took him to the Brasero ; he is
burnt."
I sate up in the bed, and said, " What is
burnt ? You mean that frightful dress ; but I
mean the man ! that jDOor man whose limbs tot-
tered so when he tried to walk. What did they
do with him ?"
" He is burnt, little one, I told you."
" The man ?" I said.
"Yes, the man, the heretic," replied Antonia,
rather embarrassed at my wondering looks and
tears ; " he was no Christian, I told you."
Then I remember I burst into a flood of tears.
" I am sorry for liim, oh, I am so sorry for him ;
it must have hurt him so much !"
" But you must not be sorry for him," said
Antonia ; " you must not cry for him ; he is a
great criminal, he is a heretic, worse than a
murderer."
" But I would be sorry to have a murderer
burnt," I sobbed. " Oh, I wish I had never
gone. I wish I had never seen him. O Anto-
THE MARTTES OF SPAHST. 23
nia, this is no holiday, this is no fete. Was it
for this you dressed me in flowers, and garlanded
my hair ? O promise you will never take me to
see any thing like that again !"
Antonia tried another mode of consolation.
" Hush, tender-hearted child !" she said ;
" perhaps it was not so bad after all."
" But I know," I said, " I know how bad it is,
for I burnt my hand once." And Antonia could
by no means comfort me until I sobbed myself
to sleep.
So ended the day of the auto to me.
I heard afterwards how it ended for San Ro-
man. He refused, when he reached the stake, to
purchase any mitigation of his suffering by con-
fessing or abjuring his heresies. If he would
have retracted, he might have been strangled,
and thus have escaped the agony of being burnt
alive. But heaven was too near him, and God
was too near him, for him thus to betray his
Master.
He was fastened to the stake. As the flames
reached him, his head sank. The friars around
him exclaimed he was penitent, and had him
taken out of the flames.
" Did you envy me my happiness ?" he said ;
and they thrust him in again.
In an instant the smoke suffocated hira,
In one sense, then, my foster-mother was
right ; it was not so painful to Sf^n Roman, after
all, as I thought. '
24 THE MAETTES OF SPAIN.
Thus perished the first Protestant martyr in
Spain.
Was it not God who ordered it so that he
should be withdrawn for that moment from the
flames, to give the dying testimony Avhich has
inspired so many since ? And is it indeed pos-
sible that to some of these martyrs the soul
withm the perishing body is happy and un-
moved, as of old the bodies of the three martyrs
in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar ? Must there
not indeed be a joy in suffering for Christ, which
pone but those who thus suffer can conceive.
THE MAETTES OP SPAIN. 25
CHAPTER II.
THE next day I returned to my own home in
Valladolid. I fomid my mother looking very
sad, and when I poured forth the history of the
last two days, and my grief for San Roman, she
shewed an indignation such as I scarcely ever
remembered to have seen in her gentle face.
" How could Antonia take my child to see
such horrors ?"
" But was he indeed so bad ?" I asked. " Was
he no Christian ?"
"San Roman no Christian!" she exclaimed.
" He died for nothing but for being too good a
Christian."
Then, with a timid gesture, looking around
her as if she dreaded the echo of her own voice,
she said, in a lower tone, " Never speak of that
wretched day again, Dolores. It will be long-
before I trust my children from under my roof
again."
But from that time things seemed changed at
our home. Since my mother's widowhood, she
had returned to the house of our grandmother,
Leanor de Vibero Cazalla. There had often
been mysterious visitors on Sundays at our
3
26 " THE MAKTYRS OF SPx^TN.
house, and mysterious proceedings, which were
matters of much speculation among the younger
children. The elder ones had one by one been
admitted into the secret, but they kept it invio-
lably from us, and to all our inquiries refilled
only, " Wait a little and you will know."
But now these visitors seemed to come oftener,
and those mysterious meetings were more reg-
ular. Perhaps, also, that terrible cniio had
awakened my mind from the happy uncon-
sciousness of childhood into which it never
again relapsed. Certainly from that day my life
begins to unroll more consecutively and clearly
to my memory. Continually persons would
meet each other at our house, and gather to-
gether in little knots in low earnest conversa-
tion. Occasionally also they would sit, eagerly
discussing some of the strange books which now
began to be brought to our house. Among
these were persons of all races, ranks, and occu-
pations— Juan Garcia, the silversmith ; Antonio
de Ilerezuelo, a famous advocate from Toro ;
Don Cristobal de Padilla, a knight ; two of my
younger uncles, Pedro, afterwards parish priest
of IIoi migos, and Francisco, afterwards cura of
Pedrosa. Many ladies of rank also came, and
some who had devoted themselves to works of
piety, as Beatas, or uucloistered nuns without
conventual rules. There were servants also
among those who frequented our house — Isa-
belhuand Auton Minguez, and sometimes Anto-
THE MARTYRS OF SPAI^T. 27
Ilia. But the leading man amongst them at that
time, to whom all the rest seemed to defer, was
Domingo de Rojas, son of the Marquis de Poza,
a Dominican friar. There was all the dignity of
the old Castilian noble of i^ure blood about him,
fascinating beyond expression to my childish im-
agination. He was not, I suppose, much used
to children, and there was in his manner a kind
of knightly deference to me and my little sisters,
which charmed us exceedingly. It was as if we
had a kind of double sacredness in his eyes, the
sacredness of womanhood and childhood. His
bearing towards us seemed moulded at once by
the precepts of chivalry, and the more hallowed
precepts of our Saviour with regard to children
— honor to women, blended with, " Suifer the
little children to come unto me."
I remember his once saying to me when he
found me studying diligently an illuminated
copy of the Gospels in Latin, " You would wish
one day to be like the holy women in that book,
Dona Dolores ?"
" No, Don Domingo," I replied, very gravely,
*' I should not ; I should like to be as good as
my mother, and like her ; not a holy woman, not
a nun or a Beata."
He smiled. " But if we can find a way for you
to be a holy woman, without being a nun or a
Beata? Our Lord said, that those who love
Him and keep His words, are blessed and dear to
Him as His own blessed Mother."
28 THE MAETTES OP SPAIN.
" Blessed as Maria i^urissima ?"
" But do you know what it is to keej) His
words ?" he asked.
" What are His words ?" I said.
" They are in that book you are looking at,"
he replied.
" But it is a priest's book. It is Latin," I
said ; " I cannot read it."
" Suppose I could get you the Holy Gospels
in Castilian, so that you could read them ?"
" Could you, indeed ?" I exclaimed, eagerly.
"We will ask the Doiia Costanza, your
mother," he replied. And so that conversation
ended.
This was about four years after that dreadful
auto ; and on that very afternoon happened the
accident which determined the whole course of
my life.
I was walking with my youngest sister, fire
years younger than myself, when a cry of alarm
arose in the street, and, turning around, I saw a
riderless horse rushing towards us. I remember
seizing my little sister and pushing her under an
open doorway ; and then I remember nothing
more until (many days afterwards) I found my-
self lying in much pain on a little bed in my
mother's room, and seeing my mother's eyes fixed
with anxious tenderness on me. Had she been
watching me with such a look ever since ? I
stretched out my hand to feel hers, then closed
my eyes again with a dreamy mingled sense of
THE MAETITES OF SPAIN. 29
pain and love. Wlien I opened them again she
was kneeling by my bedside. Her eyes were
looking heavenward, and streaming with silent
tears. That time I did not close my eyes again.
I said, " Speak to me, mother."
But instead of speaking to me, she rose and
gave me a long, quiet kiss, and then kneeling
down again, looked up and said in a faltering
voice :
" Father, we will speak to Thee first. Thou
lovest us — Thou hast heard us — Thou givest me
back my child— I give her to Thee— she is
Thine. Thou blessed Saviour, who knowest the
mother's heart and the widow's, Thou hast said
to me, 'Weep not.' Say it to her. Thou Good
Shepherd, who gathered the lambs in Thy bosom
and bearest the sick on Thy shoulder, deal ten-
terly with this sick lamb. Thou wilt not fail.
I commit her to Thee !"
She prayed longer, but not with the voice —
with tears. I Avatched her lips move until a de-
licious feeling of calm stole over me, and I must
have fallen asleep. When I awoke she was still
there, and beside her some food and cooling
drinks, which she gave me. Then the scene in
the street flashed on me, and I said,
" Is little Costanza safe ?"
" Quite safe, dear child, and unhurt," was the
reply, and I lay still again.
So gradually I recovered, and learned what
had happened me, and by degrees, as I could
3*
30 THE MARTTES OF SPAIK.
bear, came to understand what my future life
must be. I had been thrown down and stunned
by the horse we had seen madly dashing down
on us in the narrow street. I had received in-
juries which must, it was thought, make me a
cripple for life. But it was only by slow de-
grees that we all came to this conviction.
At times I suffered much pain from the setting
of the dislocated and broken joints, but I had
many intervals of rest. I have often since been
glad to have learned what pain is. How much
else I learned, or began to learn, on that bed of
suffering, I shall know more fully in the better
world in which I hope soon to awaken, and meet
my mother's eyes again ; and not my mother's
only, nor first.
My mother devoted herself entirely to me dur-
ing the first weeks of my recovery. From that
time there was a bond between us stronger and
closer than any which bound us to any beside on
earth. She used to sit beside me, and, as I
could bear it, tell me stories to while away the
suffering hours. They were mostly saci-ed sto-
ries. Day or night she was always ready ; and
the voice and the words are blended so closely
in my memory, that now when I read the same
histories they always seem to me full of the
music of my mother's voice.
First and dearest were histories of the days
of the Son of God on earth ; or cripples and
blind, maimed and palsied, whom He touched,
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 31
" every one of them," and healed ; of the widow
to whom he said, " Weep not ;" of the sisters
with whom He wept ; of the outcasts He suf-
fered to wash his feet, and addressed with such
compassion ; of the well where He sat weary at
noon, which I thought must be like the old
stone-rimraed well in Antonia's garden ; of the
olive garden, where He was in agony ; of the
cross and the tomb, where Mary Magdalene
waited so hopelessly, and saw Him risen. Most
beautiful and touching histories, I thought, con-
nected, too, with us, I knew, as no other histo-
ries are ; and yet I often used to wonder how.
It was so long ago, and I could not touch even
the hem of His garment now ! I used to think,
" If I had only lived then !" but it was very long
before I said this even to my mother. So many
dim thoughts lie hidden in the deep fountains
of a child's heart, until some sudden light of
symjDathy, or memory, reveals them. But
meantime no histories were half so sweet to me
as those, and I w^ould have listened to them for-
ever, at least while my mother told them.
Then there were other histories Avhich stirred
up other feelings ; old stories of my nation, of
the only nation whose earliest history is no mere
mass of wild and distorted legend, but a true
narrative of human sin and sorrow, and faith and
endurance, and Divine power and pity and
righteousness. Tender home-histories, like the
first, I loved best ; of Isaac, the long-promised
32 THE MAETYES OF SPAIN.
son, and Rachel, the beloved wife, and Joseph
and faithful Rnth ; only not so sweet as the first,
because I missed in them the voice of the Saviour,
and the touch of His healing hand. I used to
think, however, that those few years of the vis-
ible presence of the Son of God were different
from all the other ages of the world's history,
and that we must have fallen back again into the
dimmer time of those older histories, when, as I
thought, God lived far away in heaven.
Then there were other histories which struck
quite other chords in my heart — of Gideon, and
Deborah, and Samson, and King David, and
Queen Esther ; histories of wrongs redressed,
and the oppressed set free, and victories won by
our people of old ; histories which made me
exult to be a Hebrew maiden, until my heart
sank again to think I was a cripple, and I longed
for the days of miracle in Galilee to come back
once more.
But there was one thing which weighed much
on my mind. From time to time the conversa-
tion I have related between myself and Don
Domingo de Rojas on the day of my accident
kept recurring to me, partly, no doubt, because
it was the last thing which had been in my
thoughts before the accident.
I could not forget that I had said to him I did
not wish ever to be a holy woman, a Santa,
a nun, or a Beata, and the idea would continu-
ally occur to me that those were very wicked
THE MAKTYES OF SPAIN. 33
■^oi'ds to have spoken, and that God had pun-
ished me for them by lettmg the horse trample
on pie. Often it seemed to me as if I heard an
angry voice saying to me, " You would not be a
holy woman in the way I offered you ; now I will
make you one in mine. You shall have no pleas-
ure any more, and never join again in fete^ or
dance, or song, but lie here shut out from the
bright world forever like a nun ; only the bars of
your convent shall be stronger than iron ; they
shall be riveted by disease and pain, and no hand
shall be able to set you free." Yet I never would
venture to utter this fear ; it seemed too terrible to
put into words. Sometimes, when my mother told
me the histories about Jesus, I thought that terri-
ble sentence could never be from God ; it seemed
so little like the words He spoke even to the most
sinfiU ! And once I remember, when my mother
told me the story of the fall, of the lie the Devil
made Eve believe about God, I wondered for an
instant if the thought could be a temptation ;
and was on the point of telling all to my mother.
But then I remembered the history of the cities
which were destroyed by fire and brimstone, and
buried beneath the bitter waters of the Dead Sea ;
and of the man and woman who were smitten for
the lie, and my lips were sealed. I often tried to
pray, but this vision of an angry God, who was
punishing me, seemed to chill my heart.
This went on for some time, until one day I
!=nAv — what I ought to have seen many days be-
34 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
fore — how very Avorn and pale my mother was
looking, and it flashed on me that I was Avearing
out her strength by exacting snch continual
watching. The thought went like a dagger to
my heart. " O mother," I said, " I am making
you ill ! You get no sleep ; you must leave me ;
you must not watch me so much."
"My child," slie said, "how can I leave you?
Who can soothe you in your pain but me ? Often
you cannot bear the sound of any other voice."
" I will try to bear the pain without hearing
yours so much," I said. " If I made you ill, I
could never bear that !"
And from that time I tried never again to
wake her at night to soothe me with the stories
I loved so much ; so she had unbroken sleep,
and I Avas A'ery soon rcAvarded by seeing the
haggard look pass from her face. But although
my pain grew less, I could scarcely stir from my
couch, and the long nights often passed very
Avearily. Sometimes, too, such sad and dark
thoughts came to me ; and especially the tones
of the great church-bells, as they struck from
hour to hour, fell on my heart like a knell.
They seemed to bring back the terrible morning
when they tolled for tlie auto for San Roman.
At length one day it occurred to me to ask my
mother if there Avere any books in Avhich the
histories she told me were Avritten ; I thought
I could read them sometimes by the lamp-light
at night, and they Avould be like companions.
THE MAKTYFtS OF SPAIN". 35
She Lesitated a moment, and then said,
" Yes, it is a secret ; but I can trust you now.
I have a book in which all these stories are
printed in Castilian,"
"The stories about the Saviour?" I said,
eagerly. " -
" No, not those," she replied ; " I have not
yet the book in which they are, except in Latin,
in that illuminated volume you used to be so
fond of."
"Are all those beautiful stories there?" I
asked, "in the priest's book? Why are they
only in the priest's book ? I should like every
one to know them."
"Perhaps every one will know them soon,"
she replied, joyftdly. "A good man has lately
translated thetn into Castilian, and soon I hope
a friend will bring us a copy. But meantime
you shall have the other."
So saying, she touched the oaken wainscot
near the head of my bed, and, by a secret spring
opening a sliding panel, took out a large old
book, very carefully kept, and bound in vel-
lum.
"This book," she said, "is one of our greatest
family treasures. You have heard how, about
sixty years ago (in 1492), every man, woman
and child of our nation was expelled from Spain,
and driven houseless and friendless over the
wide world, except those who would abandon
the Jewish customs, and become what they
36 THE MARTYKS OF SPAIN.
called Christians — that is, heai* mass and con-
fess to the priests. Hundreds and thousands of
our people perished in those wanderings. They
died all kinds of horrible deaths, by cold and
hunger, and among the cruel Moors of Barbary,
whither many of them fled. But some reached
places of safety, and lived and prospered in other
lands. Some settled in Venice. They had taken
the sacred books with them, and they did not
forget their countrymen left in Spain. They
printed a copy of the Old Testament in Spanish,
at Venice, in 1497, only five years after their
exile. Many copies of this precious book reached
the Jews who had professed Christianity ; and
among them this copy reached my grandmother,
Costanza Ortiz, who lived in this house, and had
this cunning place made for it. I never told
you before, but Costanza Ortiz was suspected
of relapsing to Judaism, and your grandfather,
her son-in-law, my father, had great difficulty in
saving our family from the disgrace of having
her bones exhumed and burnt."
" But was she indeed no Christian ?" I asked.
" I do not know," w^as the reply ; " there was
little in the kind of Christianity they forced her
to profess, to make her, or any one, understand
what Jesus is — the Christ, the true Messiah."
" But you are a Christian, mother," I said.
" It does not make people unchristian to read
this book, or you would not put it in my
hands."
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 37
" ISTo, indeed, dear child," she said, with a
tendei" smile ; " I will read you a passage, and
you shall see."
She read the 53d of 'Isaiah ; and from that
time the sacred book became my nightly friend,
but only at night. By day it was safely restored
to its retreat, and often, as the panel closed, I
longed for night to come again that I might read.
Still there were many parts of the book which
rather increased my trouble. There was much
about anger against the wicked, and judgment ;
and although I dimly felt there was a connec-
tion between this and the stories about the
Saviour which might help me, I could not find
the link. The narratives and threats of judg-
ment in the Old Testament, still seemed to me
terribly to explain the facts of my life ; whilst
the stories of healing and compassion in the his-
tory of Jesus, shone like a beautiful but unearthly
star set in the dark night of the world's history.
This went on until one sleepless night, as I
leant quietly out of my little bed and pushed
back the mysterious panel to draw out my com-
panion, the Castilian Old Testament, my hand
touched the corner of another book instead.
Curious to see what this might be, I drew it out,
and placing it beside the lamp on the little table
by my bed, began to read it. It was also in
Castilian. My eyes rested first on this passage :
" Christ's victory is the overcoming of the la.w
of sin, our fliesh, the world, the devil, death,
4
38 THE MAETTES OF SPAIN.
hell, and all evils; and this victory He hath
given unto us." " Although, then, these tyrants
and these enemies of ours do accuse us, and
make us afraid, yet can they not drive us to
despair, nor condemn us ; for Christ, whom God
the Father hath raised from the dead, is our
righteousness and victory."
" For indeed Christ is no cruel exactor, but a
Forffiver of the sins of the whole world. Where-
fore if thou be a sinner, as indeed we all are, set
not Christ down on the rainbow throne as a
Judge, lest thou shouldst be terrified, and despair
of His mercy ; but take hold of this true defini-
tion, namely, that Christ the Son of God, and of
the Virgin, is a person not that terrifieth, not
that afflicteth, not that condemneth us of sin, not
that demandeth of us an account for our evil life
passed, but hath given Himself for our sins, and
with one oblation hath put away the sins of the
whole world, hath fastened them upon the cross,
and put them clean out by Himself."
" For God hath revealed unto us by His Word
that He will be unto us a merciful Father, and,
■without our deserts (seeing we can deserve
nothing), will freely give unto us remission of
sins, righteousness, and life everlasting, for
Christ His Son's sake ; for God giveth His gifts
freely unto all men, and that is the praise and
glory of His divinity."
" Christ, then, is no Moses, no exactor, no
giver of laws ; but a Giver of grace, a Saviour,
■ THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 39
and One tliat is full of mercy ; briefly, He is
nothing else but infinite mercy and goodness,
freely given, and bountifully giving unto us.
And thus shall you paint out Christ in his true
colours. If you sufl'er Him any otherwise to be
painted out unto you, when temptation and
trouble cometh, you shall soon be overthrown.
Now, as it is the greatest knowledge and skill
that Christians can have thus to define Christ,
so of all things it is the hardest. For I myself,
even in this great light of the Gosj^el Avherein I
have been so long exercised, have much ado to
hold this definition of Christ which Paul here
giveth, so deeply hath the doctrine and pestilent
opinion that Christ is a Lawgiver, entered even as
it were oil, into my bones. You young men,
therefore, are in this case much more happy than
Ave that are old ; for ye are not infected with
these jDernicious errors wherein I have been so
nursed and drowned, even from my youth, that
at the very hearing of the name of Christ my
heart hath quaked for fear, for I was persuaded
that He was a severe Judge. Wherefore it is
to me a double travail and trouble to correct
and reform this evil ; first, to forget, to condemn
and to resist this old-grounded error that Christ
is a Lawgiver and a Judge, for it always re-
turneth and plucketh me back ; then to plant in
my heart a true persuasion of Christ that He is
a Justifier and a Saviour. Ye, I say, that are
young, may learn with much less difticulty to
40 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIIS".
know Christ jourely and sincerely, if ye will.
Wherefore if any man feel himself oppressed
with heaviness and anguish of heart, he must not
impute it unto Christ, although it come under
the name of Christ, but unto the Devil, who
oftentimes cometh under the colour of Christ,
and transformeth himself into an angel of light.
Let us learn, therefore, to put a difference be-
tween Christ and a lawgiver, not only in word,
but also in deed and practice ; that when the
Devil comes under the shadow of Christ, and
shall go about to trouble us under His name, Ave
may know Him not to be Christ, but a A'ery
fiend indeed. For Christ, Avhen He cometh, is
nothing else but joy and sweetness to a trem-
bling and broken heart, as here Paul witnesseth,
who setteth Him out with His most sweet and
comfortable title Avhen he saith, ' Which loved
vie and gave Himself for me.'' Christ, therefore,
in very deed, is a lover of those which are in
trouble and anguish, in sin and death ; such a
lover as gave Himself for us, who is also our
High Priest, that is to say, a Mediator between
God and us Avretched, miserable sinners."
" I am covered under the shadow of Christ's
wings, as is the chicken under the wings of the
hen, and dwell without all fear under that most
ample heaven of the forgiveness of sins."
I did not read any more. The volume before
me did not seem like a lifeless book, but like the
voice of a friend who had known all my perplex-
THE MAKTYES OF SPAI^ST. 41
ities, and spoke to my inmost heart. I leant mj
head on the pages of the book as if it had been
a living, throbbing heart, and resolved to try to
speak to Him of whom it spoke.
I had always daily said my prayei'S, and de-
voutly, I believed, as a religious duty which was
in some way to do me good ; but that night I
found out something entirely new to me. I
found there was One unseen at hand who could
hear the cries of my lieart, and that this One
was Love, and had been loving me. I said,
" My Saviour, my God, hast Thou indeed been
loving me all this time, and drawing me to
Thee, whilst I thought Thou wast my adver-
sary, and driving me from Thee ? I come, I am
Thine ; I understand Thee now ; do with me
what Thou wilt ; I am not afraid of Thee, or of
any thing Thou wilt do for me."
And then the old troubling thouglit came on
me, illuminated with quite a new meaning, as if
I had suddenly discovered the cipher of God's
providence, and could read it right :
" I would not be a Santa, a holy v/oman of
my own free will ; so Thou hast laid Thine hand
on me, and will make me holy in Thine ow^n
way. My Saviour ! it is the hand which was
pierced for me which is laid on me. It will not
be too heavy ; I am not afraid. Thou shalt be
my Physician ; I will not struggle out of Thy
hands."
Thus hours passed away, until a feehng of
' 4*
42 THE MAETTKS OF SPAI^\
such sweet calm came over me as when first I
looked up and met my mother's eyes after my
accident. I had met the eyes of my Father in
heaven, of my Saviour ! They had been watch-
ing me longer than my mother's.
Before morning I fell asleep, still with my
arms clasped round the book, and my forehead
leaning on the open pages.
I was awakened by my mother's touch. She
looked anxious and alarmed ; but I drew her
face down to mine, and said, " O mother, I never
■was so happy in my life ; I have found out how
God loves me !" She mingled her tears with
mine, and I continued, " This suffering of mine
is not in anger, it is in love. He is only drawing
me nearer to Him by this means. I thought He
was angry and silent to me ; but at last I under
stand Him, and I am so happy."
For some minutes I spoke no move, and
then she said,
" I can only^ give thanks, let the cost be what
it may ;" and kneeling down beside my bed, she
prayed, in a few broken words :
" Better than all gifts thou couldst have given
my child is this ! I had not courage to unseal
the truth to her. Forgive me ! Thou hast done
it. To Thee be all the praise. Thou wilt give
us all the strength we need, for Jesus' sake.
Then she rose and carefully replaced the book
in its hiding place.
" What danger, what cost do you speak of
mother ?" I whispered.
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 43
" My child," she replied, " it was for reading
and loving that book, and others like it, that
the Inquisition burnt the holy martyr of God,
Francisco San Roman."
This book was Martin Luther's " Commentary
on the E^Distle to the Galatians," translated into
Castilian.
44 THE MAETYKS OF SPAIN".
CHAPTER III.
riHRIST is the door of the fold. The Church
^ is not the door; it is the fold. Not
through the Church do we come to Christ ;
through Christ we enter the Chui'ch, one by
one. We come to Him helpless, destitute,
guilt3\ He receives us, takes us by the hand,
and leads us in. And then we find ourselves in
a new world. The gate is strait ; but the
fold is wide, wide as the world, wide as heaven
and earth. I had the key now, and I knew
what those mysterious assemblies in our house
meant. Henceforth they Avere frequently held in
the room in which my couch was placed. The
books, my precious midnight companions, Avere
brought from their concealment. Our hereditary
Old Testament Avas laid reverently on a table be-
fore Don Domingo de Rojas, with the illuminated
Latin Gospels, and he read a psalm, or some
chapters from the Prophets, and translated pas-
sages from the Gospels, sometimes the stories
of miracles and suffering my mother had told
me, and sometimes parables which were new to
me. And then all knelt together, and Don Do-
mingo prayed. At times other voices Avould join,
THE MAKTYKS OF SPAIN. 45
and among them my uncles Pedro and Francisco.
The prayers were very simple, in few Avords, but
fervent, as if spoken " seeing Ilim" who, " invisi-
ble," surely was in the midst of us.
I had recei\-ed the key to the living Church,
and to the Bible. And that key was the cross.
'■'■He loved jyic, and gave Himself for hie.'''' There
was nothing in my conversion peculiar to my
position in the Roman Church. All men and
women in all external churches, or out of all,
need it equally. It was simply that I threw
aside Satan's lie about God, and believed God's
truth about Himself I had learnt that God is
not only the Friend of man, the bountiful Giver
of all good — (the truth of Eden ;) but that He has
delivered up His Son for us all, making peace
with us through the blood of His cross — the
truth for a fallen world, the truth Avhich will
make the paradise above more blessed than ever
Eden was. The Roman doctrines had never
troubled me ; my mother had not inculcated
them. To the outward ceremonies and ordi-
nances of the Roman Church we had always con-
formed ; nor do I know that the truth which had
set my inmost heart at liberty Avould have made
it difficult for me to conform with them still.
My mind was neither skeptical nor logical. I
was content to receive many things as a matter
of course, setting my own meaning on them
when I could, and when I could not make them
correspond with my faith, simply not regarding
46 THE MxVRTYKS OF SPAIN.
them at all. I, and countless others like me,
would never have attempted any change in the
external church, if the Church would have let us
and our Bibles alone. For instance, once or
twice after this I was carried to hear mass in
the cathedral. I had no more thought of ques-
tioning why all that elaborate ceremonial was
gone through than of questioning why the sun^
rose later in Winter than in Summer. I no more
thought of speculating as to the mode in which
Christ was present in the sacrament than of the
mode in which my body and soul were united.
That my Saviour was present with my heart, and
that His presence was the joy of my heart, 1
knew ; and the rest was all to me music and so-
lemnity, and a halo of soft religious light encir-
cling the secret treasure within. So with con-
fession. I continued to confess to my director,
Don Domingo, for some time, and should proba-
bly have continued doing so, if I had not been
taught otherwise, until this day. My Saviour
was nearer to me than any priest, and to Him in
my heart I confessed, and from his lips I received
the absolution. It is often a comfort to me to
remember this, because I think there may be
many such unquestioning believing souls still in
my country amongst those who never became
Protestants, or amongst those whom a cruel
combination of terror and subtle arguments in-
duced to recant.
It was the Bible, through the interpretation
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 47
of 3[arlin Luther, which made me a rejoicing
Christian. It was the Inquisition which made
me a Protestant. There were many in Arragon,
Castile, AndaUisia, and throughout Spain, led
like me, and many led in other ways. It is such
frafrments of their histories as I have learned or
known that I now gather together. The move-
ment had passed from my own life, and for the
next ten years I lived but in the life of those
around me, of the small but energetic company
of the Reformed Christians of Spain.
There were two principal centres of the Ref-
ormation in Spain ; one in Seville, where I
passed some of the last of those ten years, and
one in Yalladolid. The gathering-places of the
Protestants in both these cities were in the pri-
vate houses of widows of rank and Avealth.
That in Seville was in the house of Isabel de
Baena ; that at Valladolid in the house of my
grandmother, Leanor de Vibero, afterwards the
property of my uncle, Augustin de Tibero Ca-
zalla, and the residence of my mother.
The first pastor of the Reformed Church at
Yalladolid was Don Domingo de Rojas. He
was a younger son of the first Marquis de Poza,
and had become a monk of the Domuiican order.
He was still young when the auto took place in
which San Roman was burnt. He had been a
pupil of that strange man wliose course per-
])lexed us all so much. Fray Bartolomo Carranza,
afterwards Archbishop of Toledo, the man
48 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
whose evangelical teaching led so many to em-
brace Protestanism, yet who himself is detested
in England as " The Black Friar," on account of
his active share in the j^ersecutions in Queen
Mary's reign, the friend of the Protestants in
Sj^ain, the burner of Protestants in England ;
the preacher of the sermon at the martyrdom
of San Roman, and himself a prisoner of the
Inquisition on accusation of heresy for seven-
teen years, submitting at last to a recantation or
public penance at Kome, from the effects of
which, it is said, he died.
Fray Carranza taught Don Domingo de Ro-
jas much of the living truth of justification by
faith in Chi'ist, and then exhorted him to be pru-
dent, and to run no risks. He might as well
have planted a young oak in a frail glass vase,
and exhorted it not to injure the glass. Six
members of Don Domingo's own family, and
other noble families connected with his, suffered in
various ways in the antos of 15G0. Don Domingo
himself wrote books which edified us much ;
but he did more by circulating among us the
works of Valdes, the Secretary of the Viceroy
of Naples ; and translations in Castilian of the
writings of the great German and Swiss Reform-
ers, such as that commentary on the Galatiaiis
which had proved such a treasure to me. It
was Don Domingo who m".de me understand
how contrary the sacrifices of the mass and the
doctrine of purgatory are to the truth of the
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 49
fiuishec^ sacrifice and redemption of our Sav-
iour.
No one can understand the treasure these for-
eign books were to us. Most of them were
printed in the Low Countries. I shall never for-
get the joy of our little company at the arrival
of one packet.
One evening when we were assembled to-
gether for reading and prayer, my mother was
summoned from the room to superintend the
unpacking of " a packet of dresses and lace just
arrived from France." A look of understand-
ing passed from one to another ; but no one said
any thing, until my mother returned with a little
dwarf of a muleteer staggering under the weight
of a package larger than himself. " Julianillo !
Julianillo !" bursted in delighted surprise from
the lips of all present. Don Domingo, the dig-
nified Don Carlos de Seso, and his wife, the
Princess Isabella of Castile, to my surprise,
arose to greet the stranger, and eagerly relieved
him of his load. The noblemen embraced him ;
.Don Domingo called him brother; Don Carlos
exclaimed he was a greater hero than the Cid
Campeador ; " because," he said, " you, Don
Hernandez, fight single-handed, your dangers
are tenfold greater, your reward is nothing-
earthly, your cause the noblest in heaven or
earth."
The little man seemed overwhelmed for an in-
stant ; but with the native dignity of a Castilian
5
50 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN.
peasant, and tlie lowly dignity of a Christian, he
soon recovered himself.
" I am only Julian the Little," he said ; " my
chief qualification for my sei-vice is my small-
ness. People look on me with a good-natured
compassion, and suspect no harm from such an
insignificant creature. Many a custom-house
officer has condescendingly assisted me to carry
the very wares he was most strenuously en-
joined to exclude ; and many a time have I lain
concealed in holes and corners into which no
mortal of ordinary size could have squeezed
himself."
" But your name must become known at
last," said my mother, kindly ; " you must be
careful, Don Hernandez."
" What could sustain you in such perils," said
Don Carlos, " but a faith such as, perhaps, few
of us possess !"
" Do not give me credit for too much, gentle-
men," was the reply ; " my faith is weak indeed.
Many a time my heart has almost ceased to beat
as I lay concealed, and almost felt the breath of
those who were searching the house for forbid-
den wares on my face."
" Yet you continue ?"
" God keeps me," he said solemnly ; " and be-
sides," he added gaily, " do you think there is
no pleasure in seeing a good-natured brawny
soldier help me in carrying for a mile the very
wares he was on guard to keep out, or in re-
THE MARTYRS OP SPAIN. 51
ceiving the confidences of the custom-house offi-
cers as to certain dangerous persons who are cu'-
culating heretical books and poisoning the very-
heart of Spain ? But enougli about me."
Meantime the precious package had been un-
corded and opened ; and scattered on the floor
lay pamphlets and books, the discovery of any
one of which amongst us would have sent the
whole company to the prisons of the Inquisition
or the Brasero.
I often wonder whether the excitement of
these difficulties did not give a zest to the read-
ing of the books. Bibles, in Dutch, are now
read openly in every parish church in Holland ;
but I scarcely see such eagerness to read them
any where as then among us in Spain,
In this package were several copies of the
most precious book of all, the New Testament,
translated into Castilian by our countryman,
Francisco de Enzina:^ 'or Dryander), at Louvain.
The copy which became our especial property,
happened to be one of those original ones which
had been submitted to the censure of the monks
of Louvain, and contained in the title-page the
original title, with the cancellings insisted on by
the monks — " The New Testament, that is, the
New Covenant of our only Redeemer and
Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from Greek into
the Castilian lano-uas^e." The friars had insisted
on having the words, " New Covenant" and
" only," cancelled as heretical ; and to me these
62 THE MARTYES OF SPAIN.
cancellings Avere so many emphatic marks.
How often have I pressed that book to my heart
with the adoring thought, " Our only Redeemer
and Saviour, Jesus Christ !"
Those books were the jDrecious seeds of new
life to many. How many, tlie Day alone can de-
clare ! But the fires of the Inquisition have re-
vealed hundreds.
Those present at our house that night, leaving
at different times, and by different doors in order
to avoid suspicion, bore away with them copies
of the New Testament, of some treatise of
Valdes, or of the German Reformers. They
reached the interior of many convents, especially
the nunnery of Santa Clara and the Cistercian
convent of San Belen. A great number of these
sisters embraced the Reformed doctrine ; and
besides these, of devout and honorable women,
not a few, especially among the Beatas, or
women who had learned the vanity of the world
and devoted themselves to works of mercy,
without binding themselves with any monastic
rule.
Many a history has been poured into my ears
as I lay on my little bed. From so many sides,
by such varied attractions, people were led into
the light. To some it was chiefly a setting at
liberty from bondage ; to others, an opening of
blind eyes to the wonders of a new world of
love and light ; to others again, a breathing of
the breath of life into a framework of inanimate
THE MARTYRS OF SRAIN. 53
and disconnected duties ; to all, in some measure,
all of these.
The majority of the converts were among the
young and the highly cultivated. Some came
back from the mercantile expeditions to Ger-
many and the Netherlands impressed with the
new doctrine. Many more of the courtiers in
the suite of the Emperor Charles and of King
Philip brought back the evangelical truth from
Brussels or from London. Not a few who had
been appointed to refute the Protestants in Ger-
many, or to persecute them in England, returned
to Spain, convinced by the arguments they had
vainly tried to answer, or the enduring faith
they had vainly sought to extinguish. Two
chaplains of the Emperor Charles were among
these ; one, Constantine Ponce de la Fuente of
Seville, and the other, my own uncle, Augustin
Cazalla, second and last pastor of the Reformed
Church at Yalladolid.
jMany others were led to embrace the Protes-
tant side by the reports which began to be cir-
culated through the country of the abuses of the
Council of Trent by the Spanish bishoj^s who
had attended it.
Youth, rank, enlightenment, learning, all that
was aspiring and free in thouglit, all that was
noble and truthful in character, were on our side.
The Reform was the advanced post of the age ;
the Bible, and the thoughts of the Reformers
about it, was the newest literature of the gener-
5*
54 THE JMAETYES OF SPAIN".
ation ; and what this might have developed into,
had it been allowed free development, I cannot
say. Persecution consecrated the best, and
crushed the rest. But there was a healthy, joy-
ous excitement, a morning freshness in those
years, when truth was a new thing, dear for its
freshness as well as for itself. The names I
mention are all the names of martyrs ; some who
sealed their testimony with life, and some who
still perhaps are suffering for their convictions
in dungeons and monastic cells, if anv such are
indeed yet left on earth. God help them if such
there are !
Dona Ana Henriquez de Rojas, one of Don
Domingo's family, would often come and read
with me. She would read the books we loved
in Latin, and would often translate to me, or
vary the hours by singing to the accompani-
ment of her harp. She was young then, and
was afterwards married to Don Juan Alonso de
Fonseca Mexia.
For I must not give the impression that the
Keformed religion was the one only purpose and
thought of those around me. Human life was
ever flowing on with its deep current of feeling,
its little eddies of perplexity and trial, its silent
places in the shadows, and its joyous music in
the sunshine. Only the great chasm Avhich
swallow^ed up all those various streams at once,
often drowns to my memory, in the roar of its
terrible fall, all the changes that came before.
THE MARTYKS OF SPAIX. 55
But no one round me then had any more con-
ception of that catastrophe than the quiet stream
a mile above some great falls of what awaits it.
Every day was as every day to us then as to me
now; only the joys and cares of every day were
bright with the new light from heaven, and
with new and glorious hopes for the desimy of
Spain.
About the year 1562, six or seven years after
that martyrdom of San Roman which awakened
so many a dreaming heart among us, and burst
the icy spell of reserve which had concealed us
from each other, my uncle, Augustin Cazalla,
chaplain to the Emperor Charles, returned from
the Netherlands, and settled at Salamanca. Of-
ten, however, he used to come and cheer us with
tidino-s from the countries where the Reforma-
tion had originated, and was now openly ac-
knowledged. Listening to his narratives, I used
to picture to myself the German cities as so
many antitypes of the heavenly Jerusalem, full
of holy light, and happy beings rejoicing in it.
He had much to tell us also of our countrymen
who had joined the Reformed churches ; of the
three brothers Enzinas (or Dryander, as they
were called among the community of the
learned), the evergreen oaks of Spain — Jayme,
martyred at Rome, whither he had repaired in
obedience to his father ; Juan, medical professor
at Marburg ; I'rancisco, whose translation of
the New Testament was |uy most precious treas-
56 THE MAETYRS OF SPAIX.
ure. The history of these three brothers seemed
to nie like those of the brother Apostles in the
Gospels ; and I often thought how it showed
that the same gracious Son of Man, who called
His disciples of old in pai. s, two brothers or two
bosom friends, Avas ruling His Church still. It
is remarkable among our Spanish martyrs how
many were of the same family.
Then there was the marvellous escape of Fran-
cisco Enzinas. Imprisoned for fifteen months at
Brussels by the Emperor, who had previously
received his translation of the Testament with
apparent favour, one day he found the jjrison-
doors open, no one could ever explain how, and
walking out without any hindrance, made his
way unopposed and undetected, through hosts
of spies, police, and soldiers, to Wittenberg,
although the portraits of the Reformed preachers
were exhibited every where in the Netherlands,
with rewards set On their heads. I had no more
doubt that it was an angel's hand who opened
those doors, and guided the servant of God to
the i^lace of refuge, than when I read a similar
history of St. Peter in the Castilian version of
the same Enzinas.
Then there was the tragic story of two other
Sjianish brothers, Alfonso and Juan Diaz. Juan
was led to embrace the evangelical doctrine by
the martyr Jayme Enzinas. His brother Alfonso
continued an adherent of the Roman faith. Af-
ter vainly endeavouring to win back Juan to
THE MAETTES OF SPAIK. 57
tLe Church, Alfonso changed his manner, arid
professed to be moved by Juan's arguments.
Whilst pretending this interest, he was trying
by a]l kinds of treacherous plans to tempt the
unsuspecting Juan into Italy into the hands of
the priests. Failing in these plans, he professed
to take an increasing interest in Juan's pleadings
from the Scriptures, and at length parted from
him, expressing the warmest gratitude for his
spiritual teaching, and forcing on him a sum of
money. One night, not many days after this,
when Juan was peacefully asleep in his lodging
at Neuburg, Alfonso arrived at the gate, and
sent up a letter to his brother. Scarcely staying
to dress, Juan joyfully hurried out to meet his
brother — a brother, he hoped, indeed in Christ.
He met an assassin in the bearer of Alfonso's
letter, and fell under one stroke of his axe.
Alfonso had waited at the foot of the stairs, to
assist in the murder, if necessary. But it Avas
not necessary. Juan had too entirely trusted
him to attempt any defense. All the efforts of
the Protestant princes could obtain no justice
for this deed. The fratricide appeared openly at
the Council of Trent, and in the best society at
Rome. " Brother astainst brother." The words
started up in terrible reality to me whenever I
read them afterwards.
My uncle Augustin also preached more than
once before the abdicated Emperor at his retreat
at St. Juste. The Emperor could not have had
58 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIX.
.1 keen scent in detecting heresy, since three at
least of his favourite preachers — Augustin Ca-
zalla, Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, and Arch-
bishop Carranza — were so deeply tinged with
it.
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 59
CHAPTER IV.
rrPIE year 1555 was a year ric^. in happy inter-
-^ course to me. It was five years after my
accident, and my strength began to revive. I
was able, with assistance, to leave the house;
and it was like having the visions of a romance
transformed into realities to go and visit in their
homes those whose histories had become so
familiar to me on my bed of suffering. How
wide the world seemed to me after that lonor
imprisonment !
The city of Yalladolid seemed to have become
a consecrated place since last I walked in its
streets. The Great Square was the most sacred
place of all to me, hallowed, not so much by the
shadow of the great church as by the memory
of that one despised, forsaken man, in a yellow
dress of infamy, whose heroic endurance had
been the spark which enkindled so many hearts
around me.
Then the grim walls of the prisons of the In-
quisition had a terrible interest for us ; there San
Roman had been tortured, not accepting deliv-
erance, whilst the walls of two convents, that of
St. Catharine and San Belen, scarcely less grim
60 ^ THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
outwardly, were to me but the rough caskets of
precious jewels of God ; for in St. Catharine
dwelt the Lady Maria deKojas, one of the many
amonsist Don Dominojo's kindred whom the
truth had set free ; and in San Belen dwelt seven
nuns whose names I knew well, and recognized
too well when I heard of them in after years as
victims at the great anto. Seven nuns — seven
martyrs not in any Roman Calendar — seven
names written in heaven !
Then there was the Brasero, without the
walls, where San Roman had perished in 1>he
flames, leaving us, as his last testimony, the proof
what Christ can make death by fire to those who
love Him. There the stake had been raised ;
there the flames had raged ; there the glorious
words had been heard, as they thrust him back
to be stifled in the smoke, " Did you envy me
my happiness f
Yes, these were consecrated places to us at
Valladolid, consecrated by martyrs' ashes. There
are more now, but the worshippers are gone.
Honour to the Royal Guards who dared to
gather San Roman's ashes as sacred relics, and
were imprisoned for it ! and to the English Am-
bassador, who was banished many months from
the Spanish Court for honouring in like manner
those poor charred bones !
My mother thought at this time my health
might be entirely restored by change of scene
and air. Accordingly, I was sent on a tour to
THE MARTYilS OF SrAIJ^T. 61
various places in the kingdom of Leon and the
Castiles, where ^ve had relations and friends.
My aunt Beatrix's faithful servant, Anton
Minguez, was to be my muleteer and guard, and
my dear sister Costanza my companion. This
younger sister, who had been so narrowly saved
from the accident which had crippled me, was
bound to me by many ties. She persisted, and
persists still, in regarding her life as purchased
by my sufferings, because, by a natural instinct,
I thought of saving the little helpless one before
I -secured myself. She had been the first, excej)t
my mother, to be admitted to my sick-room.
Her little loving ways soothed me better than
my medicines ; and her bright childish looks, as
I recovered, were to me for many months instead
of sunshine, and flowers, and birds, and all the
bright natural things I was debarred from. And
when the sunshine from heaven entered my heart,
and it became summer there, I had something to
give her back. I taught her to read from the
New Testament ; and from the Gospels she
learned to love Him who. is Himself the glad
tidings, in Himself at once the Word of life, the
Life, our Summer, and our Sun.
To me Costanza was at once a sister and a
child ; and a happier little i^arty never set out
than we three that day from our house in Val-
ladolid. My mother watched us from the door.
On her face was a shade of anxiety, which shad-
owed my own heart a little ; but I said to her ;
6
62 THE MARTTES OF SPAIN.
" Mother, I shall come back the strongest of
your thirteen."
My holies overcame her fears, and she fol-
lowed ns with smiles.
A baggage-mule preceded us, and we rode,
basque-fashion, on a kind of pannier or cushion
on each side of the mule. Anton walked be-
side us.
Our first halt was at my foster-mother's.
She had grown aged ; but she tottered from her
seat in the doorway when she heard the steps of
our mule, and was watching us Avhen we came
in sight.
" My darling has come back," she said, with
the forgetfulness of time which so often heralds
our ceasing to have to do with time. " She has
forgiven her poor old Antonia at last."
" O Antonia, I had nothing to forgive ! You
meant it all so kindly ; and you were right, after
all, when you tried to comfort me by saying San
Roman did not suffer so much. You remember
he was happy in the fire." -
" Say it again, darling. Indeed, I meant him
no harm. I did not take a stick to those dread-
ful faggots. Say it again, darling. Was he
happy in spite of all ? then God will forgive me.
Do you think he is in heaven after all, and will
ask the blessed Lord to forgive me?"
It was quite hopeless to disentangle Antonia's
ideas. I could only tell her, for the hundredth
time, about the dying martyr of old, the first,
< THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN. 63
and of liis last words, " Lord, lay not this sin to
their charge." She responded, as so often be-
fore, " Lord, lay not this sin to my charge ;" and
I told her the blessed Saviour was infinitely
more compassionate than Stephen or San Ro-
man. And she Avould drink in the comfort for
the time, until I came again, and the old distress
returned, and the old history brought the same
consolation.
But at last one day, not long after this, before
we returned to Valladolid, a gleam of sudden
light seemed to come into her poor confused
mind ; and she rose in her bed, and told those
around her the whole story of dying Stephen,
which she still strangely blended with that of
San Roman ; and adding, as usual, " Lord, lay
not this sin to my charge," she fell back and
died."
And I feel sure that the old distress will never
return to her now, and that nothing shall be laid
to her charge forever, " for it is Christ that
died."
We rested some little time at the garden, and
partook of some raisins dried from the grapes
of the preceding Autumn. It was new to Cos-
tanza, and her enjoyment of every thing redoubled
mine.
Our destination was Toro. Our road lay for
a great part of the way, along the banks of the
Duero. The undulating plain over which we
passed was green with the delicious green of
04 THE MAKTYES Oi' SPAIX.
young corn. It was like a healing dew to my
eyes, refreshing as sleep, after the hot white
walls of the town. We rode on in silence.
There Avas little variety, only the undulating-
green i^lain, one gentle swell following another
like the sea — a sea of verdure, in which my eyes
bathed ; the plain, and the river silently flowing
on by our side, and in the distance, occasionally
a low outline of brown hills, which towards
evening grew golden. But some one had once
told me that the plains around Valladolid re-
minded him of parts of the Holy Land, the
plains of Jezreel or Sharon ; and all day my
heart was full of happy memories of Him who
walked with twelve through the corn-fields and
was baptized in the river. As one white village
or another nestled in the hollows, or crowned
some rising of the plain, or gleamed from the
sides of the more distant hills, I wondered if
they were like Xain, or Bethany, or Xazareth.
At times I spoke to Costanza, or to Anton, of
the thoughts of which my heart was full.
" How delightful it is, Anton," I said, " that
we are told so much of our Saviour in the Gos-
pels ; of His daily life, His conversations with
His friends, as well as His great sermons to the
multitude ! And then to think that He is the
same for ever ! It was after his death and res-
urrection, you know, that He joined the two dis-
ciples going to Emmaus, and made their hearts
burn with His words."
THE MAETYKS OF SPAIN. 65
Sometimes Anton listened, and seemed to de-
light in the Bible narratives I told him ; but at
length, after we had gone on some time in si-
lence, he said spontaneously, in rather an abrupt
tone :
" I like these new doctrines very well, Dona
Dolores ; but I must say I cannot see why peo-
ple cannot keep them a little more to themselves.
There is the great Doctor Juan Gil of Seville,
whom they call Egidius ; he has been imprisoned
three yeai*s by the Inquisition, just for speaking
of these things, and is only just now they say,
set free. I am often afraid some such trouble
will come to our house, and it poisons all my
life when I think of it. We cannot think too
much, or say too little of these things. That is
my creed. There are eyes in Spain besides the
angels' that never sleep. Walls have ears.
When people live over a iDowder-magazine, it is
not safe to let every child carry a light."
With these sententious and rather inconsrruous
images Anton very nearly silenced me ; but
Costanza took up arms in what she thought my
defense.
" Our Lord said, ' Out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh,' Anton."
" Very good," said Anton ; " but in those days
I should think there was no Inquisition."
Costanza was perplexed, but I remonstrated,
" There were Scribes and Pharisees, Anton."
" At any rate, they could not peer into every
G*
6G THE MARTYRS OF SPAIST.
corner, as tliey do now," said Anton, confidently.
" I feel sure the Scribes and Pharisees, and the
Philistines, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Herod, and
Pontius Pilate, and Judas Iscariot, were nothing
to the Inquisitors. Besides," he added, lowering
his tone, " why cannot we do as your ancestors
did — as they say many Jews do in Castile to
this day — attend mass, and keep to their own
customs, and say nothing about it ?"
" But there is all the difference in the world,"
I said, " The relapsed Jews have on\f customs
to keep ; but we have a Gospel to tell ; glad
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,
Anton, and Ave cannot be silent. Would you
like, Anton, that no one should have told you?"
Anton could not reply for a minute. He
busied himself in re-arranorinir the mule's har-
ness, and then answered in a softer tone :
" The news is good, my young ladies, very
good, and very glad, and for me the danger is
slight ; but there are terrible things within those
dungeons at Valladolid. The way into them is
easy, but no one comes out of them without be-
ing singed, if not burnt altogether. They ai-e
no respecters of persons there. It is said King
Philip would not spare his own son. I hear
more than those who are nurtured tenderly in
palaces, and sometimes my heart trembles.
Trap-doors may open at any moment under our
feet, and I tremble to see the feet of the little
ones dancing over them."
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 67
" But, Anton," said Costanza, " we know, we
all know"-
" Know what ?" said the faithful old servant.
"We know that brother may deliver up
brother to death," I said ; " and we know also,
Anton, that the hairs of our head are all num-
bered."
" His words are mighty," said Anton, rever-
ently ; "but tlien faith is sometimes weak."
" We must not look at the waves, Anton ; but
at the Saviour's hand outstretched to uphold ;
or, perhaps, better still, at Plis lace, to see the
' Be of good cheer' in his compassionate eyes,
before we hear it from his lips — • Be of good
cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid.' "
Anton bowed his head, and crossed himself
reverently; and just then there rose before us,
crowning the summit of a little hill commanding
the Duero, the walls of Toro, with its old castle
flanked with four massive round towers.
We entered one of the many gates ; we jiassed
by the palaces and convents, and stopped at the
door of a house in a back street.
We were expected. It was the house of the
Bachelor Anton Ilerezuelo ; and his beautiful
young bride. Leaner de Cisneros, was in the
courtyard to meet us. They had not long been
married, and Leaner was full of all the happy
cares of her new home.
The room which Costanza and I were to share
was decorated as if for a church festival. There
68 THE MAETYKS OF SPAIjST.
were no images of the Blessed Yirglii in it ; "but
there was an antique ivory crucifix, almost veiled
in flowers. The room was fragrant with Spring
flowers and fresh linen white as snow.
Nothing could exceed the kindness of our
hosts, and the quiet happiness of that home.
Leanor was younger than I was — not nineteen ;
and through and above all her beauty and gaiety
shone a light purer and deeper than any thing
earthly can give. The presence of the Master
had consecrated that marriage. His hand was
with them day by day, turning the water into
wine. Their cup seemed brimful of happiness,
and it overflowed in deeds and words of kind-
ness to us and to all. Never since have I seen a
love deeper and purer than that which united
Antonio Ilerezuelo and Leanor de Cisneros.
In the day, when the Advocate Herezuelo was
engaged in his j^rofessional duties, "we three were
like happy sisters together. In the evenings,
the precious sacred books were brought out,
(for this house also had its secret library,) and
we read together, or heard of the secret spread
of the truth in all the villages and cities around ;
whilst often, and especially on Sundays, many
other secret converts joined us, and we had
prayers, and once the celebration of the Holy
Supper of the Lord.
My itncle, Pedro de Vibero Cazalla, parish
priest of Pedrosa, a village not far distant from
Toro, in the neighbouring diocese of Zamora,
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIlSr. 69
was present on this occasion. He had much to
tell us of the joyful reception the Gospel met
with among his parishioners, the humhle villa-
gers of Pedrosa. This rejoiced me, because there
is so much in the New Testament about the Gos-
pel being preached to the poor, and I used to be
afraid sometimes whether our doctrine wanted
this seal. It spread so much more among the
noble, and rich, and learned, and gifted.
I have said the happiness of our hosts seemed
full to overflowing. But it was held, as all cups
of earthly happiness are, in trembling hands.
We knew too well, all of us, the truth of An-
ton's warnings, although hope with us generally
outweighed fear. Yet often have I seen tears in
Leanor's eyes when her husband left, and an
anxious look on her brio-ht face when his return
was delayed ; graver and deeper shadows than
cross young hearts in ordinary times. " Antonio
was so fearless," she said. I used to think some-
times, with a human love so intense, and with
one so beloved for her teacher — for it was from
the husband the young wife had learned to be-
lieve— it must be difficult to tell how much her
faith rested on God's words, and how much on
Antonio's. But Leanor was troubled with no
such doubts. God had given her her husband.
God had given her his truth. Home and heaven
were both God's gifts. And when the time of
Satan's sifting came for them, the Lord, who loved
them, knew how to sustain and keep them both.
VO THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN.
Our next visit was to a veiy diiferent home.
Don Carlos de Seso was Coregidor of Toro, and
on one of his journeys to confirm the infont
church of Leon and Castile, he paid a visit to the
Advocate Herezuelo, and took my sister and me
back with him to his residence at Villaniediana,
near Logrofio, in Navarre. He said the moun-
tain air might strengthen me, and his wife, the
Don a Isabella de Castilla, would treat us as her
children.
Anton and the mules were therefore prepared,
and we set out once more with our noble escort.
We visited my nncle at Pedrosa, and stayed at
Zamora a few days. We re-crossed the dry plain
of the Duero, where the corn was now acquiring
a golden tint. We saw in the distance the glit-
ter of the lofty spires of Valladolid. At length
we entered the rich valley of the Arlanzon, and
traced the river in its course among the hills up
to Burgos.
This hill-country was a new world to me, and
translated many a Bible narrative into pictures
for me — the hill-country of Judea, Tabor, and
Galilee ; and in the mountain range at some
distance behind Burgos, I saw, for the first time,
the silver line of snow, and thought of the trans-
figured garments, and of Hermon and Lebanon.
Instead of the slow, silent rivers of the plains,
mountain streams with living voices came leap-
incc doAvn from the wooded hills to meet the Ar-
lanzon. Villages and convents crowned the
THE MAKTTES OF SPAIK, Tl
heights. Every village spire had its stork's nest.
Forests shaded our path, and the green glades,
and solemn avenues, and fragrant cistus and for-
est-flovrers made me almost ^vild with delight.
Occasionally, too, the Enzina, the evergreen oak
of Navarre, waved its dark boughs above us,
and recalled to me the three brothers Enzinas,
whose native city, BurgoS, Ave were approaching.
We were passing through the country of the
Cid Campeador, and many of the old ballads my
foster-mother used to sing to me, came ringing
through my memory. Costanza and I fancied
every castle the scene of conflicts between the
Moors and the old chivalry of Castile.
Don Carlos occasionally rode beside us, and
pointed out the scenes of the old legends ; and
he said to me, " It is the memory of this old
contest with the infidel which makes one of the
strongest barriers to the entrance of the truth.
The pride of the Castilian in his Catholic descent,
the horror of all new doctrine as somethino-anti-
Spanish as well as anti-Christian, would be an
obstacle to the spread of the Gospel almost as
strong as the Inquisition, if the Inquisition could
be crushed to-mori-ow."
" But," I said, " the hand of God can break
down pride within, as w^ell as power with-
out,"
" It is possible," he replied. " But whatever
the result be for Spain, it is certain that every
heart which believes finds present rest in Chi'ist,
'72 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
and the key to everlasting joy with Him ; and
this is worth working for."
Burgos noAV rose above ns,with the grand spires
of its magnificent cathedral. Some hours after-
wards, when resting a while near one of its gor-
geous shrines, feeling the music vibrate through
its clustering pillars, while the light fell crimson
and golden through the painted windows on the
pavement, the spell of the old faith stole over me
once more. The cathedral was like a new world,
half divine, half human. The awe of mountains
and the mystery of forests, with the loveliness
of flowers, seemed to pervade it, blended with
tender human thoughts of the mouldering hands
that had built it, and the immortal human spirit
that had designed it. The ever-burning lamps
before the visible Divine Presence in the sacra-
ment ; the music, deep as winds and waters, but
Avith a human tone no winds and waters can
have ; the tombs at my feet ; the mass the priest
was saying in the side chapel, joining the living
with the dead, and thus breaking the terrible
silence between us and them ; the confessional,
with its balms of jiardon — as I sat there, the en-
chantment seemed to deepen over me, and I
thought, " How can my counti'y ever escape
from this ?"
Only as I left the church I remembered how
in reality the masses for the dead threw a
shadow on heaven itself; how that dream of the
" real Presence" in the sacrament hid the real
THE MAETYKS OF SPAIN. 73
abiding presence of the living Saviour from the
heart; how the confessional was so often but a
jiortal to the Inquisition,
But it was not until that evening that the
spell Avas quite broken. We sat among a little
company of Protestants in a private house in
Burgos, and Don Carlos de Seso read to us of
the resurrection of the Lord ; of the living Lord
who appeared to Mary in the gray of the Syrian
morning. " Mary ! Master !" The words, so
simple and significant, fell on my heart with a
new power. I felt I had been looking into a
sepulchre full of memories, fragrant with em-
balming spices, illuminated with sepulchral
lamps, but still a sepulchre ; and now I was in
the daylight again, in the pure morning air, and
Jesus risen, was near, " the same yesterday and
to-day, and for ever ;" and that He spoke to me
in no mysterious church language, but famil-
iarly ; He called me by the name my sisters
called me at home.
But Spain, my country, when will she turn her
weeping face from the empty sepulchre, where
He is not, and see Him standing living for ever-
more, and hear Him speak ?
Leaving Burgos, we crossed the plain which
lies between it and the mountains, and entered
the beautiful country amidst which the residence
of Don Carlos lay. Forests, olive-gardens, vine-
yards on sunny slopes, and mulberry groves
flourished around Logroiio. At Villamediana.
74 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
near Logrono, was situated the palace of Don
Carlos de Seso, and his wife, Isabella de Castilla,
a princess of the royal house of Castile and
Leon. It was a stately dwelling, very different
from the house of our old friend, Antonio de
Herezuelo at Tolo. At first Costanza and I, and
more especially Anton Minguez, felt some awe
of our noble hosts. The titles, the number and
deference of the attendants, and the splendour
of the rooms, made it seem to us like a royal
court ; but the gentle kindness of Dona Isabella
to us both, her tenderness to rae, and, more
than all, the deep union between us on account
of our common faith soon made us feel at home.
Our reverence for Don Carlos also made a
great bond between us and the Dona Isabella,
and we delighted to hear her tell of his early
life at Verona, where he was born ; of the ser-
vices he had rendered the Emperor Charles, and
of the honour the Emperor paid him. We knew
how all these honours were esteemed nothing by
him, for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ ; but we honoured him doubly for the
honours he despised.
I think I have never since seen any thing so
noble in manners as the blending in Don Carlos
of the Italian nobleman and the Christian. I
used to think he must be a kind of combination
of the Cid and St. Paul ; and yet perhaps his
manner, as an Italian, had more ease than that
of the grandees of Spain. And he was not the
THE MAETYES OF SPAIN. 75
only one among our Spanish Protestants in
whom so many noble qualities were thus blended.
At Valladolid, at Toro, at Zamora, at Palencia,
at Burgos, at Logrofio, wherever we had met
the little secret companies of our brethren,
among them were always some of the noblest,
most learned, and most illustrious ; minds of
the keenest insight and widest grasp ; accom-
plishments and gifts the most brilliant ; hearts
the bravest, manners the noblest.
The house of Don Carlos at Villamediana was
the resort of all the Protestants of the kingdoms
of Castile and Leon. Those whose minds had
begun to question the practice or dogma of the
Church came there to inquire further. Those
who had embraced the good news of pardon
and peace through the crucified and risen Christ,
came to consult as to the best means of spread-
ing the evangelical doctrine, and to report their
success. Books were there in store, freely dis-
tributed to all : Bibles and Testaments ; the
writings of Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin,
translated into Castilian ; with the Dialogues of
Valdes, and his Hundred and Ten Considera-
tions. The good work of circulating books was
much aided by the neighbourhood of the Py-
renees, of Arragon, and Beam, and by the fact
that the chief officer of the custom-house at
Logrofio was himself a Protestant. The parish
priest at Vahamediana also had become an ad-
herent of the Reformed faith.
^6 THE MAETTES OP SPAIN.
On our return to Valladolid, we sj^ent some
days at the village of Hormigos, in the diocese
of Paleucia, with my uncle Francisco de Vibero
Cazalla, the parish priest. He had many hum-
ble converts among the jDcasantry. The forms
of the Roman Catholic Church were still re-
tained ; but his sermons were full of Scriptural
truth, and his confessions became a place of
heavenly counsel to many. The contrast be-
tween the priest's house in the country village
and the palace we had left, was very marked ;
and it was delightful for me to watch how the
truth, which satisfied the aspirations of the no-
blest and most enlightened, could be the daily
bread of the poorest and least enlightened. The
Eternal Word, the Brightness of the Father's
glory, is also the bread of the Christian's daily
life. And the written word, which is the reve-
lation of the Unseen and Eternal Light, is also
the lamp to our feet, and the light to our path,
It was a great rest to the heart to see this proved,
as we had, in palace and cottage, in city and vil-
lage ; from Toro, where we had passed those
happy days in the bright home of Antonio de
Herezuelo and Leanor de Cisneros, to Pedrosa,
where we were so afiectionately entertained by
Francisco Cazalla — three names consecrated
and canonized among us since tlien, but not at
Rome.
THE MAETYKS OF SIXAIN. 77
CHAPTER V.
RETURNED to Valladolid, not indeed the
strongest of my mother's thirteen, bnt, al-
though still lame, scarcely an invalid, and able
to take some share in the ordinary occupations
of those around me. Gostanza returned be-
trothed to Mark Van Rosevelt, a Flemish gen-
tleman whom we had met at the house of Don
Carlos de Seso.
The Reformed doctrine continued to spread
in Valladolid, and the villages and towns of
Leon and Castile, but especially in the towns ;
yet secretly, for fear of the Inquisition. I often
wonder, in recalling those days, how this secrecy
could have been so long maintained imder the
very eyes of the Inquisition. The accession of
so many priests to our number no doubt made
concealment easier, as long as outward changes
of order and ceremony did not seem a duty.
The confessional, with these Protestant clergy-
men, became merely a chair of counsel ; the
mass was understood, as far as possible, in an
evangelical sense ; the festivals of the saints
were regarded simply as commemorations of
pious men and women.
7*
TS THE MAETYRS OF SPAIN.
It must also be remembered that the corrup-
tions of the Roman Chm'ch existed far more in
her unauthorized customs than in her authorized
Liturgy. Much of the purity of early times re-
mains in her Church Prayer-book. Besides, we
always clung to the hope that the Church of
Spain would be reformed as a community ; and
who can be surprised that we should indulge
such an expectation, when we knew that two
chaplains of the Emperor Charles were decided
Protestants, and had good reasons for thinking
Fray Bartolme de Carranza, in 1558, appointed
Primate of Spain, to be deeply imbued with the
Lutheran doctrine.
Meantime the populace generally, the toiling
and uneducated multitude, were not with us.
The common people did not hear us gladly.
The general opinion among these was that Lu-
ther was a kind of incarnation of the Devil, and
the Protestants a new species of Moors and Jews.
Since my residence in Holland, I have often
thouixht that the Reformation has more cause to
glory in the names of the poor weavers, carpen-
ters, and shopkeepers burnt at Queen Mary and
King Philip's fires through England and Hol-
land, than in the illustrious names which swell
the roll of our Spanish martyrology.
The despised names which show that the
truth has taken deep root in the heart of the
labouring poor, are worth more to a country
than the most glorious titles, which only show
. THE MARTYES OF SPAIX. 19
that it has reached the learned aud exalted. It
is beautiful to see the high mountain j^eaks
golden and rosy in the dawn ; but when the
light shines on the villages in the plains and hol-
lows, it is day. And to Spain that day has never
come.
Some months after our return to Valladolid,
we received into our house the learned Dr. Juan
Gil, or Egidius. He had just been released from
his imprisonment in the prisons of the Inquisi-
tion at Seville, and he came to spend his first
days of recovered freedom among us his breth-
ren of Leon and Castile.
He was very sad. He always took the lowest
place amongst us, and seemed to prefer to keep
silence. He said he was not worthy to speak
for Christ before us, since he had failed to con-
fess Him before the enemies of His truth. Yet
we all thought he dealt hardly with himself; his
recantation had been the result of such a base
deception. Sometimes it seemed to cheer him
when we represented this to him ; but often he
would reject this consolation; and I think the
only time when I remember any thing like real
happiness on his face, was when he would say
words of this kind :
"Let me abhor myself; let me confess my
sins to the full! Yet, yet I believe that Ho
who turned and looked on Peter will not over-
look me. Let it l>e such a look as to break my
lieart ! It will not say, 'Depart,' but ' Return ;'
and that is enough for me."
80 THE MARTYES OF SPAIN.
From Dr. Egidins I learned what I will now
briefly record of the origin and early history of
the fflorious but short-lived Reformed Church of
Seville.
One of the first converts to the evangelical
doctrine in Seville owed his instruction chiefly to
the Inquisition. A poor peasant was brought
before the holy ofiice at Seville, for having said
that there was no jiurgatory but the blood of
Christ. Ho%v he had apprehended this truth, I
know not. His hold on it could not have been
very firm, since he told the Inquisitors if such a
doctrine was heretical, he would certainly retract
it at once. But the Inquisitors (like the Phar-
isees, who so often understood our Lord's words
against them better than the disciples) explained
to the poor man that this proposition involves
countless other heretical doctrines, such as justi-
fication by faith, and the fallibility of the Pope
and the general councils who had taught the
doctrine of purgatory. By some means the
peasant escaped their hands ; but their words
remained in his mind : he had learned from the
Inquisitors the connection between one evangel-
ical truth and another, and became a confirmed
Lutheran. This, however, was an isolated case,
and led to no consequences, so far as I know.
The first man who really preached the Re-
formed doctrine in Seville, was Rodrigo Valero.
He was a gentleman of Lebrixa, not a priest nor
a learned man. His youth had been spent in the
THE MABTYES OJ^ SPAIN. 81
eager pursuit of pleasure. Listless idleness could
never have been his temptation. Among the
young men of rank of Seville, he was a leader of
fashion. Wealthy, daring, and generous; in
feats of arms, in the chase, in entertainments, in
dress, he was the prince of his circle. No soci-
ety, no amusement at Seville vras complete with-
out the presence of Rodrigo Valero. All at
once, without any reverse of fortune or any loss
of health, he absolutely abandoned his life of
dissijDation, became indifferent to all he had de-
liglited in, and gave himself to reading and med-
itation on the things which are not seen and
eternal. If he had taken monastic vows, or
founded a new order of monks, people would
have understood the change. Such visible con-
versions from dissipation to the convent, from
the gay world to the religious world, were
among the recognized phenomena of the day.
But Valero avoided the monasteries as much as
his former pursuits. His religious book was
not the lives of the saints, which any one could
have made allowance for, but the Bible ! and to
him the study of the Bible was no easy matter.
The only Bible he possessed Avas the Latin Vul-
gate ; and the little Latin he had learned in his
boyhood had been nearly forgotten. But the
Bible was' from God ; and what God said, Va-
lero must know; therefore day and night he
studied, until he could read Latin easily. Then
the treasure-house was open to him, and he be-
82 THE MAETYES OF SPAIN".
came, indeed, a man of God, furnished from the
Divine armoury for every good word and Avork.
Henceforth he sought the society of the clergy,
to tell them of the truth he had found. He
addressed all who would listen to him, of all
ranks and professions. He had good news to
tell them — that the veil between man and God
is rent for ever by God's hand, and that, through
Him who died for us all, the way is open for all
to draw near to God. To the clergy he had
other messages. Their hands, too many of them,
were employed in erecting barriers between man
and God ; by their false doctrine, which misrep-
resented Him ; by their vices, which disgusted
men with the name of religion. Such words
could not be spoken with impunity, from the
days of the Scribes and Pharisees to ours. The
clergy demanded by what authority he taught
these things. He told them that the truths he
spoke were his credentials, and directed them to
the Word of God as the source of all he said.
He was brought before the Inquisitors ; his rank
and the influence of his family saved him ; and
his enemies contented themselves with command-
ing him " not to teach in this Name," and with de-
claring liim mad. For some little time he abstained
from all public speaking, and simply explained
the Epistle to the Romans privately to his
friends. But his heart was too full to be long
satisfied with such comparative silence. In all
battles some must take the first step, and make
THE MARTYES OF SPAIN. 83
a way for the rest. He did not shrink from this
post. Once more he spoke, and was brought
again before the Inquisitors, and sentenced to
wear the robe of infamy, the Sanbenito, and be
imprisoned for life.
This final sentence was pronounced in 1541,
four or five years before the martyrdom of San
Roman at Seville. For such a nature, death
would have been easier. Henceforth the former
leader of gaiety and fashion at Seville was only
to be seen on festivals, driven throusrh the
street in his yellow robe of disgrace, among the
penitents, to the church of San Salvador. But
even this could not extinguish the fire of his
zeal for souls. More than once a voice was heard
from that dishonoured company, after the sermon,
faithfully warning the congregation against any
false doctrine in it, and telling them of Him
who was near to them and near to God — the
Redeemer, the Sacrifice, the Priest. This could
not often be permitted. At length he was shut
out from all society in the monastery of San Lu-
car, at the mouth of the Gaudalquivir. And there,
at the age of fifty, he died. He had no monu-
ment but his poor robe of shame hung up in the
Cathedral of Seville. It was of an unusual
size, and his monumental inscription was —
" Rodrigo V^alero, a citizen of Lebrixa and
Seville, an apostate and false apostle, who jire-
tended to be sent of God." This was his me-
morial, while the faithful lips which could have
84 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN.
denied it were silent for ever in the burial ground
at San Lucar. But his true and fervent words
lived and burned in many a heart in Seville. I
never heard that there was much of what is
commonly called eloquence in them ; but it is
wonderful how many eloquent tongues they
taught to speak. I have often thought there was
a strange similarity in this respect between him
and San Roman. Both laymen, comparatively
unlearned, both having for their chief character-
istic a fervent heart, they were as " voices in the
wilderness." They bore witness to " the Lamb
of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,"
directed the hearts of many to Him, and then
were heard no more. On earth, nothing but a
voice ; in heaven, burning and shining lights,
burning on for ever ! I can conceive no nobler
destiny than this. With their dying hands, San
Roman and Valero gave the impulse which
launched the vessel.
Juan Gil himself spoke with the tenderest
reverence of Valero, and he had reason. Elected
Canon-magistral or preacher of the Cathedral
of Seville, on account of his great learning,
when he tried his scholastic logic on the hearts
of the people from the Cathedral jiulpit,' he
found it absolutely powerless. His audiences
diminished, and the disappointment with his
preaching was general. The hearts of the
people were thirsting for bread, and he gave
them stones. He reasoned of theories and ab-
THE MAETYllS OF SPAIN. 85
stractions, which had done very well as the
playthings of idle monks. He found himself
face to face with toiling and snifering men and
women who wanted comfort and strength ; with
sinners who Avanted pardon ; with human hearts
that wanted God, and he was speechless. His
well-prepared syllogisms and citations from the
schoolmen echoed back to him from the hollow
dome of the Cathedral without entering one heart
-^gidius was too honest not to be conscious
of this ; but he could not conceive why it shoiild
be, until Valero, the unlearned gentleman whom
so many thouglit crazed, ventured to tell him
the secret of his failure. There was a Book to
which he had indeed often applied, as a doctor
of theology, for texts to prove his theories, but
to which he had never gone as a fallen man to
find the way of salvation. Valero advised him
to study the Bible, and take it henceforth, not
as a convenient repertory of quotations, but as
the living source of truth, ^gidius read, be-
lieved, and thenceforth taught what he believed.
The usual result followed. He directed the
hearts of men to the love of a living God, the
sinner to the Saviour. " Some believed, and
some believed not ;" but the death-sleep was
broken. Many hearts were inspired with ever-
increasing love to God, with readiness to endure
all for the Saviour's sake, and, in many, a bitter
spirit of opposition was aroused, which rested
not until it had brought the preacher to the
8
86 THE MAETYKS OF SPAIN.
prisons of the Inquisition, and silenced his voice
for ever in the Cathedral of Seville.
^gidius did not labour alone. Two of his
former fellow-students at the University of
Alcala Avere led by his conversation to embrace
the truth — Dr. Vargas and Constantine Ponce de
la Fuente. Dr. Vargas gave private theological
lectures, and Constantine frequently occupied
the pulpit of ^gidius.
Of all the names so mournfully hallowed for
us at Seville, none is more honoured among us
than that of Constantine Ponce de la Fuente.
Chaplain and almoner to the Emperor Charles, he
was chosen on account of his great abilities to
accompany King Philip to Flanders, that Flem-
ings might see that Spain was not destitute of
learned and eloquent men. Yet his writings are
chiefly designed to instruct the little ones of the
flock of Christ in the elements of Christian
truth. lie had learned the great secret that He
who is the wisdom and word of God is also the
bread of life to man, and that the simplest truths
are the deepest. I picture him to myself as
having been a man healthy in "body, soul, and
spirit, free from all morbidness and narrowness
of heart. Brilliant and witty in society, his
wit was like a keen, fresh mountain air, sweeping
through all his other faculties, and keeping them
clear and sweet. His firm character, and free,
penetrating mind must have been a great sup-
port to ^gidius.
THE MAKTYRS OF SPAIN. 87
lie Lad a great contempt for all that is hollow
and unreal. When the chapter of Toledo in-
vited him to accept the lucrative and distin-
guished office of cathedral preacher, he declined ;
" lest," as he said, " he might disturb the bones
of their ancestors," the Archbishop having re-
quired an unexceptionable pedigree from his
clergy.
He had an equal contempt for the empty lite-
rary display which was required as a qualifica-
tion for the post of cathedral jireacher at Seville.
He said that these literary contests were as unfit
to test the relative powers of preachers of the
Christian religion as the " exercises of school-
boys, or the tricks of jugglers." When at last,
however, rather than leave so important an office
to a mere careless declaimer, he was induced to
enter the lists, all shrank from the contest with
him — all but one, who, unable to attempt to
rival him in debate, adopted instead the weapons
of slander. He was a man neither loved nor
hated in moderation. His noble, firm, free
character, must have been a great support to
the more timid and cautious ^o-idius.
Such were the three men who commenced the
Reformation in the south of Spain ; Valero, the
chivalrous and fearless, the man of M^ar, the
Christian cavalier, boldly gathering the spears,
and burying them in his breast, to make a way for
freedom, with his few simple truths simply spoken,
enkindling the hearts of many; ^gidius, the
88 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIIf.
man of learning, receiving the ins2>iring word
from Valero, and developing it in his well-cul-
tured mind into the harvest of living grain ; and
Constantiue Ponce de la Fuente, the man of the
world, with his clear, practical sagacity and his
popular eloquence, reaping the precious grain,
prei^aring and distributing it to be the food of
thousands. Never, I think, did God prepare, or
man reject, three fitter instruments for a noble
work.
Around these gathered, one by one, hundreds
of believers, varied in character, abilities, and
station, as the three leaders themselves. The
Protestant Church was formed at Seville. They
met sometimes at one house, and sometimes at
another, but chiefly at the mansion of a Avidow
lady of wealth and rank, Isabel de Baena.
Among them was Don Christobal Losada, " a
Lutheran for love," as the Inquisitors said, led
first to consider the Reformed doctrine from his
affection to a young Protestant lady, and after-
wards so enlightened by the study of the Bible
that the church at Seville unanimously elected
him its pastor ; until at last he became a martyr
" for love" indeed, a love passing all earthly at-
tachments. The brother of the Duke of Me-
dina Sidonia, commander of the Invincible
Armada, Don Domingo de Guzman, was amongst
them, and Don Juan Ponce de Leon. Many a
noble house of the old Christians of Castile and
Andalusia needs indeed a Letlie to cleanse it
THE MARTTES OF SPAIN. 89
from the taint of heresy, and even of martyr-
dom.
Then there was the monastery of San Isidro,
near Seville, which became a focus of evangelical
light, from which twelve Protestant monks
at last escaped to happier lands ; and others,
nnable or unwilling to fly, were despatched by
the Inquisitors in chariots of flame to the better
country still, the heavenly. And of honourable
women, not a few were among the devoted
band. Young and aged, noble and humble,
timid and courageous, the good news reached
the hearts of all, and nerved them to endure.
Isabel de Baena, Maria de Virves, Maria de Cor-
nel, Maria de Bohorques, the two sisters of Gon-
salez of Moorish descent, Maria Gomez, her
three daughters and her sister. They are not
dead, but living, and we shall meet them yet.
The circumstances of Dr. Juan Gil's (iEgidius)
trial were very sad and peculiar. Bitterly as he
reproached himself for his recantation, we always
thought him scarcely guilty in the matter.
His two chief friends had just been removed
from him — Dr. Vargas by death, Constantino
Ponce de la Fuente by the summons of the Em-
peror to attend King Philip as chaplain in the
Netherlands. At this critical time, the malice
of his enemies was aroused by his appointment
to the Bishopric of Tortosa, the richest see in
the gift of the Spanish crown. He was brought
before the Inquisition on the charge of Luther-
00 THE :MAHTYliS OF SPAIN.
anism. Fray Bartolome Carranza, "U'Lom lie
chose as arbitrator, was absent ; and at length,
deceived by false professions of friendship, he
appointed Domingo de Soto his arbiter. Soto
appeared quite to agree Avith ^gidius on all
points of moment ; and it was decided between
them, that to free himself from all charges of
heresy, ^Egidius and Soto should each read a
paper in the cathedral at Seville.
The day was appointed, and a very large con-
gregation assembled, with the Inquisitors, ^gi-
dius and Soto took their places in their several
pulj^its. De Soto spoke first. The two pulpits
were at such a distance that the voice of the
speaker in one could not be heard from the
other ; but iEgidius, fully confiding in the sim-
ilarity of opinion which Soto had declared to
him in j^rivate, nodded assent to his discourse.
Then came his own turn. Fearlessly he began ;
but as he read on, he saw dismay in the faces of
his friends, and indignation and triumph among
his enemies ; why, he could not in the least
comprehend. The prisons of the Inquisition, to
which he was remanded, were not likely to en-
lighten him. To his horror, he was declared
violently suspected of Lutheran heresy, and con-
demned to three years imprisonment and ten
years of silence from teaching. Bewildered, en-
trapped, alone, he lost his presence of mind.
Enemies and friends had seemed dismayed at his
words. What could it mean ? There must be
THE MARTTRS OF SPAIN. 91
something wrong in what he had said. He re-
canted ; and only long afterwards did he learn
the base deception which had been practised on
him. De Soto's pnblic discourse had been en-
tirely opposite to his private conversation, and
jEgidius' confession had, of course, contra-
dicted it in every point.
When the three years of imprisonment had
elapsed, he was restored to freedom ; but with
his influence blasted, his character hopelessly
stained with friend and foe, his heart broken.
He only lived a little while to be soothed by the
pitying aifection of the Reformed Christians at
Seville and Valladolid, and to warn them with
a mournful earnestness rather to die than to
belie their Lord. Worn out with regrets, he
died shortly after his return from Valladolid to
Seville. But he is no doubt rejoicing now ; and
perhaps his failure has taught us a lesson not
less impressive than the death of San Roman.
92 THE MARTYES OF SPAIX.
CHAPTER VI.
Tj^OR many years the Reformed cliurches in the
-»- Castiles, Leon, Arragon, Valencia, and An-
dalusia continued steadily to increase, in spite
of danger and opposition of every kind. The
Inquisitors at Seville and at Valladolid must
certainly have been less -vvatcliful than usual
during those years. Their superiors proved that
they thought so afterwards by displacing them.
How the faith was so long kept secret, must,
however, remain a mystery. Sometimes I think
the Inquisition was watching us steadily all the
time, and only waiting the right moment to
spring on its prey ! Their long apparent blind-
ness was otherwise so unaccountable, and the
final catastrojDhe was so sudden and so simulta-
neous.
In 1555, our brethren of Seville were thrown
into great alarm by an event which might have
betrayed them all. Maria Gomez, a widow who
had embraced the faith, became insane. She
was received into the house of Dr. Zafra, vicar
of one of the parish churches of Seville, and
placed there under a slight restraint. But she
contrived to escape ; and, as is so frequently the
THE MAKTTES OF SPAIJ^. 93
case with lunatics, she conceived a hatred against
all her former friends, and, as the secret way of
ruining them, proceeded at once to the Castle
of Viana and denounced three hundred of our
brethren by name as Lutheran heretics. The
presence of mind of Dr. Zafra saved the Church.
He received the information with perfect cool-
ness, convinced the Inquisitors of the madness
of Maria Gomez, and was requested by them to
place her under stricter confinement in his house.
Her accusations were entirely disregarded as the
ravings of insanity ; and Dr. Zafra continued, as
before, to be frequently employed by the Inquis-
itors, on account of his learning, as Qualificator,
to pronounce on the orthodoxy of suspected her-
etics, and by this means he saved many from
prison.
For three years after this, no further peril of
any moment seemed to threaten us. Julianillo
Hernandez continued to introduce Bibles and
Lutheran books, and contrived to deposit one
large cargo of these dangerous treasures at the
house of a Protestant at Seville. Don Carlos de
Seso in the North, and the monks of San Isidro
in the South, industriously distributed these
seeds of life in the cities and villages, in the pal-
ace and the cottage. The numbers of the Prot-
estants increased, their faith was strengthened,
and many of us continued to hope that Spain
might be evangelized ; that a truer crusade than
that against the Moors might at length triumj)h,
94 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
and a new world, richer than Mexico or Peru,
be freely opened to the enterj^rise of our coun-
trymen. Occasionally the ferocious and gloomy
temper of King Philip caused us anxiety, and
the steady pressure of the Inquisition, with the
fanatical bigotry of the lower classes, made us
tremble ; but we had seen so many narrow and
closed hearts opened and expanded in the light
of the truth, that we could not despair.
But at length the tem2:)est burst, at once,
without a warning, without an interval, on the
North and South. In one month the houses of
our b^'ethren were entered, their inhabitants
swept away, and the j^risons of the Inquisition
were filled ; or rather, I should say, with a more
terrible discrimination, those in every circle we
knew to be the most earnest, the most enlight-
ened, the most certain not to escape, were seized.
The emissaries of the holy office came most fre-
quently at midnight, and before morning the
light and support of the household was gone, and
the whole family had become suspected, and
dared not stir, but must live henceforth m the
full blaze of the Inquisition, countless suspicious
eyes and ears watching every word and move-
ment.
In our church at Vail ad olid, the victims were
Don Domingo de Rojas, and the seven nuns of
San Belen. Among our kindred it was nearly
all — my three uncles, Augustin, Pedro, and Fran-
cisco do Vibero Cazalla, and my aunt Beatriz.
THE MAETTES OP SPAIN. 95
In our liouse, it was my mother. And of none
of these have any of us ever heard one word
since then, except such fragments as have
reached us of the processes of the Inquisition, or
of the scenes at the Autos-da-Fe.
From that moment, the history of those most
lionoured and beloved by us becomes a martyr-
ology. And what we know is not what weio-hs
most heavily on our hearts. Of those who con-
fessed, and were burned as obstinate heretics,
at least, we know the worst ; the sufieriuir was
over before we heard of it, and Ave could almost
bear to look at it through the light of the Pres-
ence in which we know they dwell. But of
those who they say recanted, who were remanded
as penitents to long years of hopeless imprison-
ment in convents or monasteries, it is for those
that our hearts never cease to ache. Did they
betray their fiith ? Did the agony of torture or
the delusion of false promises induce them to
recant? Did my mother, my gentle, tender
mother, bewildered by their arguments, perhaps
by false statements that others on whose judg-
ment she relied had yielded — deluded by the
fond, passionate hope of seeing us, her children,
again — did she, indeed, like many others, recant,
as the Inquisitors say, and return to their hope-
less prisons to regret and repent in bitter soli-
tude and silence that one irrevocable error, until
she pined her life away ? Or did she never re-
cant ? Were those unavailing recantations all a
96 TUE MAETYKS OF SrAIN.
slander invented by the cruel and cowardly
Jiearts who dared not reveal to Spain how many
of her noblest sons and daughters had embraced
the detested faith of the Reformers and the
Apostles ? In this life, we can never know.
But on the testimony of Inquisitors only, we will
never believe of any of our brethren that they
betrayed the truth, either on the rack, or at the
last moment at the stake, to obtain the wretched
relief of being strangled instead of burned
alive.
They have reported that my imcle, Augustin
Cazalla, ^^astor of the church at Yalladolid, had
recanted ; but we know from private accounts
that the true record of his last hours was this :
"Augustin Cazalla, when he came opposite
the Princess Juana at the auto^ kneeled down
and said to her, ' Queen and my lady, for the love
of God let your Majesty hear four things from
me.' At which the chief alguazil ordered the
procession to stop ; and having petitioned her
and received her consent, Cazalla knelt before
the Princess, and weeping, lamented his sins, ex-
claiming three times, ' Blessed be God ! blessed
be God ! blessed be God !' and kissing the cross
in the standard, and looking iip to heaven, hold-
ing a cross and uttering loud expressions of grief
that seemed to burst his heart with sorrow, said,
'Hear me, 0 Heaven and men, and may our
Lord be received with honour, and be ye holy
witnesses how I, a repentant sinner, return to
THE MARTYRS OP SrAi:N'. 97
the absolution of foithful Christians. I truly re-
j)ent to God, and to the holy commandments of
Him the High Priest (/. c, Christ). I well and
sincerely repent of all my sins, and am going to
die in the faith of my Lord and God. I acknowl-
edge that, for the least of my sins, I deserve the
gravest pains of hell that are bestowed upon the
condemned ; but our Lord has shown mercy
towards me, by drawing me to the true knowl-
edge of my former condition^ to know that the
way I was going was darkness, on account of
error and sin, and that the present is the way by
which I and all Christians should walk.' And
on this he said certain other words, and returned
to his place again."
Was there any thing in these words unworthy
of Luther, or Ridley, or at least of the martyred
Archbishop Cranmer ? The Liquisitors boasted,
that he was a jienitent ; but they did not think
his penitence likely to benefit the Church so
much as his death, and he was strangled, and his
corpse committed to the flames. This was the
course they pursued also with my uncle Pedro,
and many others. The Inquisition and the Sa-
A^iour have a different reception for i:>enitents !
We, at least, must ever remember our mother's
brother, Augustin, with tender reverence, for
almost his last words on the scaffold were an in-
tercession with Juana, the Queen-Dowager of
Portugal, for my mother and for us. Pointing
to her as she stood on the scaffold among those
9
98 THE MAETYKS OF SPAIN".
condemned to perpetual inaj^risonraent, he said,
" I beseech yoni* highness, have compassion on
this unfortunate 'svoman, who has thirteen or-
phan children."
For •myself, I cannot doubt that the words
they call a recantation were an humble confession
of Christ, meant to strengthen those who were
to die with him. Had he spoken more plainly,
they would have silenced him, as they did oth-
ers, with the gag;. My conviction is, that the
last confession of Augustin Cazalla, chaplain to
the Emperor Charles, was a confession not of
heresy, but of Christ ; as his last thoughts, like
those of the crucified Lord he served, were for
his kindred and the disciples.
At all events, the Inquisitors left no time for
the penitent to retract again. Like the Emperor
Charles, they doubtless considered the habit of
heresy so inveterate, that it was never safe to
spare even the i>enitent. They procured from
Rome, as a new privilege, the precious right to
burn even those who recanted. The garrote, or
perpetual imprisonment in their own impenetra-
ble prisons was the best welcome they had for
those of whose retractations they boasted.
But the number of those to whom the Inquisi-
tion itself bears witness, as obstinate or relapsed
heretics, is more than I can easily recount. Our
roll of martyrs is indeed large enough without
my seeking to swell it by removing slanders
from those declared to have recanted. The holy
TUE MAKTYnS OF SPAIN". 99
office itself shall be our mai'tyrologist. Wc
were at A^illamediana, Costanza and I, when the
terrible storm burst. My mother, my uncles, all
we knew best at Valladolid. had been arrested
at once, and were in the prisons of the inquisi-
tion. Our first impulse was to return. But we
Avere reminded that the dungeons of the Inqui-
sition are as impenetrable to those who live in
sight of their walls as if they were in the New
World. I was reminded also what a hindrance
my feeble health must be to the escape of any
party to which I belonged ; and of the especial
perils involved in the suspected name we bore.
Day after day brought some fresh tale of woe.
From Toro, from Palencia, Burgos, Hormigos,
Pedrosa, Logrono, from every place which had
to us been a point of hope, came the tidings of
ruin and despair. Every band of Reformed
Christians Avas evidently knowni to the Inquisi-
tors as Avell as to us. Everv eratherinof of the
most secret kind in the houses in the cities,
every scattered group in the remotest villages,
that we had thouglit concealed from all, was
brought out into the glare of their midnight
torches. And then followed horrible susiiicions
of those we had trusted. Some of the timid, in
a delirium of fear, rushed to the Inquisitors and
denounced themselves ; others remained j^ara-
lyzed, without attempting to conceal the perilous
books in their possession ; others denounced
themselves, alas ! as surely, by a precipitate
100 THE MAETYES OF SPAIX.
flight. In every company of our brethren it was
the noblest, the firmest, the most enlightened
who were seized, when, indeed, any were spared.
What wonder, then, tliat tlie shfeep, deprived of
the shepherd, were scattered ! And yet in every
company some feeble ones, from whom no one
had exj^ected such courage, showed themselves
capable of the noblest things, and proved that it
is not the shepherds only that the Chief Shep-
herd supports, but every feeblest lamb of the
one flock for which He died. Instances of treach-
ery there were, but so few that they are easily
named and counted. I think throughout our
churches only two proved untrue ; one at Seville,
and the wretched wife of Juan Garcia, a silver-
smith at Yalladolid, pensioned for life by the
Inquisition for her murderous services. But
why should I call even these traitors ? The In-
former at Seville had long been a spy in the pay
of the holy ofiice, and Garcia's wife only obtained
the knowledge of our 23lace of meeting by se-
cretly dogging her husband's footsteps one night
when he had summoned our brethren, as usual,
to hear a sermon. He had never trusted her
with our secret. Traitress, indeed, she Avas
to him, but not to us, for one of us she had
never been.
At length the household at Villamediana was
dispersed by the news of the arrest of Don Car-
los de Seso himself at Logroiio. The Dofia Isa-
bella insisted on having Costanza and me con-
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 101
veyed over the French border. " Nothing can
save me," she said ; " and I have nothing now in
this world to be saved for. But life may bloom
again for Costanza and for you."
Costanza had indeed one on earth to live for.
At last she was persuaded to be married j^ri-
vately by the parish priest of Villamediana to
the young Fleming, Yan Rosevelt, who had
loved her so long ; and that same evening we
started on mules through the less-frequented
mountain passes, and in a few days reached the
French side of the Pyrenees in safety. Life had
begun again for my sister ; but for me, for a long
time, it seemed to have closed, I felt like one
dead, banished into a Hades — a sunless world of
shadowy beings unconnected with me.
Mother, brothers, and sisters, my mother's
brothers and sisters, friends of childhood and
youth, all lost and hidden behind a veil as im-
penetrable as that of the grave ; the people
around me, at first, kind as they were, seemed
to me scarcely more to belong to me than if
they had been ghosts of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. It seemed to me almost a treachery to
the beloved^ — who, though lost, were not dead —
to let any others take up their home in my heart.
It is so cold, so terrible, that even the dead
should be replaced, should return and find their
l^laces filled. And my beloved were not dead ;
at any moment, by escapes not more marvellous
than our own, might they not be with us — my
9*
102 THE 3IARTYRS OF SPAIiST.
mother, my own mother, my uncle Augustin —
nil?
The people around me were gcwd and Chris-
tian, hut they were not my own people. How
few can comprehend the loneliness of such exile
as ours — the strange, cold language, learned not
from a mother's lips, but from a dictionary and
a grammar ; the busy life around us — the homes,
and the whole world of throbbing, eager human
hearts, among which we are wandering detached
atoms from another world ! Often it seemed to
me as if my identity itself were lost — as if 1
bad died and become some one else.
Would St. Paul have felt like this ? I know
not. He could have been almost accursed for
his brethren's sake, his kinsmen according to
the flesh. But I was not St. Paul, only a poor
feeble woman, whose whole heart had been
bound up, like those of old in a little home at
Bethany — a poor, ruined, forsaken home, whose
Lazarus never rose again. And what I ought
to feel, or ought not to feel, I knew so little. I
only knew what I felt ; and I knew that Jesus
loved, and Jesus wept ; and on that assurance I
leant my broken heart ; and to those two words
I fled from comforter after comfoiter, who would
have palsied my heart for ever with vain com-
mands not to love so much, and not to weep.
And this I know, the anguish drew me nearer,
nearer, ever nearer to Ilim who was touched
with my infirmities, who understood, who had
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIX. 103
compassion, who groaned in spirit and was
troubled, who wept. When the right time
came He comforted me, but not with the com-
fort which paralyses, which deadens ; He com-
forted me, and I was comforted.
The first comfort He sent me was not through
His Word, but through His providence, through
the birth of my sister's first child, two years
after our escape. My sister nearly died ; and in
the anxiety for her, every one seemed to forget
the poor little feeble one, whose life had so
nearly cost hers. So it was left to me and
Truyken, the faithful servant ; and my whole
heart went out to the helpless little one, and I
cherished it and watched it until its mother's
strength began to be restored, and I had the
great joy of giving the little babe into her
arms.
Then in time the little one began to lisj) in
Dutch, its father's language, and the strange
cold, clii^ped accents grew familiar to me from
the babe's lips ; and the kindred of the child
and mother gradually, insensibly grew familiar
and dear to me, not replacing the lost, but re-
calling them, less bitterly than of old.
And in fragments, from year to year, tidings
came to us from Spain, and we learned that one
after another of our beloved were no longer in
the dungeons of the Inquisition, but witli God,
with Jesus for ever. For, long before we heard
that they were gone, their last cry of anguish
104 THE MAETYES OF SPAIK.
had ceased, and their new song of joy had be-
gun, which no persecutor can silence.
Of my mother, Costanza de Vibero Cazalla,
■vve still know nothing. They said she recanted
and appeared among the penitents at the auto
at which my uncle Augustin died, and where he
pleaded for her and for us. Since then the
prisons of the Inquisition have impenetrably
concealed her from all our inquiries. But after
many years our hearts were comforted about
her. We had prayed so long, and God, we were
sure, had heard. Now we feel certain she is
either at rest with the martyrs in paradise, or
that she has found rest for her soul on earth
with Him who calls the weary and heavy-laden
unto Him. Would I have failed to take her
comfort in her prison, had I been able ? would
distance and danger have deterred me, a poor,
crippled, faint-hearted wroman? And w^ould
HE fail to comfort her. He who is always able,
and always near, of whose love and pity ours
are but the faintest image ? I have no fear for
her. My prayers now for her have changed into
the confiding aspiration, " Thou art with her —
Thou wilt not forsake her — with Thee she is in
safe keeping."
In safe keeping, mother, safe and blessed,
whether in prison or in paradise ! But it was long
before we could feel this consoling assurance.
Let me speak of those concerning whom cer-
tain tidings have reached us. Of my uncle
THE MAETTES OF SPAIN. 105
Aiigustin's last moments I have spoken. My
uncle, Pedro de Vibero Cazalla, parish priest of
Pedrosa, "svas burned in the second of those
terrible autos at Valladolid, on the 8th of Octo-
ber, 1559. It is said that he confessed his
Luthei'an fiith -on his arrest in 1558, but en-
treated reconciliation, but that only two of the
Inquisitors voted for a sentence milder than
death, so that, seeing his sentence to be inevita-
ble, he refused to confess any more. However
this may be, he appeared gagged at the Auto-da-
Fe, and was bound alive to the stake. Then the
friars asserted that he made a sign of penitence,
and accordingly they dealt out to him their
largest mercy, the garotte, consigning his corpse
to the flames. Whether this act of theirs was
an act of tardy jiity, or a fresh cruelty designed
to dishonor his memory alike with friend and
foe, I know not. But I believe it was indeed
voluntarily for Christ he died, refusing to confess
to a priest or to betray his brethren.
Yet it is of the first Auto-da-Fe at Yalladolid
I must speak first. It was a great festival for
the Inquisitors. Don Carlos, the ill-fated Prince,
was present, and the Queen-Dowager of Portu-
gal, Juana. It began at six o'clock on May 22,
1560, and lasted till two. The crowd assembled
with the earliest dawn of the Spring morning.
But no one, they said, seemed weary during all
those hours. It was more interesting, no doubt,
than any acted tragedy. The spectacle was
106 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIX".
brilliant ; and there was such reality and variety
of passion in tlie actors ! For the royal party
there was a private entrance to their seats from
the Town Hall. They, of course, and the no-
bility, had the best seats. I know the whole
terrible scene too well, and can only too vividly
picture it to myself. The scaffold, brilliant
with the yellow and flame-coloured robes — the
gay dresses on the platforms — the eager faces
of the citizens and peasants in the square, strug-
gling for the best view — the great church-bells
tolling — the murmurs of the crowd, and the
buzzing of conversation among the ladies of the
court, hushed when Melchior Cano, Bishop of
the Canaries, mounted the pulpit to j)reach the
eermon. The voice I had heard on the occasion
of the martyrdom of San Roman could be
trusted in that pulpit no more. Bartholomo
Carrahza, the preacher at that auto^ Archbishop
of Toledo, was already under suspicion of
heresy, and in the following August was arrested
at Madrid, and thrown into the prisons of the
Inquisition, to linger through hi^ trial of seven-
teen years. It seems there is something infec-
tious in those autos, after all.
But this ceremony was far more august than
the one I had "witnessed. Thirty heretics were
on the scaffold instead of one. They were
divided into two bands — the " reconciled," and
the " relaxed" — sixteen of the former, and four-
teen of the latter. By the " reconciled," the
THE MAKTYRS OF SPAIX, lOY
Inquisition, in tlie diabolical mockery of its
teclinical language, mean those whom they as-
sert to have reconciled, and therefore receive
again to the bosom of the Church — that is,
commit either to exile, or to life-long imjirison-
ment, with the robe of shame, and the declaring
of the memory infamous for ever. In all cases
the Inquisitors are careful to confiscate the
whole property. This is the welcome of the
Church of Rome to her j^rodigals — for the best
robe, the coat of infamy ; for the welcome to
the home, perpetual isolation ; for the father's
house, the prisons of the Inquisition. Had not
the " relaxations" of the Inquisition been so
terrible, few would have sought such " recon-
ciliation." But in all this severity, we who had
been tortured by it through our best beloved
see the fullest acknowledgment of the strength
of our Reformed faith, even in its weakest con-
fessors. They dare not trust a Protestant
Christian with freedom again, so irresistible they
deem the power of our doctrine, so ineradicable
the truth, when once it has taken root in the
heart.
By the " relaxed," the Inquisitors mean those
on whom they will never relax their death-grasp,
but whom, nevertheless, they, men of peace and
ministers of grace, must not touch ; the " obsti-
nate heretics," whom they, pastors of the
Church, deliver over to the secular arm, recom-
mending them to mercy.
108 THE MARTYRS OP SPAIN.
" It is not lawful" for us, they say, like the
Pharisees of old, " to put any man to death."
It is singular how the rites and ceremonies of
the church of the Murderer — the world who
hated the Master and hated the disciples — are
handed down from age to age ; that Pharisees
should fulfill the Hebrew prophecies, and Inquis-
itors repeat the formulae of Pharisees, not from
an intentional agreement, but from the deep in-
ward identity of character naturally reproducing
the same fruit.
And the secular arm always interprets " mer-
cy" to mean the stake ; yet the fathers of the
Church repeat the formulae again and again, and
then proceed to hasten the execution.
Among the sixteen reconciled were my friend
Dona Ana Henriquez de Rojas. She was an
accomplished and noble lady, only twenty-four
years of age, and the w^ife of Don Juan de Fon-
seca Mexia. She appeared in the Sanbenito.-
They condemned her to separation from her hus-
band, and perpetual seclusion in a monastery.
Don Pedro de Rojas, son of the First Marquis
of Poza, was despoiled of his decorations as
Knight of St. lago, and condemned to a perpetual
dress of infamy, and to have his memory ren-
dered infamous. Our faithful servant, Anton
Minguez, was also among this band. Another
of my uncles, Juan de Vibero Cazalla, Avith his
wife, was sentenced to the perpetual Sanbenito
and life-long imprisonment. And this, in spite
THE MAKTYKS OF Sl'AIX. 109
of the entreaties of my uncle Augustin, ■v^'as the
sentence passed on my mother.
The infamy descends on us to all generations.
We accept it, and Avould wear it as our most
honouralile title, if all the orders and titles of
Christendom were heaped on us. But here, in
Holland, that is easy. In Spain, where the peo-
ple, the deluded populace, take "up the cry, it is
no light addition to the anguish of those who are
thus condemned to know that their kindred and
children go about everywhere pointed at and
scorned as those whose name is tainted with a
crime worse than the basest of which men dare
not speak.
Among the fourteen " relaxed" under sentence
of death, were twelve whom they declared to be
penitents, and who therefore were to be merci-
fully strangled before their bodies were bound
to the stake, and two who were burnt alive. Of
the first twelve, as I have said, was my uncle
Augustin Cazalla; and with him suffered my
aunt Beatriz de Yibero Cazalla, two knights,
and a priest. The presence of these priests and
knights among the condemned gave great effect
to the ceremony, since every knightly decora-
tion and every priestly vestment had to be pub-
licly removed with all jDOssible marks of con-
tempt ; and the criminals, thus divested of all
earthly dignity, w.ere presented to the derision
of the people in the yellow robe and mock paste-
board mitre, painted over Avith flames and figures
10
110 THE MAETYIIS OF SPAIX.
of toads and devils. This my uncles underwent.
But of these savage mockeries I dare not think,
nor of the secret cruelties Avhich had preceded
them, and maimed the sufferers, so that a suffi-
cient interval had always to be left between the
torture and the stake, to allow the disjointed
limbs to regain strength to bear the martyrs to
the auto. Of those v/ho died under torture or
from its effects, we know the names of more than
one. But on these things I dare not dwell, lest
I should grow savage myself with the uncon-
querable passion of indignation and horror they
excite. The endurance of the martyrs may for-
tify us ; and of this we will think and speak.
The cruelties of the persecutors are of hell, and
on the things of hell we may not safely gaze.
Is it not so even with the crucifixion of our
Lord himself? It is not by looking at the hard
and enraged faces, or listening to the mocking
words, or dwelling on the cruel stripes and
wounds, we gain so much, as by fixing our eyes
on the patience of the spotless Lamb, the majesty
of His silence, the mournful pity, the love, the
compassion of the few words He spoke. Oh, it
was that scene at the judgment-hall and on Cal-
vary, that sufferer going willingly up to the
death of shame for them, wounded for their
transgressions, Avhich shone before the hearts of
our brethren at Valladolid and Seville, or they
could never have endured as they did! The
robe of mockery, the crown of mockery, the de-
THE MAETYES OF SPAIX. Ill
livering over to the secular arm by the j)riests,
who did not shrink from staining themselves
with murder, but would not for the world have
defiled themselves by a " legal irregularity" —
had it not all been enacted before in Jerusalem
fifteen hundred years ago?
The servant is not above his master ; but (oh,
words of deathless joy !) "every one who is per-
fect shall," when this day of pain and infamy has
passed, " be as his Master" — immortal, sinless,
blessed for evermore !
In one respect, indeed, the persecutors have
learned since tlien a lesson in their terrible art.
They silence the martyrs. Those condemned to
death usually appeared on the scaffold in Spain
with a cleft piece of wood in their mouths, in
which the tongue was inserted, producing at
once speechlessness and pain. This was the
gag : it was not always removed even at the
stake. The Inquisitors have learned the power
of luords, and few of the dying words of our be-
loved have reached us.
Two names, however, at that aulo, the Inquisi-
tors themselves have never dared to slander with
any report that they recanted. My uncle Fran-
cisco was one, the cura of Hormigos. They say
he signified, by a movement of his arms, his
grief at seeing his brother Augustin among the
penitents ; and then himself was led to the stake,
and endured the flames without shrinking.
Without shrinking ! without a murmur I need
112 THE MARTYKS OP SPAIN.
not say ; for no words could escape the poor si-
lenced tongue, gagged to the last.
But of the other of those two, how can I
speak ? Antonio Herezuelo, fearless, enduring,
moved throughout his examinations neither by
torture nor promise, what agony, worse than
all, awaited him on the scaffold ! His wife was
there, his Leanor; but not among those con-
demned to death ; she stood among the peni-
tents. She had recanted. She was not to share
death with him. They say nothing had moved him
till he saw hex*. He had stood firm, witli a look
of unshaken courage and dignity, and impenetra-
ble calmness, amidst all the ignominy of that
day ; but as he was led before her on his way to
the stake, an anguish came over his face, which
did not pass from it imtil his body sank among
the flames. A Roman Catholic eye-witness, who
stood near him, and could observe every change
of feature and gesture, said that he could not ob-
serve in him the least symptom of fear or pain,
only " there was a sadness in his countenance be-
yond any thing he had ever seen.''"' O noble, tender
heart, to burst with siich anguish, and not be
allowed to utter it ! not a word of pity, or for-
giveness, or faithful warning, to the last ! He
was gagged to the last ; but his look of anguish
had spoken to Leanor de Cisneros, his wife,
more than words.
She saw it, and survived the unutterable mis-
ery it must have caused her, and did not lose
THE MAPvTYRS OF SPAIN. 113
her reason, as she so easily might. She returned
to the prison, where false promises and false
statements had, there is little doubt, deceived
her into recanting, a " confirmed heretic." That
parting look, did it recall another look of One
betrayed, and mingle with her agony the hope
and the purpose which sustained her in life and
reason ? Nine years she endured the prison
alone. They might have been nine years in Par-
adise ! But may it not have been necessary for
that young and fervent heart to learn to distin-
guish between the love whose support can be
removed, and the love which cannot, that none
might be able to say of her, as of Losada, " a
Lutheran for love ?"
Immediately on her return to prison, she re-
fused to continue the covirse of penance they had
induced her to commence. Penitent indeed she
was, but not to Rome. She was again thrown
into the secret prison, whence no Avail of anguish
reaches the outer world. Nine years the con-
flict lasted between the Inquisition, with all its
reckless barbarity in the use of its terrible
Aveapons, and that one young widoAved Avoman's
faith. The Inquisition was baffled ; " nothing,^''
they said, " could move the impenetrable heart of
that obstinate woman.''''
On the 25 th of September, nine years and four
months after her husband's martyrdom, Leanor
de Cisneros Avas brought forth in another Auto-
da-Fe at Vallodolid. No human voice was
10*
114 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIIf.
there to encourage lier, no human eye to pity.
Those from whom she had learned the truth for
which she died, and with whom she had wor-
shipped of old, were all dead or lost to her,
strangled, burnt, exiled, or hopelessly impris-
oned. She suffered, the last of that noble com-
pany, alone, but she accepted no treacherous
mercy. As her husband died, she died, bound
living- to the stake, uncomplaining. From the
flames her redeemed spirit, like his, was received
by Him for whose sake they both laid doAvn
their lives. Their bodies did not perish at one
stake ; each passed through the fiery trial alone.
But one Paradise has held their blessed sj^irits
now for more years already than the nine during
which Leanor's faith was tried.
Thus passed that Spring day in May, 1559, at
Valladolid. Before sunset, a heap of ashes lay
outside the gates of the, city, sacred as any ever
stored in reliquaries. But no man gathered
them. God had better things in store for that
despised dust than to be the adoration of jioor
human hearts.
I had almost forgotten to record the last dis-
honour inflicted on our family at this Aitto-da-Fe.
The bones of our grandmother, Leaner de Vi-
bero Cazalla, were dug up, her effigy was exhib-
ited on the scaffold, and both were committed to
the flames. Her memory was declared infjmious,
her property confiscated, and her house, where
the lleformed Church at Valladolid had met.
THE MART YES OF SPAIN. 115
was razed to the ground. Thus was every trace
of our iamily to be blotted out ; and in our native
city now, no memorial of us exists, but a" column
of infamy" erected on the site of my grand-
mother's house, recording why it was destroyed.
In the Autumn, another exhibition was pre-
pared by the priests for the court, nobles, and
people at Valladolid, more impressive even
than the last. King Philip himself was there,
Don Carlos, the Prince of Parma, three ambas-
sadors from France, many prelates, and a bril-
liant company of nobles and ladies of rank.
Twenty-nine heretics appeared.
Of these, sixteen again were said to be peni-
tent, or " reconciled," and among these was the
Dona Isabella de Castilla, wife of Don Carlos de
Seso, and her niece, Doiia Catalina. These were
sentenced to the extreme penalty next to death
— the perpetual robe of infamy, and life-long im-
prisonment. I cannot but think that the Inqui-
sition ventured in this as far as they dared with
ladies of royal blood, and sought to deny us the
honour of two royal martyrs by professing to
believe them penitent. The falsehoods they
circulated with reference to others, at least give
room to hope the best for these.
Don Carlos de Seso and Don Domingo de
Rojas were the most illustrious martyrs at this
auto. They and Juan Sanchez endured the
flames without accepting any mercy at the prico
of recantation.
116 TUE MAETYKS OF SPAIN".
De Rojas made one appeal to King Philip, as
he passed to execution :
" Canst thou, sire," he said, "thus witness the
torments of thy innocent subjects? Save us
from so cruel a death !"
" No," replied Philip ; " I would myself carry
wood to burn my own son, were he such a
wretch as thou !"
De Rojas attempted to say something in his
defense, but the king waved his hand, and the
gag was forced into the martyr's mouth. It
was^not withdrawn at the stake. It is the con-
tradictory reports we have received of De Rojas'
last moments which encourage us to discredit
much that the Inquisitors assert with regard to
the recantation of our brethren. The Inquisitors
declare that at the last, when the pile was set on
fire, De Rojas' courage failed, that he begged
for a confessor, was absolved, and strangled.
But private letters tell us that "they carried
him from the scaflbld, accompanied by a number
of monks ; about a hundred flocking about him."
(De Rojas had himself been a Dominican friar,
and therefore the sanctity of the order was at
stake.) "They railed and made exclamations
against him, some of them urging him to recant.
But he, notwithstanding, answered them with a
bold spirit, that he would never renounce the
doctrine of Christ."
The conduct of Don Carlos de Seso through-
out his trial was worthy of the noble name and
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIX. 117
character he bore. He was arrested at Loeroilo.
In all his exammations in the terrible secret
l^risons, the Inquisitors admit that his answers
were calm and unchanging, as if he had nothing
to fear. lie refused to implicate any one.
At midnight before the Anto-da-Fe, when, as
usual, the friars came to tell him of the dreadful
doom awaiting him, that before another sunset
he, the favourite of the Emperor, must die as a
disgraced and degraded felon in the flames, he
called for writing materials, and wrote, not an
appeal to his sovereign, nor a confession of error,
but a confession of faith. He gave this to the
officer, saying, " This is the true faith of the
Gospel, as opposed to that of the Church of
of Rome, which has been corruj^ted for ages.
In this faith I wish to die ; and in the remem-
brance and liA-ely belief of the passion of Jesus
Christ, to offer to God my body, now reduced
so low."
" His body reduced so low !" By what
means ? Doubtless by the loathsome dungeon,
the pulley, and the rack ! Yet the spirit retained
all its noble dignity and courage. And they
say, who have seen it, that the document, pre-
served in the archives of the Inquisition, con-
taining his confession of faith, is vigorous and
clear beyond what any one could conceive, see-
ing that it was written in the presence of death.
All that night and the next morning before
the Auto-da-Fe^ the friars laboured to persuade
118 THE MAETYES OF SPAIN.
Don Carlos to retract. But in vain. He ap-
peared on the scaifold gagged; and when the
gag was removed at the stake, and the monks
once more clamoured for him to confess, he re-
plied, in a loud, firm voice :
" I could demonstrate to you that you ruin
yourselves by not imitating my example. But
there is no time. Executioners, light the pile
which is to consume me."
He died without a groan or a symptom of
struggle. He was in his forty-third year.
One martyr, the third who suffered at this
auto without any rehef obtained by yielding, was
nerved by De Seso's courage in the flames to
endure the same.
This was Juan Sanchez. He had been bound
alive to the stake, and had asked no mercy ; but
when the flames consumed the ropes which
bound him, with the unconquerable instinct of
self preservation, he leapt from the stake on the
scaffold near it, where those were placed who
recanted. The friars surrounded him, hoping to
receive his confession. But he looked from those
who were kneeling in penance on one side, to
Don Carlos standing firm amidst the fire on the
other ; and walking deliberately back to the
stake, again yielded himself to the flames, whose
terrible power he had felt. He called on the
executioners to heap up the faggots. " I will
die," he said, " like De Seso."
He was in the prime of life, not thirty-three
THE MARTYES OF SrAIN. 119
years of age ; and among all the martyrs I think
none deserve from us more honour than Juan
Sanchez, resisting an instinct of life so strong,
and braving a second time the death whose bit-
terness he had tasted and escaped.
They were men and women in the prime of
life, the greater number of our Spanish martyrs.
Their sacrifice was no mere outburst of youthful
enthusiasm — no weakness of age languidly re-
signing the life whose beauty had faded — ^ino
ascetic casting away of a treasure they despised.
Life was a divine, precious gift to them; and
they would have saved it if they could with
fidelity. But they yielded it up in its prime
and strength, calmly, deUberately, determinedly,
rather than deny the truth of God, which they
had tested. They yielded themselves up to a
death, whose infamy and horrors they could but
too well estimate, for love of Him who loved
them, and gave Himself for them. And He will
never forget it.
120 THE MAKTTES OF SPAIN.
CHAPTER YII.
IT remains only for me to collect such further
fi-agments of information as readied us at va-
rious times, by \arious means, of the crushing of
the Reformed churches in other parts of Spain.
The four Autos-da-J^e Vt'hich. gave the death-
blow to the Reformation in Spain, were those in
May and October, 1559, at Valladolid, of which
I have spoken ; and two great aulos at Seville,
in September, 1559, and December, 1560. Be-
sides these, tidings were brought to us of some
of our brethren who perished at many smaller
aittos in Arragon, Valencia, Murcia, and Old
Castile. In some cities these terrible spectacles
became for a time an annual celebration. But
the number of Lutherans who apjDeared in
them gradually diminished, until after 1571 we
scarcely heard of one. The work of the Inquis-
itors in this resj)ect was accomplished. The
prophets sent to Spain were killed or banished ;
and the love which would have gathered her
children beneath its shelter was, for our genera-
tion at least, effectually repelled.
But let me relate first what I have learned of
our brethren at Seville.
THE MAETITES OF SPAIN-, 121
Of the four first teachers of the evangelical'
doctrine at Seville in 1558, (that fatal year to us,)
only one remained. Rodrigo de Valero had
died in the monastery at San Lucar ; Master
Vargas also was dead ; ^gidius had sunk be-
neath the pressure of his suiFerings and his
regrets. Only Constantine Ponce de la Fuente
was left. Suspected indeed he was " violently"
of Lutheranism, and had been for many years,
and detested by the Inquisitors. But he was
too great and too popular a man to be arrested
without a show of justice, and evidence was
difficult to find. The Emperor Charles held him
in hiffh esteem. His Protestant friends would
have died rather than betray him ; and his own
keen insight into character had preserved him
from trusting traitors. At length, however, he
was arrested on siispicion of heresy. Yet even
then his answers baffled the examiners, and they
could not make out a satisfactory process
against him. Accident, however, delivered him
into their power.
A Protestant lady of wealth, Dofia Isabella
, Martinia, had been thrown into prison on sus-
picion of heresy. Before her imprisonment, Con-
stantine had concealed some of his Lutheran
books in her house. The Inquisitors learned,
through the treachery of one of her servants,
that she had concealed her jewels in the house
of her son, Francisco Beltrano. To his house
the alguazil of the Holy Office went. Francisco,
11
122 THE MAETTKS OF SPAIN.
however, hoped to divert the search of the In-
quisitors from the jewels by betraying the treas-
ure, more j^erilous and precious than jewels,
which lay hid in his mother's house ; and he met
tlie emissaries of the Inquisition at the door with
the eager confession :
" Seilor Sotelo, are you come to my house? I
believe you come for things which are in the
house of itiy mother. If you will keep me from
harm, I will declare to you what is there in con-
cealment."
And receiving the promise, he guided the
alguazil to the cellar under his mother's house,
wliere were concealed many of the most un-
questionably Lutheran manuscripts and books
of Constantine Ponce de la Fuente. Francisco
Beltrano's treachery availed the Inquisitors
much, but was of no use to himself. The al-
guazil, whilst greedily seizing the books, de-
clared that his promise to Beltrano was of no
value, since it was not books he sought, but
jewels. Francisco was only too happy to pur-
chase his own safety with the cession of the
jewels ; but his unavailing treachery had mean-
time entirely ruined the cause of the imprisoned
preacher. When the manuscripts were pre-
sented to Constantine, he at once saw that all
hoj^e of defending himself was over, and ac-
knowledged simjDly and frankly that those
manuscripts were his own, and contained his
confession of faith. They were not merely dec-
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 123
larations of evangelical doctrine, but distinct
controversial papers against Purgatory, the in-
vocation of Saints, and other articles of the
Eoman creed. No further j^roof was needed.
But he determinately refused to betray one
disciple or friend. Before the aulo^ however,
at which he would have suffered, the loathsome-
ness of the dungeon into which the Inquisitors
threw him had done the work of the flames.
Ilis health foiled. He is said to have exclaimed
in his sufl'erings :
" O God, are there no Scythians, or cannibals,
or others more cruel and inhuman even than
these, in whose power thou couldst have placed
me, rather than in that of these barbarians ?"
He was spared the torture, or rather the rack
was i-e-placed by the worse torture of the pesti-
lential dungeon. But these sufferings could not
last long. Life, vigorous and healthy as it was
in him, soon sank in the contest. Alone, and in
those dungeons from which no wail of anguish,
no heroic confession, no testimony of triumph
over death escapes, the chaplain of Charles V,
the Canon Magistral of Seville, died. Of whom
the Emperor said, when informed of his con-
demnation as a heretic, " You could not condemn
a greater." Of his dying words, none have
reached us. But the dungeon is as open to
heaven as the Brasero.
Brother Fernando, a monk of San Isidro, and
a Lutheran, called Olnledo, are said to have
124 THE MARTYRS OP SPAlZ^f.
perished at the same time, in neighbouring dun-
geons, of atmosj)here as pestilential, from the
same cause as Constantine.
The Holy Oflice had therefore to content it-
self with burning the effigy of Constantine
Ponce de la Fuente at the Auto-da-Fe of 1560.
But there were enough victims left. The first
Auto-da-Fe at Seville was celebrated on the 29th
day of Septembei", 1559, in the Square of St.
Francis. The Inquisitors there were probably
at this time, with Munebrega at their head, more
cruel and lawless than those of any other in-
quisitorial tribunal. The cruelties of the head
gaoler at their prison in the Castle of Triana, at
length became so unendurable that a riot was ex-
cited, and he was mildly rebuked by his supe-
riors, removed, and sentenced to carry a torch
at the Auto-da-Fe, where blameless and holy
men were remorselessly burnt alive. Such was
the relative estimate of crimes with the Inquisi-
tion of Seville. But my concern is with the
patience of the Saints, not with the sins of the
jjersecutors.
The mitos at Seville were inferior to those at
Valladolid in the splendour of the company of
sj)ectators, no royal personages being at hand
to add to their imj)ressiveness. But a large and
distinguished assembly of prelates, nobles, and
ladies of rank, were present ; and what the
Seville tribunal lacked in the grandeur of guests,
was perhaps compensated in their eyes by the
TlIK MARTYRS OF SPAIN". 125
number and steadfastness of the victims. Eighty
of tlie " reconciled" appeared at the auto of
October, 1559, and were sentenced to imprison-
ment, a robe of infamy, or other penalties ; and
twenty-one were delivered over to the secular
arm and burnt. But of these twenty-one it was
the glorious distinction that the Inquisition
itself could scarcely venture to stain the memory
of one with the calumny that they recanted.
Four of those who were burnt alive were
monks of the monastery of San Isidro del
Campo. Six were women. To three of these, I
ought to say, the Inquisitors accorded the mercy
of the ffarotte before the stake. The widowed
Isabel de Baena — whose house at Seville was
what ours, my grandmother Leanor de Vibero's,
had been at Valladolid, the great gathering-
place of the Reformed Church — was burnt alive.
For her no mercy could be expected. Maria de
Virves, and Maria de Cornel, two young ladies
of rank, shared the same fate.
Maria de Bohorques, a maiden connected with
the noblest houses of Andalusia, had been edu-
cated with the greatest care. She read Latin
with facility, and had been a pupil of iEgidius,
from whom she learned the Reformed faith.
Her mind Avas one of unusual clearness and
power, and her character had that gentle firm-
ness which can endure so much, ^gidius used to
say she had taught him much ; that an interview
with her always made him grasp truth more
11*
126 THE MARTYES OF SPAIN.
firmly and see it more vividly. She was not
tTventy-one Avhen she was arrested by the Holy
Office. Her youth, and noble blood, and many
endowments could not save her from the rack.
She was severely tortured to induce her to im-
jjlicate her friends. But in vain. The Inquisi-
tors were obliged to confess their admiration at
the point of her replies to their arguments. On
the night before the auto, when these were forti-
fied by the announcement of her terrible sen-
tence, they laboured again to convince her.
She received their persuasions with great polite-
ness, but assured them that, as to her salvation,
she was more anxious about it than they could
possibly be, and would have renounced her con-
victions long since could she have been convinced
that they were not founded on the Word of
God. At the auto the next morning her coun-
tenance was serene and cheerful, and she en-
couraged her sisters in martyrdom by beginning
to chant with them a jDsalm. This endeavour
procured her a rare distinction. She was gagged,
and was the only woman on which this final in-
dignity was inflicted. The gag was removed
when her sentence was read, and she was offered
another opportunity to recant. She replied in a
clear voice, heard by all present :
" I neither can, nor will recant."
One of the Protestants, whose courage had
failed at the last, entreated her not to be too
confident, but to weigh again the arguments of
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN". 12'7
the priests. She upbraided liim for his irresolu-
tion, and said :
" This is not the time to Aveigh arguments.
Let us employ the few moments which are left
us in meditation on the death of the Redeemer,
for Avhom we suffer."
This was her strength. It was not for mere
Protestantism, for a cause, for doctrines, she had
endured the loss of all things, but for the living
Saviour, the Son of God, who had sacrificed all,
even Himself, for her. " She endured as seeing
Him who is invisible," the only source of endur-
ance to be relied on.
One more eflort the priests made to shake her
constancy. She was bound to the stake, and the
executioners were preparing to light the fag-
gots. The friars requested a brief delay. They
pitied her so much, they said, on account of her
youth and talents. Let her only repeat the creed.
Perhaps she felt little value for the pity which
had not shrunk from inflicting on her the ex-
tremity of torture, when none but God was
there to see and have compassion. But the
Apostles' Creed was indeed her faith, and she
steadily repeated it. Yet even then she would
not let the shadow of a doubt rest on the stead-
fastness of her fidelity to the truth for which
she died. At the stake, with the faggots around
her, and the torches waiting to be applied, she
calmly proceeded to declare in what sense she
believed in the Holy Catholic Church — not the
128 THE MAKTYES OF SPAIN.
Church of the Inquisition, but the living Church
of the livinc; Saviour.
This time the Inquisitors had another method
of silencing the faithful lips than by the gag.
Her last confession of faith was interrupted by
the garotte. The executioners strangled her.
A lifeless body was bound to the stake, and her
confession was finished in the presence of re-
joicing angels, and of their Lord.
Among the obstinate heretics were Doctor
Juan Gonzalez and his two sisters. He was of
Moorish descent, but had become a priest, and
had been one of the most effective evangelical
preachers in Andalusia. His courage did not
fail in the examinations, under the torture, be-
fore the ignominy of being despoiled of his
priestly vestments, or at the stake. God
strengthened him, and he thought, like Maria de
Bohorques, not of enduring merely but of
strengthening others. At the doors of the
prisons of the Triana he began to sing the 109th
Psalm, the psalm in which is this verse :
" Let them curse, but bless Thou."
Oh, there are unfathomed depths of strength
and comfort in the Word of God, which only
those who suffer know !
On the scaffold, in the midst of his own deg-
redation, he remarked, or thought he remarked,
a look of discouragement on the face of one of
his sisters, and addressed to her some tender
THE MABTYRS OF SPAIJST. 129
words of consolation. He was instantly gag-
ged ; but the words had been spoken, and re-
vived the drooping heart. Who can imagine
what those meetings on the scaifold must have
been ? Brothers and sisters, mothers and chil-
dren, husband and wife, had been separated from
each other for months, perhaps for years. Dui--
ing all that time not a word had passed between
them. It had been a separation complete as
death. ISTeither knew what the others had
l>assed through, or how they had endured. In
more cases than one, garbled or false reports
of the confession of one were brought by the
Inquisitors to the other, to perplex or to per-
suade to recantation.
But on the morning of the Auto-da-Fe all
these doubts were over. Those who had been
faithful stood once more together and knew it.
They saw one another again, worn, indeed, by
dungeon and torture, but unchanged in faith.
This must have been a beginning of the joys of
Paradise. Not a word was willingly permitted
between them ; but in some instances even this
could not be prevented, as in the case of Juan
Gonzalez. The certainty of the worst had set
the martyrs beyond the power of their perse-
cutors, and often dying words of mutual en-
couragement could not be silenced. And at the
'^"ery worst, if the sufferers were gagged, the ex-
pression of love and immortal trust in the eyes
could not be quenched.
130 THE MARTTES OF SPAIN.
To die thus, together with the clearest on
earth, for Ilim in heaven who loves us more than
the dearest on earth, must surely have filled the
heart with a fountain of joy flames could do little
to exhaust.
The Inquisitors, having silenced the brother
Juan Gonzalez, made another eiFort to persuade
his sisters to insert the word Roman in the
creed, which they were commanded to repeat.
They longed to hear the beloved voice again
which had tauglit them and strengthened them
so often. They said if their brother might be
suffered to speak, they would say as he said.
The gag was removed, and the brother, who
had stood before beside them like a guardian
angel, longing that they might prove steadfast,
but powerless to speak, w^as again able to exhort
them not to add another word to the good con-
fession they had made.
The baffled friars gave immediate orders that
they should be strangled ; and, turning to the
crowd, declared they had died in the Roman
faith. But they have never dared to rej)eal the
slander since.
Others, besides these, of this noble company
of martyrs spent their last breath in encourag-
ing one another. They gave their bodies to be
burned ; but faith, which worketh by love, and
love stronger than death, burned in their hearts
to the last ; and we know assuredly it will " not
profit these faithful sufferers nothing," but
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 131
much, tlirougliont the ages, that they thus en-
dured.
The second grand Auto-du-Fe at Seville was
held on the 22d December, 1560. At this, three
foreigners were burned alive for their faith, con-
trary to the law of all nations. One of these
was Nicholas Burton, an English merchant ; and
the narrative which reached his countrymen of
his tortures and death, was, I think, better than
a cargo of ammunition to the brave little fleet
which, composed of volunteers and merchant-
meu, shattered the invincible Armada of King
Phihp.
In this second Auto-da-Fe died Julian Her-
nandez— Julianillo, the brave little colporteur
who had introduced so many Testaments and
Lutheran books into Spain. He had risked his
life continually, and when the time came he
yielded it up as Avillingly. He, like so many of
the auto in the preceeding year, when brought
into the court of the Triana on the mornina: of
the execution, thought chiefly of aiding his fel-
low-suflerers. " Courage, comrades !" he said.
" This is the hour in which we must show our-
selves valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ ! Let us
now bear faithful testimony to His truth before
men, and within a few hours we shall receive
the testimony of His approbation before angels,
and triumph with Him in heaven."
" Withm a few hours" and ^'■for Christ,'''' and
'■'■ ivith Him.''' It was the old Christian battle-
132 THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN.
cry, iinchangecl from the days of Stephen, and
Paul, and Polycarp, and the martyrs of Vienne.
Not for the Reformation, for justification by
faith, not for a theory, not even for a principle,
but for the living human and divine Person, for
loyalty to a King, for fidelity to a Friend
who had died for them. They laid doAvn their
lives for Christ.
Julian Hernandez was silenced immediately by
the gag. At the stake, with the fervour of tlio
character which had nerved him for his life of
adventure, he knelt and pressed his silenced lips
to the stone on which the stake was erected.
Then he rose and laid his head amona: the fasr-
gots, as if to welcome them. When bound to
the stake, he bowed his head meekly in prayer.
Doctor Fernando Rodriguez, one of the friars
near, himself a recreant, flattered himself this
was at last a sign of yielding ; and the gag was
removed, that Julianillo might have another op-
portunity to recant. But he firmly confessed
his own faith, and then reproached Rodriguez
with betraying his.
Doctor Rodriguez had a reply in his power,
which he did not fail to use.
" Shall Spain," he exclaimed, " the conqueror
and misti'ess of nations, have her peace dis-
turbed by a dwarf? Executioners, do your
office."
The faggots were kindled; and the guards,
whether in mercy or contempt, ended the
THE MAKTYKS OF SPAIN. 133
dwarf-martyr's suffering by thrusting their lances
into his body.
At this Axito-da-Fe, also, as at the preceding
one, a family group were reunited.
Maria Gomez, whose temporary insanity had
so nearly betrayed the Reformed Church a few
years before, appeared on the scaffold with her
three daughters and a sister. It seems to have
been from the sister that the four others first re-
ceived the evangelical doctrine ; at Jeast this was
the case with one of the girls — for on the scaf-
fold she went up to her aunt, and, kneeling be-
fore her, thanked her for all she had taught her,
implored forgiveness for any offense she might
have given her, and asked for her dying blessing.
What this " offense" Avas which weighed on.
the poor girl's conscience, we know not. Per-
haps some words, confessing that her aunt had
been her teacher in Christian truth, extorted by
the agony of torture ; perhaps only some little
omissions or misunderstandings, which seem so
great when the heart is made tender by the ap-
proach of death. However this may be, the aged
aunt raised her niece with her feeble arms, and
assured her she had never given her a moment's
pain ; and then she reminded the young girl of
the support their Divine Saviour had promised
in the hour of trial, and of the joy set before them,
when these few moments of anguish were over.
After this the five women embraced, and bid
each other farewell, with tender words of mur
12
134 THE MAETYES OF SPAIN.
tual comfort. And thus they were bound to-
gether to the stakes, and died together in the
flames. They need scarcely have taken leave of
one another. The words of farewell could
scarcely have died away when they were ex-
changed in the other world for the Avords of
welcome ; such welcome as martyrs may give
and receive in Paradise — receive from one
another, from angels, and from Christ.
Of many others who thus suffered, no dying
words have been borne us, and no details of
their last moments. But even of what we have
heard I cannot speak at length. I have chiefly
selected such incidents as show the voluntary
nature of the sufferings of our martyrs, and the
love which glowed in their hearts to the last to
one another and to God.
They were tortured, not accepting deliverance.
They fought the battle with the Tempter inch
by inch ; for at point after point some mitigation
of the threatened doom was offered them as the
price of recantation, even up to the stake, when
the garotte, in place of the dreadful flames, was
held out as the reward for inserting the one
word " Roman" into the Creed.
It is this which ennobles the Autos-da-Fe for
us from a slaughter into a sacrifice, from a scaf-
fold into an altar. The martyrs of Spain were
not victims merely, they were willing sacrifices ;
they were not slain, they offered up themselves.
The Spirit of Him who could to the last have
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIX. 135
called down legions of angels, and saved Him-
self, and come down from the cross, and did
not, but saved ?/.<?, was also '^ those ChristiaYis —
in Him without measure, in them in measure.
Not, indeed, that they could have exchanged
the anguish and shame for visible victory and
glory, as He might have done ; but step by
step, the rack, the pulley, the flames might have
been evaded, and they were not evaded, but
fully borne. One, Dr. Fernando de San Juan,
calmly argued with the priests at the foot of
the stake in Latin. Another, a poor servant,
Juan Sanchez, at Yalladolid, returned volunta-
rily to the flames he had escaped, rather than
join the band of penitents. We owe much to
the friars and priests who harassed the last mo-
ments of the martyrs with their vain entreaties
and offers of mercy, because they proved this.
It is this which ennobles the martyr's death ;
although I trust the sufferings of many in sick-
beds, perhaps as acute as the rack and the
flames, may in God's sight be as voluntary,
because the suflerer ennobles them by acqui-
escence. Willing submission, springing from
trusting love, may indeed raise any suflerings
into sacrifices, for God loveth a cheerful giver.
In all sacrifices it is the oflering up of self, not
of things, which is precious — the love, and not
the mere act. But the testimony to the world
of these voluntary public deaths for truth is in-
deed a glorious service — serving the world by
136 THE MARTTKS OF SPAIX.
proving the reality of invisible things, and the
Church, among other things, by proving that
suffering is serving. «.
But what can we think of the persecutors ?
We should never think of them except with the
remembrance that the Apostle Paul was once a
persecutor ; that among the very Inquisitors, be-
sides hypocrites and covetous men, who perse-
cuted for gain, and vain men and traitors, who
persecuted from fear, were men of intense con-
scientious convictions, who believed that in in-
flicting torture they were doing God service,
cutting off" the gangrened limb to save the body,
l^erhaps even destroying the body to save the
soul.
Of such perhaps Vv^as Caranza, a " Black friar"
of England, afterwards himself a sufferer for
seventeen years, on suspicion of Lutheran heresy,
Avhich he could certainly have avoided by simply
retracting all suspected statements. Among
such honest but deluded consciences we have
more than one instance of conversion (like St.
Paul's) to the truth they had sought to uproot.
It is by keeping steadily in view how voluntary
were the martyrs' sufferings, and also by re-
membering that the persecutors were not devils
(as it is so easy to consider them), but men, who
might yet be saved, and themselves transformed
into martyrs, that thinking of these terrible
autos can soften our hearts or do us any good ;
otherwise their contemplation would be harden-
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN". 137
ing and embittering as that of any other story
of wrong and crime.
One other lesson has also been deeply im-
pressed on our hearts by these persecutions —
that there is no strength in the highest Christian
to be relied on but such as is daily drawn from
Christ. Those from whom we expected most
did not always bear the noblest testimony.
Those from whose gentle, and timid, retiring
characters we expected little, sometimes shoAved
the most unflinching courage. One of the most
striking examples of the last fact was Dr. Garcia
de Arias, called the Maestro Blanco, on account
of his white hair. Timid and temporizing, so as
to perplex his best friends, while the danger
only threatened at a distance, when he was at
length brought to trial, he expressed regret that
he had not spoken more boldly before. He even
carried the war into the enemy's quarters ; and
not content with answering their arguments,
perplexed his examiners with unanswerable
questions and unasked proofs. Feeble with age,
he ascended the scaffold leaning on a staff, and
Avas bound to the stake with a countenance
beaming with joy. Much as this noble conduct
of his perplexed both friend and foe, can we
not understand it ? Can Ave not imagine the
joy Avith which, Avhen at length he cast aside all
his cautious schemes for self-preserA'ation, and
ventured himself AA'holly on Christ, he must
have learned hoAV free the single-hearted are,
12*
138 THE MARTYKS OF SPAHST.
and how strong that almighty arm can make
the tread of the weakest who lean on Him ?
The second grand Auto-da-Fe at Seville in De-
cember, 1560, closes the most important page of
our new Spanish martyrology. But from time
to time we received tidings of one and another
burnt alive and condemned to other penalties
for Lutheranism at Toledo, Grenada, Saragossa,
Logrofio, and in Valencia and Murcia. It was
in this way only that we obtained any tidings of
the progress of the evangelical doctrine in Spain.
When, among criminals condemned for the worst
offenses— for bigamy, sorcery, and other infamous
crimes, or for relapsing into Judaism or Moham-
medanism— we heard of one or two, or more,
burnt or condemned to penance, as Lutherans or
Hufruenots, we knew that the truth was not
quenched in that district, that some had been
found faithful enough to speak the message of
our reconciliation through the One Sacrifice;
and we trusted that for each one who had
spoken and suffered there might be many who,
though too confused in thought or weak in faith
to speak, had yet listened and believed.
At Logrono the Inquisitors were exhorted by
the superior tribunals to more vigilance, because
Philip, ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, wrote
that the English boasted the Reformed doctrine
still found adherents in Spain, and especially in
Navarre. For many years, at least until 1568,
by the confession of the Inquisition, there were
THE MARTYES OF SrAIK. 139
found many at Logroiio who followed the doc-
tnne they had learned from Don Carlos de Seso,
burned at Valladolid m 1559; receiving the
books of their sect by sea, or across the moun-
tains from France. It seems, therefore, that Ju-
lianillo also had his successors.
The Inquisition of Toledo was so zealous, and
multiplied victims so fast, that the inhabitants
of one town, St. Cifuentes, in the province of
Guadalajara, sent an entreaty to the Pope, that
the Sanbenitos of the condemned might be re-
moved from their parish church, because the
walls of their church were so tapestried with
these robes of infamy, painted with flames, toads,
and devils, that it filled them with horror in at-
tending the services.
Gradually, however, as I have said, after ten
or twelve years, we ceased to receive those ti-
dings of the sufferings of our brethren, so full
of pain, and yet of hope, for us.
Mohammedans were still burnt at the Autos-
da-Fe^ and relapsed Jews and criminals ; but the
name of Lutherans and Huguenots disappeared
from the terrible lists.
Spain remains " the Catholic." Many of her
noblest families will, no doubt, find means to ob-
literate the taint which heresy has brought on
their " old Christian" blood. The names of the
martyrs will be blotted out of the noble pedi-
grees to which so many of them belong, and wiU.
be forgotten.
140 THE MAKTYRS OF SPAIN.
But will tbe Inquisition do for Castile what
the Bible vrould have done had it been allowed
free access to our countrymen ? Will the Auios-
da-Fe teach them Christianity as the Gospels
would have taught it ? Will Spain be always
what Rodriguez called her, " queen and mistress
among the nations ?" Or will her misused pow-
ers, like her Armada, disperse into nothing be-
fore the breath of God, or crumble into nothing
by its own hollowness ? The Inquisitors have
indeed silenced the Reformed teachers in the
land. With what woi'ds will they fill the
silence ? Hearts there may indeed be now, and
always, in every city, convent, and village which
may be opened to the truth, and love, and God,
and silently transformed by Ilim. But for
Spain, will Rome ever do for her what that no-
ble band of Christian men and women could
have done, trained and endowed as they were
by God to be the teachers aud leaders of a
nation ?
I have spoken little of those who, like our-
selves, escaped from the storm of persecution in
our country by flight. There were many. The
Protestant churches of Geneva, France, and
England received us cordially.
Queen Ehzabeth, prudent and cautious as she
is, has steadfastly resisted all demands to yield
our brethren up to our enemies. Testimony has
been rendered them by a Bishop of the English
Church, which we accept. He speaks of the
THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN. 141
Protestant Spaniards taking refuge in England
for the faith as " few, jioor, and miserable, de-
spoiled of all, driven from their country." It is
true. The words are spoken with a tender and
reverent pity, for he acknowledges them as
" brethren, afflicted members of Christ, com-
pelled to bear His cross." And he says of the
four thousand Reformed Christians who have
found a haven in England from persecution in
Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands : " They are
our brethren. They live not idly. If they take
houses of us, they pay rent for them. They beg
not in our streets, nor crave any thing at our
hands but to breathe our air and see our sitn.
They labour truly, they live sparefully. They
are good examples of virtue, travail, faith, and
patience. The towns in which they abide are
happy, for God doth follow them with his bless-
ms;.
But our hearts, in spite of all the brotherly
welcome we have had, are still in our country.
It cannot content us to see the jiure Church of
Christ openly planted in other lands ; we want
it to take root in Spain. We are Christians
first, and therefore find a home wherever our
brethren are. But we are also Spaniards, and we
must be exiles out of Spain. There is also a
gravity and reserve about our national character
which, perhaps, makes us more lonely than oth-
ers, of a lighter character, in a foreign land.
The best among us are still labouring for the
142 THE MAETTES OP SPAIN.
sjjread of evangelical truth throughout our coun-
try. Montanus writes the history of our mar-
tyrs. Cassiodoro de Reyna and Cipriano de
Valera re-translate the Bible into Castilian.
Will these narratives of our martyrs yet en-
courage others to witness, and perhaps to bear
a witness the Holy Office shall at last be unable
to suppress ?
Will this sacred Word of God, through the
translations of our brethren, yet find its way
into our country, and sow the precious seed
there m happier times — seed that shall not only
ripen, as it has done, for the garner of God, but
spring up irrepressibly on all sides, till all the
land sliall be filled with the blessing ?
Who can say? But with the Word of God
in our hands, and His faith and love in our
hearts, w^hat power can banish hoj^e ?
"ISTow abideth these three, faith, hope, and
charity." And if the greatest of these is love,
it is a love which "hopeth all things," a love
whose upward gaze is faith, and whose forward
gaze is hope. For,
" Stronger is He that is in you, than he that is
in the world."
THE LIBERATIOi^ OF HOLLAND.
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 145
I.
h
MY sister Dolores has often said that when
first we came from Spain to Antwerj), where
my husband, Mark van Rosevelt, lived at that
time, it seemed to her like having died and
passed into a world of shadows, such as the old
Pagans imagined. But to me it could not be
the same. The world, which was Mark's and
our child's, could not but seem like home to me ;
too much like home, I used to be afraid, some-
times.
It seemed, I feared, almost heartless to be
building another home so soon on the crumbling
soil from which I had seen the whole of my for-
mer world fall at once into the ocean. But I
am not afraid of it now. I do not think the
command to live " as pilgrims and strangers "
means "rejoice in nothing," but "be careful for
nothing." God does not, I think, desire us to
tremble, as if we were living in a world without
foundations, hanging over a void ; but to trust,
as those who live in a world founded on His
word, and hanging on the firm support of His
loving will. When He wills, we know the whole
13
146 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
universe will fold up and be changed ; bat then
we shall have the support of His arm with noth-
ing intervening. And that will be as well.
But for Dolores it was so different. Her
Avhole world had perished, all but me ; and ten-
der as she was to me — my second mother — I
could see she sometimes thought me guilty of a
kind of disloyalty in looking forward instead of
backward. But I could not help it, because of
Mark and the child. And then it was a long
time before Dolores understood Mark. They
never said so ; but I could feel they did not un-
derstand each other. Dolores thought Mark
phlegmatic, cautious, and cold. She ought not
certainly, Avhen he had risked life and all to
save us. But he had a way of making sacri-
fices, as if they were no sacrifices, which I have
often regretted ; because I think people often
believed him, and thought he was doing just
what he liked, when he was yielding his dear-
est wishes for others. And besides, I believe
Dolores would have thought nothing a sacri-
fice which was done for me. She loved me
for what she had sufiered for me, as women do.
She thought it quite natural that any one should
be ready to risk life as she had done for me.
But that was not just to 3Iark. And on his
side, I could see that Mark thought her too fer-
vent, impetuous, and Southern ; and to counter-
act these tendencies, put on his coolest and most
deliberate manner in her presence, which was
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 147
very provoking to me. But, of course, all my
attempts to explain only made matters worse,
_ so that at last I left it to circumstances to inter-
pret these two to each other, and had to content
myself meanwhile with the conviction that I un-
derstood them both,
Dolores, moreover, did not at first at all com-
prehend or like the Flemish character and life.
She thought the merchants calculating and
money-loving ; the people free-spoken, to inso-
lence ; the women sadly wanting in reserve and
habits of keeping at' home. She was disposed
to be offended, even with the very houses for
looking so much out of window into the streets,
instead of modestly contemplating their own
court-yards ; and with the furniture, for being
so luxurious and effeminate. She did not con-
sider that the luxuries of the sunny South are
air and water and space, flowers and shade, cool
marble courts, and halls containing indeed Httle
but necessary furniture, but beautiful with the
flickering shade of vines, and musical with foun-
tains; and that here, in the gray and sober
North, these are only poorly re-placed by rich
carpets, tapestries, and pictures. But Dolores
had not Mark as a link, and could not at once be
at home with the free Northern people, as I nat-
urally became through him.
I can never forget the sadness of my sister's
look during those first months of our exile. If
to her the whole of the busy, noisy world around
148 THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND.
.hev seemed shadowy, to us she seemed herself
too hke a silent shadow, noiselessly and mechani-
cally moving about, as one that belonged to us no
more, but was slowly gliding from our midst.
She shed no tears, and made no complaints, but
it seemed as if her wdiole bodily life had concen-
trated itself in the large dark penetrating eyes.
Their gaze haunted me. It was as if they had
looked beyond all things visible to us into the
unseen Avorld. No tears moistened them ; no
smile ever brightened them ; no sleep seemed to
veil them ; for if at night' I ventured anxiously
to her bedside to see if she was at rest, the same
lanceasing, steadfast, spiritual gaze met mine.
At times, indeed, their expression would change.
When any truth about God, or Christ, and the
eternal w^orld was spoken of, or when any nar-
rative was related of martyrdom, or of faithful
confession of the truth, the solemn, penetrating,
passionless gaze would change to an upw'ard
look of lofty confidence. To the stories of Flem-
ish and Dutch martyrs, of which there were,
alas ! such countless numbers, she w^ould have
listened for ever. Her spirit seemed to have
made its home on these terrible heights, and
only to descend to the common interests of life
with a patient tolerance which made me sadder
tlian any agony of grief would have done. I
was so afraid my sister, my guardian angel, my
only relic of the world we had lost, w^as fading
away from us altogether. Not that she was
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 149
self-contained or gloomily silent, but she seemed
to have lost all sense of proportion between
earthly things, and would listen to Mark's plans
for the deliverance of his country, or to my dis-
cussions of how to furnish a room, with the same
disinterested courtesy, evidently caring for the
things only because Ave cared for them.
We all tried our various ways to comfort her.
My sister-in-law Christina, the Vrow van Broek,
used to send her fruits, and poultry, and various
dainties from her farm near the city, and insist
on taking her to see the rural or civic sights she
thought of interest.
" We must not let her dwell on the past, sister
Costanza," she would say. " I know too well what
that is. When my Hansken died, I would have
liked to shut myself up for ever ; but my hus-
band knew better ; and after a time — a proper
time, you know, must be allowed for every visi-
tation— he surprised me with a new coach, made
by the coachmaker of the Duchess Margaret
herself, and insisted on my joining the proces-
sion when he was elected president of the great
company of clothiers. I shrank from it, indeed,
just as Dolores does ; but I made the effort, I
felt it was my duty, and from that time I began
to recover."
To Vrow van Broek, I thought bereavements
were like illnesses, the rallying from which de-
pends partly on physical constitution, and partly
on the determination of the patient.
13*
150 THE LIBEEATION OF IIOLLAJfD.
Ursel, my husband's unmarried sister, took
entirely another view of the matter. She said,
" My sister Christina means very well, but she
is entirely mistaken about Dolores. Grief like
hers cannot be distracted by the amusements of
the world. It is meant to raise us above the
world, and its poor transitory follies ; to detach
our hearts from the creature, and fix them on
the Creator. And, as far as I can see, this work
is being accomplished in your sister. She seems
raised above all earthly pleasures and cares, and
to be altogether in a very exalted state of mind.
It would be well if we could all resemble her
more. I can see her in Christina's coach, gaz-
ing at the empty vanities of the processions and
the feasts without a change of countenance.
But her whole face changes, and looks as grand
as an angel's, when I tell her of the sufferings of
our brethren for the faith ; of the two young
brothers who were burnt at Tournay ; of those
who were cut alive into pieces ; of others who
were broken on the wheel, or racked to death ;
of those who were slowly roasted at"
" But, dear Ursel," I said, endeavouring my-
self to escape this recital of horrors, " I am
afraid such narratives drive sleep from her eyes,
and will end in making her an angel indeed."
" Ah," said Ursel, compassionately, seeing the
tears in my eyes, " we are not all strong enough
for these things ; but Dolores and I understand
each other."
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 151
Then I had my own j^lan of consolation, more
foolish, I have thought since, than any one's. I
persuaded Mark, against his judgment, to fit up
a room for Dolores, something like the old room
we used to sit in together at Valladolid. It
was a little room on the back of the house, look-
ing to the south, over the Scheldt, and opening
on a low roof. "We had the roof .surrounded
with stone balustrades, and brought earth on it,
and placed large vases with flowering shrubs in
them, and had water couA-eyed with much difii-
culty into a marble basin, from which it trickled
among the flowers. Then we bought a harp like
the one Dolores used to delight in ; and books,
the Spanish translation of Luther on the Gala-
tians, and the Castilian Bible. The floor was
of inlaid wood, with onl)'- a Persian rug under-
neath her couch. The sunshine came in through
Venetians ; and, in my childishness, I had thought
it would make her feel like home.
On her birthday we took her into it. But I
can never lose the recollection of the anguish
which met me in her face, when I looked to see
if she was pleased.
At least, however, there was one good result.
The patient, uncomplaining lips quivered a mo-
ment, and then her self-control gave way en-
tirely, and she threw herself, not into my arms,
button the floor, and buried her face in the
couch, and burst into an agony of tears.
" Mother ! mother !" she sobbed, and then I
understood it all.
152 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
Yes, every little detail of tbe old room had
been planned by our motlier and arranged by
her hands — hands -vvhich were not cold in death,
but which we might never touch again.
It was this terrible uncertainty which weighed
most of all on my sister's heart — this terrible
unnatural burial of the living from us, of which
we had not dared to speak, and of which I had
scarcely dared to think. I could say nothing.
Mai'k left us to each other But gradually I
drew her on the sofa beside me, and we wept
together.
And from that time I began to understand
that, in great sorrows, that is nearly all we can do
for each other, " weep with those that weep."
It seems poor aid, just to go down into grief
and share it. Yet it was what Jesus did. In-
deed, afterwards He did more ; he raised the
dead. But He wept first with the bereaved.
And tears are all we have — tears, and a hand to
point the weeping eyes to Him.
I suppose those tears did my sister good, for
she spoke first, and took her old place, and be-
gan to comfort me.
"Yet, darling, we must not despair," she
sobbed. " She is with the Saviour. In heaven
or earth, in paradise or in the convent-dungeon,
she is with Him. They cannot banish her from
His presence. But, O, Costanza," she con-
tinued, " do you think she can have recanted ?"
" Who knows ?" I said. But then a sudden
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 153
hope flashed on me. " St. Peter did worse ;
but he could not get beyond the reach of that
look."
" Yes, that look of love !" said Dolores ; " for
only love can melt the heart. But, oh, Cos-
tanza," she continued, " if we knew any thing !
I do not know how to pray. What do you
do ?"
" I say, ' Lord, Thou knowest,' I replied.
And so our hearts were opened to each other,
and the stony look passed from my sister's face.
Often after that her eyes were swollen with
tears. But that unnaturally deep and spiritual
gaze had vanished, and I rejoiced. Ursel, how-
ever, was not satisfied.
" I am afraid," she said to me one day, " your
sister's soul is sinking from the height it had at-
tained. She looks often now as if she had been
weeping ; and when I relate to her any new nar-
rative of our martyrs, a shiver passes over her
face, as if she thought more of the suflering than
the reward ; and last night she even begged
me to tell her no more. She said she could
not bear it. And when I reminded her that if
our brethren could have courage to endure, we
might surely have courage to hear, she said,
'When the time conies, God gives strength;
but tiie time is not come for me. I have not
the strength. It recalls too many things.' I
hope her soul is not becoming once more en-
tangled in this poor perishing world."
154 THE LIBERATION OE HOLLAND.
But this time I was .bolder than usual on Do-
lores' account, and I replied :
" Sister Ursel, the blessed Lord wept."
" He wept," she replied, " for the sins of hu-
manity."
" It does not say so," I answered. " It says He
wept for the sorrows of Mary and Martha.
And I think it is too much like the old monks
and nuns to think that God would have us care
less for our beloved, in order to care more for
Him."
Ursel was not pleased. She said :
" The Lord our God is a jealous God. But to
think of accusing me of favouring the abuses of
the monasteries, when I attend Francis Junius,
and all the Reformed preachers every time they
can be heard, at the risk of my life."
But Ursel learned much after that, from One
who teaches many things only through tears.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 155
11.
W
Itoif.
THE first thing, however, that seemed entirely
to restore Dolores to life was the birth of my
child ; and her first firm link with our new kin-
dred and country was Truyken Ketel ; and it
happened in this way.
Truyken and Dolores were not always friends.
Indeed, they started on any thing but an amica-
ble footing ; and I used often to fear how they
would get on if I were laid aside. So little can
we foresee how any thing will turn out.
Truyken was an old servant of the Rosevelt
family. She had been my husband's nurse in
his infancy, and then his housekeeper, until we
were married, and altogether had acquired a
place in the house which it was at times cer-
tainly rather difficult to reconcile with that of a
wife, still more of a wife's sister. Moreover,
she was not a little inclined to look on me and
my sister as two stray waifs who had drifted
from a barbarous shore, where they knew noth-
ing of the world and its ways. And she under-
took to set us right in a very frank and decided
manner. Dolores, who had been accustomed to
156 THE LIEEEATION OF HOLLAND.
the mingled homage and caressing familiarity of
our southern household, where we might be
disobeyed, but were never contradicted, could
by no means comprehend this freedom ; and
more than once, when Truykeu had quietly, but
positively, refused to obey some order which
Avas contrary to her Flemish code, I saw my
sister's colour mount, the lips compress, and the
soft eyes flash with an ominous Spanish fire.
Great, then, was my amazement when I began
to recover from the danger in which I had lain
for many weeks after the birth of my child,
to find the understanding established between
Truyken and my sister ; Dolores having meekly
subsided into a second-rate power in all matters
relating to the health of the baby, and thank-
fully accepting from Truyken's good pleasure
every office she was permitted to perform.
I learned afterwards , of the nights and days
of devoted watching by me and the child — of
the sleepless care and self-forgetful attention
which saved our lives and swept away the bar-
riers between those two hearts ; for Truyken's
manner was quite as much changed as my sis-
ter's. Decisive it was certainly, and with the
dignity of superior experience ; but a tender
reverence blended with this, as if Dolores was
to Truyken something between an infant and an
angel — a creature not yet quite disciplined to
the ways of this earthly sphere, that must be
treated very daintily, but yet could not be suf-
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 157
fered always to pursue its own well-meaning
but self-destructive intentions.
Thus was established the protectorate of
Truyken, which, if sometimes a little oppressive,
was, nevertheless, on the whole, a mild and be-
neficent form of government.
One serious diflerence, indeed, existed between
us. Truyken was a firm adherent of the " old
religion," as she called it, although she was a
yet firmer adherent of the Rosevelt family.
I believe she looked on my sister and me as a
kind of irregular Christians, whose general out-
landish manners, and ignorance of Dutch, would,
it was to be charitably hoped, save ns from. too
severe a scrutiny at the gate of heaven. And as
to Mark, the idea of a Rosevelt being excluded
from any place of privilege in earth or heaven,
probably never seriously entered her imagina-
tion. How the dear, fiiithful old soul contrived
to reconcile these conflicting services, of her
Church and of us, none of us could ever com-
prehend. But these were not the only interne-
cine dogmas Avhich, in spite of all logic, con-
trived to lie down peaceably, like the leopard
and the lamb in the broad heart of Truyken Ko-
tel. Her belief depended on her character,
rather than on her reason ; and the two great
elements of her character were intense pertina-
city of will and devoted loyalty to what she
recognized as " master." No irrefragable chain
of argument, and no accumulation of historical
14
158 THE LIBKRATION OF HOLLAND,
evidence, would have moved her faith in the
bone of St. Ursula, or one of the Eleven Thou-
sand Virgins, which she wore in a large silver
heart suspended around her neck. St. Ursula
had been her mother's patron saint. Truyken's
mother, the most pious of Avomen, had rever-
enced that relic, and no words should ever per-
suade Truyken to cast it aside as a vain thing.
Had it not been worn by her blessed great-grand-
father in a battle — by her blessed grandfather in
a wreck off Zealand — by her blessed mother in
a fire ; and had not all three escajDed unharmed ?
How it could be of any use, she could not pre-
tend to say. Who could understand the clouds,
or the growing of the corn, or half the wonder-
ful things the Almighty did ?
Yet when we 'spoke to Truyken of the suffer-
ings of our Saviour and His love, have I not seen
tears steal over her wrinkled cheeks, and a light
kindle in her grave gray eyes no legends or rel-
ics could enkindle there ? I cannot help being
thankful that in davs and circumstances of such
suffering and wrong as ours, when it was so nat-
ural to look on Papist and Protestant as beings
of different races, when the furies of Spanish
soldiers, and the deliberate tortures of tlie Span-
ish Inquisition, so often tempted us to think the
Pope's adherents rather fiends of hell than hu-
man creatures made by God and born of woman,
this human link was preserved to us between
the new religion — the Bible religion — and the
THE LIBEEATIO]^ OF HOLLAND. 159
old. For, after all, it was the old religion. Our
ancestors — Mark's mother and father even — had
died in it, and whole generations before ; and if
God had not forgotten the world for centuries
(which no one could believe), it was necessary
that there should always have been some chan-
nel piercing the clouds, through which the sin-
ner's eye could see the Saviour, and the heavenly
light and dew of pardon could come down.
One of the first family discussions held when
I began to rejoin the circle, was about the
naming and baptism of the child. Mark's sisters
were both Protestants, although of difierent
confessions — Christina belonging, with her
brother and the greater number of the better
classes in the Netherlands, to the Confession of
Augsburg ; whilst Ursel was ai fervent disciple
of the Genevese Reformer.
I had wished much to call the baby Dolores
Costanza, after my sister and my mother ; but to
this my sister objected.
" Why call her, like me, after Our Lady of
Sorrow ? Why not, sister, if you want a name
which recalls mine, call her after the Mother of
Consolations, not Dolores, but Consuelo ?"
But Ursel interposed :
" Surely, you will not sanction any such super-
stitions ? If Dolores has had the misfortune, as
I must deem it, to be christened after an idol,
surely the delusion will not be perpetuated in
the harmless babe ?"
160 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
"With your permission, sister Costanza," re-
marked Ciiristina, " I am sure the last thing you
-would wish is to treat the infant's Flemish and
Dutch grandmothers with any disrespect. These
were Hermentrud and Dieuwert."
I trembled a little lest my child should be en-
dowed with names our Spanish lips would never
be able to pronounce ; but Ursel resumed :
" Before we decide on the name, would it not
be well to know according to what rite, or by
what minister, the baptism is to be accom-
plished ?"
" By our own Lutheran pastor," answered
Mark.
" With godmothers and godfathers ?" asked
Ursel.
" Certainly," was the reply.
"Indeed, brother," said Ursel, "it would
grieve me very much to make a division at such
a time ; but you know what my conscientious
feelings are on that point. I think the Lutheran
doctrine on the sacraments little better than that
of Rome, and how can I sanction it by attend-
ing?"
" One thing I must say," interposed the Vrow
van Broek, " if Ursel has her way, and the babe
is to be baptized by one of the fonatical new
French ministers from Geneva, I cannot risk my
life or my peace by attending. I was told the
other day that one of them actually said that
the good God had foredoomed the whole human
THE LIBEBATION Or HOLLAND. IGl
race to everlasting fire, except a few whom lie
arbitrarily excepted. I think that is making the
Almighty no better than King Philii>, and I will
have nothing to do with such heresies. I would
almost as soon join the Anabaptists, and have no
baptism at all."
Ursel would have retorted, but Mark said I
was becoming pale and weary, and summoned
Truyken with restoratives.
" You have been teasing the' poor young thing
to death by talking," she said, severely.
" We were only speaking of the baptism of
the child, Truyken," said Mark, apologetically.
"Then, if you had condescended to consult
me," replied Truykeu, " you might have saved
yourselves that trouble. The babe was named
and christened some weeks since."
"What do you mean, Truyken ?"
" Do you think I was going to let the little
angel be a heathen ? especially when she might
have died at any minute, and the precious little
soul have remained wailing for ever in the dark-
ness outside the gates of Paradise, belonging to
no one ? One night, when we scarcely thought
you would both of you have lived, I sent for
Father Antony, and had her baptized in the old
way the master was christened in, and all the
family before him." N»
" And the name, Truyken ?"
" I named her more for the other world than
for this," replied Truyken ; " because it seemed
1G2 THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND.
as if every breath of the darling might have been
the last ; and therefore I thought more of the
Patroness than of the mothers or the grand-
mothers, which I hope you will excuse. The
babe was christened after the Blessed Mother
herself. I thought we might all agree there is
no better saint in heaven, and certainly there is
no better name on earth."
And Truyken crossed herself.
Thus our cliild was robbed of all the high-
sounding appellations which were to have been
heaped on her, and the name of Marie, or May-
ken, has been ever since the joy of our home.
I must confess to a cowardly sense of relief in
having the discussion thus summarily closed, and
also the danger of a Protestant baptism in any
form avoided.
None of us ventured any remonstrance with
Truyken at the time, knowing how useless it
would be ; but Christina, as an experienced
matron, thought it her duty to say to us after-
wards :
" Excuse me, dear sister Costanza, but does
not poor Truyken take liberties ; and is there
not danger of her getting too much the upper
hand?"^
" She does take liberties," I said, " and she has
the upper liand. I thought it was the Flemish
way."
But one thing in this discussion made a deep
and painful impression on me, and I spoke to
Mark about it that evening.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 1G3
" What are all these divisions ?" I said. " You
are all Protestants ; and in Spain we Protestants
were all one."
" Yes," he replied, sadly, " the stake makes
us one — and so will heaven."
"But we all submit to the Bible," I said;
" and the Bible must teach the same thino- to all.
How is it, then, that people bring such difierent
things from the Bible ?"
" I suppose," he said," because we take differ-
ent notions to the Bible. We none of us go to
it with minds quite clear from error, or hearts
quite free from sin ; and the vessels we carry to
the fountain colour the water we brino- from it."
" Then is no one quite right ?" I asked.
" I suppose not," he answered, " since no one
is quite holy."
" Then, if all is so uncertain," I said, " why is
the whole world convulsed for such uncertain-
ties ? Why not remain in the old Church, and
say nothing, but think what we like ?"
" All is not uncertain," he said ; " the things
all Protestants agree about, are those we die
for."
" And these ?"
" Are not things," he replied ; " not abstrac-
tions or opinions, but truth about God ; the
right to read His Word ; the right of access to
His presence ; the right of rejoicing in His love ;
the truth that Christ, not the Pope, is our Head ;
tliat Christ, and not the priest, forgives our
164 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
sins, Luther did not begin with denying, but
with asserting, with unvailing once more to
men the love of God, to sinners the heart of the
Saviour."
" But Avhy, then, all these divisions ?"
" Partly from the light, and partly from the
darkness. In the night, colours are aU the
same ; the daylight shows the diversity."
" But it is so diiferent from what I imagined.
Instead of that living union which in Spain made
us all seem like one family, are we Protestants
to be only like neighbours who may think it
happy if we can live side by side without a
quarrel ? It is love we want, Mark, and this is
not love."
" Love springs from relationship, Costanza,"
he said, " and not from agreement. As there is
but one secret of true union among Christians,
and that is union with Christ, so there is but
one true 2:)reservative of communion among
Christians, and that is communion with Christ.
My little wife will never get the churches
right," he added, smiling ; " but I do not de-
spair of her doing something for Christina and
Ursel."
" And, meantime, is no one wise enough to
keep the Protestant churches from quarrelling ?"
said I.
" Most Protestants think it a treacherous
lukewarmness to try," he replied, " so persuaded
is every doctor that he and his party only are
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 165
right. In Switzerland, the ZwingHans have
drowned the Anabaptists."
" But the Anabaptists are very bad, are they
not ?" I said. " Are they not like the Turks ?
Have they not more than one wife ?"
" Some of them had at Munster four-and-
twenty years ago," he re]3lied ; " but those I
have met have been quiet, orderly, inoffensive
people. The Prince of Orange thinks they
should be tolerated."
" You sj)eak so often of the Prince of Orange,"
I said.
"He is the one hope of the country," he
replied.
" But the Protestants have not gone so far as
drowning the Anabaptists here in Flanders ?" I
asked.
" ISTo," he answered ; " the Pope and the king
have not yet done with drowning and burning
us. King Philip and William the Silent, be-
tween them, may perhaps even yet teach the
Protestants of our country to love one another."
" And meantime," I said, " we must try to
teach Ursel and Christina ; and to learn."
166 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
III.
17 OR some time our little household "W'ent on
-^ so peacefully, that we were almost forgetting
the tempest that still raged in the world without.
Mayken seemed to have come as a dove of peace
among us all. Christina declared she was the
image of her lost Hansken, and, with many a
quiet tear (which the coach and the procession
of the company of clothiers had not, after all,
quite dried), she opened a sacred little chest,
containing the little wardrobe, and insisted on
investing her with many a stately starched ruff
and frill, from which the little face used to peep
with a look, to me, as strange and quaint as if
the Duchess Margaret's milliner had undertaken
to attire a cherub of Fra Angelico's in court
costume. But I never objected, and Christina's
satisfaction was reward sufficient. She said it
made the little darling look quite another thing.
And it certainly did.
Then, by one of those unaccountable fancies
which sometimes get possession of babes and
other unreasonable creatures, Mayken formed
THE LIBERATION OE HOLLAKD. 167
the strongest attachment to Ursel ; why I could
not at all comprehend, unless it was for a look
in her eyes a little like Mark's when he was par-
ticularly grave. But whatever the cause in the
child, the effect on Ursel was magical. What
woman, armed to the teeth with the strongest
asceticism that ever mailed priestess or nun,
could resist the fascination of the spontaneous
love of a little child ?
So Ursula's heart, before she was aware, was
entanQ;led in the strong meshes of creature-love ;
that, by loving, she might learn better to adore
Him who is love. For how can God's provi-
dence or chastenings teach us any thing, unless
we love ? Without love there may be pain ; but
there can be no softening, sanctifying, Christ-
like sorrow.
But more than all was the little one to Dolores,
whom she learned to call, lisping, Madrecita, or,
in Flemish, Little Mother, the name I had called
her since the accident which lamed her, and
bound us together with that peculiar tie. To
my sister she was a link to our new country, to
life, to earth.
She said to me one day :
" Do you know what you and your May ken
have taught me ? To give thanks. On that
night of agonized anxiety when you were spared
to us, I knelt in my little room — the room you
had prepared so loA'ingly for me. I knelt by
that couch, and sobbed out my thanks in such a
168 THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND.
flood of tears, as I had not wept since that day
with you. And then something seemed to melt
ft-om my heart, and I looked up, and felt God's
love, as on the day when first I learned to believe
in it. I felt again it was not mere benevolence,
but love ; and that He cared, as you had done,
that I should notice the things He provided for
me, and thank Him for them, not with averted,
joyless eyes, but as if I cared. And I thanked
Him from my inmost heart for the child and for
you. And from that time, it has seemed as if a
barrier were gone between me and my God.
With nothing between us and Him, we must re-
joice. It is that, and not Mayken only, which
is the joy to me, but it vfas Mayken who
brought it."
For a time our home was like a soft nest,
hidden deep in the forest, sheltered from the
glare and din of the outside world. I used to
fear sometimes that Mayken, the oject of so
much love, might grow into that worst isolation
of gathering all this love into herself, and be-
comincT a centre. And I made countless little
plans for counteracting this in her education ; for
instance, to take an orphan child to bring up
with her, if she had no brothers or sisters. But
I need not have troubled myself. We did com-
mit the little one to God, and He took her life
under His care, and saved it from being too soft
and weakening, in ways we could never have
had courage to use. But that was because God
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAKD. 169
sees SO much farther than we do, and loves so
much more. And if we see that He dealt thus
with us, now that events have interpreted each
other, and we vuiderstand them, may we not
trust He has dealt the same with His Church in
the Netherlands in this great ang-uish and soi'-
row through which He has suffered it to pass,
even in the events which have not yet inter-
preted themselves, and which we cannot under-
stand ?
The first break on this happy home-life of
ours — at least, the first sound which startled me
— was on the 3d of October, 1563.
It was a stormy night, and the wind howled
fitfully through the narrow street in which we
lived ; but every now and then sounds came
to us, which were not the sighs of the wind,
but deeper, steadier, and more musical.
As we were listening, a number of people
came quietly past the house, some of them car-
rying lanterns. My husband went to the door,
and then returned, and began hastily putting on
his cloak.
" What is it, Mark ?" I said. " Is it a fire ?
"Why must you go on this boisterous night ?"
" Thei-e will be a fire to-morrow, wife," he
said, significantly, " unless the deed of darkness
be done in the darkness. Christopher Fabricius
is sentenced to the stake to-morrow ; but King
Philip has advised secret executions in the pris-
ons, in cases where the people sympathize with
15
170 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
the sufferers, as they do in AntAverp ; and a
great nnmber of our brethren are ah-eady col-
lected outside the prison to comfort the martyr
with psalms, and to hear his voice from time to
time, and see that no foul deed is done."
" But you, Mark," I said, " why must you go ?
Your voice will be only on« in the crowd ; but
it is all to us."
"The Lord who suffered for us, and for whom
Fabricius suffers, will hear if my voice is in the
crowd or not, my love," he said ; and would ye
have Him say, ' Ye did it not to me ?"
I could not say another word ; but I held the
door open for him, and looked after him till he
was out of sight, and then went up to the cot
of my sleeping child. My heart beat so violently,
that I feared it would wake her ; and through
the gusty wind, I fancied, again and again, I
heard the shouts of the soldiers seizing the
heretic band, and the music changing to Avails
and deep cries. That night Avas a solemn night
to me. Dolores was in her room, and I Avould
not disturb her. I felt that something had to be
decided between me and God.
The religion Avhich says, " Love not ; quench
earthly affections, that God may be supreme,"
may have its conflicts ; but I thiiik they are
light compared Avith the conflicts and sacrificea
of the religion AAdiich says, " Love fervently.
LoA^e others as yourself; but loA'e God more.
LoA'e best Him who loves you best." Faith
THE LIBEEATIO]Sr OF HOLLAND. 171
needs to be strong to inspire the right choice at
such times ; and that night my faith seemed
very Aveak. I thought if I had been Mark, I
would have done as he did ; but to see Mark go,
was another thing altogether. Yet I Avould not
have recalled him, not for the world. So, after
trying to feel as I thought I ought to feel about
it, for a long time, trying to be willing that
Mark should be there, I gave up the conflict,
and hid my face in ray hands, and said :
" My Saviour pity me. I am not willing. I
cannot wish it. But I know Thou lovest us.
Thy will be done." And then it seemed as if a
voice brought the words, " Not my will, but
Thine be done ;" and I felt greatly comforted.
Were they not our Lord's own woi'ds ? And
other comforting thoughts followed. I thought,
" If my Mayken had some little treasure which
was i>recious to her, and which I had to take
from her, if she gave it me without a rebellious
murmur when I asked, would I be angry be-
cause there were tears in her dear eyes, and the
little lips quivered, though they did not com-
plain ?"
Then I thought, " Yes, better than a mother !
Thou lovest us much better, as Thou art better.
Father, Lord, I will trust Thee with my very
best."
And soon after, the morning dawned, and
Mark came home. And then I felt I would not
have missed that night.
172 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
He smiled to see the bright look, through the
traces of tears, ou my face.
" God has comforted thee," he said. " Thou
wilt trust Him better next time. "
" Yes, Mark," I said. " I did not trust Him
well, this time. But did not the soldiers come
on you ?"
" No," he said. " There was no disturbance.
The guard was increased, but there was no dis-
turbance."
" Has Fabricius a wife ?" I asked.
" Yes," he replied. " That is one of his chief
crimes. He was a monk at Bruges ; but when
he learnt the Gospel, he le^t the monastery, and
soon after married. Then he fled to England,
where he might have remained safely till now ;
but love of his countrymen brought him back —
love of country, and love of Christ. For many
months this Spring, he preached in various
houses in Antwerp ; and in July he was seized
and thrown into prison. A woman, called Long
Meg, who had professed to desire instruction,
sought him out, learned to know his places of
retirement, and then, like Judas, betrayed him
to the Government."
" He has been in prison these three months,
Mark ? — these three months here at Antwerp —
while I have been so happy ; and I did not
know ! We might have comforted him in some
way, or his poor wife."
" I was afraid to tell thee," he said, " Thy
THE LIBEKATIOK OF HOLLAND. 173
heart is so tender. I knew it -would distress
thee so much. For they have laid him on the
rack again and again ; but not one word could
they extract touching one of his friends ; whilst
of his own faith, he confessed frankly all they
asked. To his friends he wrote as a comforter,
rather than a sufferer, and to the woman who be-
trayed him, he sent a letter of forgiveness and
tender warning.
" Oh, Mark," I said, " you would not have
my heart tender, just as a limb is tender that has
been Avounded ! I might have helped !"
" Ursel has visited the prison, with others ;
and the wants of both Fabricius and his wife
have not been neglected," he said.
But Mark did not stay long with me then.
Crowds were beginning to re-assemble in the
streets, groups of men looking dark and deter-
mined, and women talking eagerly — all hastening
towards the prison. As we listened from the
open window, we could hear them speaking
of the letters Fabricius had written from prison
to his friends, and even to the traitress, Long
Meg, full of forgiving, pious words.
Mark said : " This morning the sentence is to
be carried out ; and the day will hardly pass
without a riot. I, and all who love both the
Reformation and order, must be there ; for such
times always cast up many who profit by dis-
order, and we must not have the good cause
disgraced."
15*^
174 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
By degrees the streets became so quiet,
scarcely any one passed the window. The
whole of the unquiet elements of the unquiet
city had collected in the market-place. There,
Mark told me, the scene had been strange and
sad indeed when he passed, on his return from
the prison, in the early morning. The peasant
women, with their vegetable and fruit baskets,
had been turned back from the square ; and the
stalls of the noisy fishmongers, and sellers of
wares of all kinds, had been removed. And
when the dawn broke, the long shadows of the
tall many-gabled houses fell across an empty
space. Instead of the pleasant fragrance of the
fresh fruits and vegetables, and the cheerful,
eager talking of the women arranging their
wares, there was perfect silence in the empty
square, whilst a few men were quietly bringing
faggots to the middle of the clear space, and
laying them round the stake, from which hung
a chain. A few mounted soldiers Avere keeping
guard. But these did not speak.
In the Netherlands, it seems that the people
have never been brought to look on the Autos-da-
Fe^ as the festive occasions they have been made
in Spain.
When Mark returned only an hour afterwards,
all was changed. The market-place was no lon-
ger empty, but full of a heaving mass of citizens.
" The silence," he said, " was nearly as great as
before ; for scarcely any one spoke. But it was
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAKD. 1*75
like the silence before a peal of thundei*. All
faces were turned towards the street leading to
the prison."
Soon the soldiers came, and formed an avenue
for the monks, who followed with the prisoner.
But the crowd closed instantly behind them,
and pressed close around the sad procession.
They passed near Mark ; and Fabricius seeing
the threatening- aspect of the crowd, said, in a
calm, clear A'oice :
"My brethren, let none of you attempt to
release me ; but suffer God to accomplish His
work in me."
Then the multitude, pressing close on the pro-
cession, seemed for the time quieted ; and from
the whole vast assembly, instead of threats and
imprecations, burst forth the psalm :
" From the depths I have cried unto Thee, 0 Lord."
"When he approached the middle of the square,
(the progress being necessarily slow on account
of the throng,) the psalm ceased, and Fabricius'
voice was heard again, entreating the people not
to forget the truth he had taught them. Respon-
sive voices came from the crowd : " Fight man-
fully, brother; fight manfully ! Now is your time!"
The commander of the troo^) hearing this,
shouted to the soldiers, " Sieze them — kill them !"
and threatened to give the order to fire.
At the stake the martyr knelt down, and
would have prayed aloud, but the monks and
176 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND,-
giiards ATOuld not suffer him to sj^eak. Without
a minute's delay, the hangman chained him to
the stake, and fastened a rope round his neck.
Then some of the brethren in the crowd began
again to chant the Flemish version of Clement
Marot's Psalms ; but the halberdiers, knowing
too well the power of those solemn words,
sought to silence them with blows. The more
turbulent of the citizens returned the blows
with showers of stones ; and at length such au
irresistible rash was made towards the stake,
that monks, soldiers and halberdiers all fled as
best they could through the tumult.
Once more friends surrounded the martyr.
The chain was loosed, the rope unbound. But
it was too late. The hangman, ere he fled, had
struck him a blow on the head with a hatchet,
and plunged a dagger into his body ; and all the
tender entreaties of the friends, to whom he had
been so faithful, could not draw another word
from those lips. Yet some who stood near be-
fore the soldiers fled, and had seen the fatal
bloAV given, said the lips moved even after that
for a few moments, as if in prayer, until the
flames arose and hid his face from view.
They did not remove the body from the stake.
It remained in the market-place all day, and its
grave at last was the Scheldt. The river is his
monument, as a river was that of King Attila.
But if every j^lace in Flanders hallowed by a
martyr's death were to be set apart as conse-
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 117
crated ground, not a village' or a square but
would have its memorial. The whole land is
desecrated by murder, and consecrated by mar-
tyrdoms. If ever Protestants should deem it
good to hallow their temples with dust of mar-
tyred saints, I think they might safely take
almost any of the soil of this devoted land.
The tumult lasted two days. The next morn-
ing a crowd of angry citizens were gathered
round the door,s of the Town-Hall, reading a
placard, which had been secretly affixed there
in the night, announcing in letters written liter-
ally with blood, vengeance on the murderers of
Fabricius. Long Meg, the traitress, was barely
saved from summary punishment by taking
refuge in a house. But no further results fol-
lowed.
The cruelty of the Inquisitors, with Titelman,
the renegade, at their head, seemed to become
more daring and fiendish every day. Proces-
sions to the stake grew familiar as the festive
civic processions had been in the cities, and gib-
bets became as established an institution in the
villages as the church towers.
Horrible jests were repeated to us ; how the
common Prosecutor, Red-Rod, had said to the
Inquisitor Titelman :
" How do you accomplish your work so easily,
while I find so much difliculty in securing my
prisoners ?"
"It is quite simple," replied the Inquisitor;
178 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
"my ijrisoners are submissive, orderly people,
who do not make any resistance."
Then said the Prosecutor :
" Between us, Ave sliall make short work in
the land, if I hang all the bad, and you burn all
the good."
But on words such as these, and on the unut-
terable cruelties inflicted on the martyrs, we en-
deavoured not to dwell. They filled the heart
with such uncontrollable bitterness, or froze it
into such unnatural horror ; and if we were to
forgive, we must remember, as far as j^ossible,
that these persecutors were not demons, but
poor deluded, pitiable men, doing the Devil's
work, and too surely laying up for themselves
his wages. We tried to remember, that the
malignant spirit hated the persecutors as 'much
as the sufferers, and certainly injured them more,
since it is far worse to have the soul polluted and
torn with crime, than the body lacerated with
torture. But for this, we must have become in
heart as ferocious as the persecutors ; as, alas ! a
few Protestants who were not real Christians did.
With the heroic and patient words and deeds
of the martyrs it was otherwise. These were
their precious legacies to us. and many of the
most impressive exhortations at our secret meet-
ings for prayer and instruction consisted of those
sacred words.
Two or three of these sayings especially
dwelt in my memory.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 179
At the Hague, a man named John Gerrits
Keteler, after being terribly tortured, wrote that
he wished he could describe how he felt Avhen
on the rack ; " for the Word of God and my Sa-
viour's bitter sufferings for sinners made so deep
an impression on me, that I tliought of nothing
else."
Then there were the two friends at Tournay,
who had read the Bible together in childhood,
f attended the same meetings as youths, and
finally sealed their friendship and their faith in
the same prison and at the same stake..
There was the brave woman, who, on her way
to the scaffold, passed the prison where her hus-
band had been, and called to him, " Farewell,
my dear ! adieu ! I am going to another wed-
ding ;" not knowing that they had slain him
already. And so, with an intrepidity "that
shone in her eyes," she mounted the scaffold,
and was laid in the open coffin, where the execu-
tioner strangled her.
There was the maid-servant, who dressed her-
self for the scafibld as for a wedding. There
Avere many who spoke of "joy unspeakable" in
their hearts, when they were led out to die.
There was one who said his chains for Christ
were like " precious jewels." More than one on
tlie scafibld, or at the stake, declared that, could
they be raised and die again, they would do so
joyfully, "yea, a hundred times, for this Gospel
of Jesus Christ." More than one might have
180 TUE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
escaped from jirispn, and would not, because
they felt " ready to depart, and had no wish to
linger longer."
Yet there was no imitative infection in this
dying experience. Some confessed that they
looked back with tender longing to wife and
children, and " would have lived, if they could
without disloyalty to Christ ; for life was sweet."
And Peter Mioce said to his tormentors, " If
God had furnished me with an opportunity of
escaping, I would have made use of it, and kej)t
out of your hands ; yet, since I am fallen into
them, do with my body as you think fit. But
my soul is not in your power."
The memory of that old soldier martyred at
Mons was especially dear to us, who said, " I
have risked my life often for the Emperor ; and
shall I shrink from offering it now for my Sa-
viour ?"
As in Spain, more than one family was united
at the stake to be re-united for ever in heaven.
A father and mother and four sons suffered to-
gether at Lisle. When the father was arrested,
two of the sons, young boys, were absent ; but
as they returned home they met their father in
the hands of the officers of the Inquisition. The
two boys yielded themselves up also.
" Will you also go to the New Jerusalem ?"
the father asked.
"We will go," they said. And they have
gone.
THE LIBERATION OF IIOLLAIfD. 181
One young wife at Valenciennes, with a cruel
mercy, was respited for a time, after all dearest
to her on earth had been martyred.
" Ah, my lords !" she said, " I have languished
sufficiently. Why do you keep me any longer ?
I am strong enough, God be praised, to follow
my fjither, husband, and brother."
The delay of their reunion was not much
prolonged.
16
182 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
lY.
nm'm
BEFORE long, affairs in Antwerp returned to
their usual course. The Scheldt bore mer-
chant fleets on its bosom as proudly as if no
bones of martyrs lay beneath. The great market-
place was thronged every morning with peasant
women in their gay costume, spreading their
fresh fruits, and vegetables, and poultry ; and
good housekeepers bargained and gossiped
among the stalls as eagerly as if no martyr-fire
had ever been kindled there, and no martyr's
soul had mounted thence to heaven. Thousands
of merchants congregated twice every day in
the Exchange, and the business of that busy
commercial life went on as actively as ever ; at
least it seemed so to us, accustomed to a society
divided into nobles and peasants, where com-
merce might, indeed, be a necessity, but cer-
tainly could not be a glory.
Yet Mark used even then to say Antwerp was
a desert, compared with what he remembered
it, before the Inquisition came (as he said) like a
-thunder-cloud on all political life, and like a poi-
sonous malaria of distrust in every home.
To me, the ships on the Scheldt still were a
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 1S3
constant marvel, and the wagons of merchandise
tliat entered the gates ; and the palaces of the
great merchants in the long broad streets,
grand enough for the royal house of Castile and
Arraeron. Yet more than one of them, indeed,
was closed. And once, I remember, as we were
standing on one of the great quays, looking at
a fleet of merchant-ships just sailing up the river,
Mark turn.ed sorrowfully away, and said :
" They are all sailing the wrong way."
" How do you mean ?" I asked.
"Those ships are laden with Flemish silks
and cloths, the M'ork of Flemish weavers. But
they sail from English ports. Ten years since
they would have been laden at Antwerp, the
workmen would have formed part of our
strength, and the produce would have brought
wealth into our homes. But King Philip and
his priests have driven the industrious weavers
from our cities to enrich the ports of England.
The Reformed doctrine spread largely 'among
these skilled workmen, and many thousands
have emigrated already from this country to
Norwich and Sandwich in England, and to Rot-
terdam and Amsterdam in the Northern Prov-
inces. Antwerp is a doomed city, unless some
miracle turn the tide."
" Happy for our brethren to have found such
an asylum," I said.
" Yes," he replied ; " and happy for the coun-
try which welcomes them."
184 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND.
That evening, however, good news awaited
us. We received, at the house of John van
Broek, the joyful tidings that Cardinal Gran-
velle was recalled from the Government ; and
the next day all Antwerp was ringing with tlie
news of the fall of the hated minister.
This was in March, 1564. Throughout that
year hope seemed to rise again. It was reported
that the Duchess Margaret had quite changed in
her demeanour since the Cardinal's departure —
that she was " like a child set free from a peda-
gogue." " Was she not," the burghers said,
" the daughter of the Flemish Emperor Charles,
and was not her mother a Fleming ?" It was
said, moreover, that she began to treat the
Counts Egmont and Horn, the Prince of Orange,
and other friends of the old free institutions of
the country, with cordiality and confidence.
In January of the folloAving year still greater
hopes were excited by the mission of Count Eg-
mont to Madrid, to induce the King to respect
the ancient charters of the free cities, and to
moderate the edicts as^aiust the heretics.
People seemed to move about more freely.
Social festi\ities were ventured on. John van
Broek and Christina moved into their new house
in the market-place, which had been built for
some time ; and among us there were many
family gatherings. The house was magnificent,
with princely halls, corridors lined with pictures,
buflets loaded with plate ; but Christina's tastes
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 185
were rather for comfort than for high art or for
splendour. Her chief dehght in her new abode
was in her store-room and her own private room,
with the store cupboards, which were stocked
with all manner of dainties and luxuries, as if for a
siege — Spanish fruits, Italian confects, German
hams and sausages, preserved meats and fruits
— enough, it seemed to me, for a city or a life-
time. She opened every cupboard and drawer,
to show me the exquisite arrangement of her
treasures, and insisted on loading me with speci-
mens of her various goods ; and then she led mo
to her private sitting-room, carpeted throughout
with the richest Persian rugs, and furnished with
the softest cushioned seats of velvet and damask ;
whilst in one corner was a fmiteuil and a kneel-
ing-stool, before a table on which stood a Flem-
ish Bible, and in another a private entrance to
the linen closet, amidst whose snowy stores my
sister-in-law delighted to expatiate with her
maidens. Dolores and Ursel had not much pa-
tience with Christina. They thought her so
incomprehensibly bound in bondage to things.
But to me there was something that always
touched my heart in all this. It seemed like a
heart that had been baffled in its natural outlets,
trying to create foi' itself a world in the inani-
mate things around her, and calling the stores
of linen, and ranks of preserves, and costly fur-
niture, "Aome," in order that she might love
them.
16*
"186 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
She had been married early to a man much
older than herself, whose life was in the ex-
change ; and whose one mode of showing affec-
tion to her was in heaping her with costly-
presents, jewels, laces, carriages, until her life
seemed overwhelmed and buried in a multitude
of thincjs. Their only child, little Hansken, had
died young ; and after the brief interval of life
and love the short-lived nursery awoke, she had
relapsed into her old inanimate world. But I
could not forget the little chest where the dead
child's wardrobe lay, nor that the carved table
on which the Bible was placed contained, in a
secret draw^er, many tracts of Luther's — in
themselves, if discovered, a sentence of death.
I often tried to make her care more for oth-
ers. With the great world of suffering, strug-
gling men, and women, and children around
her, it seemed so dreary to be wasting the heart
on things winch could give nothing back. She
would do any thing I asked her. And, before
I asked, there was no lack of alms in her house.
Beggars and pensioners Avere fed daily from her
abundant kitchen ; blessings followed her when
she entered her chair to leave the house, which
she never did without bestow^ing money on
some petitioners. And, at my request, she even
accompanied Dolores to one of the hospitals.
But time could not often be spared from the
great household institutions for personal work j
her purse Avas opened, indeed, but her heart re-
THE LIBERATION OP IIOLLAKD. 187
mained uninterested ; and thus the people were
to her little better than things — a kind of reser-
voirs for alms.
At that time I used ofte» to disquiet myself
about remodelling people's lives, and try to be a
kind of providence to them — to my own May-
ken, for instance, or Dolores, or Christina. But
since then I have learned that, on the whole, the
best we can do for others is to pray, and to love,
and to seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ
ourselves, and trust to God's providence, and
not try to make a providence of our own.
Meantime, a true affection sprang up in Chris-
tina's heart, as I have said, for Mayken and me ;
and that, no doubt, was much.
All did not quite share the general hopeful-
ness. Ursel could not forget that Count Eg-
mont was a Catholic ; and the teaching of her
Huguenot pastors, trained to judge of coux'ts by
the perfidious policy of their Catharine de Medici,
made a solemn comment on the text, " Put not
your trust in princes." Dolores mournfully said,
" Cardinal Granvelle was not at Valladolid nor
at Seville, when our brethren were burned there."
And when Count Egmont returned, full of bril-
liant accounts of the affability of King Philip,
and of his cordial reception at Madrid, many
besides Mark began to ask, " But what has he
brought back for the country? Are the edicts
moderated or repealed ? Is the Inquisition abol-
ished ?" Indeed, I think most of us hoped, from
188 THE LIBBEATION OF HOLLAND.
the mere necessity of hoping. One weight was
removed, and, in proportion to the depression
of the past, people's sj^irits rose, scarcely ventur-
ing to speculate on the future. The thunder-
storm was over; and we sang just because the
air was lighter, without daring to look at that
part of the horizon where the great black masses
of lurid cloud were rolling up. Besides, who
could prophesy the course of storms ? The
slightest changes in some ixnseen current of up-
per air might turn them aside, mountains might
attract them elsewhere ; or, at the worst, have
there not been miracles before now ? Had not
the bells of one faithful church been known to
avert the thunderbolts ?
So, for a time, at Antwerp, the checked cur-
rent of life began to flow again. Enterprises
which had been deferred were undertaken.
Protestant merchants and workmen, who had
been intending to emigrate, paused, and recom-
menced their former occujDations. Some even
who had emigrated, returned.
Then, not stealthily like a j^estilence, stalking
in darkness, or like a storm in Winter, but like a
burning mountain, suddenly pouring out its
stream of fire over quiet fields and j^eaceful
homes, the terrible decision came from Spain.
The decrees of the Council of Trent were to
be enforced. The edicts of persecution were re-
published. The Inquisitors were confirmed in
their authority. King Philip " would rather
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 189
rule over a desert than over a nation of heretics."
Informers against heretics were to be rewarded
with part of the confiscated goods of the accused.
Those who knew of the existence of any heret-
ical opinion, or of the performance of any her-'
etical rite, and did not inform the Inquisitor,
were liable to the same punishment as the her-
etics themselves. All privileges, municipal or
aristocratic — all charters, were to be nullified,
by a decision of the Inquisition. One alteration
only was made. To deprive the heretics of all
" those hopes of glory which were a powerful
incentive to their impiety ;" and yet " without
making any deduction from their sufferings,
(which certainly was not the royal wish, nor
likely to be grateful to God, or salutary to relig-
ion,)" it was decreed, " that the condemned
should be executed secretly in prison, ignomiui-
ously bound, and then slowly suffocated in tubs
of water."
This was the thunderbolt which fell among us
one Summer morning at Antwerp, after all our
hopes. Our case, and that of all confirmed
Protestants, was plain, indeed ; but there was
not a man or woman in the city who might not
be condemned according to these edicts. Xo
Catholic, however bigoted, was safe, if he had
ever at any time held a controversy with a her-
etic, and had not betrayed him. No rich man
was safe who had an enemy who could intro-
duce a tract of Luther's into his house.
190 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAKD.
The edicts placed the whole country under
sentence of death, liable to be executed at any
moment, and only to be escaped by denouncing
others.
All hope of justice or mercy from the king
vanished. Suspense was over. All who could
abandon the country did. Protestant foreigners
fled precipitately along every road leading to the
ports. Industrious Flemish artisans might be
seen, with their wives and children, carrying what-
ever was i^ortable of their household furniture.
One morning Truyken came back, greatly dis-
gusted, fi'oni her expedition to procure food for
the family. The baker's shop was closed ; and,
on knocking, she could obtain no response, until
a neighbour looked out of an opposite Avindow,
and said, " You may knock till doomsday. They
sailed last night for England."
And that night Mark came back, looking tired
and worn.
" We cannot fulfill our contracts," he said.
" The master clothier on whom we were de-
pending says his best workmen have this Aveek
emigrated in a body, some for Norwich, some
for Sandwich, some for the Hanse Towns."
But hundreds and thousands could not leave,
or would not, and on these the edicts had an
effect very opposite to the intention of the au-
thor. Since no caution could save, caution
might as well be laid aside. Since suspicion
was as dangerous as guilt, concealment was use-
THE LIBERATION OE HOLLAND. 191
less. One cry of execration rose throughout the
land, not as an appeal to the king (that was felt
useless), but as a protest in the face of heaven.
As the Prince of Orange was said to have
whispered to one who sat next to him at the
council-board, " The curtain had opened on the
great traged)^," of which we, young when it
began, in our gray hairs are still watching its
development. ^
In the midst of all this terror and misery, two
great marriages Avere filling Brussels with festivi-
ties and splendour ; that of the yoimg ill-fated
Baron Montigny, and that of Alexander of Parma,
son of the Governess, the Duchess Margaret.
The festivities extended to Antwerp. Mayken
was delighted with the triumphal arches, the
illuminations, and the sculptures in sugar of all
the great personages concerned in the marriage,
which decorated the civic banquets. But, ex-
cept as reflected from the child's happy face, the
festival brought scarcely a gleam of pleasure to
us. Who could forget the abyss beneath ?
What interested us more was, that, on the
3d of November, the Prince of Parma's Avedding-
day, Francis Junius, the brave French Pefoi-med
pastor, was summoned to preach before a large
assembly of nobles at Culemborg House, in Brus-
sels, and was listened to with the deepest atten-
tion, before they proceeded to discuss certain
grave political projects. "For," as Mark said, "if
the politics failed, the Word of God never could."
192 THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND.
Y.
ONE evening, in January, 1566, we were sit-
ting, Dolores, Mark, and I, in the little sitting-
room which we had prepared for her, and which
had now become our fovourite resort when we
were alone. It looked very dilferent from its
aspect on the Summer-day when we had first
introduced Dolores to it. A Northern atmos-
phere of snugness and comfort had gradually
crept over it, and there was little in its appear-
ance now to remind us of sunny Spain. The
window, which looked, now over the white tei*-
race of snow-covered roof below to the ice-
bound Scheldt, had been closed early, that we
might open our hearts to the Northern sunshine
within. And of that there Avas plenty. Huge
logs from the pine forests flamed and crackled
on the hearth, and flickered on the heavy dra-
peries which curtained the window and door ;
and on the corner of the room, sacred to Mayken
and her toys, her piippets, and tiny cart, and all
her miniature world, surmounted by her bright-
winged bird, brought for her by a sailor, from
the Indies, as a grateful remembrance for some
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 193
kindness rendered him by Mark. Dolores was
seated on a high-backed chair on one side of the
fire, embroidering, Mark and I were leaning
over a table near, reading the Confession of
Faith of the Reformed in the Netherlands (first
published three years before, in 1563), and to be
revised and republished this year. At the end
of it was a letter to the King of Spain. We
knew the eloquent words well, yet it stirred our
hearts to read them again. The brethren, in
those pages, " protested, before God and his
angels, that they had not the least intention to
raise np tumults and riots, but only to reform
themselves according to the Word of God ; that
the excommunications, banishments, racks and
tortures they had suffered, proved that their de-
sires were not carnal ; forasmuch as many of
them might have been much more easy according
to the flesh, if they had not embraced those doc-
trines ; but that, having the fear of God before
their eyes, and being terrified with the threaten-
ing of Christ, who had declared in his Gospel,
that if they denied Tlim before men. He would
deny them before God the Father, they, there-
fore offered their backs to stripes, and their
tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and
their whole bodies to the fire ; knowing that
such as will follow Christ must take their cross,
and deny themselves. They did not only pro-
fess the principal articles of the Christian relig-
ion contained in the Symbolum, or Communion
17
194 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
Creed, but the whole doctrine revealed by Jesus
Christ for oi;r justification and salvation, preached
by the evangelists and apostles, sealed with the
blood of so many martyrs, and preserved pure
and entire by the primitive churches, till at length
it became corrujDted by the ignorance, ambition
and covetousness of the clergy, and by human
additions and inventions." We had just come
to the conclusion : " We bless God that even our
enemies themselves are forced to bear witness to
the integrity of our lives and manners, insomuch
that it is a common saying with them, ' He does
not swear ; he is a Lutheran ;' ' He does not live
riotously, nor drink ; he is of the new sect !'
And yet, notwithstanding so honourable a testi-
mony, no kind of torments are forgotten in the
punishing of us ;" — when we heard a strange
voice talking loud in the passage, responded to
in very gentle tones by Truyken. Those were
not days when imexpected visits could be wel-
comed unrestrainedly, and Mark rose and hastily
hid the dangerous document in a cupboard by
the chimney. Then the door opened, and Truy-
ken appeared with a letter.
" It is a gentleman below, who says he has
business of importance Avith the master, and
talks big of great names — Count Louis of Nas-
sau, Brederode, and other great nobles. But
the times are perilous, and politics are safer, to
my thinking, in the council-chamber than at the
hearth."
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 195
"It is all right, Truyken. I will bring the
stranger up myself," said Mark, leaving the
room.
" Where nothing is told, nothing can be re-
told," muttered Truyken sententiously, laying
violent hands on a large Bible which lay on the
table, and disappearing with it.
There was nothing very reassuring in the
stranger's aspect, when Mark returned with him,
and introduced him to us. A black Spanish
doublet, puiFed hose and sleeves, a short court-
ier's cloak, a velvet Milan bonnet, and a long
rapier ; these breathed of a courtly atmosphere,
not favourable to us and our heretic kind. The
gay, frank manner, and the candid, friendly
smile, disarmed suspicion, but did not exactly
command confidence.
Mark introduced him to us as the Seigneur
de Clairvaux.
" The ladies are not Flemish," he said, bowing
low,
" My wife is Spanish," replied Mark ; " and
this lady is her sister."
" You come from the paradise of the Catho-
lics," remarked the stranger, "a paradise guarded
by many flaming swords."
" You need not be afraid," said Mark, " to
open your commission m our presence. We
are of one mind here."
" We are no rebels against the Church, ladies,"
continued the stranger, persisting in taking our
196 THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
orthodoxy for granted. " The old charters of
the land, the old privileges of our order, the
old faith of our fathers, tliat is all we want.
Only, if people are to burn in the next world
for their heresies, we think they might be spared
in this. Count Egmont, we believe, wishes us
well. Yet Egmont is a fervent Catholic, and
his wife, they say, the most devout of ladies.
Viscount Brederode, one of the chiefs of our
confederation, has not, perhaps, much to boast
of in the way of religion ; but he is as impartial
in his indifference, as the Prince of Orange in
his tolerance. The gallant Count Louis of Nas-
sau is indeed of a Lutheran family ; but our
aims are national not religious. We will not
suffer any murderous Papal Inquisitors to devas-
tate our cities and villages. We want Flemish,
charters observed, and Flemish nobles respected.
We do not want to see foreign priests ruling in
our castles, or foreign soldiers commanding in
court and camp. It is as a scion of the ancient
house of Rosevelt that I have ventured, sir, to
address you, and to enlist your sympathies in
our cause."
Mark smiled.
" My little watch-tower on the marshes of
Holland, has procured me a great honour," he
said. " Has the Prince of Orange joined your
confederation ?"
" No, there are some names like his, Egmont's
and Horn's, greater alone. But his brother
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 197
Count Louis is witli us, and Count Charles of
Mansfeldt and St. Alde^onde. You can see tlie
signatures," lie said, seating himself at the table
from which we had just swept the Confession
of the Reformed, and unrolling a parchment
with numerous noble and knightly signatures ;
" we only wish you to affix your name to this."
Rapidly Mark read through the protest aloud.
There were glowing words against tyranny, and
in favour of religious freedom. The king was
appealed to with many loyal expressions ; and
all the misery of the country was represented
as proceeding from the Inquisition, which was
stigmatized in strong words as " iniquitous, con-
trary to all laws, human and divine, surpassing
the greatest barbarism ever practised by tyrants,
and redounding to the dishonour of God, and
the total desolation of the country."
" Thank God !" Dolores exclaimed, when he
had finished reading ; " that the nobles of this
land are at last rising to their place as leaders
of the people, and that the truth is told by
other voices' than those of weavers and peasants."
(It was long before Dolores would trust any
movement springing from below, as the Dutch
Reformation for the most part did.)
The young Seigneur turned to her with great
respect.
" The lady expresses exactly what we feel,"
he said, eagerly. " We are a confederation of
nobles. Hitherto it has been au affair between
198 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
a mob of well-meaning but low-born artisans
and peasants, and the priests. Now it is an
affair between the Spanish courtiers of the king,
who know nothing of our Flemish customs, and
his Majesty's loyal Flemish nobles, who will by
no means suffer our ancient rights to be trampled
under foot. That is quite another thing. The
poor honest weavers could and did die coura-
geously for their convictions ; but we are not con-
tending for new convictions, but for solid estab-
lished rights, and we can fight and win as well
as die."
" Did you say fight ?" asked Mark, quietly,
" Against whom ?"
" We are loyal knights and barons of King
Philip," said the young Seigneur, twirling his
long moustache, " but knights and barons have
rights as well as Icings."
" And weavers," observed Mark.
" And weavers," responded the stranger, look-
ing doubtfully at my husband. " Yes, peasants
and artisans have rights ; at least we ha,ve the
right to defend them from wrong. And burgh-
ers, Flemish burghers, Antwerp merchants, have
even charters. We will protect all."
" If I sign," said Mark, " it must be as an
Antwerp burgher, rather than as a Flemish
noble. Your objects seem plain ; but what are
the means by which you purpose to obtaui
them ?"
" Petitions, sir ; protests and petitions. We
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 199
mean to overwlielm the duchess and the kmg
with petitions from every city and every condi-
tion in the land."
" And if the king will not yield ?"
" The king mvst yield, sir."
"I see," replied Mark. "If the king will
not yield, he must. That is, if petitions fail,
rebellion remains."
" It is not rebellion," replied the young Seig-
neur, " to insist on the performance of oaths
which the king has taken, and on the observance
of charters older than the titles or title-deeds
of his royal house."
" I think not," replied Mark, quietly.
The young man was encouraged, and opened
his heart more fully. " If Flanders were once
more for the Flemings, would any one be
wronged ?" he said. " Things which have a
beginning must have an ending. There are old
men among us who saw the first of foreign
domination among us. There may be young
men among us who will see the last of it."
" Possibly," said Mark, with that quiet man-
ner of his which to others seemed at times so
cold, but to me meant so much. " But you
will perhaps not mention these further inten-
tions in your petition to the Duchess Margaret ?
Ladies are easily scandalized, and sometimes,
it is said, more easily with words than with
deeds."
The young Seigneur laughed.
200 THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
" She may be scandalized by both ere long,"
he said ; " bnt you will sign ?"
" I would not have my name absent from any
protest against the great confederacy of plunder
and murder which, in the name of religion, is
desolating our country," he replied. And he
signed the document called the Compromise,
" Mark van Rosevelt, cloth-merchant, Antwerp."
" Seigneur," he said, then rising, and laying
his hand on the young man's arm., " times are
before us which no pride of order, or gaiety of
nature, will carry us through. I believe that
protest will lead further than you think, and
therefore I sign it. This is a contest, believe
me, for faith, and not for charters ; and nothing
but faith, the faith of the Bible, will carry a
man through it. We begin under one banner,
but with a different faitli. I believe you will
one day either desert our banner or embrace
ovir faith."
" Desert our banner ? Never !" repHed the
Seigneur de Clair vaux. " Embrace your faith ?
Scarcely, if you are indeed Lutherans. My
family has been too long on the other side."
Dolores interposed.
" Seuor," she said, " nobles of the purest
blood of Spain have embraced this new faith,
and gloried in dying for it."
" I have heard so," he replied ; " but my life
has been in camps, and we learn perhaps there
to think too lightly of these things. However,"
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 201
he added, gaily, " I have a mother and a young
sister, as devout as any saint in the calendar,
and they pray for me constantly, so that I trust
all will be well."
" Will you stay while we have our evening
readinof of the Bible ?" asked Mark.
A perj)lexed loo^ came over the young man's
face. "J have not much experience of grave
books," he said, " and my mother and sister's
priests have warned me against that one espe-
cially, unless it is in Latin."
" "We will read it in Latin, if you like," said
Mark.
The young Seigneur laughed. " That would
cei'tainly do me no harm," he said. " My brother
has the family living, and he used to do my
Latin for me at the college."
" Your brother's learning it has not then
taught you Latin," observed Mark, dryly.
" Hardly," was the laughing reply ; " but it
has saved me from punishment."
" If you had important secret business at
Rome, and could only communicate with the
cardinals in Latin, you would perhaps wish you
had endured the punishment, and learned the
Latin in your own person."
" Perhaps," was the reply. '
" I was only thinking," said Mark, " since
vicarious studies do not seem to teach Latin,
whether you have found vicarious piety teach
you holiness. If prayer is the language of the
202 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
court of heaven, may you not wish one day you
had learned it for yourself?"
The stranger looked grave.
" And if so," continued Mark, " perhaps it
might help you to hear what our blessed Saviour
himself taught about prayer."
We all sat down. The Flemish Testament
was taken, and Mark read part of the 13th, 14th,
16th and 17th chapters of St. John.
The young Seigneur listened with the most
unfeigned attention. When Mark paused, he
said:
" Is that what the heretics — what you read in
vour assemblies ?"
" Such words as those. God's words."
" They go singularly to tl^ heart."
" Certainly. God made the heart, and sees it.
We will ask him to teach us."
And before he could consider, we were all on
our knees, as so often before and since, around
the great Flemish Testament, by that fireside.
When we rose, the Seigneur de Clairvaux
said, after a considerable silence, " Is that the
way you pray in your meetings ?"
" We pray from the heart," Mai'k replied.
De Clairvaux said no more ; but as he was
leaving the room, he turned, Avith a frank, kindly
smile, which lighted up all his face, to Dolores
and me, and said :
" I am glad I stayed. And perhaps you will
all, if ever you think of me, sometimes mention
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 203
my name in these clevotions of yours. We are
not of the same religion, you know ; but I feel
sure it would help me, and I think my mother
could not object."
I said afterwards to Mark, " You were hum-
ble in your signature !"
" Hardly," he replied, smiling; "to my Dutch
imagination, a fleet of ships at sea, an army of
artisans in pay, such as obey the great cloth-
merchants at Antwerp, is more a subject of
pride than a ruinous old tower in Holland, with
the glorious distinction that my ancestors lived
in it for some centuries, and did nothing to dis-
tinguish themselves."
Three months afterwards, when the Scheldt
was unbound from'its fetters of ice, when ships
and swallows began to come and go, on the 5th
April, 1556, Counts Culemburg, Van den Berg,
and Louis of Nassau, and Viscount Brederode
assembled in the great square of the horse-
market at Brussels, before the Culemburg man-
sion, with three hundred confederate nobles and
knights. Almost all were young, and of ancient
houses, blending the hope and vigour of youth
with the grave weight and solidity of ancestral
centuries. They marched along the great street
to the palace of the Duchess Margaret. There
a great crowd had met to welcome and cheer
them on, as the deliverers of their country.
The Duchess was not so much pleased. Seated
on her chair of state, she received them with
204 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
evident agitation, which did not diminish as the
Compromise or Petition was read aloud. Tears
rolled down her face, not at any time remarkable
for its feminine exj^ression. They were tears of
mortification and fear. Nevertheless, as one by
one the young nobles made their courtly bow in
retiring from her presence, through her tears she
contrived to observe many whose presence on
that day was never forgiven.
As they were departing. Count Barlaymont,
one of thfe most bigoted of her counsellors, is
said to have exclaimed :
" What ! is your highness afraid of these beg-
gars, these gueux P
The derisive epithet of the great noble was
overheard, and proudly ado^Dted by the lesser
nobles, who constituted the confederacy.
"When next we saw our visitor, the Seigneur
de Clairvaux, his courtly dress was exchanged
for a sober suit of gray, gray doublet and hose
of the coarsest materials ; a felt hat clasped with
a rude copper medal, for the plumed bonnet ; a
beggar's pouch and bowl by his side.
And throughout that Summer Antwerj) echoed
with the ci^, "Vivent les Gueux!" sounded in
all tones and voices, from the fierce, hoai'se cries
of the turbulent mobs, to the merry shouts of
little boys parading the streets with their minia-
ture bowls and wallets.
A pax-ty name, a party cry, a party badge had
been found.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 205
But, Mark said, true and deep changes began
from within, and time Avould show who were
ready to be really beggared for the good cause.
Yet it was impossible not to hope, with Spring
and Summer opening the countless leaves of the
trees around us, and the power of new life bring-
ing freshness into every dingy court of the city
in which sprang a blade of grass ; and our May-
ken, our perpetual May, in the house. Could all
the power of life we saw around us in these
young nobles, these enterprising merchants,
these bold burghers, be crushed by the wintry,
icy will of one man in his palace hundreds of
miles aw^ay in Spain ?
Would the King, noi afar off, on His throne
in heaven, suffer it ?
That was the great hope, after all, and it never
fails.
Only His ways are not our ways, and until we
see them spread below us from the heights above,
with Him to interpret them to us, we shall never
understand them all.
18
206 TUE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
YI.
IflDSUMMER-DAY, 1566, is a day we often
J-'J- speak of. In the first place, it was Mayken's
fifth birth.-day ; and which of us can forget the
wonder and delight in her bright little face,
when she came into Doloi'es' room that morning,
and found her toy-world converted into a bower
of roses, in Avhich her bird, with its bright
emerald plumage, seemed quite at home ; while
several new puppets, dressed some as Andalu-
sian peasants, with velvet jackets and bright
petticoats, some as Spanish court-ladies, and
some as Flemish or Dutch burgher- women, kept
court among the flowers.
Dolores and Ursel always insisted that there
never was childish beauty like Mayken's. I
hardly think that ; her features were not regular
enough. But I must say, when her little face was
flushed with pleasure, as it was on that Midsum-
mer morning, and her blue eyes, usually so earnest,
sjjarkled as if the light came through them from
a sunny world within, and the sweet lips quiv-
ered with pleasure, it made any one happy to
look at her.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 207
Her great delight, however, that day, was to
take a little basket of clothes, and toys, and flow-
ers, to a little child who lived near us. It took
her some time to select all the most fragrant
flowers she could find; and it was a serious
affair to decide what toys she could spare, be-
cause to Mayken the old toys had, in the course
of her short life become invested with associa-
tions Avhich no one else could appreciate, but
which made parting hard ; and the new toys
coidd not always be given away, out of respect
to the donors. At length, however, we started,
Mayken insisting on the privilege of carrying
the basket. It was a great pleasure to see the
delight of the poor crippled child at the unex-
pected gift; and we had to stay some time that
Mayken might initiate her into the meaning and
use of the various toys, and the position they
occupied in their toy-world.
By the time we reached home, I found Mark
waiting, with a donkey ready caparisoned, at
the door, his birth-day gift to the child. Two
saddled mules stood beside it.
" Come at once, Costanza," he said. " There
is not a moment to be lost. We are all going
to the great preaching at the lord of Berchem's
wood."
In a few minutes we were dressed, and on
our way. The streets were thronged with
people, all in full holiday attire ; for it Avas St.
John's Tide ; and those who were too aged or
208 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
infirm to move about, sat at the doors of their
houses, commenting on the passers by. As we
passed John van Broek's great house in the
market, I said :
" Let us ask Christina to come."
Ursel, who was with us, smiled, and said,
" You can try."
I ran up to her private room, and Ursel fol-
lowed.
" My dear child," she said, " you quite startled .
me. I scarcely see how it is possible. Besides,
is not the preacher a French Calvinist ?"
" He is a Protestant Christian," I said, " like
Fabricius."
" But it is such an inconvenient day. It is
the very morning I had arranged with my house-
keeper to look over the preserves ; and, in a
large household, if things are not done at the
appointed time, it is astonishing how long it
takes before order is restored. And, besides, I
am not very strong. Last night I sneezed four
times ; and John said — "
"Christina," interposed Ursel, impatiently,
" the King of Spain will not wait till your pre-
serves are finished, to execute his edicts. Who
knows when there may be another public preach-
ing !"
" Ursel never can imderstand the responsibili-
ties and duties of a household," said Christina,
appealing to me.
But I took her hands and said —
THE LIBERATIOIS- OP HOLLAND. 209
" You are risking life and all every day you
keep that Bible in this room. You share our
danger. Do come and share with us the joy
of the good tidings."
" But how am I to go ?" she said, relenting.
" I cannot walk."
" I can walk, thank God," said Ursel. " You
shall ride my mule."
And Christina came.
Mark was pleased, and Mayken clapped her
hands in welcome. Ursel walked with Mark,
rather rejoicing in the sacrifice ; and we started.
The streets were full of people. Burgher
fathers and mothers gravely marching before a
train of children, all dressed in quaint miniatures
of their parents' costume, and copying closely
their parents' demeanour. Groups of appren-
tices of the various trades flinging jokes on all
sides, or walking silent with their sweethearts.
Old men were willingly led to the various shows
by little eager children like Mayken. Of shows
there were plenty. In one place, French dogs
were dancing ; in another, there was a bear
baited, or a riding at the Quintain ; in another,
a "true Spanish bull-fight" was announced, with
a matador from Seville. All languages were
spoken around us, and costumes of all nations
met our eye ; but among all the rich velvet
doublets, gay hose, and dainty slippers, gold
chains and plumed bonnets, the most j^opular
costume evidently was the coarse gray doublet
18*
210 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
and hose, and the felt hat of the Gueux. Where-
ever this appeared, shouts or murmurs arose
from the crowd of " Vivent les Gueux !" They
indicated too plainly what a volcano smouldered
under all these festivities.
We thought the crowd would diminish when
we left the city-gates, and we should be able to
pursue our way in peace.
At first, however, the road outside the gates
seemed almost as much thronged as the streets
within. Many, no doubt, were going to the
various summer-houses and pleasure-gardens in
the neighbourhood ; but as the pleasure-gardens
were left behind, the road still was thronged.
The travellers, however, seemed of a diiferent
order. The variety of costume, rank, and age
was the same ; but they were no longer saunter-
ers, pausing to exchange a jest with all who
were so inclined. All were going in one direc-
tion, and with the steady pace of men who had
a purjiose.
At the entrance of the wood we were chal-
lenged by armed men on horseback ; but seeing
Mark, they readily let us pass. We were glad
to leave the dusty road for the Avood of the
lord of Berchem, where the preaching was to
be. It was very pleasant to enter under the
sheltering shade of the tall old trees, Mayken's
delight at the wild flowers, the briar-roses,
honey-suckles, and wild convolvulus, which gar-
landed the branches, was unbounded.
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 211
At last the avenue through which we had
been riduig opened out, and in a large grassy
clearing of the wood we saw a vast multitude
already assembled. In the centre was erecte'd
a rude pulpit, formed of planks laid on a wag-
on, but the preacher had not yet mounted it.
The women were, for the most part, collected
in the centre, around the pulpit, for safety.
Around stood and sat, or moved about in groups,
a cordon of earnest, determined-looking men.
There were no barricades of wagons on this
occasion, as was usual. The surrounding wood
was deemed sufficient fortification. But at every
broad avenue, even at every narrow Avoodman's
path, armed men Avere stationed, whose swords,
daggers, pistols, or muskets, gleamed strangely
amidst that peaceful scene ; peaceful, indeed, to
the eye, but environed with perils. Every man
and woman, by the act of coming there, placed
themselves under sentence of death ; death by
any torturing method that the ingenuity of the
inquisitors could devise. And all knew it.
There was little danger of levity or slumber in
that congregation.
The greater number were sitting silent and
still, but some were talking in low gi'ave tones.
These meetings had not long been ventured
on. The first had been held in West Flanders
on the 14th of June, only ten days before. The
preacher who had dared to preach the first open-
air sermon was Herman Striker, or Modet, once
212 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
a monk, but now a Reformed preacher at Oude-
narde. The scout, or sheriff of Gentbrug, had
endeavoured to arrest the minister, and disperse
the assembly ; but Herman Modet had escaped
into a neighbouring wood, and the people,
although only armed with sticks and staves,
had driven off the sheriff.
But the great subject of conversation was the
meeting held only the day before in a meadow
near Ghent, barricaded with wagons, and
guarded by armed sentinels. Here Herman
Modet had preached to many thousands, and a
child had been baptized with water from a neigh-
bouring brook.
The sermon on that Midsummer day was to
be in "Walloon, and the preacher a French C^
vinist, either Francis Junius, pastor of the secret
French Church at Antwerp, or Peregrine de la
Gransre. La Grantee and Junius were both men
of noble French families — Junius from Bourges,
and La Grange of the old Proven5al blood,, with
the old Provencal fire in his heart, in a nobler
cause than that of Crusader or Troubadour.
He used to ride to the preaching like his ances-
tors to the battle, and call the attention of bis
audience by a pistol-shot ; and certainly the ser-
mon to him was as perilous as the battle to
them.
Our little party preferred to remain at the
edge of the congregation, under the shade of the
great trees. The mules were fastened to the
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 213
trees, and before the service began, Mayken wag '
among them, filling her arms with flowers.
That day was quite an era to her, in her way.
Henceforth in her dreams and jolays she was
always among the great trees ; and wonderful
were the narratives of forest-life, of the birds,
flowers, and insects, told to her little crij^pled
playmate on our return. She had her own ser-
mon that Summer day, if it was not the same as
ours.
It was a scene never to forget. The wood-
hind quiet scarcely broken by the presence of
these waiting thousands, so that the little brook
which flowed near, and the occasional songs of
birds, deep in the wood, could be heard dis-
tinctly. The women were seated in the midst,
the men outside, and amongst them hawkers of
religious books, all prohibited by the Inquisition,
silently moved in and out, not noisily commend-
ing their wares, but disposing of them silently
to eager purchasers ; for every book thus eagerly
bought was a warrant of arrest. Nothing in-
terested me more than watching these men, as
they were welcomed by group after group, and
left the happy purchaser earnestly bending over
the new treasure — some commentary of Luther
or Calvin, or better still some portion of the Sa-
cred Scriptures themselves, then first obtained.
Poor peasants bought them, to whom the price
must have involved many a scanty meal ; rich
burgher traders, to whom their possession was a.
214 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
legal confiscation of all their wealth. But the
price of these forbidden books might have to be
paid, not in gold or silver, but with life ; and
sellei' and buyer knew it, and knew also that at
that price the truth in them was not dearly-
bought.
I could not help offering many a prayer, as
book after book was bought, and read silently,
or in low tones, to eager listening groups, that
God might speak their precious words to the
heart.
At length there was a silence. Every mur-
mur and conversation was hushed. Mayken
was recalled from her wanderings, and seated on
my knee. The preacher mounted the pulpit,
and the verse of one of Clement Marot's Psalms
was given out. Before it was read through,
liowever, a cry came from the outskirts of the
crowd, from some of the armed sentinels :
" The militia are upon us."
The women clustered closer together, the men
formed in ranks and made ready their arms,
whilst from the whole multitude broke the
reply :
" Let them come. We are ready for them."
It was a false alarm. No enemy appeared,
and in a few moments the preacher calmly re-
commenced reading the psalm. Only one verse
was read. Most of those present knew it by
heart. And then from the four or five thousand
present burst forth a psalm such as I never ex-
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 215
pect to hear again. Slow, grave, and solemn,
deep as an organ in the great Antwerp Cathe-
dral ; yet to comjDare that burst of living music
to any product of strings and pipes would be a
profanation ! Every voice steady with deter-
mination, thrilling with emotion, it was a song
of ])raise and confidence soaring to heaven ; but
it was also a battle-song, sung perhaps in the
hearing of mortal foes. It was such a song as
Israel sang by the Red Sea, or rather such a song
as the army of Jehoshaphat sang before the battle
— a song before which the enemy fled as from a
charge — for our victory was not yet gained. In
one sense, indeed, it was gained, and all our
hymns, since Calvary, may be songs of triumph,
but the pathos of poor trembling human hearts
mingled with the glowing tones of trust and
praise, hearts that must separate from this in-
spiring concourse to fight out the fight in unde-
fended homes, and perhaps in solitary prison
chambers.
The last note of the hymn died away, and
then, on the silence of that Midsummer noon,
in the forest stirred by light Summer winds,
arose the one voice in prayer, low at first, but
swelling, deepening with emotion, as low, quiet
sobs responded to it here and there among the
crowd. All stood during the singing ; during
the prayer many knelt. The prayer was not
long. Its range lay princii^ally between to-day
and heaven ; remembering the brethren who too
216 THE LIBEEATIO^T OF HOLLAND.
certainly lay in close dungeons on that Midsum-
mer noon, tlirongbout the once free Flemish
land, the martyrs who might too probably be on
the rack, or at the stake, whilst we prayed in the
great forest ; the i^ersecutors who were heaping
np misery on earth, perhaps, for us, and for
themselves too certainly misery unutterable when
the Judge should come, the Judge of unjust
judges, the King of kings. Amongst ns, j^er-
haps, now adoring God thus at the risk of life,
were some who had once thought it doing God
service to slay His children ; the hearts of others
might be changed as much and as easily. He
prayed God to do it. There were few amongst
ns, I think, who did not rise from that prayer
with the feeling that all life is but to-day, but a
Summer's day ; and to-morrow the morrow on
which God and not man will judge — eternity.
Then came the sermon, the closely-reasoned
commentary on the text, the hopes and fears
springing from it ; the appeal to the power of
God, before which man is nothing, and the love
of God, to which every man, woman and child
there was so precious.
Mayken sat on my knee. The psalm had
quite overcome her, but soon her tears had stop-
peel, and then before long she had fallen asleep,
with her hands wreathing her flowers. But
when, towards the close, his voice grew deep
and low with feeling, and the silence became
more intense, as he spoke of Jesus having borne
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 217
our sins on the cross, and borne tliem away, and
having power on earth now to forgive sins, I
saw her large earnest eyes fixed on him, as she
lay with her head on my shoulder, and her lips
murmured the sacred Name, as if she under-
stood.
In concluding, he read to us the 11th of He-
brews, and at the end of it he said :
" The list is not closed yet.
"This Spring, when these leaves, now rust-
ling above you in the Summer noon, were one
by one bursting their wintry prisons, and ex-
panding in the pleasant sunshine, some dear to
God were bursting the prison w^alls of this poor
earth, passing into the sunshine of His presence.
" The hand which broke their fetters of flesh
was no gentle one ; but beloved, it set them free.
At Lisle, this Spring, were burnt, by King
Philip's Inquisitors, Martin Bayert, Claudius du
Flot, John Dautricourt, and Noel Tournemine.
Remember their names. You will hear them
again in the face of heaven and earth, of kings
and Inquisitors, from the lips of the Judge of all.
Noel Tournemine was but a youth, and for him
there was a sorer trial even than the flames.
His father pressed through the crowd as the four
martyrs were being led to the stake, and fell on
his son's neck, kissing and embracing him, and
cried, ' My dear child, are you going to die
thus ?'
"The young man answered at first with a
19
218 • THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
Steady voice, 'It is a small matter, my father ;
for noAV I am hasting to live for ever.'
" But as the father wept and groaned, and
clung to him, the yoiith's firmness gave way,
and he also wejit; and turning to the clergy
who were with him, urging him to recant, he
said :
" ' Oh, ye priests and friars ! if we could have
been prevailed on to go to your mass, we had not
been here now. But Christ Jesus has not insti-
tuted any such sacrifice.'
" Then his father was taken from him, and the
four went on to the place of execution. At the
stake, they sang with one voice the verse, ' The
Lord is my light and my salvation : whom shall
I fear ? The Lord is the strength of my life : of
whom shall I be afraid?' And then the Song
of Simeon, ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace.' And so their singing and their
life ended together."
" Beloved," the preacher continued, " let us not
deceive ourselves. The Lord does not for us
quench the violence of fire, as for the three chil-
dren of old ; nor does our faith quench the agony
of parting. We follow a Master who suffered
as none else ever sufiered, because (partly at
least, because) He loved as none else ever loved.
Likeness to Him does not steel the heart. Near-
ness to Him does not extinguish the flames.
The heart may be torn with anguish, and the
body may writhe in torture. Let us not deceive
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 219
ourselves. He has not promised us exemption
from tribulation and pain. But, beloved, He has
promised to be with us. This is our own promise.
Not, ' Ye shall never hunger,' but, ' I, the bread
of life, will not forsake thee.' Not, 'Ye shall
never be shut up in noisome dimgeons,' but ' I
will never leave thee.' Not, ' The fire shall not
kindle upon thee,' but ' I will be with thee in the
furnace.' Brethren, is this promise enough for
you ? I can ofler you, truly, none beside. I
could tell you, indeed, of some to whom the very
fire has caused little pain ; of one John Tiskan,
a tapestry weaver at Oudenarde, where our
Duchess Margaret was born, who seized the
mass-bread from the priest's hands, and crumbled
it in his fingers, to show the people it was bread,
and not God — a young enthusiastic disciple of
twenty-two. They sentenced him to lose the
offending hand, and be burned slowly to death.
But in a quarter of an hour, his sufferings were
over ; and think, brethren, of his welcome in
heaven. Think of the mockings of cruel men
here. Think of the ' Come, ye blessed' — of the
welcoming song of angels. Think of them ?
Can we not almost hear them still? Their
echoes have scarcely died away in heaven ; for
this was on the 8th of June. A fortnight and
two days since! Beloved, he has learned but
little of Paradise yet ; and yet I think that fort-
night may outweigh the quarter of an hour in
the flames. But I do not promise you only a
220 THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND.
quarter of an hour of suffering. I have no such
commission. It may be hours. It may be re-
newed, as the poor worn frame can bear it, dur-
ing many years. Count the cost carefully. But,
afterwards, can you count the reward ? A
quarter of an hour to a fortnight!" — he con-
tinued slowly, as if computing. " We can count
that ; but who can measure the proportion be-
tween twenty, thirty, seventy years of suffering,
and an eternity with Christ ?
" Nor can I tell you," he proceeded, " what
deeds the Inquisitors may consider sufficient to
merit the doom of the vilest criminal. This
year, John Cornelius Winter, formerly pastor of
the Great Church at Horn, was sentenced to the
axe, after a long imprisonment, because he had
translated the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles'
Creed, and several passages and sentences of the
Holy Scriptures into Dutch, to teach them to the
little children of the school, and other imiorant
persons. And this year he laid his head cheer-
fully on the block. On the scaffold the aged
l^riest sang the Te Deum in Latin ; and it was
observed that when he came to the words, ' The
noble army of martyrs praise thee,' his head Avas
separated from his body. ' Praise Thee ! praise
Thee !' His language could have needed little
change,, as he took his place among the noble
army above !
" You see, the glorious catalogue, the muster-
roll of that noble army, is not closed yet. Which
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 221
of our names will swell it ? Still our brethren
are bearing trial of cruel mockings, of bonds
and imprisonment, of fires whose violence has
not for them been quenched. The ages that
have passed since the apostle wrote, and was
martyred, have not lessened the malice of the
enemy ; but they have, alas ! increased his inge-
nuity. The deaths inflicted are more cruel, the
pretexts more false ; escape is more hopeless.
The first Christians were persecuted as Chris-
tians ; our brethren now are called apostates,
and persecuted in the name of Christ. But the
enemy is the same. It is the great enemy of
God and man, the accuser of the brethren, who,
through the lips of informers and Inquisitors, is
accusing our brethren now. It is he who was a
liar from the beginning who is deluding these
poor idolaters blasphemously to adore the im-
ages of the saints, while they murderously destroy
the image of God in His living saints. It is he
who was a murderer from the beginning who,
through the feeble hands of monks and princes,
is murdering our brethren now. Woe, woe, not
to us, but to them ; for Satan does not cast
away his instruments when they have served his
purpose. He has wages in store for them, and
they will be paid to the last farthing ; or rather,
they will never be paid. The dreadful debt will
never be Hquidated. Those fires, which need no
faggots to feed them, will never be quenched.
Weep not for the martyrs, for the victors, for
222 THE LIBERATION" OP HOLLAND.
the crowned. Weep for the Inquisitors, for those
who, when death comes, have nothing but a
painted image, or a poor priest's word, or an in-
dulgence from the Pope, to fix their dying
eyes on. Weep for them, and pray. Pray that,
while there is yet time, they may look to that
living Saviour, crucified for them and for us,
who, when images, and priestly absolutions, and
papal indulgences, and kings, and popes, and
Rome, and the world itself, have crumbled into
dust, is able to raise the bodies of His saints
from dungeons and river beds, and to gather
their ashes from the air, and to fashion them like
unto His glorious body, strong, immortal, incor-
ruptible, and free from every trace of sorrow,
and every stain of sin. Brethren, an ancient
Inquisitor became an Apostle, and chief of the
Apostles. Stronger is He that is in us, than he
that is in the world; stronger than the perse-
cutor Titelman, or the king and armies of Spain,
stronger than the one great Enemy whose mal-
ice is deadly, not when he persecutes, but when
he deceives. Therefore, let us pray."
Then followed the prayer ; and then a silence,
broken only by the low murmur of the brook,
and the soft noonday songs of birds, and the
sound of quiet Aveeping.
It was announced that another sermon would
be preached in Low Dutch on the following
Saturday ; and afterwards the vast assembly
quietly dispersed through the various avenues of
THE LIBEEATIOK OF HOLLAND. 223
the wood. We waited till nearly the last, to
avoid the crowd. Christina was deeply moved,
and could say little. Mai'k said, " It is words
and prayers such as these, not the Avallets or
carbines of the Gueux, that must save the coun-
try."
There is always something very solemn in
watching a great congregation disperse, in see-
ing the multitude so recently one body, animated
by one purpose, scattered into units, each with
his different circle and aim ; in looking round on
the empty space so lately throbbing with hmnan
life. But in the forest on that midsummer noon
it was more solemn than usual. For every one
that passed quietly away, and was lost to sight
among the long vistas of the wood, was moving
under sentence of death, too likely to be exe-
cuted on many. There was, indeed, little proba-
bility that that assembly would ever be gathered
entire on earth again. And the strength of the
words heard there, might have to be proved
on many a scene of torture and temptation.
Through those green paths how many might be
issuing forth to the dungeon, the block, or the
stake.
And yet the leaves rustled, and the sun shone,
the birds sang, and the brook murmured its
sweet music as peacefully as if there had been
no cries of anguish, no injustice, no sin, no
graves on earth.
And our Mayken, riding home in the cool of
224 THE LIBEEATIOK OF HOLLAND.
the evening on her new donkey, prattled sweetly
of the butterflies and flowers, and waters, and
the good minister, and the people who looked
so kindly at her, as if the whole solemn service
had been an especial birthday festival for her.
And we could not hinder her !
Is nature, then, like the child, jDrattling her
sweet songs in happy unconsciousness, through
all the miseries of men ? Or is she not rather
like the angels, who sing their benedicites, and
shine, in their festive garments, through all our
darkness and distracting noises, because the light
of God's countenance is on them, and they see
the meaning of things, and know the end ?
TUE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 225
YII.
Truyken was not at all pleased at our attend-
ing that service, and the one held on the follow-
ing Saturday in Low Dutch in the same wood.
For some time afterwards she steadily attrib-
uted every ailment of Mayken's or ours, to " gen-
tlefolks playing the gipsy in the m- oods like beg-
gars."
" We are Gueux, you know, Truyken," I said
once, gaily ; "at least they call us so, and we
must not be ashamed of our profession."
"Ah, poor lambs," sighed Truyken, " you
little know what you are talking of. Many of
those who march about so jauntily in their
gray doublets, with little dandy wallets and
bowls engraved with silver, will tell a different
story, I trow, when they have the beggary with-
out the wallet, and would be thankful to liave
the bowl filled with bones, instead of ornament-
ing it with silver ! And as far as I can see,"
she continued, " that is what we are all coming
to. Then to think of Mistress van Broek, who
would scarcely put her foot on the street, or sit
226 THE LIBEEATIOK OF HOLLAISTD.
at an open window, or speak to an artisan with-
out a scent-bag at her nose, spending hours on
the grass among the rabble of the city. It may
all seem natural to some people ; but to me, who
have seen the Avorld standing on its feet these
fifty years, it is hard to be expected to think it
quite a matter of course, that it should stand on
its head ; gentlemen dressing like beggars, gen-
tlewomen turning into the woods like gipsies,
weavers turned into priests, fields into churches."
" What can you expect, Trnyken," said Do-
lores, gravely, " when priests have turned into
executioners ?"
" Of that I can say nothing, Senora Dolores,"
was Truyken's reply. " The monks and priests
for a long time might have been better ; but we
are none of us angels, and the world has grown
beyond my comprehension altogether."
In sjMte, however, of Truyken Ketel and the
Duchess Margaret, the public preachings con-
tinued to be held near Antwerp for many weeks.
The attendance became larger and larger, some-
times amounting to twenty or thirty thousand
j)eople, and these, many of them, the richest and
most respected citizens, with their wives.
We did not enjoy all the services equally.
Some of the sermons contained bitter and ex-
citing invectives ; and others, especially those in
Low Dutch, were enlivened with broad jests on
the lives of the monks. Some of the preachers
were not men of education, being qualified only
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 227
by a native mother-wit, and a sincere piety ; but
the greater number were at least as educated in
secular learning as the priests of the old faith ;
and all were learned in the Scriptures, as few
indeed of the priests had been.
In many instances the ministers confined them-
selves simply to unfolding the great truths of
the Bible. But controversy was as inevitable
as battles in marching through an enemy's coun-
try. The simple proclamation of our Saviour
as the one-sufficient Sacrifice for sin, the Priest
accessible to all, to whom alone all need confess,
and who alone could forgive, demolished the
whole laborious erection of altars, altar-screens,
and confessionals. But the preachers did not
limit themselves to stating the truth, and leav-
ing falsehood to fall by its own Aveakness. There
were plain positive evils which they plainly de-
nounced. It is true that lies have no innate
strength, and will crumble ultimately to pieces
by their own incoherency ; but crumbling is a
slow process, when the route of an army has
either to be forward through those fortresses of
error — or backward. The v.^hole force of aro-u-
ment, indignant denunciation, prophetical men-
aces against idolatry, sometimes even sarcasm
and jest, were often directed against the old
crumbling edifice of superstition. As in a popu-
lar outbreak, whatever weapons were nearest at
hand were used, and it was no wonder that often
they should be uncouth.
228 THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND.
These enormous gatherings of men, armed,
yet peaceful, so contrary to ancient order, and
yet so orderly, perplexed the magistrates of
Antwerp greatly. Tossed about between the
indignant menaces of the Governess and the
firm protests of the peoi)le, they were reduced,
as Mark said, to rotating on their own axis, and
doing nothing. The Duchess sent furious re-
monstrances, and they placarded them on the
town-hall. The people tore down the placards,
and they Avere not punished.
The only plan they could devise was to recall
the priest of a church near the city, whom they
had banished on account of his Lutheran tenden-
cies, in the hope that the Lutherans might attend
his sermons in the church, in preference to the
forest meetings, and so be divided from the Cal-
vinists. This device partially succeeded. John
van Broek, for instance, who had never been
quite easy about these irregular assemblies, was
delighted to be able to recall his Avife to a quiet
drive to an orderly church, where thev could sit
on benches under a stone roof in a respectable
way.
Meantime the two thousand nobles of the
party of the Gueux were holding a rather tu-
multuous assembly at St. Trond, in the bishopric
of Liege, to prepare further petitions and pro-
tests. Exciting news came to us from all quar-
ters during that eventful year, of field-preachings
throughout Flanders and Holland, near Haarlem,
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 229
Alkmaar, and Amsterdam, of thousands of Prot-
estants traveling distances of many miles to be
present at the sermons, listening with rapt atten-
tion for hours together, and yet all dispersing as
quietly as they met. All kinds of places, mead-
ows, forest glades, suburbs of populous cities,
quays, and sandy shores — all hours of the day,
from dawn till after the last rays of the long
Summer days had disappeared, witnessed those
gatherings, yet no enemy ever accused them of
being disorderly. Solemn they were, as any con-
gregation ever assembled in consecrated w^alls ;
indeed, how should they be otherwise, when
they were surrounded by walls of fire, when
every prayer and hymn might have to be atoned
for at the stake ?
The Prince of Orange was not present at the
noisy assembly of nobles at St. Trend ; and to
him day by day the perplexed citizens of Ant-
werp began to look, as to the only man who
could mediate between the Government, the
magistrates, and the people. Catholic, Liitheran,
and Calvinist. Entreaties were poured on him,
from the Duchess and the city, to come to Ant-
werp. At length it was announced that he was
coming.
I shall never forget the 13th of July, the day
on which he entered the city.
The whole city was absorbed in the one
thought — that the deliverer was coming. All
the day the people were full of feverish expec-
20
230 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
tation. Tens of thousands of the citizens lined
the streets and roads for miles outside the gates,
to welcome him.
Our house lay in the street near the gate.
Mark had gone out, with hundreds of the most
influential men in the city, on horseback, to
meet the Prince. When he came in sight, a
pistol-shot was to be fired. We, of course,
could not hear that ; but scarcely a minute
afterwards the news was communicated to the
city by the enthusiastic shout of welcome, which
spread like lightning along the vast uninter-
rupted masses of people, extending for several
miles between the j^lace of rencontre and
the city gates. Mark told us how the people
thronged and pressed around him, like bewil-
dered children round their parents, calling him
deliverer, j^rotector, father; but it seemed to
distress the Prince, and a look of anxiety and
imeasiness disturbed his firm and usually impas-
sive features. I noticed it also as he passed our
house.
And. once, when the wild cry (of late become
so common among us) " Vivent les Gueux !"
burst from the crowd as he passed, Mark heard
him say, "This idle cry must be stopped. I
cannot have it. They will rue it one day."
At length when it was j^erceived that the
Prmce did not like this noisy greeting, the mul-
titude quietly dis2:)ersed. The force of that firm
will was on them ; and because it was under-
THE LIBEEATIOIf OF HOLLAND. 231
stood he wished it, the city in a few hours re-
sumed its ordinary aspect. The silent dispersing
testified more to his power than the noisy wel-
come.
Late in the evening, when Mark returned, he
looked weary and exhausted ; but there was a
cheerfulness in his manner I had not seen for
many days.
" The JPrince is at work already," he said,
" and is setting every one to do his share."
" But why," I asked, " did he look so grave and
sad ? The acclamations of the people scarcely
seemed to move him."
" Do you think," said Mark, " that the man to
whose arm a whole nation is clinging, can feel
his arm strong ? He is like a brave seaman
steering his boat through the breakers to a
wreck. Do you think he can return the raptur-
ous shoitts of grateful welcome with bows and
smiles ? • The crew is not rescued yet ; and they
can only be rescued by every one doing his
utmost, at the risk of life, to the deliverer and
to all."
" But," said Ursel, " are not people putting
too much trust in one man, and he a Lutheran,
and scarcely even that, it is said ?"
" Sister LTrsel," said Mark, " you may read in
your Bible that w^hen God would save a people,
He sends them a man to do it ; and that the de-
struction of any nation is the not recognizing the
man whom God sends to them. The God of
232 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
Israel did not rescue Israel from Egypt, or lead
them through the wilderness by a synod. I be-
lieve there is hope for our country, because God
has given us this man ; if only we will acknowl-
edge him. No ship was ever steered safely
through a storm by a committee. The council,
whether of the Confederate nobles, or of the
Reformed pastors, would debate us into ruin ;
Williain of Orange will save us, if God wills, and
we will let him."
"I see," observed Ursel, thoughtfully, " 'they
cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He de-
livered them out of their distresses,' by sending
them Moses, Joshua, and David."
That evening, when I vv^ent for a few minutes
to Dolores' room, I found lier weeping.
" Are you wishing a William the Silent bad
been given to Spain, Dolores ?" I asked.
" I was only thinking," she said, " what the
Avorld might become if it would welcome its De-
liverer, as Antwerp has welcomed hers !"
The next few weeks were weeks of hard but
hopeful work to all good men at Antwerp.
The Prince made every one feel that the city
could only be saved by every one doing his best
to save it. He seemed, Mark said, to inspire
all, from the highest to the lowest, with the
sense that each in his place must do his work,
or nothing would be done. And he set the
example, by working night and day himself.
No one's rights and no one's interests were, in
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 233
his eyes, too insignificant to be respected. He
met all the guilds and companies of merchants,
and even the "rhetorical" societies. lie sum-
marily punished disorder in the adherents of
any party ; and he boldly risked the indignation
of all parties by yielding fully to the demands
of none. Mark came home every day more
enthusiastic in his praise. Dolores began to
understand my husband. She said to me one
day :
" Costanza, I always thought Mark would
not give himself heart and soul to any cause,
because he saw the defects of alL But I see now
the loyalty in his heart was only waiting for its
true sun to wake up."
Thus, not the least of the blessings the Prince
of Orange brought to me, was that Dolores and
I understood each other about Mark. Even
the cautious John van Broek was brought to
act cordially with the Reformed ; and Ursel
and he were seen exchanging friendly and confi-
dential communications. Truyken, meantime,
followed her usual plan, when incontestable vir-
tues were discovered in heretics, of denying
that they were heretics at all.
The concessions made to the Protestants were
small indeed. Yet for the time they satisfied,
all. No church or place of assembly was con-
ceded to Lutherans or Calvinists, within the
walls, but public worship was permitted us in
the suburbs, and the persecution was arrested.
20*
234 THE LIBEKATION OF UOLLAOT).
Meantime, while William of Orange was quietly
working to restore order at Antwerp, the two
thousand confederate nobles were drinking, fight-
ing, and drawing up remonstrances at St. Trond.
Yet, at that time, the whole nation, nobles,
burghers, and the Duchess, seemed to place
their chief reliance on the Taciturn Prince.
The King and the Governess wrote him fervent
letters of thanks. Antwerp idolized him. The
nobles told the Duchess all would be well if his
counsels were followed. But if we wondered
sometimes then at the coolness with which he
received all this poiDularity, expressions of royal
favour, popular applause, confidence of the no-
bles— we wondered more as events unfolded
themselves, at the insight which seemed from
the beginning to have shown him the hollowness
of all this ; and more still at the «elf-devoted
patriotism and faith Avhich made him risk life
and honours for men so little worthy of him.
For, as we learned afterwards, and as he
knew then, at this very time King Philip and
the Duchess were steadily devising his ruin. In
less than two years the confederacy of nobles
had scattered right and left ; in less than a year
the citizens of Antwerp, enraged at his oppos-
ing their will in a course which would have
been their destruction, presented pistols at his
breast.
What marvel that one who saw, by some
mysterious means, the secret papers of King
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 235
Philip, and saw, moreover, into the secret heart
of the hollow world around him, was wrinkled
and worn with care at thirty ! The wonder
was, that seeing what he saw, he did not be-
come a misanthrope, but yet felt his country
worth living and dying for. Surely he must
have learned that lesson from Him who knew
what is in man, and yet laid down His life for
man.
236 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
YIII.
William the Silent was wanted everywhere ;
at Antwerp ; in his own government of Holland
and Zealand ; at Brussels, where the Duchess
Margaret demanded his presence, to defend her
against the confederate nobles. At lenffth,
sorely against his own judgment, he was con-
strained to leave the city before the 15th of
August, the Great Festival of the Assumption
of the Virgin, on which an outbreak was much
dreaded. The calm of his presence seemed,
however, still to rest on the city, and during
that day no act of violence was committed.
The numbers of the Protestants in Antwerp
far exceeded those of the adherents of the old
religion. Unhappily for us, the newly-revived
truth won to its banner not only the lovers of
what was true, but the partisans of what was
new. The turbulent and destructive elements
of the turbulent old city were for the time on
the side of the Gospel. The Viscount Brede-
rode had paid Antwerp a visit before the sojourn
of the Prince amongst us ; and the jovial baron
had his converts, pi'oselytised at his " beggar " •
THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND. 237
banquets, and ready for any wild -words and
deeds.
The festival of the Assumption was one calcu-
lated to excite all the contemptuous irreverence
of the Gueux, as much as it awakened the grave
indignation of the Reformed.
On that day, from time immemorial, had taken
place the great procession of the Ommegang.
The colossal image of the Virgin was brought
out from the cathedral, dressed in its costliest
robes, to make the circuit of the city. On the
15th of June, 1566, the procession was as gor-
geous and noisy as ever. Long before it passed
our house, we heard the sovmd of trumpets and
drums heralding the approach of the " Queen
of Heaven."
We thought of the approach of William the
Silent, only a few weeks before ! No drums
and trumpets had been needed to j)roclaim his
coming. That one long shout of welcome had
rung all the Avay from Berghem, where the
magistrates met him, to us ; but on this festival
the music seemed all instrumental. Except a
few who knelt at their doors as the image passed,
the people received the procession with gloomy
silence, with murmured execrations, or with bit-
ter sarcasms. .
And no wonder ; this thing, this wooden, help-
less, bedizened thing, if to the Papists it repre-
sented Mary, the spotless Mother, to us repre-
sented the Inquisition and the stake. Those
238 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
fraternities of monks who accompanied it had
led Fabricius to the flames in the great market-
place only three years before, and menaced every
one of us, his fellow-believers, with the same
fate now. Those bands of military had guarded
the martyr, and hindered his rescue. The citi-
zens who marched in the procession, with their
banners of their various guilds, looked, I thought,
ashamed of their oftice.
After the procession followed a rabble of
noisy boys and idlers, shouting from time to
time the cry of the Gueux, or derisively calling
on the image.
Truyken persisted in planting herself at the
door of our house as the procession passed, and
reverently knelt and crossed herself Unfortu-
nately, however, for her tranquillity, just at that
moment some of those boys, who do so mnch
of the noise and mischief of the world, shouted
to the imasre in their shrill voices :
" Mayken ! May ken ! your hour is come. It
is your last promenade. The city is tired of
you."
And at the same time some of the urchins
threw stones and mud at the image, part of
which alighted on Truyken's spotless kerchief.
Her dearest feelings, secula\- and ecclesiastical,
were outraged ; and it was well for us that a riot
did not commence at our door. For Truyken,
always prompt in her measures, and not reliant
on legal processes, seized one of the miscreants
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 239
by the hair, and sent him howling after his
comrades "with a box on his ear, which for the
time gave him an impressive lesson in religious
tolerance. ,
The image, however, was landed safely again
in the cathedral, and we slept that night in peace.
But the quieting effect of the Prince's pres-
ence had unhappily been nearly effaced by this
more recent imj^ression. The ordinary work-
ing habits of the people had been interrupted
by that fatal holiday. The desire of excitement
had been stirred up. Every one was expecting
some outbreak. Uneasy groups met here and
there, just to discuss what might happen, and
what should be done. The habits of busy, in-
dustrious life were broken ; the habit of disor-
derly concourse was formed. On the morning
of the 16th, a great crowd had assembled out-
side the catliedral, the most part, Mark said, as
usual, " not knowing wherefore they were come
together."
No one had any definite purpose, but all had
vague apprehensions. And the helpless image
still stood in its holiday clothes inside the cathe-
dral. But, with that fatal readiness to concede
and resist precisely in the wrong places, which,
Mark says, besets weak governments, the magis-
trates, who had suffered all the irritating cere-
monies of the previous day to be carried out to
the full, had now removed the image from its
usual jDlace during the Octave of the festival, in
240 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
the centre of the nave, to what they deemed a
safer retreat, behind the iron screen of the choir.
Many idle apprentices, ragged urchins, and
genuine beggars and vagabonds, who had an
incontestable right to the popular name of
" Gueux," soon began to gather outside the
choir, and peep through the wire-work of the
screen at the image, jesting at its dethronement
from its place of pride.
" Mayken, Mayken," one and another cried,
" art thou terrified so soon ? Hast thou flown
to thy nest so early ? Dost thou think thyself
beyond the reach of mischief? Have a care,
Mayken, thine hour is coming fast."
Others called on the defenseless thing to
join in the beggar's cry, and made the arches
of the church ring with the shoiat, " Vivent les
Gueux !"
The barrier had been passed, the sacred still-
ness which had filled the beautiful old church
for centuries was broken. Walls which, since
they first were made, ages before the childhood
of the oldest there, had echoed only with solemn
chant and murmured prayer, resounded with
wild jests and party cries. A band of idle
boys and youths sauntered through the church,
scoffing at image, crucifix, and all the pomp of
the old ritual.
Yet not a hand was raised that day against
the decorations. Noisy as that mocking band
were, it was said that at no time did they
TllJi LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 241
amount to a hundred. Fifty resolute men might
have checked the tumult at the beginning.
Even when a rude mechanic, in a tattered black
doublet and old straw hat, daringly mounted
the pulpit, and began to preach a rude parody
of a monkish sermon, although some of the
bystanders laughed and applauded, more cried,
" shame," and many threw their sticks at him,
and tried to drag him from the place. A young,
impetuous seaman, fervent for the old faith, even
ascended the pulpit from behind, and grappled
with the profane preacher, until both fell, roll-
ing together down the steps. A pistol-shot,
however, wounded the sailor's arm, which showed
that elements of a more dangerous kind of
excitement were not far oif. Yet the church
was cleared, and the church doors were safely
closed on the mob that night. Once more, and
for the last time, while the tumultuous tide of
human life flowed noisily around, the shadows
of evening fell quietly within the silent church,
peopled only with sculptured forms of saint and
martyr, the recumbent effigies of the noble and
royal dead, and their bones crumbling beneath.
There had been no priests that day, indeed, to
celebrate masses there, and there were none that
evening to light the lamps before shrine or host.
But otherwise all was the same as it had been
for centuries. The echoes of that day's tumult
had left no vibrations on the chill and tranquil
air. But outside all was din, tumult, and uncer-
21
242 THE LIBERATION OF nOLLAND.
taiiity. The people hovered about the streets
until a late hour, and Truyken returned from a
visit to a friend, burning with indignation.
" The Calvinists," she said, " had sacked the
churches of St. Omer and Ypres, broken and
mocked the saints, and even the sacred image
of Our Lady herself."
Such rumours were circulating throughout
the city that evening, and they gave a definite
direction to the acritation on the morrow\
CD
Mark came home, looking worn and distressed.
He said that, after endless discussions, the magis-
trates had decided that, as every proposed
course of action was liable to objections, it was
safer to do nothing. He had offered, with a
hundred orderly artisans under his command,
armed with stout bludgeons, to keep the cathe-
dral. But one influential man intimated that
the safety of the city could not be securely
trusted to any but an unsuspected Catholic,
whilst another suggested that if the Lutherans
were supplied with arms, the Calvinists would
demand the same privilege. And so it ended
in the worthy magistrates sighing for the Prince
of Orange, issuing neither order nor proclama-
tion, and retiring each to his house.
The next morning Truyken and I went early
to market, fearing that the day might be one of
tumult, and wishing to reach the shelter of
home before the streets were crowded. On our
return we stepped aside into the cathedral.
THE LIBEEATIOJT OF HOLLAND. 243
Truyken crossed herself with holy water, left
her basket at the door, under my charge, and
went forward to the choir, Avhere she knelt on
the stone steps, outside the iron sci'een, before
the derided image of the Virgin. To her it
was the symbol of a faith to which her loyal
heart clung with all the more tenacity because
of the insults recently heaped on it. To the
Protestants of Antwerp it was the symbol, not
of a morbid sentimental idolatry merely, but of
a cruel and murderous superstition, whose forms
were these childish mummeries, but whose essen-
tial acts of worshij) were human sacrifices. To
our belief the cathedral had not first been pro-
faned yesterday by a disorderly mob ; but every
day for ages, by blasphemous assumptions at
altar and confessional, and recently through the
utterance of the praises of God by the lips
which denounced torments on His children. To
me the desecration of the temple was the j)res-
ence of that wooden image in its midst, before
which Truyken knelt.
Yet, with this conviction deep in my heart,
the beauty of the jilace at that quiet morning
hour stole like a charm over my senses. The
eye was lost among the pillars of the five lofty
aisles, with the long, morning shadows crossing
each other on the pavement, as among the trees
of the forest of Berghem. Yet there was
scarcely a foot of the vast space unenriched by
elaborate sculptures. The walls were crowded
244 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
with shrines ; every recess was a chapel, the
especial pride of some noble flimily or city guild ;
banners, glorious with the rents of war, and
blazoned with the arms of the Golden Fleece,
of dukes and kings, hung in heavy folds from
the roof; and the golden morning sunbeams
shone through windows brilliant with the richest
colours, and chequered the pavement with count-
less tints. Here and there the light fell on the
sculptured brows of kneeling saints, or brought
out in vivid outline some wreath of perfect foli-
age ; while in the choir stood the crowning
glory of the cathedral, the repository of the
host, rising from a single massive column, arch
above arch, to the height of eight hundred feet.
And all this was no sudden arbitrary mechani-
cal work. This cathedral had grown slowly
through the centuries, lilie a forest. Every
jeweled shrine, and gold or silver vessel, and
richly-sculptured chapel, was the record of human
conflicts, joys, and sorrows, the memorial of
human gratitude, or mortality. The affections
and prayers of ages seemed to hang about the
building, as the fragrance of the incense which
still pervaded it.
Only one living worshipper was there at that
early hour, and that was honest Truyken Ketel,
murmuring her prayers on the steps of the choir.
Just as Truyken was finishing her devotions,
and we were about to leave, an old woman, of
rather severe aspect, entered the great door of
THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND. 245
the cathedral, with a basket full of wax tapers,
and various ecclesiastical trinkets, and began
unfolding her wares on the steps of the choir,
where she seated herself in the midst of an
array of crucifixes, Agnus Deis, medals, beads,
tapers, and little "books of piety," adorned
with rude paintings.
" These are evil days," she said to me as she
entered. " People have no respect for king, or
^pope, or saint. Many a jeering word the
wretches cast at me yesterday. But I gave
them as good as they gave me. It would be
strange indeed if I could not stand my ground
against the curses of a few beggarly boys, when
my wares have had the benedictions of bishops
and cardinals."
Truyken paused to exchange a few words
with her, and to buy a taper, which she liglited
and set np before an image of St. Ursula. As
she was doing tliis, groups of idle people began
to stroll in. They did not panse to sprinkle
themselves with the holy water, but sauntered
from one chapel to another, talking loud, ;ind
laughing derisively at many of the statues as
they went. Two or three of them stopped be-
fore the old taper-vender's wares, and held up
her tapers and beads with contemptuous ges-
tui'es. Her voice soon became as loud as theirs ;
others gathered around to see the result of the
affray, and when Truyken and I left the cathe-
dral, the lofty arches were echoing Avith angry
voices, mingled with rude laughter.
246 THE LIBEPvATIOIsr OF nOLLA:NT).
As vre walked away, we met a great number
of peoi^le thronging towards the church ; and
we had scarcely reached home when a messenger
came out of breath with running to siimmon
Mark to consult with some of the principal mer-
chants for the safety of the city. There had
been a tumult in the cathedral of Our Lady.
The old taper-vender's wares had been destroyed.
The church was full, but not of worshippers.
The sacristan and others had endeavoured to clear,
it, but in vain. Mark left us, not to go to the
magistrates, who, he said, would do nothing,
but to conduct one of the Reformed pastors to
the cathedral to still the tumult, if possible, by
addressing the people.
lie found the Calvinistic preacher, Herman
Modet, who accompanied him, and boldly as-
cending one of the piilpits, endeavoured to per-
suade the tumultuous crowd to abstain from
excesses. But they would not listen. The mob
in the cathedral was composed of entirely dif-
ferent men from those who came at the risk of
life to attend the public preachings, and after
listenincc for hours in devout attention to the
Word of God, dispersed peaceably to their
homes. The Reformed preachers had as little
influence over them as the Catholic priests.
They dragged Modet from the i:)ulpit, and pro-
ceeded as before, with their wild Gueux cries.
At length the Margrave of Antwerp, with the
two burgomasters and the senators themselves
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 247
appeared at the door of the cathedral, hoping to
cahn and disperse the people by their presence
and entreaties. Many, indeed, were persuaded
to depart, and those who remained were for the
time quieted. Throughout the day no damage
was done ; and as evening drew on, the magis-
trates made one more effort to persuade the mob
to disperse quietly. Many more left at their so-
licitations— probably all the better disposed ; for
the remaining crowd grew bolder as their num-
bers decreased, and refused to depart without
hearing the Salve Regina.
No priests were found to chant vespers to
such an audience, and, accordingly, some of the
mob said they would chant the service them-
selves. A verse of St. Aldegonde's translation
of one of Clement Marot's psalms rose from harsh
voices here and there. But the sacred words
were sung with no sacred feeling. Cries and
yells mingled with the hymns, and stones began
to fly at the various images. At this point it
occurred to the magistrates that it would be
prudent to retire. They suggested to each other
that if they departed, perhaps the mob would
follow them. It was remarkable that this idea
did not occur to them until the missiles actually
began to be thrown. But they carried it out
conscientiously. Unfortunately, the mob were
undutiful enough not to follow their example.
Anxious to preserve the forms of order, whatever
became of the reality, the senators prudently
248 THE LIBEEATIO?^^ OF HOLLATO).
ordered the cliurch doors to he closed, cour-
teously, however, leaving one little door open,
that the peojjle still left within might retire. It
did not occur to them, no doubt, that a door is
a way in as well as out. The Margrave alone
courageously remained. But the little open gate
was too strong a temptation to the ragged and
riotous mob outside, and the good senators had
scarcely disappeared when a tumultuous croAvd
pressed into the church, broke open the other
doors from within, expelled the Margrave, and
remained in undisputed possession of the cathe-
dral. Once more the patient fathers of the
commouAvealth returned to remonstrate with
their disorderly children, but their gentle voices
could no longer be heard above the din ; and
wishing at least to save the pillars of the State,
they fled hastily to their own homes.
We had all collected in the house of John
van Broek, by the instinct which draws fami-
lies together in dangerous times. None of us
went to bed that night. Throughout the lone,
dark hours, men kept passing with lanterns,
ladders, pulleys, and ropes ; and now and then
a fearful yell burst on our ears, through the
broken windows of the cathedral. Mark Avent
out from time to time to bring us tidings ; but
no human arm could now stem the torrent. All
through that disastrous* night the work of de-
struction went on. They began with dragging
down the colossal image of Mary, and breaking
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 249
it into a thousand pieces. From this they pro-
ceeded with a destructiveness as ruthless and
systematic as tliat of the Inquisitors themselves.
Only, their war was not with flesh and blood,
but with wood and stone. Every shrine was
demolished. Every image on the highest min-
aret, or in the most secluded niche, was torn
down. The great Repository itself was shat-
tered to atoms with axes and hammers, amid
shouts of derision. No women were present,
save those of the lowest character, who urged
the men and boys on by jests and cries. The
priestly vestments were torn from the chests,
the sacred vessels from the altars, whilst the
reckless mob drank destruction to the Inquisi-
tion in chalice and paten with the church wine,
and danced wild dances arrayed in the em-
broidered robes of the ecclesiastics.
The morning light broke on a very different
scene from that which Truyken and I had wit-
nessed on the previous day. The interior of
the stately old church was one heap of shapeless
ruins. Yet, strange to say, not a human being
was injured, not even the provoking old taper-
vender, and not a trinket was stolen.
Mayken found Truyken that morning, on her
return from market, weeping bitterly.
" What are you crying for, dear Truyken ?"
she said, throwing her arms around her neck.
" The saints, the saints, they are all torn to
pieces," sobbed Truyken.
250 THE LIBEEATION OP H0LLA:N^D.
" The saints in heaven ?" asked Mayken, be-
wildered.
" No, no, child. Thank God ! the mob can-
not get there."
"Who, then?" persisted the child, "the
good people here on earth ?"
" No. The saints, the holy images, in the
cathedral."
" The stone saints ?" asked Mayken. " I am
very sorry. But you know they cannot feel ;
can they, Truyken ?"
" It is not that, child. You cannot under-
stand. They are sacred to God, and the blessed
Virgin ; and it is sacrilege, and the Almighty
will be very angiy."
" But," said Mayken, " if they are God's, I
think you need not mind so much ; because
mother told me every thing belongs to Him, and
I think He can so easily have more made."
But Truyken was not to be comforted.
" The font," she said, " at which the master's
mother was christened, the altar at which she
was married ; the shrine at which my mother
offered every week ; the image of our blessed
Lady herself, all a heap of dishonoured ruins !
That I should live to see it !"
Two days and two nights longer the storm
raged. Every Madonna at the corners of the
streets, every crucifix and saintly image was
demolished. All the churches were devastated.
Then from the city the mob proceeded to the
neighbourhood.
THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 251
Two whole days and nights, and nothing was
done to stem the torrent ! Catholics and Prot-
estants alike seemed seized with a panic, and
the only thought of every one seemed to be to
provide for the safety of his own hearth. Nuns
fled from their convents to the houses of their
friends ; monks were unceremoniously turned
out of their monasteries.
Only two Summer days and nights ! And in
that brief time every church in the city and the
suburbs was sacked, and every shrine and image
demolished ! By not more than one hundred
reckless men and boys !
Yet duriner all that storm of wild excitement,
reckless destruction, and hopeless panic, not one
man, woman, or child was attacked or injured ;
not one of the desolated churches was pulled
down, ' or set on fire. Not one instance was
proved of appropriation of the plunder.
The war was neither against men nor churches,
but against images, idols in whose name God's
living saints had been tortured and slain by
thousands.
In one case the rioters hanged one of their
number who had basely attempted to appropriate
one article of value. When the tempest had
done its work, gold and silver, costly vestments,
precious stones, were found scattered contemptu-
ously among the fragments of the shrines, and
the ecclesiastics quietly resumed possession of
their treasures.
252 TIIK LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
The injury done by these tumults to the cause
of Protestantism was incalculable. The mass
of the Reformed and Lutherans disapproved of
the whole proceeding as much as the Catholics,
although on different grounds. The pastors
vainly endeavoured to moderate the storm. But,
nevertheless, an indelible stain was cast on ns
all by this tumult ; as on the Anabaptists in
general by the excesses of the few fanatics at
Munster. Lukewarm Catholics wex-e roused
into fervour by these outrages ; waverers were
recalled ; men and women of a reverent and
devout temper were repelled from lis. The
educated and refined drew up their robes from
contact with people whose associates had burnt
libraries, and barbarously destroyed the most
precious works of art ; timid Protestants were
frightened back into the bosom of the old
church ; many of the nobles indignantly deserted
ns, and endeavoured to prove their suspected
orthodoxy by persecution.
The Duchess J\[argaret was enraged, and
began to levy troops in earnest. Faint friends
found an excuse .for abandoning us. Our ene-
mies had found a pretext for condemning us not
only as heretics but as rioters.
The seven days and nights of August, during
which the fanatical outbreak lasted, were a
prelude to years of war and misery.
And yet the whole wild insurrection was not
disgraced by one act of cruelty, or murder, or
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 253
theft. One hour of Alva's blood-council shed
more innocent blood than the seven days' mis-
rule of all those excited fanatics.
One sacking of a city by Alva's troops de-
stroyed more trembling, entreating, tortured,
agonized human beings, than all the inanimate
stone images broken by the mob.
And at a judgment-seat where life is more
sacred than consecrated stones, and men and
women will be worth more than the statues of
any artist ; no doubt the terrible account wiU
be justly balanced.
22
'254: TUE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
IX.
iv imll.
AT first, however, many thought these tumults
had wrought deliverance for the Protes-
tants. The Duchess Margaret was terrified as
an emperor's daughter should scarcely have
appeared to be, and was with great difliculty
persuaded to remain at her palace at Brussels,
instead of flying before the menaced assault of
the image-breakers. Count Egmont and Count
Horn promised to defend her with their lives,
and saved her from the disgrace of abandoning
her post ; for which service she repaid them by
sending calumnies about them to King Philij),
which brought them in less than two years to
the scaffold. She, however, as well as the nation,
felt, with her woman's instinctive insight, that
there was one arm in the country strong enough
to lean on with confidence ; and the support of
that valiant arm she claimed. The Prince of
Orange came to her rescue, and toiled conscien-
tiously to pacify the nation. With his city of
Antwerp, and his provinces of Holland and
Zealand, he in great measure succeeded. Three
churches were assigned to the Protestants in
Antwerp and the other great cities. The con-
THE LIBKKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 255
cession was immense. Liberty of public wor-
ship to those who had before been denied, as far
as possible, liberty of secret belief.
This was the accord of the 25tli of August.
Little more than two months after that sermon
in the wood of the Lord of Berchem, which we
attended at risk of life, Mark, Dolores, Mayken,
and I, with John van Broek and Christina, were
peacefully sitting in a church at Antwerp, with
every image, and every trace of ruin removed
from it, listening to an orderly sermon from a
Lutheran pastor.
But I am not sure that we enjoyed the sermon
so much. There was leisure now to comment
on the superiority of Augsburg to Geneva ;
there was leisure to comment on every thing in
an orderly unabbreviated manner under a great
many well-arranged heads. But the words had
scarcely the same burning concentrated force.
And I remember Dolores saying, on our way
home :
" I wonder, if the Netherlands becomes a
recognized Protestant country, with Protest-ant
universities and synods, whether the ministers
regularly educated at the orthodox universities
will preach as those we have heard, Avho have
graduated in the school of bitter experience and
perilous conflict."
But Mark smiled, and replied :
" We need not fear. While God has soldiers
to train, He will not let wars cease."
256 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
Mark had many happy weeks that year and
the following. The Prince of Orange, Burgrave
of Antwerp, came often to the city, and Mark
toiled to carry out liis intentions, the Prince had
no idea how hard. Nor did Mark care that he
should know ; nor I. The great disinterested
passion of loyalty had subdued his heart — loyalty
based on patriotism, and insjiired by religion.
He believed that the Prince was the only man
who could save the country, and he believed
God had given him to the country to save it.
He trusted the Prince entirely, and thought it
the noblest and most effective use of his every
faculty to carry out his designs. And as a
reward, the Prince trusted him. More he did
not ask. Nor could I wish for more. But I
think if Antwerp had had a hundred men like
Mark, the Netherlands, as well as Holland,
mischt have been rescued from the barbarous
tyranny of the Inquisition and the king.
Most around us were so diiferent. With the
right hand pursuing their own interests, and
with the feeble left occasionally giving a i:)aren-
thetical turn to the cause of the nation ; or
when thoroughly roused, each full of his own
small plan of rescue, and deeming it more dig-
nified to head that than to work as a lowly sub-
ordinate in the Prince's ranks.
Then, during this brief calm, the divisions
between the Reformed and Lutherans waxed
warm, and many of the ministers seemed to
THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND. 257
deem it their chief vocation to prove what an
immense chasm divided Luther from Calvin.
The ice began to form once more around
Christina. The linen-closet, and the preserve-
chamber, and all the great household institutions,
were fast resuming their sway over her. The
world, in the soft form and subdued voice of
ease and comfort, began again to lull her heart ;
as mammon, in the substantial form of dollars
and bales of merchandise, animated that of her
hiTsband.
Her health began again to render it difficult,
indeed impossible, for her to visit her sick
brethren and sisters, and even little Mayken's
voice became often too noisy and discordant for
her seiisiti\'e nerves. If Mayken could only
have remained an infant, a soft thing, to cushion
on down and array in exquisitely-got-up lace
and lawn, instead of becoming the small person,
with will and thought, and distracting power
of uttering both, and asking perplexing ques-
tions ! And "how Ursel could endure the rant-
ing declamation of those French preachers, she
never could imagine ! The noise was enough
for her, without the doctrine." Thus the sick
and suffering poor were gradually once more
becoming cares to her instead of friends. Things
were again assuming a tyrannous personality,
while persons were sinking to the level of things.
On the other hand, the fire began once more
to kindle in Ursel's very opposite nature. She
22*
258 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
began to wonder how Mark could continue to
attend sermons whose doctrine was a mere feebly-
disguised Popery, and which made half the
Bible a dead letter. And of our hero, the
Prince of Orange, then a Luthei'an, she had the
gravest suspicions. She should not be surprised
to see him at the feet of King Philip yet. Who
could say, indeed, to what absurdities a brain
illogical enough to accept the Confession of
Augsburg might not be led ?
There was one Reformed minister, howeA^ei",
at Antwerp about this time who penetrated
deep enough into the heart of Christianity to
get above these wretched controversies which
distracted the surface of the Pi'otestant churches.
And he had courage enough to avow his con-
viction in a noble letter to the Lutherans.
" Let Peter continue to be Peter," wrote An-
tony Coranus, " and Martin, (Luther,) Martin —
that is to say, men that are capable of being
mistaken. But let the Spirit of God be received
by the means of such instruments as He shall
stir up, whether Paul, or Zwinglius, or ^co-
lampadius, or others of less authority. As for
lis, we shall receive, honour, and hold such in
singular esteem as instruments of God ; but we
will not maintain that they are infallible — that
is to say, that they can neither commit sin nor
error, or that they know and understand all
things ; but we rather believe that the Lord
will raise up such instruments from day to day,
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 259
to increase the light of His holy truth, if our
own unthankfulness do not hinder it. The afore-
said persons lived at an unhappy time, and were
more busied in removing the dung and filth of
Popery tlian in the discovery, observation, and
introduction of the pure truth. They were
chiefly employed in withstanding the rage of
Antichrist — in answering and refuting^ calum-
nies and reproaches — in writing apologies — in
disputing with monks and priests ; so that they
had little opportunity for study and serious
meditation on the truths of Christian doctrine
revealed in the Word of God. This was the
cause that their works abounded with satirical
and reviling expressions, reproachful names, and
other improper arguments, such as did not be-
come the true ministers of God and preachers
of the gospel of peace. ISTevertheless, we must
bear with these infirmities, with a view to the
unhappiness of the times ; but now that God
has disclosed to us so many bright rays of His
truth, ought we to have any more regard to the
light which proceeded from thunder, and w^hich
soon gave place to a more clear and constant
light ? When the Lord Jesus would give a
mark of distinction to His disciples, and the
children of His Father, He did not require them
to follow the Confession of Augsburg, nor the
Catechism of ]\Iartin (Luther) or John (Calvin ;)
but He said to them, "By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
260 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND,
one to another." Alas ! what blind and miser-
able creatures are we ! who, by our disputing
about the true and false interpretation of the
words of the sacrament of union, break and dis-
solve the imion itself; who, by caviUing and too
curious searching whether the unworthy receive
Christ's body in the sacrament, as well as the
children of God, run the risk of not receiving
it at all ; who, by inquiring whether Christ is
carnally or spiritually present in the sacrament,
deprive ourselves of the true commvmion of
Christ, Who does not dwell in him that hates
his brother ; who, by too nice inquiry whether
the body of Christ is given us in, under, or with
the bread, cut ourselves off from the true body
of Christ, and make ourselves members of Satan,
the father of strife, discord, and contention."
These noble words of the pastor Antony Co-
ranus were printed in French and Low Dutch,
and, with a little book, issued about the same
time at Vianen, on the essential unity of the
faith of the Lutherans and Calvinists, were great
treasures to Dolores, Mark, and me. Not many
j)eace-makers like these lifted up their voices in
those days ; although I believe many of those
whose voices are not heard in the noisy scene
of public life, but in the home, and by the sick-
bed, held the same truths. That little book,
published at Vienna, called forth an especial
prohibition from the Duchess Margaret, com-
mandinac all into whose hands it fell to burn it,
THE LIBERATION OF IIOLLAKD. 261
on pain of the severest punishment. She under-
stood but too well the maxim of Catherine de
Medici, the old maxim of the Enemy from the
days of Abraham and Lot, " Divide et impera."
Were not the Pharisees always wiser in their
generation than the disciples ?
A petition, however, was framed towards the
end of August (after the fury of the image-
breakers had spent itself, and three of the ring-
leaders had been hanged,) which was signed by
both Lutherans and Reformed, entreating King
PhiUp to grant the Protestants religious liberty.
It was drawn up and signed in the house of a
wealthy merchant, a countryman of ours, a Cal-
vinist, Mark Perez. The arguments for reli-
gious freedom were enforced by the learned
ministers not only from the Gospels, but from
the example of pagan emperors, and were thought
very convincing by those who used them. They
were enforced also by an oifer to purchase this
boon by a gift of thirty tons of gold, to be pre-
sented to the king by the Protestants on his issu-
ing a decree of toleration. But some thought
King Philip might be scandalised at being com-
pared to the heathen emperors. Others deemed
it imprudent to display such wealth as this offered
bribe must imply. And others said in secret
that arguments or bribes were alike in vain with
King Philip, since he would condescend to no
arguments with heretics but fire and sword ;
and an offer of a portion of our goods could
262 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
be a small temptation to a sovereign who had
confiscated the whole, and was about to come
in person, or to send an army, to take j)osses-
sion.
THE I,IBEEATI0:N^ of HOLLAND. 263
X.
ill ^]t0i?m.
IN March, 1567, there was little in the aspect
of Antwerp to mark that that month was,
as it proved, the last of the independent exist-
ence of the ancient free city, so long rioting in
prosperity; little, at least, to the general ob-
server.
There had been another insurrection since
that of the image-breakers, but the resolute
Count of Hoogstraten, then the prince's deputy,
had gone boldly among the rioters, had himself
shot the ringleaders, and thus quiet had been
restored. And now the Prince of Orang-e him-
self was among us. The bragging Brederode
had been secretly enlisting recruits in the city and
neighbourhood for an expedition against the gov-
ernment, or rather an expedition to compel the
Spanish king to respect the ancient government
of the country, to call the States-C4eneral, and
observe the charters to which he had sworn.
In the beginning of March the result of this
secret recruiting appeared before us in an army
of three thousand men, headed by Marnix, Lord
of Thoulouse, brother of St. Aldegond ; a young
264 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND.
Pi'otestant nobleman of an ancient Savoyard
family, who had left the university to devote
himself to tlie championshij) of his persecuted
brethren in the faith. He was scarcely twenty.
His young wife was residing in Antwerp.
Against this newly-levied band, with their
gallant, but untried leader, Philip de Lannoy,
Lord of Beauvoir, commander of the Duchess
Margaret's body-guard, led eight hundred picked
veterans. They met at Oosterisle, near Ant-
werp. The battle was carried on within sight
and hearing of the city. The three thousand
men were cut to pieces, driven into the Scheldt,
hunted into barns, and burned, too quickly for
any rescue to be organized. The young wife
of Thoulouse, already a widow (although she
knew it not) ran distracted through the streets,
calling on all men to rise and defend her hus-
band and the little band Avho had ventured all
to rescue the Protestants. Very soon ten thous-
and men assembled, armed indeed, but not
trained. They were frantic with indignation,
and would have rushed, without further prepara-
tion, from the gates. But the Prince knew too
well how little the bravest undisciplined men,
unaccustomed to act together, can do in the
field against a compact body of veterans, ani-
mated by one will, and trained to act as one man.
Immediately he was at the Red Gate, to prevent
their issuing forth to what he knew would be
destruction. Enraged at his opposition, they
THE LTBERATIOI^' OF HOLLAJTD. 265
threatened his Ufa. They called him traitor,
coward ; and one handicraftsman even presented
a pistol to his breast. It was not the last time
the pistol of an assassin was levelled at that
heart ! But he was not to be moved. He
would not suffer the people to rush forth to
slaughter. And he succeeded. His one voice,
with its true words, saved them. All but five
hundred were persuaded to remain in the city.
These would not listen, and pressed .madly
through the gates. Once without the gates,
however, and in the face of the fiery and victor-
ious body-guard, they began to feel the hopeless-
ness of their enterprise. Their forAvard pace
soon slackened, and in a very short time they
returned. The only result of the expedition
was, that Lannoy, seeing them advance, ordered
the instant massacre of the three hundred prison-
ers, who alone had been spared from the slaugh-
ter of the three thousand.
But the tumult in the city lasted three days
and nights. Fifteen thousand Calvinists en-
camped on the Meere. With them were united
all the turbulent spirits of the city. The peace-
able burghers dreaded the worst. Day and
night the Prince laboured to restore peace ; and
at length, by setting the foreign merchants,
Italians, Spanish, Portuguese,, and English, each
to guard his own property, and by calling out
four thousand Lutherans, and inducing them to
combine with the Catholics for the preservation
23
266 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAKD.
of order, he succeeded in persuading the Calvin-
ists to listen to terms, and saved the city from
the horrors of a war from street to street, and
from house to house.
Again and a2:ain in this conflict he risked his
life, ridino; more than once alone in face of the
cannon into the midst of the rioters.
Never was there a more terrible night than
that of the 14th of March. Thirty-five thous-
and ai;nied. men were out — fifteen thousand Cal-
vinists on the Meere, four thousand Lutherans
on the Strand, from fifteen to twenty thousand
Catholics in the Great Square — ^all eager to shed,
each other's blood, all burning with wrongs to
avenge ; the Catholics Avith bitter religious
hatred, and wearing the medals of the outraged
image of their Queen of Heaven ; the Reformed,
alas ! as furious, with the bitter memories of
murdered and tortured parents, sons, and daugh-
ters, brothers, and sisters.
There could be no doubt in our minds on
which side the wrongs were deepest ; but, alas !
there was much doubt on which side there was
least of the frantic, diabolical spirit of hatred
and revenge. It might be even felt that the
cause of God and His Word might be stained,
not with the destruction of inanimate images,
but with the murder of helpless women, the
sack of the Roman Catholic houses. From this
the Prince of Orange saved Antwerp and the
Reformed Church.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 267
At ten o'clock on the morning of the 15th,
he rode to the Meere with Hoogstraten and a
hundred troopers, to the midst of the square
where the fifteen thousand Calvinists were en-
camped, and entreated them to accept the terms
of peace, which included the right of public
worship within the city, and the refusal to admit
a foreign garrison ; warning them of the conse-
quences if they declined.
Once more that voice, so eloquent in its truth,
prevailed. A hearing was gained. Then the
Prince cried, " Vive le Roi !" And after a
brief pause, the cry was responded to by the
thousands present, and peace was secured.
It was said to be the last time those words
ever passed the Prince's lips. But at that mo-
ment he was nominally the King's deputy, and
the avoiding of fearful carnage and crime were
involved in the declaration.
Then the Prince once more insisted on the
Duchess Margaret accepting his resignation of
every office he held from King Philij). With
his last Vive le Roi ! he had saved Antwerp.
He would utter the hollow words no more !
In one month from the 15 th of March, every-
thing was changed. Protestant Tournay had
been subdued ; the siege of Protestant Valen-
ciennes was over. Egmont was massacring
Protestants in his provinces, to jDrove his loyalty.
Count Horn was blundering deeper and deeper
into the royal displeasure, although he had
2G8 THE LIBERATI0:N" op HOLLA]!fD.
abandoned the national cause. Brederode was
basely entreating Horn to intercede for him with
the Duchess, ready to abandon any person or
cause, if he might not riot a Uttle longer in his
pleasure gardens at Vianen ; but, too late in his
submission, he was obliged to fly to Embden,
there to die within a year. Antwerp having
lost the Prince, was at the feet of the Duchess,
meekly welcoming her Avhen she came on a visit
on the 28th of April, and receiving the foreign
garrison she brought.
Only the Prince was unchanged. After vainly
endeavouring to save Horn and Egmont, the
love for whom had rooted itself so deeply in
his heart, he went forth from his country ; not
to rescue himself, but deliberately henceforth to
devote property, honour, life, to the defence not
only of the freedom of the Netherlands, but of
a cause which, during the last months, had be^
come dearer and more sacred still ; the freedom
of all men to read the Word of God, and to
believe and worship as it commanded.
For the rumours of the preceding year had
been but too true. The Duke of Alva was
actually on his way with his army of irresistible
veterans. But of the misery involved in that
fact, none among us could yet conceive the
extent.
The whole country was prostrate. Once more
the emigration began, which when Alva came
it was felt would be impossible. Thousands,
THE LIBEKATION OF IIOLLAMD. 269
and these the best and bravest and most indus-
trious, fled the country. Thousands more were
burned, beheaded, drowned, as heretics, by order
of the Duchess IMargaret, anxious to prove how
unjust it was that the King should supersede
one who so zealously carried out his orders.
The ministers and people were hanged in mock-
ery from the beams of their unfinished churches,
churches erected in reliance on the Duchess'
solemn permission. And, alas, too many for-
sook the faith and returned to the Catholic
Church, resuming their devotions with a des-
perate zeal which did not deceive the Govern-
ment.
On the 22d of May the old edict of persecu-
tion was once more placarded in the streets of
Antwerp. We were reminded that all grown
persons who had attended the public preachings
were exposed to the gallows, and little children
to be beaten with rods ; that all who had sung
Protestant hymns at the burial of a relation, or
bought a religious book, or uttered a word
against a priest, were under immediate sentence
of death, with confiscation of property.
But what did these edicts of the Duchess
avail ? They were too discriminating ; they
made some exceptions. The King was indig-
nant at their clemency. In a few weeks Alva
was coming with a proclamation that the whole
nation lay under sentence of death, and with an
army of fiends to execute the sentence.
23*
270 THE LIEEKATIOX OF IIOLLAXD.
But to me tliose first months of the year
1567 brought events which, in my small world,
quite eclipsed for a time the great events out-
side.
On May the 24th, the day that terrible edict
had been afresh i:)lacarded in the streets, IMark
had been very busy all day trying to collect the
money to be raised in Antwerp to assist in pay-
ing the Swiss mercenaries, with whom it Avas
hoped Count Louis of Nassau might oppose the
Spaniards. He came back dispirited. The
people were prostrate, he said ; paralysed with
terror, and yet not desperate with it, but still
persisting in hoping the King would, after all,
be persuaded to clemency.
" John van Broek," he said, " thinks there is
comparatively little danger to the Lutherans.
All governments, he says, must know they are
very difterent from the turbulent Calvinists ;
and, on the other hand, the Reformed dislike to
trust their interests to. Lutheran leaders. In
vain, before he left, did the Prince entreat them
to merge their differences in the real unity of
their faith before the common danger. The
Reformed, especially, declared it would be be-
traying their consciences to unite with those
Avho received the Augsburg Confession. It
seems as if we must be smitten more and more,
and crushed into the very dust, before these
wretched schisms are crushed out of us."
Ursel was there ; and dearly as she loved her
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAXD. 2 71
brother, lier conscience wonld not suffer her to
let this pass.
" Brother," she said, " I must speak. The
Prince of Orange and yon are unjust. Your
faith and your wishes can not be a standard for
all. How can I unite with a party who declare
things about the Lord's Supper which I regard
as idolatrous ? When once we have seen where
such documents about the Sacrament lead, how
can ^ve let in the thinnest edge of that terrible
wedge again ? The difterences between us are
not trifles. No error is a trifle. Whoever
should open the smallest wicket in a citadel to
an enemy, would be a traitor, as much as one
that threw open the greatest gates ; and might
ruin the city as eftectually."
" No one wants the Reformed to say they
agree with the Lutherans," he replied ; " but
only, acknowledging they disagree on some
points, that they should combine against an
enemy who is ready to destroy them both."
" What strength is there," she said, " in com-
bining with those with whom we cannot agree ?
See what miseries came to the kings of Judah
from combining with fallen Israel."
" Ursel," said Mark, " you are unreasonable.
The Lutherans are not idolaters ; but take care
lest you are, when you set up your own inter-
pretation on all points as the inspired truth."
" It is not my interpretation," said Ursel ;
" it is the truth of God."
272 THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
" Sister," he rei^lied, gently, " do you hope
to meet me and Costanza in heaven ?"
" I expect to meet many in heaven with whom
I dare not combine on earth," she said.
" On what grounds ?" he asked.
" You know, Mark ; because we trust in one
only Saviour, who gave Himself for us."
" And is not that enough to unite us on
earth ?" he asked. " Do you think, on the
other hand, the fifteen thousand Calvinists who
encamped in the Place de Meere last March,
and threatened death to Lutherans and Catho-
lics, are all prepared for heaven ?"
" How can you ask such a thing !" she said,
" Then if your Calvinism does not necessarily
admit to heaven, nor our Lutheranism exclude
from it, why not acknowledge the one basis of
union which does admit access to God's pres-
ence now and hereafter ? Ursel," he continued,
smiling, as he wished her good-night, " still we
are one, and Ifeel we are one."
" I cannot pretend to think what I do not,
brother," she said ; " and I think the Lutheran
errors very dangerous."
He looked pained as he turned from her ; but
afterwards he said to me :
" We must be gentle with Ursel. It is
scarcely possible, perhaps, to hold truth firmly
enough to die for it, as I am" sure she does, with-
out gras|)ing some doubtful portions too tightly.
Only He who is all truth, is also all love. We
THE LIBKRATION OF IIOLLAIS'D. 273
can no more be perfect in the one than the other.
But let lis remember, Costanza, that in abiding
in that living Lord, we are united to that Per-
fection which none of us fully comprehend ; and
in Him, and in Him only, are we truly united to
one another."
The next day he went out as usual to his
affairs. The little cloud of depression had
passed ; and he said, as he went, after our morn-
ing prayer :
" "We will never despair, Costanza. Hope is
a grace to be cherished. The Lord Jesus Christ
is at the right hand of God, and to Him, not to
King Philip, or Alva, or the devil, all power is
given."
Then turning back again, he said :
" Tell Ursel she must not be like the Israelites
in Egypt, and not understand when God sends
the deliverer. Tell her she must sup with us
this evening ; it is our birthday ; and we will
finish our battle of last night." And taking
Mayken in his arms, and kissing her, he was out
of sight in a minute.
I busied myself that day with little extra
preparations for the evening entertainment ; and
at the hour fixed, Ursel, Dolores, Mayken, and
I were all gathered in Dolores' room. The
windows were open, the Scheldt sparkled in the
June sunshine, and the little roof-garden was
full of fragrant flowers.
But Mark did not come. I did not wonder
2V4 THE LIBER ATIOX OF HOLLAJiTD.
much at first. Too often in these tumultuous
days unexpected business would delay him, and
I could not expect that when household after
household was being torn asunder, our little
arrangements were always to go on without
interruption. Ursel was the first to look alarmed.
A white anxious look began to creep over her
face, and her large grey eyes dilated at every
sound. I could see she tried to hide her anxiety
from me. She began to move nervously about
the room and to play with Mayken, and yet at
any sound she stopped and listened. Then I
began to be anxious, and went to the house-
door to watch. There I met Truyken also
■watching. Our eyes met, but she said nothing.
I said :
" It is some ai'rival of merchandise, Truyken ;
or he has letters to write. You know these
are busy times."
Truyken shook her head, and said, " Poor
lamb !"
By this time three hours had passed beyond
the hour appointed, and it was dark. My heart
seemed to grow cold and stand still. I attempted
no more explanations, but went back and silently
gave Mayken her supper, and was leading her
away to bed.
" Will not my father come to pray with us ?"
she said.
The words brought tears into my eyes. I
pressed her to my heart, Avhich seemed to beat
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 2V5
again. And so we sat another hour, I suppose,
when Truyken came in, and said bluntly :
" It is time to be at rest. The magistrates
do not like folks to be up at this hour."
I could not bear to acknowledge that Mark
might not come, by breaking up our little party ;
but Truyken gently took the child.
" Mother," whispered Mayken, " will you say
the j^rayer ?"
Dolores gently drew us to her with that touch
which had always for me the command of a
mother's, in trouble; and we all knelt down
together, while Dolores prayed that G©d who
loved us all, would protect us all and keep us
as still one household, part of His household,
safe under the shelter of His wines.
Then we separated, that there might be no
lights or noises to awaken suspicion in the house.
And hour after hour the suspense grew more
agonizing.
But it did not last long. At three o'clock a
loud knock came at the door. Mark's would
have been low ; it could not be him. I looked
out and saw the officers of justice.
Now I knew the meaning of Mark's disappear-
ance too well. All the forbidden books and
perilous papers in the house came before my
thoughts, and hastily dressing, I prepared my-
self for the worst. Yet, indeed, what worse
could come ? If Mark was in their hands, it
would but bring me nearer him to be in prison
276 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
■with him. But as I went down stairs I found
Ti'uyken before me.
" Go back," she said, peremptorily. " I un-
derstand people of this kind best."
I heard their heavy footsteps and rough
voices in one room after another, and I knew
there was scarcely one but contained heretical
books or papers, which might have condemned
us all to instant death. But to my surprise, as
the men at length with Truyken at their head
entered my room, they had a baffled, disappointed
look. In this room, however, was the secret cup-
board, containing the most fatal papers of all.
It was behind the large bed, and I trusted might
escape them ; but to my dismay, one of the men,
with keen, restless eyes, roughly pushed aside the
hangings, and knocking on the wall exclaimed :
" We have it at last. You will not easily
baffle an old terrier like Hendrik."
Truyken looked rather grave, and said :
" All families of standing such as ours have
their treasure cupboards, I suppose ; but the
worthy constables of Antwerp are no thieves,
that we should hide such things from them."
And she began to assist them in their re-
searches with ostentatious politeness. I trembled,
fearing she knew nothing of the danger, but to
my surprise the officers drew one piece of anti-
quated finery after another out of the recess,
exclaiming indignantly at each harmless i^iece of
brocade and satin Avhich baffled their researches.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 277
At leno;th I heard the ominous crackle of
paper, and gave up all for lost.
Eagerly the officers brought the prize to their
lanterns, but, to their evident disgust, it was
merely an old folio missal, and they threw it on
the ground with a contemptuous curse.
Truyken picked it up with much reverence,
and said, crossing herself, " That was not the
way / was taught to treat the holy books ! but
these are evil times."
The men rummaged about the house till morn-
ing ; but still finding nothing, they contented
themselves Avith a contribution from the larder
and cellar, and, affixing the royal seal on the
house, left us in quietness.
No persuasion of ours could induce Truyken
to unravel this mystery.
Bibles and hymn-books, Flemish, and Spanish,
and Dutch, and even Latin, all had vanished,
and we had to content ourselves with such good
words as we could find in Truyken's missals.
And happily there were many, for we needed
them sorely.
No tidings reached us of Mark for many
weeks. My great comfort was the love and
sympathy this sorrow called out. All the little
barriers which divided the family seemed to
melt into nothing before it. Christina forgot
health and every thing to come and comfort me.
Once, indeed, John van Broek said, between the
whiffs of his pipe :
24
278 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
" I always was afraid some evil would come
of those i)ublic lireacliings. My poor brotlier-
in-law would have too much to do with those
fanatical Calvinists !"
Ho was persuaded the Government Avould
never forget the servics the Antwerp Lutherans
had rendered in the last insurrection, and would
know better than to confound them with mere
fanatics. But allowing for this conviction of
his superior prudence, he was most kind to us,
and even urged our taking refuge in his house,
at no small peril to themselves.
I could not, however, think of this for an
instant. Why involve any one else in the peril,
necessarily the portion of two fugitive Spanish
heretics, like Dolores and me ? Once, indeed,
I thought of letting Mayken take refuge there ;
but the child clung so much to me, that it seemed
hardly a duty to give her the pain of separation
for the sake of such a doubtful advantage.
Cut no one's sympathy was like Ursel's.
Dolores was always like a mother tome; but
Ursel loved Mark as no one else in the world
did, except me and Mayken. And there was
something in the sight of her white face, and
her eyes so swollen with weej)ing, which com-
forted me more than any thing, and drew me to
her inexpressibly. And yet she seemed very
hopeless ; so that often I found myself comfort-
ing her, which I suppose was one reason why it
did me good to be with her.
THE LICEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 279
At lengtli, one morning in September, May-
ken came running breathlessly into the room
with burning lace, and whispered to me :
'' I have heard father's voice."
" I could only say : •
" Poor darling, it is impossible."
" Oh, no ! I could never mistake his voice,"
she said. " It was from a little narrow window,
in a great gloomy house with very high walls.
But it was his voice ; and he said, ' Mayken !
Mayken !' I stopped, and looked up, and then
very softly he said : ' Tell your mother to be at
home to-night, and to open the back-door at
midnight ; and now run home directly.' "
" I would have stopped, but Truyken seized
me in her arms, as if I had been a baby, and ran
home with me at once."
" Is the child right ?" I asked of Truyken,
who followed her.
" Quite right. I heard the words. The
blessed saints grant no one else did !"
I told no one but Ursel that day. The secret
was perilous ; but I could not help telling her.
To my surprise, she, usually so firm in outward
composure, burst into an agony of tears.
" I have not deserved it. I have not deserved
it. God is good. He forgives and pities. I
thought I should have borne this anguish to my
grave."
" "What do you mean ?" I asked.
" Think of the last look I saw of his !" she
280 THE LIBEEATIOiq" OF HOLLAND. •-
sobbed. " I have never forgotten it night or
day. He said so tenderly that we were one in
faith, and I, in my miserable pride, which I
thought was true zeal, answered him Avith a
reproach, recalling our -differences. And he
made no answer, but turned away with such a
gentle, sorrowful look. It pierced my heart
then, but I would not retract ; and for all these
wretched days I have thought I should never
see his face, nor hear his voice again, but die
with that look in my heart."
" Ah, TJrsel," I said, " why did you not tell
me ?" And I repeated to her the words he had
said to me as he went away that morning.
" That only made it worse," she said. " O
Costanza, the terrible light I have had thrown
on every thing during these last days ! I sup-
pose it is like what people feel on death-beds,
or on awakening in another world. All my past
hfe has risen before me with such frightful dis-
tinctness ; all my bitter and angry words to
Mark about these differences ; all the bitterness
and pride I took for steadfastness and zeal, and
despised others, despised Mark, for not having.
And it became so dreadfully clear to me that
our Lord is pleased with us, or displeased with
us, not on account of little points of doctrine,
on which, perhaps, no one is altogether right,
but on account of the love Ave bear (or fail in
bearing) one another, for His sake. All my
knowledge seemed nothing to me — sounding
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 281
brass and tinkling cymbal. It seemed to me as
if my Saviour wonld meet me with just such a
gentle, reproachful look as Mark's, and I should
have not a word to say, but should see Him
turn away like Mark, and never hear or see His
holy, glorious face again, but descend, with all
my knowledge, among the evil spirits, who
know so much more than I."
"Hush, hush, IJrsel!" I said. "You must
not speak so. You love your Saviour ; and
none who love Him can be driven from His
presence. He will not condemn you for a mis-
take."
" It was not a mistake ; it was intolerable
pride ; it was sin," she said.
" If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins," I said.
" It must be true," she said, after a pause.
" I suppose I have been tempted from pride to
despair. But, Costanza, do you think it possi-
ble I miejht have a word or look from Mark ?"
I knew there would be a contest with Truy-
ken about it, but I promised ; and in spite of
Truyken's remonstrances, Ursel was placed in
an adjoining room, while I waited at the back-
door.
It opened into a narrow lane leading to the
Scheldt. At one o'clock there was a low plash-
ing of oars on the river, breaking the midnight
silence, and in another minute Mark was at my
side.
24*
282 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND.
For a minute or two we could not speak.
" One quarter of an hour !" he said. In a
few hurried words he explained to me how he
had cut through the bar of his window, and
escaped, and was now on his way by the river
in a boat belonging to the brother of a fellow-
prisoner, who had escaped with him. " And
now," he said, " there is a choice before us,
Costanza. I can meet you at Flushing, and we
can take refugee in England. In that case I
must abandon my country, and all hope of sav-
ing her. But we may spend our days in peace
together. Or I can fly to Germany, join the
Prince of Orange, and do what I can to aid him
in saving my country from Alva and the Inquisi-
tion. Which shall I do ?"
,. " I cannot choose, Mark," I said ; " but I
will be content with what you choose."
" My love," he said, " let us act together ;
let us make the sacrifice together ; let us oifer
to Him the best we have to ofier, and trust Him
to reunite us, if it is His will. You are not a
child, whose place is merely to submit. You
are my wife, to share my every purpose. I will
do nothing without your consent. The ofiering
must be ours, not mine.''''
" O Mark, I can yield if God takes ! But
how can I give up ?"
" You can give up if He asks," he replied,
very softly.
" But does He ask ? He gave us to each
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAISTD. 283
Other. What would you have me do ? Let
me go with you where you go."
" And Mayken ?"
" Dolores, or Ursel, or Christina would take
Mayken. But you, who can take our place to
each other."
" The army of the Prince of Orange is no
place for you," he said, with a trembling voice.
" If I am to serve my country and the religion,
you must take refuge in Friesland or Holland.
Antwerp is no longer safe for any of us, not
for a day. Tell John van Broek I know his
name is among the proscribed, and that he
must fly."
" Can we not meet once more before we
decide ?" I said ; " only a few minutes to decide
on tearing the heart in two !"
" Costanza," he said, in a tone of suppressed
anguish, " I am here at the risk of life to-night.
I must be on my way to Nassau or to Eng-
land."
" You have no doubt which is right," I said.
" None," he said, " if your mind is the same.
For if each seeks only his own safety, what will
become of the country, of the Church, of those
who cannot defend themselves ? I believe God
calls every true man in the Netherlands at this
moment to the side of the Prince of Orange."
I felt he was right, and then I felt I had but
one duty — to help him to make the sacrifice,
and I said :
284 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
" Mark, I have no doubt you must go to the
Prince. I will trust you to God."
He said nothing for a minute, and then he
murmured :
" Heavenly Father, accept our offering. Thou
wilt not lay on us more than we can bear."
Then he gave me directions about my joui-ney,
how to write to him, and was going, when I
remembered Ursel.
In a few rapid words I told him of the change
in her, and her distress. He called her softly
by name, and held her a moment in his
arms.
" We are one in faith and hope, Ursel," he
said. " Take care of Costanza and Mayken.
See, I commit my best treasures to you."
One more look at me, and he was gone ; and
I who, the minute before, leaning on his shoulder,
had felt myself a heroine, equal to any sacrifice,
now, that he was gone, felt myself a j^oor, help-
less, unsuj)ported woman, and sank into Ursel's
arms, and sobbed.
" O Ursel, how could I let him go !"
But Ursel said:-" You could not do other-
wise. We will trust Him with God, sister. I
am sure he is not gone in vain."
And Ursel's tone had something in it like
Mark's, now that to her old firmness of purpose
was added that new tenderness and humility ;
and it comforted me.
" But you did not tell him I was become a
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 285
Lutheran, Costanza, did you ?" she said ; " be-
cause that would not be true."
I began to understand Ursel's conscience a
little better now, and I said :
" No. I only told him I thought you were
more of a Christian."
So we locked the door, and all the house was
quiet until the morning.
PART SECOND.
(28'7)
I.
1568. Jacob Claesen's Farm, Friesland.
IT is now nearly a year since Mark and I parted
at the door of our old house in Antwerp.
But I have never repented the choice we then
made. I am sure it was right, and must there-
fore be for the best.
Mayken is quite a companion to me now, and
I have resolved, now that we are in comparative
safety at Mark's old home, to write little me-
morials of our daily life, so that when we meet
again the time past may not be such a blank,
but that we may go over it together, and that
he may see in those pages how Mayken grew
into girlhood. So many beloved ones seem to
look into my heart through her face. She has
the humour of her father's quiet smile, and a
firmness on her sweet, rosy lips like his ; but
my mother seems to look on me through her
deep, soft, southern eyes, my mother's, yet with
another look of pure and sunny hope, which no
doubt she has now in heaven, but seldom had in
our home at Valladohd when I remember her.
25 (289) .
290 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND.
But before I begin with to-day, I must trace
back our history to that evening in Antwerp.
The next morning, before it was light, Ursel
and I went to John van Brock's house, and gave
him and Christina Mark's message.
He looked much bewildered, but said :
" I do not think it possible there can be
any danger for us. I could help the Govern-
ment so much more as a friend, if they would
let me alone, than as a victim. And, besides, I
feel confident the Kino- -will discriminate between
the wild disciples of French Huguenots and the
peaceable adherents of the great German Con-
fession, which so many princes of the empire
have signed."
" My dear," said Christina, " I am not quite
so sure. I think at least I shall begin to pack
up some of the things, in case it should be desir-
able for us to leave rather hastily."
Ursel looked at me in despair.
But at that moment a servant entered with a
letter, which, when John van Broek had read,
he stood paralysed.
" Egmont !" he said ; " the Counts Egmont
and Horn were arrested by the Duke of Alva at
Brussels, on the 4th of September. Egmont,
the zealous Catholic and loyal subject ! Then
not a soul in the land is safe."
Christina said :
" Then you will stay and help me, Ursel ?"
" Help you ! About what ?" exclaimed Ursel.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 291
" The plate and the linen," said Christina.
" Christina ! — wife ! — what are you talking
of?" said John van Broek. " We are too happy
if we can escape with life. What can we do ?
Ursel stay with ns," he exclaimed, instinctively
turnino; to the stronoier character.
" I cannot," she said. " How can I ? Mark
committed Costanza to my care."
" We must try and do what Mark would wish,
Ursel," I said, softly, " and that would be what
is right. I am strong, and I have Dolores and
Truyken. Stay with Christina,"
It was a great effort to Ursel, but she stayed ;
and in a few days they were safely in refuge at
a farm belonging to my brother-in-law, near
Leyden. , And the seal of the King of Spain
was affixed to Christina's linen and plate chests.
Meantime, Dolores and I j^repared to start
for Friesland, chiefly because it was the nearest
point to Germany where we could be safe. By
the evening all was ready. Truyken had packed
a few necessary things in the smallest compass,
and every thing else must be left. There is an
unreasonable pang in parting from inanimate
things which have been bound up with part of
our lives. We seem wronging the mute things
which have afforded us such shelter, and given
ns such pleasure : and besides this, parting from
the home of our early married life seemed like
throwing up another barrier between me and
Mark. I knew nothing of the scenes he was in,
292 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
and henceforth (till we meet) he could know
nothino; of the world around me. Nothing
could be dismantled. In Dolores' room, flowers,
Mayken's toy corner — all must be left as if we
were to return to-morrow ; and we should re-
turn no more !
Happily there was too much to think of for
many lingering looks. But one more serious
parting, we believed, awaited us. Truyken, our
rough, faithful, loyal Truyken, not for the world
would we have involved her in our fate. When
we looked for her, however, to take leave, she
was nowhere to be found, and so we started in
the packet-boat without bidding her good-bye.
That night Dolores and I wrapped ourselves
up on the deck, with Mayken asleep on my lap,
and felt as if we could never sleep again, but
before morning we were both asleep with weari-
ness, and were only awakened by a familiar voice
saying :
" We had better land here."
It was Truyken Ketel ! Mayken rushed into
her arms. We remonstrated, but she said :
" Poor, defenseless lambs, did you think I
would leave you to wander through the world
without guide or guard ?"
We could not but be amused at her relative
estimate ot her own faculties and ours, and yet
the event proved to the full the value of her
companionship. From many a difficulty did her
ready wit disentangle us, whilst her orthodox
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 293
habits in more than one instance averted sus-
picion from us.
I dare not let my memory dwell long on the
terrible scenes of that journey, and yet this was
only at the beginning of Alva's administration.
One hundred thousand houses arc said to have
been deserted in that year by the flight of the
inhabitants, and to countless numbers even flight
was impossible.
One night, I remember, we came to a com-
fortable little homestead. The garden was in
the most perfect order, flowers grew on the
borders among the vegetables ; a vine with ripe
grapes festooned the walls. But a strange
silence hvmg over the place. "We entered by
the back-door, which w^as open. We called,
but no one answered. We ventured into the
next room. This was a bedroom. It * was
empty but neat, with recent touches of some
orderly hand. Truyken went into the garden,
gathered some vegetables and cooked them ;
and weary as we were, we lay down to rest and
slept well.
In the morning Truyken woke me early. Her
face was white, and her voice trembled as she
said :
" We must leave this place instantly."
In a few minutes Mayken was dressed, and
we left ; but before we lost sight of the house,
Truyken touched my shoulder and mutely
pointed out to me something hanging from the
25*
294 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
porch of the front door. It was a human body,
probably of the master of that home.
We dreaded to look around us everywhere.
The trees in the orchards in quiet country places,
the beams of the houses, in peaceful villages
and busy towns, had been converted into gal-
lows. Terrible heaps of ashes lay in many a
village green, of which we knew too well the
meaning ; and in many places, houses and inhabi-
tants all had been burnt together, the hearth
having been made the funeral-pyre. And we
knew that it was not the guilty who had thus
suflered, but the holy, the true, and the stead-
fast, who would have made the glory and safety
of the land.
Ever as we journeyed, day and night, near
or at a distance, from cathedral or village spire
the air was always heavy with the ceaseless toll
of the death-bell. And, alas ! in the few cases
in which resistance was attemjited, it was too
much in the sjDirit of frantic revenge. The few
broken remnants of the great Confederation of
the Gueux had taken to a reckless outlawed life
in the forest or on the sea, under the name of
the " Wild Gueux," and the " Beggars of the
Sea." In some cases these wild bands rescued
the innocent, but in too many they avenged the
innocent by maiming defenseless priests. Yet
we owe much to one such band, and should
therefore speak of them with gentleness.
We had one evening encountered a band of
THE LIBERATIOX OF HOLLAND. 295
Spanish troopers, from whom tliere seemed little
chance of escape, when the wild but familair cry
of the Gueux echoed from a neighbouring for-
est, and our captors were killed or put to flight
by a troop of horsemen. They soon returned
from the pursuit to us. It was a strange motley
troop, clad in every variety of garments, some
in coarse peasants' clothes, or in the gray Gueux
doublet, some in the spoils of the Spaniards.
The leader dismounted and advanced towards
us with his Gueux felt cap in his hand. It was
the Seigneur de Clairvaux, but worn and hag-
gard and with garments too genuinely beggarly
in their rags.
" You see I am acting in character," he said,
pointing to the tattered sleeve of his doublet.
" But I may perhaps save you, if you will accept
of such a beggarly escort."
We rested safely under his guard that night,
and the next day he set us on horses belonging
«to his troop, (since Dolores could never walk
far,) and saw us safely to the borders of the
Rhine.
There he hailed a boat, and when the poor
boatman hesitated to incur the penalty of death
by ferrying us, himself rowed us across the river
into Holland.
As we stood on the opposite shore before he
parted from us, he said :
" I do not forget my evening at your house at
Antwerp. I shall never forget it. My mother
296 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAXD.
and sister have both been compromised by my
joining the Gueux, our lands are all confiscated,
and they have fled into a nunnery, the only safe
refuge for them. I am a ruined man, an outlaw,
and a rebel."
" And a heretic ?" asked Dolores.
"ISTot a Papist, at least," he said, bitterly;
'•not a believer in the religion of hangmen."
" But why will you take the misery without
the glory and the joy ?" said Dolores.
And I entreated him to join the Prince of
Orange, the only true leader of lawful resist-
ance to the great council of murder which now
reigned over the land.
" I believe your counsel is right," he said.
"Indeed," said Dolores, earnestly, "there are
better things for true men to live for than the
blind vengeance of these bandit troops. It is
not the work for you. . There is still a God, still
a Saviour in heaven."
" Can you believe it ?" he said ; " though all
these smoking villages and desolated homes,
and this cruel slaughter of the innocent ?"
" As fervently as I believe that the salvation
of the world came through the cross," she re-
plied. " But I believe also in the existence of
a mighty, murdering, lying spirit," she added,
solemnly.
" No doubt," he replied ; " it is not difficult
to believe in the devil in these days. But do
you know it is currently reported among the
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND, 297
Spaniards and the Catholic peasants, that the
Dutch worship the devil ? A peasant came up
to a Reformed preacher the other day, and said
very gravely, ' Ah ! now I see it was a mistake ;
you have not a cloven foot.' "
Dolores did not smile. She knew too well the
deep despair which lay at the bottom of this
laughter, in his heart, as with so many others in
the Netherlands ; and if words could do it, she
was resolved to rouse him from this slough of
unbelief and hopelessness, from which nothing
but living faith could save any man who thought
or felt in those dreadful days.
" Seiior," she said, " I have seen in my coun-
try another such overthroAV of hope as you are
witnessing now in yours ; only more complete.
Every one I loved and trusted in Spain, except
my sister, has been executed at the stake, or
has perished in prison. The whole light of
truth has been quenched in Spain. And yet I
know those deaths of torture were no triumph
to the devil, but the beginning of eternal vic-
tory to those who suffered. Believe me, there
is a God who will judge in the earth. The Lord
Jesus Christ is not dead, but living in the heav-
ens now. And He is worthy that we should live
and die for Him."
" And," I added, " He has given you in this
land the Prince of Orange, and old charters, my
husband says, which it is just to defend ; so that
you need not sink to a lawless bandit warfare."
298 THE LIBERATIOX OF HOLLAifD.
He was evidently touched.
" It is very strange to me now," he said, " to
hear words of truth and kindness such as these.
I shall remember them !"
"And," Dolores said, "will you promise us
one thing ? I have a fragment of the Bible here
in Flemish ; it is the Gospel of St. John, which
you heard my brother-in-law read. Will you
take it as a little acknowledgment of our debt
of gratitude to you ? and will you read it ?"
He bowed low, and kissed her hand, as she
gave him the poor torn pages.
" They will be very precious to me," he said ;
"and, as well as I can, I will read the holy
words every day."
After leaving him, we made our way into
Friesland. One night we slept at Xaarden, a
little walled town on the borders of the Zuyder
See, where many of the inhabitants were Prot-
estants. I remember well the hospitality of the
good pastor and his wife who sheltered us then
— the peaceful home— the family prayer — the
cheerful meals — the encouraging Avords at part-
ing.
At length we reached Truyken's relations,
whose farm, on the north-eastern side of the
Zuyder See, not far from Leeuwarden, was our
destination.
The country was not quite so desolate here as
in some places we had passed. Count Arem-
berg, the Governor, was said to have been more
THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAXD. 299
merciful than some, although at Leeuwarden
there had been Protestants burnt recently in
the market-place.
It was late in the evening, on a Winter night
in December, (ISGV,) that we reached this sea-
side farm. We had been skirting the great dyke
W'hich kept off the sea, exposed to both wind
and salt spray ; and Mayken, generally a brave
little traveller, was tired and fretful with fatigue
and cold, when the cheerful glimmer of lights
welcomed us from a low building in the meadows
below.
" It is the great barn," said Truyken. " What
can they be doing there ?"
We approached cautiously, and soon we heard
the sound of singing. As we drew near the
dooi', the Avords became audible, although, in
that Frisian dialect, not very intelligible to me.
I understood, however, that it was a hymn, and
it seemed to me to be a description of the suffer-
ings of some martyr, chanted by one voice, whilst
the whole congregation took up the chorus in a
response of triumph and thanksgiving.
" Would you believe it ?" exclaimed Truyken.
"It is old Jacob Claesen himself, my uncle, sing-
ing the praises of the Anabaptist, Jeronymus
Segerson, who was burnt at Antwerp. There
is no relying on any one in these days."
And but for Mayken's fatigue, and the lateness
of the hour, I believe Truyken would have left
the polluted spot at once and for ever.
300 THE LIBERATION" OF HOLLAND.
As we stood there, however, a quiet benedic-
tion was pronounced, and the little assembly be-
gan to disperse. They started to see strangers
at the door ; but Truyken soon introduced her-
self, and Ave were welcomed to the roof of Jacob
Claesen and his wife Hadewyk, with a hospitality
most generous in those days of poverty and
peril.
THE LIBEUATION OF HOLLAND. 301
II.
THE husband and wife were very different in
character, as we soon ascertained.
On the next morning Truyken observed the
feeble, tottering gait of the old man.
" Uncle Jacob," she said, " what has happened
to you ? Not many years since I saw you a ro-
bust man, as hearty as any of your sons."
" I have borne some portion of the cross," he
re23lied, gently.
" Ask the priests who gave him over to the
rack for refusing to betray his friends," said
Hadewyk, bitterly, "how his brave straight
limbs are bent and crippled thus."
" It is not many who escape at all, wife," he
answered. " The Lord has been very gracious
to His feeble servant. Time would soon have
done the work, if the executioners had not."
"Yes, yes," said Hadewyk, impatiently. "I
was not speaking of the Almighty. You always
bring every thing back to Him. I cannot forget
there is another at work in the world."
" Did you suffer for the same reason as the
26
302 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
man you were singing about last night, uncle ?"
asked Truyken, gloomily.
" For the truth !" lie said ; " for worshipping
with the brethren, and refusing to give up their
names. I could not do that."
" No, you could not," asserted Truyken,
decisively, " if you must go amongst such people
at all. And you. Aunt Hadewyk, are you too an
Anabaptist?" The word seemed almost to
choke her utterance.
" No, no," said Hadewyk ; " I am nothing."
Truyken looked a little comforted,
" Pladewyk," remonstrated the old man,quietly,
" how canst thou say that to a stranger ? All
might not understand thee as I do ! She loves
the Bible as I do," he said to Truyken.
"The Bible, yes," allowed Hadewyk; "but
not the Anabaptists. Ladies," she said, turning
to us, " because I would not be baptized, they
wanted him to divorc-e me. Could I ever join
such Christians as those ?"
" Ah, ah," sighed Truyken under her breath,
" they are awful times. I have always heard
they had more than one wife, those Anabaptists."
" You heard wrong then, niece," retorted
Hadewyk, vehemently ; " do you think my Jacob
would consent to such doings as those ? People
should be careful before they spread such
calumnies, or listen to them."
And Hadewylc tenderly arranged a chair for
the old man in a sunny corner, between the win-
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 303
dow and the fire, and laying his Bible and his
spectacles on a small wooden table close to it, led
him to it, and proceeded about her household
work.
This little skirmish had, however, in some
unaccountable way reconciled Truyken to her
relations. She seemed to think there were some
grains of common sense left at least in her aunt,
and accordingly she consented to accept their
hospitality.
We were not dependent on them, freely as
they offered that we should be so. Many of our
jewels remained to purchase food and comforts
of various kinds, Truyken's stout arm and clear
head were of great use about the house and
farm, and Dolores and I delighted to render any
little services we could.
In a month we grew quite at home in the
simple household.
To Mayken it was a life of unmixed enjoy-
ment. The children of the good couple had all
grown up and settled away from them. Mayken
soon became installed in many a little post of
childish usefulness. Early in the morning she
went with Hadewyk to feed the calves and
chickens, and all the young creatures, who soon
acquired for her names and individual existence ;
and in the evenings she delighted to sit on
Jacob's knee and say hyms to him, and listen to
his Bible stories, and prattle to him in return of
her Antwerp home.
304 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
One morning I surprised my sister in tears, as
she looked at the child holding old Hadewyk's
hand, and in the other a basket out of which
sundry large fowls were eating, gravely lecturing
the strongest sometimes on their rapacious and
selfish propensities.
" What are you thinkii>g of, Dolores ?" I said.
" Of a cottage in a little hollow of a plain in
Leon," she said ; " and a faithful old servant who
used to lead a little happy child about among
the poultry, just as Iladewyk is leading Mayken
now."
"A little Spanish child," I said, taking her
hand in mine ; " who made herself a cripple a
few years afterwards to save Mayken's mother !"
" It was a diiferent scene," she said, " the
golden light of the southern Summer morning
burning through the vines and chestnuts ; and
this little farm-yard, these wooden sheds covered
with snow, and the snoW lying deep on these
low meadows, broken by black ice-pools, and
roofed by this heavy gray sky, with the sea
roaring against the dyke beyond. And yet it
seemed like a dream of the other ; but what a
gulf between !"
We lived very quietly among these simple,
kindly people ; but it was a new life to Dolores
and to me, and one that taught us, I trust, some
lessons.
It certainly taught us that the Anabaptists
must be a calumniated people.
THE LIBERATION" OF HOLLAND. 305
Those we saw, and they were many, were
remarkable cluefly for the quiet simplicity of
their faith and life. They were Mennonites, and
held it unscriptural ever • to resist oppression.
And yet this was plainly not from want of
courage, since they confessed their faith as
boldly as if they had been backed by an army.
A poor and despised, but resolute, earnest, and
much enduring people ! The hymns they sang
in their meethigs were frequently a kind of
religious ballad, describing the sufferings and
triumphant death of some recent Anabaptist
martyr ; dwelling slightly on the sufferings, but
long and fervently on the glory which was to
follow. They often touched us very deeply.
They lived in the memories and hearts of the
peasantry, like the Spanish ballads of the con-
tests between Infidel and Crusader anions: the
peasantry of Spain. I?ut the contest was on
higher ground, and the poor ignorant martyr-
victors were nobler than many a heroic Cid or
knight, indignant as the latter would have been
at the comparison. I must confess, however,
that our new friends the Mennonites, like many
other Christians, often shone more at the stake
than in the ordinary trials of temper of every-
day life. There was an unaccountable degree
of severity and bitterness about many of them
on small points of discipline. It seemed as if
the pugnacity which they disclaimed towards
their persecutors had all been turned inward
26*
306 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
amonsx themselves. The divisions amoncj them
quite sm-passecl my miderstanding or memory.
It was difficult often to discover how they began, .
and impossible for strangers to comprehend
their complication as they proceeded, because,
as in so many quarrels, they never seemed to
end at all near the point which was the primary
cause of debate. Excommunications were very
frequent among them : excommunications which
demanded, as Hadewyk had said, the separation
of a wife from an excommunicated husband,
and of a husband from an excommunicated
wife ; excommunications of one another, because
they could not agree on the basis of excom-
municating other people. And all this in a
community which no one joined except at the
risk of being burned or drowned !
The lament of one of their number, Job John-
son, seemed to me very touching.
" O God," he wrote, " how have we poor
creatures suffered ourselves to be misled whilst
we searched the Scriptures, out of a spirit of di-
vision and hatred, not out of love of peace and
unity. O Lord, grant me Thy grace, that, being
freed from this madness and confusion, I may
dwell but half a year in some quiet and solitary
place ; then will I be ready to sacrifice my body
for my faith."
And this poor man had his desire ; for retreat-
ing from Friesland, he spent one quiet Summer
at a village near the Brill in Zealand, and in the
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAKD. 307
Autumn w.is apprehended and executed for his
faith at the Hague.
Old Jacob Claesen told us of this one January
evening when he had been much harassed by
some debates in his presence during the day.
I had not thought it kind to speak to him on the
subject of those divisions, but now I ventured
to tell him how they perplexed me.
"No wonder!" he said, ''no wonder!"
Then Dolores spoke out on the subject as I
had not heard her before. We three were alone.
"If you could know the wretched doubts and
conflicts I went through when first we came
from Spain ! There we had no divisions. The
enemy was too near and too powerful, and our
own love and faith were too fresh. Danger
kept us in constant dependence on God, and He
bound us to one another, so that in my inex-
perience I habitually thought of the Reformed
and the Catholics as the Church and the Avorld
— the army of Satan on one side, armed with
fire and swoi'd and rack ; the army of Christ on
the other, armed only with His cross, and clothed
in His white raiment. I pictured to myself the
great northern cities, where the evangelical rule
was accepted by thousands, as so many heavenly
Jerusalems, full of holiness and peace and love."
"And you did not find Antwerp that ?" said
Jacob, with a grave smile.
" No, indeed ! It was like expecting to come
into a temple, and finding an exchange, a Babel."
oOS THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
"Ah, well !" said the old man ; " there is a
long Avay between the 1st chaptei* of the Acts
and the 1st chapter of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians, between 'the multitude of them
that believed were of one heart and one soul,'
and ' whereas there is among you envying and
strife and divisions.' There is a long way again
between ' One saith, I am of Paul, and another,
I am of Apollos,' and the new song of the 'great
multitude who have washed their robes and
made them Avhite in the blood of the Lamb.'
And, daughter," he added, laying his feeble
hand on hers, " is there not too often a long way
between our morning prayers, and our daily
living?"
" But the disunion among Protestants, and
amongst every sect of Protestants, must repel
so many Catholics from us. Why must reading
the Bible bring these divisions ?" I asked.
"For one reason," he said, " I suppose because
it brings life; and a machine has always more
unity in its action than the most disciplined body
of living men."
"Must truth, then, and the free action of con-
science always lead to disunion ?"
"I think truth and the sense of individual
res^^onsibility to God, from which no one can
free us, must always among fallen men break up
uniformity," he said ; " at least I have seen it so.
It caused me bitter pain once. But I will tell
you how I was comforted. T lay in prison for
THE LIBEEATIOK OP HOLLAND. 309
I'^fusing to .1(1 ore the Host, as they call it. I
had sutFered much, as Hadewyk told you, be-
cause I would not betray my fellow-believers ;
but the torture of ray body seemed little to the
pain it gave me when I thought of the divisions
among the brethren. I suppose the malignant
one Avho foments divisions came in my hour of
weakness to torment me Math them. 'ThouQ-h
I give my body to be burned, and have not
love;' and 'by this shall all men know ye are
my disciples,' came rushing through my poor
bewildered brain, not in tones of love, but as in
letters of lightning and with the roar of thunder,
mitil I fell into a kind of. feverish sleep, which
was not altogether sleep. And then I seemed to
see a gorgeous cathedral, like the one they sacked
at Antwerp, with gilded spires and jiinnacles,
and richly decorated with carved work, with
thousands of people thronging into it, whilst
over the door was written in letters formed with
colored lamps, ' The one only Holy Catholic
Church.' Passing through this throng in a con-
trary direction, away from the cathedral, I saw
a few poor men and women and children. Every
one seemed angry with them for thus interrupt-
ing the current.
" ' Where are you going ?' I asked.
" ' To the New Church,' was the reply, ' which
"is, nevertheless, the oldest of all.'
" I followed them, but, to my surprise, when
I reached the spot to which they were so perse-
310 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
veringly hastening, I found not a chnrch but a
quarry — stones lying about in apparent disorder,
■workmen hammering, others sawing and chisel-
ing, and not a few hotly discussing how the work
should be done. There was all the activity of a
workshop.
" ' Where is the church ?' I asked.
" ' Do you not see ?' the workmen said ; ' we
are building it as fast as we can !'
" I was much perplexed ; when, I suppose, the
vision of the dreaded flames which had been be-
fore me so many days mingled with the former
dream, and from all quarters of the city there
seemed to burst forth a great conflagration. The
flames and smoke rolled on to the cathedral, and
enveloped it. Torrents of smoke and pinnacles
of flame curled around the gilded minarets ; and
in a few minutes, to my amazement, the whole
magnificent edifice came down with a crash. It
was of wood, and the fire declared it. But as I
looked, I saw the angels among the flames bear-
ing away many a fair stone and costly jewel from
the ruins ; and when I turned to look at the
builder's yard, a glorious temple rose, white as
snow, amidst the flames, which closed around
it, but could not blacken one of its glistening
stones. And in it I saw the angels had laid
many a stone from among the ruins of the old
cathedral."
" I see !" said Dolores, " the Church is build-
ing. It is not built. We are still in a quarry."
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 311
"And the next morning," pursued the old
man, " I was rescued from prison through the
efforts of some of the very brethren whose
divisions had so harassed me."
" But it is a pity," said Dolores, " when the
workmen will busy themselves in building lit-
tle churches in the quarry, instead of preparing
the stones for the great Church God is build-
mg."
" And yet," said I, " surely the Church ought
to be a visible, audible witness for Christ on
earth."
"Certainly," said Jacob. " 'By this shall all
men know ;' the living light which makes the
Church visible to the world is love. By faith the
Church sees the Lord, By love she makes her
light, which is His light, seen of men."
This conversation in some measure comforted
Dolores .and me. But our great anxiety was
about Truyken, I was so afraid the divisions
amongst us might repel her from the truth.
One day, therefore, I tried to explain things to
her, and prove that we loved each other really,
and were really one in spite of our differences.
But I found Truyken not at all perplexed on the
subject.
" I think the Protestants are rather a quarrel-
some family," she said ; " but I can see they hang
together like any other family when trouble
comes. And," she continued, " I think heresy
is a bad thing ; but I think my Uncle Jacob is
312 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
the best man I ever saw, except the master ; and
so I suppose we shall all have a great deal to
learn and to imlearn in the next world." And
with this vague admission Truyken broke up
the dialogue.
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 313
III.
s*
Jiine &th, Jacob Claesen's Farm.
AND so my note-book begins. Daily, I cer-
tainly need not write in it, here in this qniet
corner of the world ; but to-day has brought
great news.
This morning, Mayken and I were watching
the storks feeding their young ones in their nest
on the roof of the farm ; and old Jacob, sitting
in the svm at the door, had been telling her how,
only four and thirty years ago, in the great fire
at Delft, the parent storks bore their nestlings
through the flames from the burning houses, or,
if unable to do that, perished with them rather
than desert their nests ; when a travel-worn
man entered the court of the house.
" Seiiora Costanza van Rosevelt," he said look-
ing at me, " I have a message for you, or rather
this has ;" and he gave me his walking-stick,
with a smile.
In a minute the mystery was imravelled, A
little plug was removed from the bottom of the
Btickj and from the hollow above, the messenger
27
314 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
shot out a roll of manuscript. It was from
Mark, written in a cipher we had used before in
Spain.
I ran up stairs to thank God, before I could
read a word. It was short, so short that I soon
knew it by heart. It began —
" This is the fifth letter I have sent thee, my
beloved, and not a word of reply. But now
that the country is free of the enemy, perchance
this may reach thee. I write on the battle-field
at Heiliger Lee, the day after the great victory
of Count Louis. The messenger will tell you
the rest. I have been through the cities of Bra-
bant and Flanders, collecting money for the
Prince's expedition. He has pawned all his
plate and jewels. The great cities seem afraid
to contribute. The Prince was deeply moved
a few days since by a poor Anabaptist j^reacher
from North Holland, who came through many a
peril to bring the contribution of his little flock.
The Prince gave him a receipt ; but he said they
desired no payment, but only that they might
be remembered in kindness.
" Such money must, I think, do much ; and
the prayers which come with it yet more. We
are full of hope.
" Do not let Mayken forget her Spanish. Some
morning (who knows how soon) I may come to
take the lady of Rosevelt to her castle in free
Holland, where Dolores and Ursel, and thou and
I and Mayken, will worship together in the little
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 315
parish church near us, and sing hymns and Hsten
to the Word of God in. a language the peas-
ants can understand, while none shall make us
afraid.
" Together, tell Ursel !
"E\er thine own."
When I returned, to ray surprise, I found Do-
lores in earnest conversation with the Seigneur
de Clairvaux, and Mayken by her side. In my
agitation I had not even thought who the mes-
senger might be.
" I am with the Prince, Senora, you see," he
said, kissing my hand. " I followed your advice."
His whole bearing seemed changed. The
hopeless, reckless look was gone, and the steady
light of a high purpose shone in his eyes.
He had much to tell us of the fiery Count
Louis, who seemed more his hero than even the
Prince ; and his brother, the brave young Count
Adolphus, of Nassau, who fell in a hand-to-hand
encounter with the defeated commander of the
enemy, Count Aremberg. And Mark, he says,
is of such service, and cannot be spared a day !
That I knew must be. He lingered long, but we
could not induce him to stay the night.
His conversation was mostly addressed to me.
He had so much to tell me about my husband ;
but as he left, he said to Dolores :
" I have read the book every day. It is dif-
ferent from any other religious book I ever read.
316 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
It seems to breathe of the fresh air ; not of the
incense and the cold dim atmosphere inside
churches. It seems to be for every day, not for
festivals only ; and yet is is so heavenly !"
" But there are other portions of the Book
of God besides this one," said Dolores.
" Yes," he said. " I have bought a Testa-
ment. But the other I can carry about with me
everywhere."
Mayken, usually unapproachable by stran-
gers, gave him her hand ; as he left, and said,
" Tell my father to seud you with his letter
next time."
He smiled and left us.
December 20, 1568. — Terrible news has come
to us throughout this Summer. I have scarcely
had the heart to write at all. On June 5th, the
very day we spent so happily at this quiet farm,
with the Seigneur de Clairvaux, reading Mark's
letter, and talking over all the bright hopes that
seemed to open before us, what a scene was
passing at Brussels ! The Great Square thronged
with people, and in the midst the Spanish sol-
diers and the scaffold, hung with black, and
Count Egmont (to the last deeming his hard
fate impossible) beheaded with Count Horn ;
and then for weeks the mourners crowding
round the murdered body of their hero, Egmont,
while the corpse of the less popular Count Horn,
lay alone and unhonoured near. The victory of
THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAXD. 317
Heiliger Lee enraged the Duke of Alva, and
precipitated the fote of these unfortunate, base-
ly-betrayed noblemen. And yet their death was
no martyrdom. They had served the king faith-
fully, and he slew them. They had not served
their country faithfully, and yet it mourned them.
But the victory which brought death to them
has brought little help to us. Only two months
afterwards, on July the 20th, Count Louis and the
army which gained it, sustained that terrible de-
feat at Jemmingen. Cooped up in a peninsula
between the Ems and the bay of the Dollart,
they were massacred by thousands. And Count
Louis only escaped by swimming through the
river, when all his efforts to rally his men had
failed, and hope was over. Then the misery to
the country which followed ; so unutterably
horrible, that even Alva rebuked the relentless
Spanish mercenaries ! Flames and ashes ; the
whole land one funeral pile. Fugitives fled to
us from many directions ; until the little farm
has become quite an orphanage. One hope
seemed to remain ; the Prince was levying an
army, on which he had spent his last resources.
To-day, however, I have received a letter from
Mark which tells me the fate of this. It is
dated from France.
" My Love — Do not desjjair when you read
this. The Prince does not. Xor do I. The
people of the Netherlands give like those in the
318 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
temple of old — the rich sparingly from their
abundance, the poor abundantly their mite —
which is their all. Of 300,000 crowns promised
the Prince from the great cities, only 12,000
reached us ; but poor persecuted congregations,
Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptists, and half-
starving exiles, scraped together all they had to
aid their defender. He deserved it, for he gave
all he had for them, and has lost it in this fatal
campaign. Nevertheless, the army was raised.
On October the 4th and 5th, we crossed the
Meuse with a German array into Brabant, Avhere
Red Rod Spelle had been hanging and bui-ning
since the defeat of Jemmingen, With banners
flying, and the motto on them, ' Pro lege, rege,
grege,' we advanced ; but the poor, cowed citi-
zens were afraid to join us. And no wonder.
The Duke of Alva would not fight us; and in a
month the German mercenaries, harassed by con-
tinual skirmishing and preparations for battles
which never came, were unmanageable for want
of pay. The whole army melted away ; and,
almost alone and quite penniless, the Prince and
Count Louis, with a few followers, have taken
refuge in France. Yet I do not despair. I can-
not, while God spares us the Prince. Under-
stand me, my love. I know all must be well for
the living Church, because the living God, the
merciful Saviour reigns. But I hope all may yet
be well for our country, because He has given us
the Prince. Otherwise, I would say, Let us fly
THE LIBERATION OE HOLLAND. 319
to England at once. For, except in the Prince
of Orange, I see not one gleam of hope. All
princes and kings are against us ; at least, not
one will hft an arm for us. The emperor has
deserted us. The Protestant German princes
counsel peace, which means liberty to Alva and
his army to reduce the land to a wilderness.
The battle of Jemmingen was fought against the
Prince's advice ; but he never complained nor re-
jDroached his brother. ' Since it has thus pleased
God,' he wn-ote to him, ' it is necessary to have
patience, and not to lose courage, conforming
ourselves to His Divine will ; as, for ray part, I
have determined to do in every thing which may
happen, still proceeding onward in our work,
with His almighty aid.' And now it is the same.
The Seigneur de Clairvaux is a great comfort.
He thinks you like a Madonna, and Dolores like
a Spanish St. Cecilia. To me he is like a brother.
He says you seem to regard him as a boy of
twenty, while he is more than thirty. He is
sustained by the only strength which can carry
men through a conflict such as this. We read
the Word of God often together. He would
have taken this to you at any peril, but I per-
suaded him to save himself for the service of the
country. All true men are sorely needed now.
Trust God, my love. Kiss Mayken for me. Do
not let her forget me ; and keep up heart, my
love. I have always thought the help would
come when we were at the lowest. M. v. R."
320 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
"The Seigneur de Clairvaux is very devoted
to my husband, Truyken," I said, this evening.
" Very," she rephed. " But there are people
besides my master in the world."
" What do you mean, Truyken?"
" I mean that my master cannot be the centre
of all things upon earth to every one. The Se-
iiora Dolores"
" Truyken ! Dolores !"——
But a light flashed on me, and I did not finish
my sentence. Although to me Dolores had so
long been like a mother, she is certainly not old
enough for that dignity.
And what wonder ! That noble, gentle sister,
whose generous affectionate nature is stamped
on her whole countenance ! But could she care
for him? In Spain she would never listen to
any one ; and these are scarcely times for
forming new ties. And yet Mark and I mar-
ried.
Is it, then, so very j^lain to Truyken and to
every one that Mark is the centre of the world
to me. I am sure I never speak of him much.
But he cannot be more to me than God meant
him to be. It is not loving too much that is
idolatry, but loving too little — centering all in ,
self, instead of in God. It is the taint of selfish-
ness, not the too much loving, that makes love
idolatry. Here or hereafter Mark and I will
praise God again together. But I believe it will
be here.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 321
e/i/ne, 1569. — Another Winter has passed. The
swallows have returned ; the old pair of storks
are building their nests on the old cart-wheel,
set for them on the roof of the farmhouse. May-
ken feels sure they know her again, and is full
of glee at the recovery of her playmates.
The burst of the northern Spring is so joyous
and inspiring ! - I am just like Mayken. I can
never help being full of hope when the snow
trickles from the roofs, and the black ice begins
to thaw on the jdooIs, and life to swell in the
brown leaf-buds, until, in a few days, the woods
and orchards are rustling with green leaves and
delicate blossoms, and the meadows are gay with
grass and flowers ; when every thing is set free
from its wintry prison ; bright- Avinged insects
flashing from their shelly coffins into the sun-
shine ; sheep bleating, and cattle lowing, liber-
ated from the sheds and stalls ; birds singing
their home-songs in the shade. Then I feel the
Duke of Alva cannot crush the land for ever !
There must be liberation yet in store for us all,
and sunny days and peaceful homes. But when
I say so to old Jacob, he smiles as I smile at
Mayken, and says :
, "Yes, there is liberation in store for us, and
spring-time, and a peaceful home."
I know he feels that life and earth are the
night-time, the chrysalis state, the prison. But I
think God gives us many foretastes of the prom-
ised land in the wilderness, if we will take them.
322 THE LIBERATION" OF HOLLAND.
October, 1569. — A sad, sad year it has been for
thousands. Mark has been incessantly engaged
on various missions for the Prince of Orange in
France and Germany. But throughout the year,
the Duke of Alva, his blood-council, and his
army, have been confiscating, desolating, murder-
ing, torturing at their pleasure. There were,
indeed, official rejoicings, interrupting the else
unbroken knells v/ith ghastly peals of victory.
The Great Square of Brussels was, for a few
days, transformed from a scaffold, or a place of
martyrdom, into a gay tourney-ring ; and from
the windows round the place, eyes, which had
wept tears of anguish foi murdered fathers and
brothers, were expected to beam encouragement
on the sportive feats of Spanish soldiers, who
had been their murderers.
In Antwerp, also, there was more than one
great festival. The citadel, which liad been built
w^th the money and toil of the enslaved and
ruined citizens, was finished ; and the Duke in-
augurated there with much pomp a statue of
himself, trampling on a prostrated four-headed
figure intended to represent the Netherlands.
Moreover, the Great Square there was decorated
as for a triumph. A platform, decorated with
royal arms, and covered with cloth of gold, was
erected ; and on it was placed a throne, on which
Alva sat in state, supported by two Antwerp
women allegoricaliy clad to represent Right-
eousness and Peace. Then a pardon was pro-
THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND. 323
claimed ; a royal pai-clon fresh from Spain, There
were a few exceptions to it : such as " all who
had ever been suspected of heresy, and all who
had failed to denounce any whom they knew to
be heretics." The Duke was greatly disap-
pointed, it is said, with the i*esult of this gracious
proclamation. Many of the people were so per-
verse as to consider it a mockery, and to call
this royal Pardona Pandora, the source of end-
less woes. They had profanely corrupted the
title of a similar edict of the Duchess Margaret's,
from Moderation to Murderation. The Duke,
and all loyal subjects of King Philip, could see
at once, from such symptoms of hopeless ingrat-
itude, hov/ vain it was to employ clemency with
a nation so depraved !
Meantime we receive all the fugitives we can
at the farm. Mayken has certainly no want of
play-fellows now. I smile sometimes when I see
her leading the games of a dozen little rescued
orphans, and hear their happy laughter echoing
through the fields, to think of my plans of pro-
viding her with companions. If Mark could
only be here, I should scarcely wish for another
home. On the Summer evenings it is so sweet
- to see the little ones gather around old Jacob a*
the door, while he reads a few verses from the
Bible, and utters a few simple words of prayer ;
and the little family service ends with a hymn
from the childish voices. Sweet and cheering!
yet heartrending, if one thinks of how many
324 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
desolated homes these httle ones are the rel-
ics.
I notice that Truyken is never absent from
this family worship. At first she used to sit at
the edge of the circle, on the plea of quieting
some refractory child, but now she comes as a
matter of course ; and more than once, as I have
watched her earnest, absorbed face, I have seen
her brush tears away.
February, 1570. — Another Winter is fast melt-
ing away. Mark has not been able to come and
see us. Once he made his way through part of
Brabant, but he and the Seigneur de Clairvaux
were taken prisoners by a troop of Alva's sol-
diers, and only escaped by borrowing some
skates of a friendly peasant Avhile the troop were
asleep, and gliding across the river into Ger-
many again. The sentinel fired after them, and
wounded Mark in the arm, but not se\erely.
Since then, Mark has been collecting money
among the cities of Flanders ; and the Seigneur
de Clairvaux has taken the command of one of
the ships belonging to the Water Gueux. Mark
writes :
" The endeavor to reclaim to fair and patriotic
warfare these beggars of the sea, is the Prince's
great occupation at present ; and his chief ener-
gies this year are directed to organizing them
into a navy ; no easy task, out of the elements
of a wild baud of corsairs, driven to piracy by
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 325
tyranny and oppression. The greatest service a
trustworthy and vahant seigneur acquainted with
the sea can do the country now, is to undertake
the command of one of these privateers, in place
of the daring but reckless and savage men, who
too often sully their victories with cruelties al-
most rivaling those of Alva. The Prince has
given orders that every ship to which he gives
letters of marque shall maintain a Protestant
chaplain on board, observe the articles of war,
and attack none but Alva and his adherents.
Our chief hope at present lies in despair. The
Duke's tax of the tenth penny on every article
sold, to be paid by the vender, is so sure to
bring the country to utter ruin, that in many
districts of Brabant, for instance, we found the
shops shut, the breweries and factories idle, and
even the bakers refusing to bake. I think the
Duke of Alva and the Prince together will save
the country yet."
March, 1570. — A few words from some of the
letters of the martyrs in j^rison have comforted
me lately much. I will transcribe them. The
first are from Jeronymus Segerson to his wife,
and these touched me more than any. They
were imprisoned together at Antwerp, although
not in the same cell, in 1551 ; but they did not
die together. Many of their letters during their
imprisonment are handed about among the Ana-
baptist congregations here. Many tears have I
28
326 THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND.
shed over those true and tender words, written
by fingers made feeble and trembling in the
l^rime of life by rack and torture. The rever-
ence and tenderness with which this poor Ana-
baptist writes to his wife Lysken seem to me so
much nobler and more beautiful than any high-
flown words of romance. " Grace, peace, glad-
ness, joy, and comfort," he writes, " a firm faith,
good confidence, with an ardent love to God, I
wish to my most beloved wife Lysken, whom I
married in the presence of God and His holy
Church. I pray the Lord very earnestly for
you, that lie will comfort you, and remove what
is too heavy for you. I know well, my chosen
lamb, that you are greatly dejected on my ac-
count : but put away all sorrow, and look to
Jesus, Think only what a faithful God we serve.
Know that I received your letter by my mother,
which I read with tears. I thank you that you
so heartily comfort me ; and I rejoice in hearing
that you are so well contented.
" I cannot sufiiciently thank the Lord for all
the strength He gives me in this trial. He is
such a faithful leader ; He gives His servants
such courage ; strengthens them so that they
do not fear. Let us guard the precious treasure
(of faith), for we have it in earthen vessels, and
cannot hide it. It everywhere discovers itself,
and is much too precious to be concealed. We
are so joyful having this treasure, which is our
faith, hope, and love. It is of such a nature that
THE LIBERATIOX OF HOLLAND. 327
it cannot be hidden. The one (in the j)i"ison)
Calls to the other, and pours out his treasure so
that it may be seen. We are so happy, ever-
lasting praise to the Lord! We call upon Him,
we sing together, we experience great joy in
comforting and strengthening each other.
"I also have seen from afar that promised
land. I also hope soon to enter the beautiful
city, so richly adorned, which the Apostle John
describes. There is no night there.
" Therefore, my dear wife, look diligently that
you pass the time of your pilgrimage here with
fear and trembling. Not that we should fear the
world ; but we must fear and tremble before
the Lord, so that we may keep His command-
ments.
" May the Almighty God so strengthen you
with His blessed Word that yon may abide
faithful to the end ! Then shall you likewise be
found under the altar with all God's dear chil-
dren, where all tears shall be wiped away from
our eyes. Then shall our despised body be glo-
rified, and fashioned after the likeness of His
glory. Then shall our weeping be turned into
laughter, and our sorrow into joy. Then shall
we, Avho for a short time are despised and con-
temned, yea, persecuted and cast out, in great
reproach, pain, and contempt are brought to
death for the testimony of Jesus Christ, enjoy
an everlasting triumph, and dwell for ever with
the Lord. We shall be clothed with white
328 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
robes. Ob, what a glorious company shall we
be, when united with the great multitude of
which John in his Revelation speaks !
" O my wife, from my inmost heart beloved !
I cannot sufficiently thank the Lord for all the
great kindness which He shows me. He gives
me such strength, that I cannot express it. Oh,
I now find that the Lord is a faithful helper in
time of need.
" My dear Lysken, will He wipe away all
tears ? Then there must first be Aveeping. He
will heal our suflferings ; therefore, we must in
this world first suflfer. Therefore, be diligent in
the conflict, Avith prayer and suj^plication to the
Lord. Cleave to the doctrine of Jesus" Christ
our Saviour."
And to the brethren Jeronymus wrote :
" Exhort and instruct each other in the love
of God ; and I beseech you, in your prayers be
not forgetful of us, and that ye write a letter to
my wife to comfort her, for she will long remain
solitary." It was for the time after his death he
was thus tenderly providing ; because Lysken
was to be kept in prison until the birth of her
child.
Again he writes to her very many earnest en-
coura2:ements to a steadfast confession :
" Know that I think of you day and night ip
my prayers, beseeching and sighing for you to
God ; for I am much cast down on your account,
that you so long must abide there. O my love,
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAXD. 329
I have confidence in the Lord that it shall work
for your good to continue imprisoned so long.
" I beseech you, then, my love, be no more
cast down ; for the Lord will keep you as the
apple of His eye. He will not forsake you. I
partly understood from my sister, that you were
dejected because you had not been more for-
bearing with me. See, my dear lamb, you have
not been unforbearing towards me ; and we
have lived together no otherwise than we were
bound to live. Why, then, should you be cast
down ? I thank the Lord that you have lived
so humbly with me. I could even wish that I
might, for your sake, abide a whole year on
bread and water, and then die ten times over,
that you might be released. Oh, could I help
you by my tears, or my blood, how willingly
would I suiFer for you ! But my sufferings can-
not help you. Be content. I will pray yet
more for you. This letter I have written with
tears, because I heard you were so greatly cast
down. I beg you to write me how you feel.
Herewith I commend you to the Lord."
The poor tried Lysken wrote :
"My beloved husband in the Lord, understand
that at first, the time seemed exceedingly long
to me ; because I was not accustomed to im-
prisonment, and I heard nothing but tempta-
tions to forsake the Lord. They said, What
right had I to meddle with Scrij^ture ? I had
better mind my sewing. ' It seems,' said they,
330 THE LIBERATIOX OF HOLLAND.
' you will follow the apostles. But what signs do
you show? The apostles spake with divers
tono-ues.' But it is enough for us that we have
believed through the Word. I desire that Christ
cruciiied may be our everlasting joy and strength.
I confide in the Lord, who only is wise, and who
gives His wisdom to those alone Avho are simple-
hearted.
" Understand that I Avept much because you
were dejected on my account. Be at rest con-
cerning this, my dearly beloved in the Lord.
The Avill of the Lord must be done to the salva-
tion of both our souls. He suffers us not to be
tempted above that we are able to bear. There-
fore, be comforted."
And he replied :
" As I read your letter, and heard how it went
with you, and that you desired for me as your
salutation the cruciiied Saviour, my heart and
my soul sprang up within me from gladness, so
much so, that I could not finish reading tlie let-
ter, but was constrained to bend my knees before
the Lord, and praise and thank Him, my strength
and comfort. I confide in Him, nothing doubt-
ing He will give you the same joy He gives me,
and will preserve you even to the end. I have
such joy and gladness in His promises, that I
cannot even think on these torments, bat only
on those great promises which He hath given to
them that remain steadfast to the end ; yea, such,
gladness as I cannot speak, or write, or had
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAXD. 331
tliougbt could be experienced in a prison — for
scarce can I sleep night or day for rejoicing,"
Lysken writes to the brethren and sisters :
" I have before my eyes a beautiful resem-
blance of a bride, how she ornaments herself to
please a bridegroom of this world. Oh, how
ought we, then, to ornament ourselves to please
our Bridegroom, that we may hear His delight-
ful voice, ' Come, ye blessed, inherit the king-
dom of my Father !' "
And Jeronymus writes to Lysken :
" I wish you to know that I was greatly re-
joiced while reading your letter, and that you
wrote that you besought the Lord, with weep-
ing eyes, that He would count you also worthy
to suffer for His name. My beloved, be not
anxious. Pray to the Lord with an humble heart,
that He will give us what is most for our souls'
welfare. I likewise inform you, my beloved,
that they tortured me severely, in order to in-
duce me to betray some; but the Lord w^as
mightier, who kept my mouth, than all their
torments. They then said that they should
come again ; but they can do no more than the
Lord permits them. Eternal honour to Him who
hath thus far made us meet, and will yet make
us meet for His heavenly kingdom !"
So they continued to write to each other, la-
bouring to keep each other steadfast, cast down
by each other's grief, more than by any bodily
tortures of their own, and rejoicing in each oth-
332 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
er's joy, until, on the night when he was con-
demned, he wrote her once more :
" I wish you, my heartily beloved, chosen wife
in the Lord, the true, genuine, penitential faith
that works by love, and a sound, firm, immova-
bly steadfast mind in our and your most holy
faith. To the crucified Christ, that almighty
King and loving God, I now commend you, my
beloved, that He may be your Comforter, seeing
that He has called and fetched me first. With
this I am even satisfied, having seen that it was
the Lord's will ; therefore, my dearly beloved in
the Lord, let it be no burden to you, nor be
greatly cast down, that lie summons me first
away. He has done it for our good, and that I
might be an example to you ; and that then you
may devoutly follow me, since through the mercy
of the Saviour, who hath counted us both worthy
to sufier for His name, I shall go before you.
Herewith I take leave of you in this world, for I
expect to see your face no more. But Christ
will soon bring us again together under His
altar ; that men will not be able to prevent. I
go before you, with great joy and gladness, to my
heavenly Father, and to yours. I must humbly
beseech you that you be not therefore cast down,
but rejoice with me. Yet I am somewhat sorry
that I leave you amongst these wolves ; but I
have commended you to the Lord, and am fully
persuaded that He will preserve you to the end.
Abide devoutly in the Lord."
THE LIBEKATIOX OF IIOLLAXD. 3^3
Jeronymus was burnt on the 2d of September,
1551. Lysken remained in prison till the birth
of her child ; she was steadfast till the end, and
boldly confessed her faith at the tribunal before
the masfistratcs and the multitude.- The last
time she was seen, she was standing at the
prison- windo'w, singing a hymn. The next morn-
ing, which was to be the day of her execution,
some of the brethren went to encourage her to
the last ; but before they had assembled, between
three and four in the morning, they had taken
her to the Scheldt and drowned her there.
Some, however, saw it. She went courageously
to death, and spoke bravely, " Father, into Thy
hands I commend my spirit." Thus Jeronymus
and Lysken Segerson were reunited as he had
jirayed, in the presence of the Lord.
The testament and last letter of .Soetgen van
der Houte to her children has also moved me
much. She wrote :
" Grace, peace, and mercy, from God* the Fa-
ther and the Lord Jesus Christ, be to you, my
dear children ; a loving salutation to you, David,
Betgeu, and Tanneken. Written by your mother,
in bonds, to put you in mind of the truth, to
which I hope to testify by word and by death,
by the help of the Almighty ; and as an example
to you. May the wisdom of the Holy Spirit
instruct and strengthen you, that you may be
nurtured in the ways of the Lord. Amen.
" Further, my dear children, since it is pleasing
334 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
to the Loi'd to take me out of the world, I Avill
leave you a memento, not of silver or gold, for
such jewels are perishable — I would inscribe a
jewel in your heart were it possible — the word
of the Lord."
Then after many plain, affectionate, practical
directions, she adds :
" O my dear children, I have written this with
tears, admonishing you from love, praying for
you with a fervent heart. When your father
was taken from me," (he also laid down his life
for the faith,) ''I did not spare myself day or
night to bring you up, and my prayer and cry
continually was for your salvation; and, being
now in bonds, it has always been my greatest
concern that I could not, according to my anx-
ious desire, better provide for you. When I
was told that you were conveyed to Oudeuarde,
and from that to Bruges, it was a sore stroke to
me. I have never had greater sorrow. But
Avhen r thought that neither my sorrow nor my
solicitude could help you, and that Ave must
separate from all tilings dear in this world for
the sake of Christ, I left it all to the will of the
Lord, still hoping and praying that lie in Ilis
compassion would preserve you, as he kept Mo-
ses and Joseph and Daniel among the ungodly.
David, my dear child, I commend you to the
Lord. You are the eldest : learn wisdom, that
you may set a good example to your sisters.
Beware of bad company, and of playing in the
THK LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 335
Streets with bad boys. Learn diligently to read
and write, tbat you may become wise. Love
one another, without strife and wrangling. The
wisest must bear with the dull, and admonish
them with kindness. The strong must have
compassion on the weak, and assist him all in
his power from love. Diligently search the
Scriptures, that you be not deceived. Believe
not readily when evil is spoken of another, but
examine. Make no commotion about it when
you are belied, but suffer it for Christ's sake.
Love your enemies, and pray for them that speak
evil of you and make you suffer. Observe, my
dearest, all this is wrought by brotherly love,
and is all comprehended in the second command-
ment. You must always mind not to seek your
own profit alone, but be always concerned for
those with whom you have dealings, whether
young or old. Further, my dear children. Bet-
gen and Tanneken, my dear lambs, I admonish
you in all these things to be obedient*to the
commands of the Lord. Be friendly, modest,
and still, as it becomes young females. Pray to
the Lord for wisdom, which shall be given you.
Learn to read and write well, and take pleasure
therein, so will you become wise. Take pleasure
and exercise yourselves in psalms, hymns, and
spiritual songs. Pursue the only true joy. May
the mighty hand of the Lord lead you, as He led
Israel out of Egypt, and bring you to the new
Jerusalem, that we may see each other in the
resurrection-day with joy."
336 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
. And shortly before her death, she wrote to her
brother and sister, and also to her children :
" Written from love. The peace of God be
with you, my dear brother and sister. I thank
you very heartily for all the kindness you have
ever shown me, and still will show, as I hope, to
my three lambs that I leave behind me. I once
more take leave of you. I think it is now for
the last time. We are so strengthened in mind
to present our oifering, that I cannot express it.
I could leap for joy when I think on that eternal
good which it is promised us to possess, even
all that persevere in that which the Lord hath
commanded. I know not with what praise to
glorify the Lord, that He hath chosen Martha
and me to such honour, us who are such poor
contemptible creatures. I pray all that love the
Lord to humble their hearts ; for the Lord, by
the Prophet Isaiah, says, ' With him will I dwell
that is of a humble and contrite spirit, and trem-
bleth at my word.' Oh, those that thus humble
themselves before the Lord, and suftcr not them-
selves to think that they are any thing, them will
God exalt and enrich with heavenly possessions.
Think how Christ chose humility when He left
His Father's glory, and descended here into the
lowest parts of the earth, in obedience to His
Father. From His great love He became man.
In great humility He came to save us. He suf-
fered pain and reproach, bearing all with patience
and long-suffering, in obedience to the Fa-
THE LIBERATION" OF HOLLAjSTD. 337
ther, even unto death, that He might make us
blessed.
" This was written when we had taken, as we
thought, our last supper. Further, my dear
child, Betgen, I rejoice greatly that tlie Lord
has spared me long enough to be gladdened,
before my death, by your letter, by which you
have strengthened me. I pray the Lord that
He would strengthen and establish you by His
Spirit, that you may go forward and pursue the
best things of which you have written me.
When your brother and sister come to you, sa-
lute each other with an affectionate kiss of peace
in my name. Adieu, my dear child, Betgen !
Adieu, my dear little ones, David and Tanne-
ken ! Adieu, my dear brethren and sisters all,
and my friends everywhere ! Written by me,
Soetgen van der Houte, your mother, in bonds.
Written hastily, trembling with cold, with love
to you all. Amen."
She was put to death at Ghent, on the 27th
November, 15 GO.
That poor little lamb, Betgen, scarcely as old
as our Mayken, I suppose, when her mother died,
nine years ago ! I should like to have seen the
large childish writing which so comforted the
poor condemned mother, and I should love to
have the orphan girl with us here.
Many another record has old Jacob read to us
during those Winter cA^enings : touching letters
of thanks from the martyrs for little acts of kind-
29
338 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
ness and gifts, mostly the gifts of the poor ;
simple messages of aiiection and sympathy, min-
gled with brief notices of " excruciating pain,"
and sublime words of ffxith and hope, and hymns
full of lofty joy, left as legacies to those who
survived.
One who used ofttimes to be dejected in pros-
perous times, had " never known sorrow since
he had been in prison." Another, Adrian Pan,
put to death, Avith his wife, at Antwerp, wrote : —
"My dear friends, the more we are exercised
with tribulation, the more we are comforted.
This we truly experienced when first we fell
into their hands, and they beset the house,
and would have destroyed it, with all that it
contained. Then my heart was strengthened,
as if I had been another man. My wife was,
indeed, a little fearful before they laid their
hands upon us ; but when she saw that it must
be so, fear departed from her, as if she had put'
off a garment, and she began to sing."
Jacob Claesen told us, also, the history of one
generous sufferer, which stirred our hearts most
deeply. Not two winters since, over one of the
frozen meres or rivers near us, Dirk Williamzoon
was fleeing from his persecutors. As he ran,
the ice cracked under his feet, and a gulf of
cold, deep water opened behind him, separating
him from his pursuers. He was safe. But,
looking back, he saw the officer sent to arrest
him perishing in the waters. With a noble,
V'-'
THE LIBEEATIOJT OF HOLLAND. 339
forgiving impulse, lie stooped over the brink of
the ice, and, at the risk of his own life, saved
his enemy's. The officer, touched with a nat-
ural instinct of gratitude, would have let his de-
liverer escape. But the magistrates who by this
time were at hand, insisted on the capture. Dirk
Williamzoon was secured again, and bound ; and
a few weeks afterwards was burnt alive at As-
peren, a martyr for mercy as well as for truth.
Indeed, many of those Dutch martyrs, like our
brethren in Spain, were martyrs to the second
great commandment as much as for the first.
If love to God brouo-ht them to the stake and
the block, love to man, to the friends they would
not betray, stretched them on the rack, which so
many of them confessed they dreaded more than
death. Love yielded their limbs to torture, be-
fore faith "gave their bodies to be burned;"
and, therefore, it will not " profit them nothing"
that they suffered ; but oh, how infinitely much !"
I did not always so much like the record of
their examinations before the tribunals. Some,
indeed, ignorant men though they might be,
answered most nobly ; coui-teously, yet firmly.
Others, again, gave far more clever and pointed
replies ; but, it seemed to me, sharpened with
more natural indignation and pride ; like a lion
brought to bay, rather than a lamb led to the
slaughter. Yet these varieties, and even de-
fects, gave a value to the narratives, and en-
couraged me often, as did the little records of
340 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
simj)le cares, and wants, and yearnings for the
blessings they were to leave. It seemed to
bring the martyrs more within the reach and
comprehension of us all ; if not when they fin-
ished their course in triumph, at least when they
began it.
And o^ten and often, when these March winds
howl around the house, and drive the sea against
the dykes so near us, and I know not what shel-
ter Mark has found, those words comfort me ;
and I think, if the trial comes, then God will
doubtless enable me, weak as I am, to " put fear
off from me, as a garment," and to sing, or at
least to say, with one of three who went to the
stake at Antwerp, " "We go in peace to the peace-
ful home of our 'Father."
December, 1570. — Our quiet refuge in Fries-
land is gone, actually swept from the face of the
earth. Towards' the end of October, the wind
continued for many days to blow with fury from,
the north-west, driving the spray over the dyke
into farmer Jacob Claesen's meadow's. At first
we felt no alarm, although the fields on which
the farm stood lay many feet below the sea.
The barrier which had stood for centuries might
well be trusted, and in time the wind would
change. But the wind did not change. Day
after day, and night after night, the tdrrible
invisible power rushed steadily uj^on us, not so
much in gusts, as with the relentless unbroken
THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAM-D. 341
current of a gigantic river of air, bearing steadily
down on the dyke from the Northern Ocean.
At length its force rose to fury. The capricious
gusty winds seemed to have changed their na-
ture, and to be animated with a fixed purpose
of destruction. On the 1st of November, the
waters ^\'ere so piled against the dyke, that we
felt we must j)repare for the worst. All mova-
ble property was transferred to the upper story
of the house. The cattle were loosed from the
stalls, to give their own instinct a chance of res-
cuing them. Boats were suspended outside the
upper windows ; and we all collected in one room
— Dolores, Truyken, Hadewyk, the orphans, and
a few farm-labourers ; while old Jacob sat with
the old Dutch Bible before him,- and occasionally
read to us words of power and comfort from the
Psalms.
It was a fearful night. The sky was piled
with heavy clouds. Not a star was to be seen.
Through the steady rush of the wind we heard
the artillery of the great waves laying siege to
the dyke, while the lowing and bleating of the
frightened cattle came faintly from the fields, to
which one and another of the children often
responded with a low, terrified cry.
Yet in the danger there was at times a kind
of awful pleasure. This thundering and howl-
ing were not the cry of an enemy, but the mighty
voice of God. We knew not what His purposes
were ; but we knew no act of His would harm
29*
342 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLA^'D.
US. We were not afraid of Him. He had re-
deemed us ; and from the fearful weapons in
His hand we fled with confidence to His heart.
At length, towards morning, a dreadful crash
came. The great breach was eflected. The
dykes were overwhelmed ; and the first cold
tints of dawn showed us a raging sea, in which
the upper* rooms of our farmhouse, with a few
trees on other dykes or hillocks, rose like islands
here and there. Rapidly the waves rose. Farm-
ing implements and famihar household furniture
were dashed against the walls. Poor, bewil-
dered cattle struggled to the window. Tlie
house tottered with the beat of the sea. It was
no longer a haven for us.
Once more old Jacob Claesen knelt, and all of
us around him.
" Heavenly Father ;" he said, " it is Thy hand.
But we trust Thee. Thou hast redeemed us.
Thou hast given Thy Son for us. "We go forth
on the sea. But the sea is Thine. We commit
ourselves, not to the winds and waves, heavenly
Father, but to Thee !"
In a few minutes we were launched on tliat
seething sea, in two boats, manned by the farm-
servants. For some hours we tossed about,
scarcely knowing what to hope for, since on all
sides we saw nothing but one waste of desolating
W'aters, beneath Avhich, from time to time, disap-
peared one little island after another, with its
refugees ; roofs crashing before the waves, trees
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 343
torn up by the roots, and borne along, with men
and women still clinging to them. We took in
all we could, and then made for the more open
sea. At last we saw a ship in the distance. She
bore towards us. For some time the suspense
as to her character was intense. If she were a
Spaniard, it would be better to die before she
approached us. But at length one of the men
exclaimed :
" It is one of the Water-Beggars ! They will
save us !"
We rowed towards her, and made what sig-
nals we could ; and in an hour we were all safely
on board.
And in the commander Dolores was the first
to recognize the Seigneur de Clairvaux.
lie took us safely round the coast of North
Holland to this little castle of Rosevelt, which
has been our refuge ever since.
February, 1570. — The brave little vessel, which
has been hovering near for our protection during
the last month, has at length stood out to sea.
One evening in last week the Seigneur de Clair-
vaux came to me with a very dejected mien,
and said :
" Sefiora van liosevelt, I come to bid you fare-
well. Probably for e^'er. I could have wished
it had been otherwise, as I suppose you may
have imagined. But the Senora Dolores will
not listen to my prayers ; and I cannot, indeed,
344 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
bat feel they were presumptuous. She is more
fit for heaven than to be the bride of a sea-
rover ; but to me it would have made all the
difference. Now I must strusrarle throuf^h life
alone, and God knows, in these evil days, that is
hard."
" Does Dolores fully understand that it will
cost you so much ?"
"I would not distress her with importuni-
ties," he said. " She said it was not fair to link
my life to hers, so wasted Avith many trials ; that
a bright destiny awaited me. But my life is
bound up with hers. Heaven knows what she
has been to me. I cannot love any one at ran-
dom, just because it might be good for me."
" Wait," I said, leaving the room.
" Senora," he said, " do not intercede. The
Senora Dolores would do any thing from com-
passion."
" Certainly, I will not," I said ; " but I think
it right to explain,"
" Aly poor, broken, withered life to be a weight
on the prime of his !" said Dolores, when I spoke
to her. " I am not so selfish as that, Costanza."
" You have the happiness, perhaps also the
nobleness, of his life in your hands," I said.
" He thinks so now," she replied.
"/think so," I said.
She hesitated.
" Dolores," I said, " life in these days is not a
festive voyage on a Summer sea, but a scene of
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 345
storm and battle ; and if the Seigneur de Clair-
vaux finds in you one who will make the toil
and conflict of perhaps many bitter years sweeter
and nobler to him by sharing it, will you, re-
fuse ?"
"7/"/" she murmui'ed.
And before the Water- Witch left our shores,
Dolores and Leonard de Clairvaux had solemnly
plighted their troth to each other.
Ma7/, 1571. — A letter from Mark. He is still
in Germany. It is more than three years since
we met. I wonder if I could have made the
sacrifice had I known its extent. But day by
day, I have been led on ; and Mark is so fully
persuaded the good cause must triumph, that I
cannot help hoping he is right. The Prince and
Count Louis are making all possible exertions,
and Mark has been on many difticult missions
for them. But their chief earthly dependence
now is on the French Huguenots and their in-
fluence on the Court at Paris.
It seems in one way, however, to bring us
nearer to each other my living in this old home
of his childhood. Ursel has been staying with
us, and it is very pleasant to hear her speak of
the old nooks of field and garden where they
used to play, and the creek where he used to
sail his little boats, and where once he saved
Ursel from drowning. Mayken drinks in all
these narratives of her father's childhood with
346 THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
wondering delight. To her they are better than
a romance. I love that her father should thus
be her hero. And it is well she should have
some sucli narratives, for except the Bible we
have not a book. Dear Mayken is a bright
child — our sweet May in this falling autumn or
bitter winter of the world, when all the joy of
the land seems frozen and dead under the steady
ferocity of Alva's tyranny. In itself this castle
is by no means a choice residence, two rooms on
a floor ; a rude tower of three stories, with a
look-out on the top, built, I suppose, with a
mysterious provision that Dolores would spend
many an hour gazing across creek and dyke to
the open sea.
June, 1571. — Ursel is much disquieted about
Christina.
" My dear," she said to me, soon after we met,
" she is beginnino- ao-ain !"
" Beginning what ?" I asked.
" The linen stores, and the preserves."
I could not help smiling at the despairing look
with which Ursel made this announcement.
"The house in Leyden stands a chance in
time of being as well provided with things that
can be moth-eaten and rusted, as the old palace
at Antwerp. Cliristina is giving her whole mind
to it."
" I wish we could sew them up in bags that
do not wax old," I said ; " the things are good
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 347
in themselves, and the orphans are sorely in
need."
For the six orphans had been rescued with
us, and, with old Jacob Claesen and Iladewyk,
formed part of our household in the tower : a
hungry family, not always very easy to satisfy.
Iladewyk and Truyken are invaluable, and our
farm produce — milk, eggs, and grain — seems in
some unaccountable Avay to multiply under their
skillful management. We live frugally, certainly,
but the clothes are the chief difficulty.
July, 1571. — I am just returned from Ley den
in triumph. Christina and her linen presses were
much in my thoughts after that conversation
with Ursel, The motherless little ones, and the
bereaved woman, the full linen chests, and the
little unclothed limbs — it would be extraordi-
nary indeed if these two could not be brought
together. I did not like to tell any one my plan.
I did not wish it to seem my plan ; and indeed
it was not the things I wanted, so much as that
Christina's heart might be unfettered, and that
the joy I felt might be hers. Accordingly, on
Tuesday last I started for Leyden. John and
Christina welcomed me most cordially. Ursel
was right The next morning Christina showed
me her j^recious chest, and set her maidens to
work, as if the safety of Holland depended on
the completion of the household stores.
" It was a great shock," she said, " having to
348 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAISTD.
leave Antwerp in such haste, and not to be able
to carry a thing away. But you see I am recov-
ering the lost ground by degrees."
" Christina," I ventured to say, after a pause,
" did you leave that little chest behind ?"
" All Hansken's little toys and relics ? Yes,
all!" she said. "I wanted very much to carry
it myself; but John would not hear of it. Yet
it was very light. And it was all I have left of
the child." And great tears began to flow fast.
" Dear Christina, Avhen our dear Saviour went
to heaven, He left some precious relics of Him
behind. Shall we not treasure these for His
sake ?"
" " Do you mean the poor ?" she said. " I do
try to help them, Costanza. John and I give
largely to the church alms whenever they are
collected. I do try to keep His commandments.
I know Ursel thinks me very worldly. But I
think it is my duty to care for the household,
and I try. And I must have something to do ;
for, God knows, sometimes my heart is very
heavy and lonely."
I do not remember how the conversation pro-
ceeded. But Christina returned with me to
Rosevelt ; and on Sunday morning she joined us
in our family prayers. The hymns of the little
voices seemed to move her strangely ; and that
evening she said :
" Dolores, I think I should like to take one of
those children back wnth me, if you would trust
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 349
him with me ; that fair-haired boy who sang so
sweetly."
I was too glad ; but, to ray dismay, the child
resisted all Christina's endearments, and would
not go. At last, to our relief, a little girl, usually
very shy, crept up to Christina, and looking
trustfully in her eyes, slipped her Uttle hand into
hers, and said :
" I should like to go with you very much, if
you will take Maritgen and Bernhard too."
This was a daring proposition ; and Christina
said :
" How will John bear the noise ?"
But the next day she set oif with her three
little charges; and as she turned back to wave
us a last good-bye, her face seemed to me changed.
The old, anxious, carn-worn look seemed to have
gone from her brow, and a happy, youthful smile
shone in her eyes. And I never heard that John
van Broek complained of the noise.
But Ursel said to me, with tears in her eyes,
before she left with her sister :
" Costanza, people call these terrible times,
but I do not think storms are the most terrible
things for us. They break up the ice, and bring
the Spring."
May, 1572. — The first good news for the good
cause since Count Louis lost all at Jemmingen,
and the Prince's army dissolved before Alva in
1568, has come to us this day ! The town of
30
350 THE LIBEEATIOX OF HOLLAND.
Brill has been captured by the Prmce's friends.
Some days since, Dolores, from her station on
the roof of the tower, had watched a strange
fleet sailing up the coast from the Brill towards
the north. Some said they were Spaniards, and
others merchantmen ; but Dolores felt sure they
were the Water Gueux. The event proved her
right. It was a fleet of the Prince's partisans,
which, having been driven from the coasts of
England by Queen Elizabeth in consequence of
some treaty she was concluding with Alva, had
come to seize Enkhuyzen, a rich seaport on the
Zuyder Zee, containing many patriots, who they
hoped, would deliver the town into their hands.
But the winds drove them back. They could
not double the northern point of Holland ; and
one evening, as Dolores and I were standincr on
the tower, we saw them bearing southward
again. To-day, De Clairvaux himself has come
and told us all. Van der Marck and Tiesloncr,
the commanders, summoned the town of Brill to
surrender, which it did, the inhabitants employ-
ing the time given them for consideration in
flight ; so that when the rough sailors, with an
old mast and a bonfire, had battered and burnt
down the gates, they found but fifty inhabitants
left. Thank God they did not plunder the
houses or murder any of the citizens . They
contented themselves with sacking the churches :
and, alas ! they did sully the noble cause by put-
ting three or four monks to death.
THE LIBERATIOlSr OF HOLLAND. 351
A seaport is gained for the Prince and liberty.
Do Clairvaux thinks it the happiest omen, and a
good season to connect with his marriage. In-
deed, Ave have consented, and only wait for the
arrival of Mark, who has promised to be here
very soon.
Juhj 30, 1574. — More and more good tidings.
The tide seems to have turned at last. A naval
victory has been gained. The great Lisbon fleet,
with all its treasure, has been captured ; and the
whole of Holland and Zealand have declared for
the Prince. Five cities have expelled the Span-
ish garrisons. In Holland only Amsterdam re-
mains to the Spaniards ; in Zealand only Mid-
dleburg and Tergoes. And the Prince early in
this month crossed the Ehiue, and has once more-
entered the Netherlands w-ith an army, which,
we hear, has been welcomed with enthusiasm by
many cities.
It seems to us all now that the better day has
dawned at last. Mark Avrites full of the most
glowing hopes for the country and the religion.
In France, also, it seems as if the religion would
triumph ; and promises of succour are coming
even from Paris. The cities throughout the
land so detest the name of Alva, that the very
presence of a liberating force has induced many
to open the gates. And Mark believes the first
victory will bring the whole country to the feet
of the Prince, and drive Alva and the Inquisition
from the land for ever.
352 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
lY.
Leyden, 3Iay 30, 15T4.
TWO years since I made an entry in this old
note-book — and the last words now read
like some strange music in a dream !
The army of the Prince of Orange, where is
it ? The Huguenots', who were to triumph in
France, where are they? The Spanish army,
which was to have been swept from the land for
ever ? It is but too plain where that is ! The
thunder of its terrible cannon has been echoing
from the walls of this city for four days. This
is the second time Leyden has been besieged.
The gallant Count Louis, who relieved it this
Spring, has fallen in the fatal defeat at Mooker-
heyde, with all his army. And who is there to
help us now ? On earth, the Prince ; but it
seems more likely his will be the martyr's rather
than the conqueror's crown. Iii heaven, the
Prince of princes ; but who can say what paths
of trial He who " learned obedience by the things
He suffered" may yet see fit to lead us through !
Mark and I are separated again. I suppose
it is that which makes my heart so very heavy
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 353
just now. He left me only a week since, on a
brief mission for the Prince ; and now, before
he could return, the Spanish army has surrounded
the city.
While he was with me, I did not write. There
was no need. But now that he is gone, it is a
relief to begin the old chronicle again.
A month or two after my last entry, on July,
1572, dreadful rumours of defeat and ruin, and
some monstrous, incomprehensible disaster in
France began to thrill through the country.
But the Spanish army lay between us and the
Prince, and we were always slow to believe any
unfavoiirable news which came through that
gloomy medium. Who could haA^e thought that
the truth would surpass the most appalling re-
ports the blood-stained imagination of Alva's
soldiers could invent !
Mark brought us the news. How little I could
have dreamed that his coming would bring us
tidings so terrible as to make even his coming
scarcely a joy ! It only made the grief less in-
tolerable, and allowed the anguish which else
would have frozen us to an icy horror to overflow
in floods of tears.
One evening in November I heard his voice
at the door. But for his voice, even I might for
a moment scarcely have recognized him. His
face was so haggard and rigid, and his hair had
grown gray. I was calling Mayken.
" Wait, my love," he said ; " not yet."
30*
354 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
And then, turning into the little room at the
foot of the stairs and closing the door, he told
me of the great massacre, on the 24th of August,
on St. Bartholomew's Day, Five thousand Prot-
estants murdered in one day at Paris, and a hun-
dred thousand throughout France, by the mon-
arch who had a few days before promised the
Prince his aid! The army which the Prince
had collected at such cost, and led across the
Rhine with such hope, dispersed ; the Prince
himself barely escaping with life, saved by the
bark of his faithful spaniel, from a night attack
of the Spaniards ; Count Louis also a fugitive ;
whilst at Rome, at Paris, and in the camp of
Alva there were Te Deums and peals of triumph
at the destruction of the heretics. " The Prince,"
Mark concluded, "is in Holland, and a few of
us have accompanied him. ' For there,' he said,
' will I make my sepulchre.' "
" Is all lost ?" I asked. " O Mark, that we
should meet thus!" And I could not restrain
my tears.
" Thank God Ave do meet," he said. " My
love, call Mayken, and let us thank God."
Then, as we knelt in prayer together, and he
Tittered a few words of praise, his-voice, which
had been so hard and firm while he told me of
these dreadful tidings, gave way. It is terrible
to see a brave man weep, weep like a child. As
I saw him in that burst of agony, it seemed to
me as if my feelings were like some little trick-
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 355
ling rill to the great torrent of his grief. May-
ken crept to my side, and hid her face on my
shoulder. And at length Mark looked up. The
rigid look was gone from his face, and he said,
firmly and very solemnly :
" Xo, Costauza, all is not lost. I believe God
Avill rescue Holland yet. Returning a fugitive,
without army, money, friends, to this, his old
province, with but seventy followers, these faith-
ful people have welcomed the Prince as they
never did in his prosperity. I believe God will
yet rescue a people who can thus nobly hope
against hope."
Yes, there are hearts in Holland, in this cold,
amphibious, mercantile Holland, heroic in their
loyalty and courage, as any that ever beat among
the mountains of Greece, or under the cuirasses
of Castilian chivalry.
But yet further has their fidelity been tried
since then. City after city has been mercilessly
sacked. Mechlin was given over for three days
to the soldiers, and more sacrilege was com-
mitted against the churches by the Catholic
army than by the image-breakers at Antv/erp ;
to say nothing of sacrilege against God's living
human creatures.
One Sunday morning, the people near Zutphen
heard a wail of anguish issuing thence, and nO
one ventured near the gates to see what it meant.
They kne\v that the city was in the hands of the
Spaniards. All day long that cry of agony went
35G THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND.
xij), and by the morning the dreadful work was
done !
And Naarden ! Alva's army entered it, giving
hopes of pardon. The ^^eople who welcomed us
BO hospitably on our way to Friesland, enter-
tained the soldiers with their best ; and then
followed Alva's recompense for the hospitality
of heretics, who had once dared to avow the
cause of freedom. The city, and every living
man, woman, and child in it, were destroyed.
Now there is literally not a house Ifeft in Xaar-
den. Only sixty of the inhabitants escaped.
But of the anguish, blood, and fire, and crime,
and torture through which that desolation was
accomplished, the consciences of the Vv^ounded
Spanish soldiers bore witness, who, on their dy-
ing beds in the hospital at Amsterdam, were
heard to cry out, despairingly :
" Oh, Naarden ! Santiago ! San Domingo !"
Many a desperate resistance since theq has
that name of agony inspired.
The rebel gan-ison who, aided by the flooding
of the dykes, drove Don Frederic of Toledo back
from the walls of Alkmaar, remembered it. And
the three hundred women who, under the noble
matron, Kanau Ilesselaer, fought beside their
kinsmen on the walls of besieged Haarlem, had
that memory among others burning in their
hearts. Yet Haarlem fell ; and three thousand,
in defiance of terms solemnly sworn to, were
massacred there.
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND 357
But tlio Duke of Alva has retired. The exe-
crations of a nation were at last too much even
for him.
We must hope. The great tyrant is gone, and
the Prince remains.
When Haarlem fell, and De Sonoy, the Gover-
nor of North Holland, with the bravest there, at
last counselled flight as the only hope, the Prince
replied :
"You inquire whether I have entered into
any alliance with other princes ? I have entered
into a strict alliance Math the Prince of princes
for the defense of the good Christians and others
of this oppressed country, with Him who never
forsakes those that trust in Him, and will as-
suredly at last confound His enemies and yoixrs,
who trample on all laws, divine and human. I
am resolved never to forsake my dear country,
but, by venturing both life and fortune, to make
use of those means which the Lord of hosts has
supplied me with. Never will I despair of the
coimtry for the loss of one town."
" Never, indeed," Mark said, "will we despair,
while God preserves us that one man."
It is little more than two months since the first
siege of Ley den was raised. And the gallant
soldier and true Christian who rescued Leyden
then, perished in doing so. The band of German
mercenaries which Count Louis had once more
succeeded in raising mutinied before the battle.
Ho succeeded, however, in restoring them to
358 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
some degree of subordination; and on the 14tli
of April the battle of Mookerheyde was fought,
on the island formed by the Waal and the
Rhine.
Count Louis of Nassau's last battle ! He lies
unrecognized among the heaps of dead on the
heath of Mook ; whether slain in the thick of the
fight, drowned in attempting to swim the river,
or burnt in the barns into which the Spaniards
drove the fugitives after the battle, no one living
on earth knows.
The Prince has lost his right hand. For a
long time he would not believe his brother's
death ; and wrote many a letter to him which
his eyes might never see. It is wonderful how
disastrous the Prince and the Count's campaigns
have been ; army after army, collected at such
cost, perishing at one blow, as at Jemmingen
and Mook, or melting into their elements, as in
the Prince's two campaigns. It must be a mis-
erable, depressing post to command these sordid
mercenaries, bound to the leader by scarcely any
tie but pay. It seems to be a game in which
the Avorst must almost necessarily succeed best.
The Prince strictly forbade all plunder, or injury
of unarmed peasants and citizens. The Duke
of Alva deliberately pays the arrears of his sol-
diers, by giving up innocent cities to be sacked,
and encourages every kind of atrocity.
But Mark said, nevertheless, the events of the
day after the terrible slaughter of Mook are bet-
THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND. 359
ter than any victoi-y. The Spanish army muti-
nied the mornino; after the battle.
Any symptoms of a flaw in that most terrible
weapon of destruction, Alva's army, are, Mark
says, the best gleams of hope we can desire to
see. For more than two years, it is said, their
pay, so terribly well earned, has been withheld.
Truyken says it seems as if King Philip thought
his soldiers ought to be content with the devil's
wages for the devil's work they do. They, poor
Avretched men, risk body and soul to do his bid-
ding, and the only wages he bestows on them is
death.
Three thousand of the mutineers marched into
Antwerp, and encamped in the Great Square.
They erected an altar on bales of plundered
merchandise, and celebrated mass on it, in the
open air, on the spot where, not long before,
Fabricius had been martyred. For some weeks
they lived on the forced contributions of the
terrified citizens, until at length Requesens, the
Grand Commander, who has succeeded Alva,
paid them from the same source, compelling the
burghers, who had already been half-ruined by
the mutineers, to disburse four hundred thousand
crowns to liquidate King Philip's debt to his
army.
The mutiny is over now ; but the weapon,
once broken, may, many think, break again at
the same point.
And now Mark is with the Prince of Orange
3G0 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAI^D.
at Delft, and we are besieged in Leyden, in which,
we took refuge on the approach of the Spanish
army. Ah-eady, they say, the Spanish hnes are
complete ; and we are girded with a circle of
forts. It is a sore trial to be thus separated*
again ; but I do believe it is for the best. Mark
can do much more for us where he is than he
could cooped up here ; and with him and tho
Prince of Orange free to work for us, I know all
that is possible will be done. Sometimes when
I think of the comfort it is to know that Mark
and the Prince are caring for us, I reproach my-
self with not feeling infinitely more comfort in
the knowledge that God cares for us. It must
be from a lingering and ungrateful doubt that
love with Him does not mean the watchful, ten-
der consideration it does between Mark and me ;
and also from a dim sense of guilt, which we
need to confess and have forgiyen. I will trust
more.
June 15th. — The house Mark found for us here
is small, and would not contain all our house-
hold. Accordingly, all the six orphans have
been received by John and Christina van Broek.
Our family therefore consists only of Dolores,
Truyken, Mayken, and me, with old Jacob Clae-
sen and his wife.
June IQth. — John van Broek was killed last
night by a stray shot as he stood on his own
THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND. 361
house-top looking out on the enemy's works.
He hvecl only a few hours after the ball struck
him. lie said little, and that was to Chris-
tina :
' " I have toiled and planned much to make a
princely home for thee. The Lord has willed it
otherwise. But I believe he knows best. Since
I have seen thee with the orphans, I have under-
stood better what will make thee happiest. I
see now that splendour is not the best thing for
thee ; nor poverty, if God willed it so, the worst.
I think thy life will not be dreary without me
now. There is enough left yet to support a
comfortable home such as we have been used to.
But perhaps there are better things to live for
than I have mostly cared about. I shall like to
think that when I am gone, the wealth I have
gathered too eagerly will be better spent by
thee."
As she wept much, he added :
" Dear wife, I have loved thee dearly, though,
if I had understood thee and God's will better,
thy life and mine might have been more blessed.
Yet it will be sweet to thee to hope we shall
meet again. It is a precious hope to me. One
who was rich became poor for us ; and thou
wilt understand what He calls riches better than
I have. But His blood. His precious blood, not
silver or gold, has redeemed us ; and through
His poverty, my love, thou and I may yet be
rich indeed, and share a glorious home."
31
362 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAXD.
-Then, looking on the orphans, who were
brought to wish him good-bye, he said to her :
" Bring these with thee — all."
And murmuring again and asjain the name of
Jesus, he expired. «
I had scarcely thought his death would have
been such a sorrow to Christina, they seemed
to have so little in common : their companion-
ship seemed so difterent from the entire com-
munion of thought and feeling between Mark
and me.
But the power of that habit of living together,
the daily intertwining of life in all its little
homely details, how strong it is ! And Chris-
tina said :
" I never knew how he loved me, I never
knew hovv' I loved him, till he lay there dying,
and spoke those words to me."
Had he ever spoken such words before?
Alas ! that sometimes nothing but the terrible
wrench of death seems to pierce the dykes which
keep the tide of love iq one heart from flowing
freely into another.
But, thank God, they were words of hope ;
and by degrees I feel sure they will lead her on-
ward and upward.
June 23(f. — After John van Broek's funeral,
we all removed at Christina's request into her
large house, as the position of ours was rather
exposed to the eiiemy's fire. It is situated on
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLA>T). 363
the banks of one of the large canals wliieli thread
the city. A row of lime-trees stands before it.
It is an orphan asylum already, and seems likely
to become an hospital, since Ursel and Truyken
this morning brought a wounded soldier into
one of the large rooms on the ground floor.
The whole city is now put on rations to econ-
omize the provisions : half a pound of bread and
half a pound of meat for every full-grown man,
and less in proportion for women and children
and the aged.
The magistrates have bought in every frag-
ment of food from rich and poor, that they may
distribute it equitably, like Joseph in the Egyp-
tian famine.
Christina would accept no payment. She said
she was sure her husband would not have wished
it. I was with her as she inspected every store-
cupboard, and herself gave all their carefully-
prepared contents into the hands of the officers.
When they had gone, she looked round on
the empty shelves with a slight quivering of the
lip. It was a farewell to her old life. And
then she smiled ; and, taking my hands in hers,
she said :
" They are as bare as Ursel would wish to see
them now. We will gather into other barns
henceforth."
It was her first smile since John's death ; and,
as was natural, it ended in a flood of tears. And
then she said :
364 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
" My heart was never bound up in the things,
Costanza, but I thought they were duties, and I
did not quite see the great world of love and
work beyond which our Saviour has opened to
us. But now that the old routine of habit is
broken, I see it was a chain. And in the world
of love and freedom, into which John has en-
tered, please God, henceforth I will live, al-
though it can be only in a very humble place at
the threshold. You will help me, and Dolores,
and Ursel."
June 2bth. — Our work is naturally distributing
itself among us according to our various capa-
cities ; for in this beleaguered city no workers
can be spared. The garrison consists only of
one small corps of volunteers, and five companies
of the burgher guard. The citizens, unfortu-
nately, were so confident of Count Louis' suc-
cess, when his invasion drew off the Spanish
force, and raised the siege on the 21st March,
that they suffered all the precious weeks, be-
tween that day and the 24th of May, Avhen Val-
dez reappeared before the walls, to slip away
without strengthening the garrison, victualling
the city, or repairing their defenses. The Prince
remonstrated in vain ; but with his usual for-
bearing generosity, now that rebuke would be
fruitless, he utters no reproaches, but has writ-
ten a noble letter of hearty counsel to the citi-
zens, entreating them to hold out only three
THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 3G5
months, and if man can accomplish it, he will
relieve them.
" It is more than I would have dtme !" said
Truyken, when she heard it, her indignation at
the procrastination of the magistrates being un-
bounded. " Better," said she, " that clever Seig-
neur van Does, whom they have appointed com-
mandant of the garrison, had been j^roviding a
garrison, and buying them bread, than waiting
his fine Latin verses, which they are so proud
of."
She thinks much more highly of the burgo-
master, Van der Werf, literary accomplishments
being always in Truyken's eyes infirmities which
need a great deal to compensate for them.
Truyken (after fulfilling the culinary duties,
which she will suifer no one to interfere with)
works on the rampai'ts, wheeling stones to repair
breaches, assisting the masons, melting the pitch
for the burning hoops, which are hurled on the
assailants, helping to remove the wounded, or
employing herself in any service which strong-
Frisian arms and a brave heart can render.
She has organized a few other women into a
kind of corps for similar work. From her, when
she returns in the evening, we derive most of
our information as to the progress of the siege.
On me and Mayken devolve the orphans.
Christina's soft voice and touch cannot be spared
from the wounded. Dolores assists in the hos-
pital. Ursel's spirits seem to rise with the emer-
31*
366 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
gency. She is often on the ramparts with Truy-
ken, rendering any service needed, moving about
among the bullets, they say, as quietly as if they
were snow-flakes, and bending down and bind-
ing many a wound with the precious stores from
Christina's linen-presses ; or, when life is ebbing,
breathing words of Christian j^romise and faith
into the ear of the dying. I suppose from her,
as from the Frisian martyr's wife, " fear has fallen
like a garment." I am told that few speak such
quiet words of power as she does, and as I look
on her face when she returns, I can believe it.
The light of communion with God is on it. It
is no mere natural courage which leads her on ;
and in the evenings at home she is so gentle and
humble, her whole nature seems at rest, like a
swan that has found its element, and glides easily
and majestically along.
Dolores has accompanied her at times ; but
visually she is required in the hospital at home,
where certainly courage is as much required in
dressing the terrible wounds.
Juhj \st. — The citizens are foi'bidden to make
any more sorties. At first, rewards were offered
for the head of a Spanish soldier, and many were
brought. But the life of those with any thing
of a soldier's training is too precious to be risked
in such expeditions now. The whole city has
become a garrison, and every fighting man in it
is valuable, as an officer among ordinary troops.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 367
In the evening, I went np with Dolores to the
great round tower, built, they say, by the Ro-
mans, on a height in the middle of the city, and
looked from anions^ the oaks which ffrow ainono;
the ruins, on the broad expanse of country around
the city. These Dutch landscapes always had a
great charm, in their cool freshness, for my
southern eyes, and, lately, Dolores had began to
enjoy them. Below us the beleaguered city,
with the low light gleaming here and there on
its canals, or on the waving tops of the limes and
poplars ; and beyond, the green plains, broken
by dykes, dotted with villages peeping through
their woods and orchards ; whilst, here and
there, canals, and long shallow creeks, brought
sunny rifts of golden sky down among the fields,
and, in the distance, the spires of far-ofi" towns
and cities rose in delicate purjjle lines against
the sunset. Friendly cities which would fain
aid us in our need, but which are kept from us
. by these terrible lines of Spanish embankments,
manned with ferocious troops, encircling the
city; and especially, at not more than three
hundred rods from the walls, by the di-eaded
forts of Lammen, Leyderdorp, and Zoeterwoude,
were every now and then belching out fire and
smoke, with the thunder of artillery. Here and
there smouldered the ruins of houses which had
been set on fire by balls. Among these was the
little house we had first lived in on our arrival
at Leyden. It is very strange and sad to Do-
3C8 THK LIBERATION OF HOLLAa'D.
lores aud me to tliinlc that this beleaguering
force are mostly our own countrymen, speaking
our mother tongue. It prevents our looking on
them, as so many around us do, as beings be-
lonsfingf rather to hell tlian earth. It is no won-
der the Dutch should look on that invincible
army as something mighty and malignant, be-
yond the feeble range of mortal creatures, and
wdien once roused to resistance, should repay
ferocity by ferocity. But 'we know the language
these men lisped when they were little children,
aud in which they appeal for help and sympathy
when death or pain come upon them. Woe to
those who have made out of thousands of human
hearts one such murderous, inhuman machine of
torture and desti"Uction, rending them from every
influence which could soften or hallow, filling
them with every passion and prejudice that can
brutalize and harden, and for a religion which
inspires love, giving them a superstition which
inculcates hatred, and sanctions every crime \
thus, mouldhig them into a celibate priesthood
of Satan. The prejudice and ignorance of these
wretched men, with regard to the Protestants,
is beyond belief. At Haarlem, a captive soldier
endeavoured to save his life by promising, if the
citizens would spare him, to '•'• fall down and loor-
sli'tp the devil, just as tliey did.'''' The hatred on
both sides is unutterable. Many of the Catholic
soldiers seriously believe we are devil-worship-
pers, whom it is a duty to hunt from the earth
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 369
like noisome beasts ; and the Protestants have
too much reason, indeed, to beheve that the
sacrifices which Alva and his army offer, " are
made to devils, and not to God." But when I
think that Avithin the city and around it all are
human creatures made of one blood, redeemed
by the precious blood of One, the thought so
overpowers me with misery, that if I dwelt on
it, I could be of no service to any one, but could
lie down and die.
Juhj ZQth. — The bread is finished. Now we
are to begin on such substitutes for it as remain ;
such as malt-cake. Two of the three months
the Prince appointed as the limit of our endur-
ance have more than expired ; and not a hope
of deliverance has appeared. To-day an especial
offer of pardon has been received from General
Valdez, couched in the most tempting and lib-
eral terms. It was as coldly responded to as
.the general amnesty to the ISTetherlands two
months since. There are two considerations
which make death better than submission on the
terms of this pardon. The first is, that all relig-
ious liberty is denied. The pardon is only for
penitents returning to the bosom of the church.
And the second is, that the Spanish authorities
have for ever blotted out all their future pardons
and promises by their former treachery. Cross-
ing out every smooth promise or affectionate
entreaty, we see two words written in blood,
370 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
" Naarden !" " Haarlem !" and while the mem-
ory of these remains, the Prince need not fear
that Leyden will trust herself to any Spanish
amnesties.
August 12ih. — A letter has arrived from the
Prince. His words always comfort us like
deeds ; we are so sure of their truth. With it
came a few words from Mark to me. They are
the first I have had from liira, except one little
billet borne by a carrier-pigeon. This last was
brought by one of the brave swift messengers
they call Jumpers, who, at the risk of life, pene-
trate to us now and then through the enemy's
lines. He writes :
" All Holland is moving every power to save
you. An army to oppose the besiegers cannot
be raised. Our hope is from the sea. On Au-
gust the 2d, we went with the Prince along the
Yssel as far as Kappelle, and saw the dykes
pierced in sixteen places. To this ruin of their
property the States have consented, to deliver
you. Meantime stores and food have been col-
lected in every city ; and when once the sea is
admitted, any nrorning you may wake and see
the fleet of rescue under your walls, and every
enemy swept away. God cares for you, and we
are straining every nerve."
I do feel hopeful, although that vision of the
'fleet seems too bright to dwell on. The possible
contrary looks so dark beside it.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND, 371
*
August 17 ih.— I noticed that Ursel did not
seem elated as we all are by IMark's letter.
When we were alone, I asked her why.
"To tell you the truth," she said, "I have no
hope. I have never had any. I never expect,
at least for myself, to see Mark again. I have
been up on the tower every evening as I returned
from the ramparts, and the water has only risen
a few inches ; enough to ruin the land, indeed,
but not half enough to float a fleet. And if, in-
•deed, the dykes are pierced, what is to cause
any fresh rush of water ?"
" Ursel," I said, " God caused the sea to go
back once by a strong east wind, to rescue His
people of old. Why should lie not make it
come forward by a strong west wind now?
Truyken says it is quite possible." •
" All things are possible with Him," said Ur-
sel ; " but St. Paul's prayer for a prosperous jour-
ney to Rome was answered by a shipwreck."
"Yet he reached Pwome," I said, "and the
lives of all in the ship were given him, and per-
haps the souls of not a few Avho saw the power
of his prayer and faith. Ursel, St. Paul's ship-
wreck makes me hope."
" Why should you not hope ?" she replied ; " I
only said / cannot."
" HoAV then are you sustained ?" I asked.
"By God!" she s^iid, solemnly; "whatever
He has decreed will happen, and will be well."
" O Ursel," I said, " I like better to think of
372 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND,
«
His presence than His decrees. Decrees make
me think of dead parchments and a dim unknown
past ; His presence is that of a living, loving
Father, and on that my heart can rest. To His
decrees I must submit. His presence makes me
pray. The thought of His immutable foreor-
daining closes my heart in silent reverence. The
thought of His now, to-day, living and listening
and caring for me, opens my heart in trustful
communion and entreaty. I think of Him, not
as immutable, irresistible will, but as unquench-
able love. I think of His hand, not as engraving
unchangeable decrees in some unconceivable
past, but as feeding the ravens, and binding up
the broken heart to-day. O Ursel, I trust and
pray, and therefore I must hope."
" We have a hope," said Ursel, "an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, laid up for us
in heaven. Besides," she added, with a slight
sadness, " I did not say you should not hope, but
that I could not. Costanza," she added, abruj^tly,
"I will tell you. Ever since the siege began I
have had a feeling I should not survive it. Do
not try to comfort me. It does not make me
unhappy ; it only helps to make me fearless. If
I do not see Mark again, as I believe I never
shall, you need not tell him how truly I loved
him to the last. He will know. But tell him
that more than any human words, his have been
blessed to me, even when I controverted
them."
THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 373
I did not reason with Ursel. But I do feel,
on thinking over her words, they ought not to
depress me. Day after day her heart and mind
have been strained to the utmost amonir the
dying and the dead ; and lately she looks as if
she had been but poorly fed. She will not make
allowance for the body. But I will take warn-
ing, and try to do so. Because my eyes are
sometimes a httle dim with fatigue and faintness,
I Avill try not to think God's heaven is shrouded ;
but it is hard sometimes. Tears veil the heavens
as well as cljDuds — and when clouds are there,
too ! Ursel is not in the least more likely to
die, because she thinks she will ; nor is May-
ken, because I fear it often, when my heart is
heavy.
August 2\st. — To-day the citizens replied to
the Prince's letter of the 12tli, by saying thit
they had now held out as long as he counselled
them, "two months with food and one with
famine ;" that now the malt-cake would only last
four days longer, and after that came absolute
starvation. This very evening, however, a letter
has been received from the Prince (not, of course,
a reply), telling us that all the dykes are pierced,
and that on the Land Scheiding, the great dyke
five miles distant, the water is rising fist.
This letter was read publicly in the market-
place, and the burgomaster Van der Werf, cele-
brated the good news by bands of music parad-
32
374 THE LIBEEATIOJ^^ OF HOLLAND.
ing the streets, and salutes of cannon, which
must have perj^lexed the enemy.
Angust 2lih. — The burst of j^remature triumph
has brought its reaction. Never have I seen the
city so despairing. Xo tidings reach us from
our friends ; whilst letters from the enemy, and,
worse still, from Dutchmen in his camp, traitors
to their country, are constantly being shot into
the streets, promising pardon, and exhorting the
citizens to have compassion on their wives and
sisters and on the aged. But still, .desperate as
our case is, the answer in every heart is, " Naar-
den ! Haarlem !" " Any death rather than that
the Spanish army would bring !"
At last the daily supply of malt-cake has
ceased to come from the magistrates. A month
ago the bread was changed for this ; and now
this is finished. What we shall do with our
large household, God only knows ! A small
supply is sent us of meat, enough for a few
mouthfuls each. The first day we had nothing
until the evening, and then Truyken brought in
a strange dish of greens. This has been repeated
since, but Truyken forbids any inquiry as. to her
kitchen arrangements.
Then famine and terror are bringing super-
stitious fears into many hearts. For as long as
there is guilt among Protestants, there will be
superstition, although the old forms of it may have
perished. The few Royalists and Papists in the
THE LIBERATION" OF HOLLAND. 375
city begin to speak oi^enly, and reproach us Avith
impiety and rebellion. " Go up to the tower, ye
beggars," they say, " and see if the l^Ieuse is
coming to save you !"
Truyken, whose method of resistance is always
of the nature of the sortie rather than of retiring
behind the walls, retorts bitterly, as of old on
the image-breakers. " When the Almighty sends
His army," she said, " He will not send trum-
peters before it as you would." " The sea will
not save you when it comes, any more than it
did King Pharaoh."
Among the Protestants superstition takes the
form of small scruples. The other day a minis-
ter inveighed most vehemently in the pulpit,
against the mottoes which have been engraven
on the paper-money, Avhich now serves us instead
of small coin. The mottoes are, Pugiio pro Pa-
Iria, and JIaec Liber talis ergo. The preacher said
it ought to have been religionis instead of liber-
tatis, and so bitterly and personally attacked the
magistrates who were present, that a high-spir-
ited young officer, sitting in the pew with them,
proposed to the burgomaster Van der Werf, to
bring the minister down with a pistol. The
burgomaster withheld him, and patiently lis-
tened to the rest of the attack. This did not
please Truyken.
"I have always thought," she said, "that if a
few of the clergy were shot on all sides, things
would go on much better, and it was a great
376 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
pity the good burgomaster missed the opportu-
nity."
Old Jacob Claesen remonstrated, but Hade-
wylc turned on him and said :
" Thy religion is good for thee ; but if the
magistrates and the army take it up, the world
will soon come to an end."
Timid consciences are troubled, and some begin
to go over the grounds why they left the old
Church, and to wonder whether, after all, God
is displeased. I used at first to be afraid Truyken
would look on all this trouble as a judgment
from God, but she set me at rest on this point
by saying :
" No, no. I can never believe the Almighty
would send the devil as His executioner, much
as the Duke of Alva wanted us all to think so.
He," she added, reverently, "has sent us the
Prince. That was what Job's friends wanted
him to believe when he was sitting in the dust.
The devil was tormenting him, and they wanted
him to beheve God was punishing him, instead
of letting the devil do him good without intend-
ing it, by bruising some of the pride out of him.
No, the Lord is very pitiful. May he preserve me
from confounding His words with those of Satan."
'^You have read the Book of Job, then,
Truyken ?" said I, hoping to draw her a little
further.
"No, indeed," she replied; "I never read
any thing."
THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND. 377
And then I remeinbei'ecl how she always lis-
tened at our family prayers in Friesland.
Since we came here, old Jacob has been con-
fined to his bed. But, in the evening, we, in-
cluding the orphans and Christina, always gather
around him, and he repeats us a psalm, and offers
up a simple prayer, as of old. He is certainly
failing.
August 2Uh. — Day after day, our watchmen
have gone up on the tower, and not a friendly
sign has shone upon us from all the country
round. Yesterday, Truyken, Dolores, and I
ascended the height together. Beyond and
around the besieging force spread, indeed, in-
stead of the green meadows, with cattle brows-
ing in them, and pleasant villages among the
orchards, a wide waste of shallow waters. But
above these still rose dyke after dyk(3, walling
us in too effectually from the ocean. It was sad
to see the patient labour of years destroyed, and
yet no chance of its bringing us deliverance.
Tau'nts had often reached us from the besiegers :
" As soon will the Prince of Orange pluck the
stars from heaven, as bring the sea to you."
And, truly, this wilderness of submerged land
was no sea.
It seemed as if all had forgotten us, and too
often we were tempted to think that some im-
penetrable barrier kept our prayers from reach-
ing heaven, as well as our friends from reaching
32*
378 THE libekxVtio:n' of Holland.
us. To-ilay the citizens sent a piteous appeal to
the Estates, complaining that the city had been
forirotten in its sorest need.
The very same evening came the reply from
the Estates :
" Rather will v/e see our whole land and all
our possessions perish in the waves, than forsake
thee, Leyden. We knov/ full Avell, moreover,
that with Leyden all Holland must perish."
There is little heart among us now for salvoes
of artillery or bands of music ; but the faithful,
hearty words were greeted with many a blessing
and many a silent tear. They will do all they
can. And God, who can do all things, will do
all that is good.
August SOth. — I have discovered vrhat Truy-
ken's greens are. Yesterday evening, I wondered
to see several branches of the limes in front of
our windows stripped of their Summer leaves.
This morning, very early, when I ojjened the
window of the room where the sick are, to let
in a little air, I saw a figure climbing the trees.
In a few minutes a boy descended, and placed a
large bundle of leaves in the arms of Truyken,
who was waiting at the bottom of tlie tree.
Then she disappeared ; and at breakfast the
strange dish was seen again.
August SI St. — We shall have no more lime-
leaves to eat. This morning, when I looked out
THE LIBEEATIOX OF IIOLLxVND. 379
again, instead of the f;iir row of waving Summer
branches, half hiding the canal, a line of ghostly
skeletons stood outside the door. They had
been stripped of every leaf in the night by other
hands. Truyken stood in dismay by the canal.
I went out to her, and said :
" Truyken, there may be some more destitute
even than we are. Let us go and see what we
can find."
" ISTo," she said ; " you shall never come on
such an errand. You do not know what sights
there are in the city. They are not for such as
you."
" Such as I !" The poor loyal, faithful heart
cannot always save us from contact with the
lowest misery !
Seplemher 2d. — A gleam of hope ! Keen eyes
have seen masts and sails not more than five
miles off, beyond the Land Scheiding. It must
be the Zealand fleet.
September 3d. — The plague is amongst us.
This morning the watch, going their rounds,
found the door of a house open, entered it, and
found every one dead ; those who had died first
laid reverently out on beds, and the last stretched
on the floor, where they had fainted.
This evening a little infant was brought us,
taken crying from her dead mother's breast.
.But these died of hunger, not of the plague.
380 THE LIBEEATIOX OF IIOLLAXD.
September Aih. — ^Tliey are very solemn gather-
ings now on Sundays, when the congregation of
famine-stricken, ftiinting creatures assembles at
church. But, oh, the Bible words, how living
they are ! Thank God, there is a bread of life
that never fails : — " He that cometh to me shall
never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst." It is true — true — true ; although
the mortal life of every one in Leyden failed
from hunger, this is true. And the hymns ! for
we sing. To listen to the poor, feeble voices,
once so clear and strong ! and yet to hear from
them hymns of trust and praise ! This must be
a music to which the angels stop and listen.
September bth. — My poor jDatient child, my
Mayken ! if only she would cry and moan like
the other children do. But she only sits silent,
and tries to cheer the others. But her sweet,
round face so hollow, and her eyes so sunken !
Thank God, Mark is not here ! Thank God !
September 8ih. — Old Jacob Claesen is dead !
There are so many deaths, life seems the wonder.
I only mention his, because it was not a sorrow.
So calm, so peaceful ! He said :
" In the city to which I am going, the inhabit-
ants shall never say, I am sick. One less, my
friends, one helpless creature less, to drain your
scanty store ! One more to join the songs of
praise ! You cannot grudge me my joy."
THE LIBEKATIOX OF nOLLAXD. 381
We did not weep, as we pressed his hand in
farewell. It seemed only like crossing a few
minutes before us a river whose shores we could
all see. Only Mayken wept, and poor Iladewyk.
" Dear lamb," the old man said, " thou wilt
see brighter days on earth yet. And, my best
beloved, our parting will not seem long when
we meet aixain. ' The chariots of Israel, and
the horsemen thereof,' " he said, and very soon
he ceased to breathe.
Ursel thinks the angels came to take him.
Dolores and I cannot help remembering the in-
visible guard around the beleagured city of old.
Were the eyes of the old man in this the dawn-
ing of his immortal youth, opened to behold
them, lilce those of the young man of Israel ?
It has often comforted us since to think so ;
for surely^ whether he saw them or not, those
ministering spirits are encamped around the
city, and around every Christian home within
it. And the dying do prophesy at times.
During the siege of Alkmaar, shortly before it
was raised, pastor Arentzoon died. On his
death-bed, he called his friends around him, and
told them to be of good courage ; " for," said
he, " God will prosper you, and the enemy shall
not take the town this time ;" and shortly after-
wards the siege was raised. Will Mayken, my
patient darling, see brighter days on earth yet ?
Nothing, nothing, O God, is too good for Thee
to give ! Thou gavest Thy Son !
382 THE LIBEKATION OF HOLLAND.
September 9(h. — Many of the orphans have
died. To-day I thought Truyken lookhig so
very faint, that I resolved, in spite of all her re-
monstrances, to follow her into the kitchen with a
morsel of food which I had saved from our meal.
She was leaning quite powerless against the
table. I laid her on my own bed, moistened
her lips with wine, of which we have an abun-
dance, which is almost a mockery of our wants,
chafed her cold hands, and forced a piece of
food into her lips. She could scarcely swalloAV it,
but it revived her, and then she struggled to
send me away.
" Mistress, mistress dear," she said, " let me
die. I can be of no use to any of you more, and
I cannot bear to see you want. What can I do
for you but cook the strange food into some-
thing you can eat ? And now there is nothing
left. I can do nothing more for you, but be one
less to drag on you. Let me die."
I could not answer her, and she continued :
"Perhaps you think I should not be saved;
and you cannot bear me to go unless you know
it would be to a better place. I think it would.
I know my Saviour died for me, and I have
learned to trust in Him, and in none beside. I
think He will take me. So, mistress, you need
not fear to let me go. Think of the master.
Think of the darling child. You have many
dearer to you than me. You must think of
them, and let me go."
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 383
" Never," I said, " Truyken, never, if I can
save you. In an hour I will be back. Promise
to lie still till then."
Her eyes followed me wistfully, and she saidj.
as I left the room :
"Poor lamb, she is going to get food. She
will find none. She little knows what I have
brought home these last days."
I went to the house of the burgomaster, Van
der Werf ; but when I readied his door, a corj^se
lav before it. I scarcely noticed it, so accustomed
to sights of horror had we become. The burgo-
master was away, but they pointed out to me
the direction in which he was gone, and I fol-
lowed. I found him in an open place in the
centre of the town. Around him were gathered
a gaunt and angry crowd. He stood in the
midst, near the door of the old brick church of
St. Pancras, under the two lime-trees, stripped
bare of leaves, and standing like types of the
famine, wintry skeletons mocking that summer
noon. Adrian van der Werf was as wan and
haggard as any famished creature in the crowd,
but there Avas a deep tranquil light in his dark
powerful eyes which famine could not quench.
He waved his broad burgomaster's hat, and
commanded silence from the clamorous crowd ;
for I learned that the corpse I had seen had been
laid at his door that night by some of the few
traitors in the city, in reproach of his inflexible
refusal to surrender.
384 THE LIBERATION OP HOLLAND.
When a hush was made, he spoke, and
his voice, like all of ours, was thin with hun-
ger:
, "What would ye, my friends?" he said.
" Why do ye murmur that we do not break our
vows, and surrender the city to the Sj^aniards ? —
a fate more horrible than the agony she now en-
dures ! I tell you, I have made an oath to hold
the city, and may God give me strength to keep
my oath. I can die but once, whether by your
hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My
own fate is indifferent to me ; not so that of the
city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall
starve if not soon relieved; but starvation is
preferable to the dishonored death, which is the
only alternative. Your menaces move me not.
My life is at your disposal. Here is my sword,
plunge it into my breast, and divide my flesh
among you. Take my body to appease your
hunger, but expect no surrender as long as I re-
main alive."
Shouts of enthusiastic defiance and resolution
once more responded to his faithful words from
the starving crowd, who dispersed, after ex-
changing new oaths of fidelity with the burgo-
master. I waited till the place was clear, and
then ventured to approach and tell him my story.
Tears stood in his eyes, and he said :
" There will be food to-day. The milch cows
are to be slaughtered one by one. Come, now,
to my house for a few drops of milk. They may
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 385
revive your faithful servant, and they will be the
last we shall have. To-morrow you shall have
your share of meat."
I returned to Truyken with my precious gift.
Oh, if ever we know happy days again, shall I
forget what poverty and hunger are ? or shall I
think there is any joy like that of helping the
needy and wretched ?
September lOih. — On the ramparts yesterday
Ursel heard a defiance given to the enemy by
some of the citizens.
" You call us rat-eaters and dog-eaters," they
cried, " and it is true. So long, then, as ye hear
a dog bark or a cat mew within the walls, ye
may know that the city holds out. And when
all has perished but ourselves, be sure that we
will each devour our left arms, retaining our
right to defend our women, our liberty, and our
religion, against the foreign tyrant. Should God
in His wrath doom us to destruction, and deny
us all relief, even then will we maintain ourselves
for ever against your entrance. When the last
hour has come, with our own hands will we set
fire to the city, and perish, men, women and
children together in the flames, rather than suf-
fer our homes to be polluted and our liberties to
be crushed."
This was the answer to many offers of pardon
and grace which Valdez has lately been sending
into the city, and to the taunts of the besiegers.
33
38G THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND.
When I told Truyken of the general's offei'3
of mercy, she said eagerly :
" Are they watching from the tower ? Surely
he knows there is help coming, or he would
never offer terms,"
September 12th. — Yesterday evening, to satisfy
Truyken, Dolores and I went up to the Great
Tower. When we reached the summit, we found
a crowd collected there in great excitement.
They pointed us to a sj^ot in the distance where
from time to time faint sudden puffs of smoke
ajDpeared, with the sound of far-off guns.
" There is an engagement," people said.
And then, as we watched, in an hour's time
the ships became clearly visible.
" They are approaching," it was murmured.
We hastened back with the good news to
Christina and Truyken.
That night and morning many never left that
point of hope ; and they saw the fire of blazing
villages, and heard the artillery from the fleet,
and knew by that the deliverers were gaining
ground.
September 11 Ih. — For some days the fleet
seems to have made no progress ; and the famine
and pestilence made terrible strides. The plague
is indeed among us. Thousands die, and those
remaining have scarcely strength to bury the
corpses. And the wind continues to blow
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 387
steadily from the east, keeping back the
sea.
" Oh," sobbed poor Hadewyk this morning,
"for one day of the gale v/hich laid waste oar
farm in Friesland !"
Seftemher 18(h. — It has come! The north-
west wind has come. The fleet, which had
passed three great dykes — the outer one, the
Land Scheiding, and the Greenway — has now
floated triumphantly to another, the Kirkway.
September 2oth. — Can it be that the courage
of the Zealanders fails ? It can never be that
the Prince of Orange abandons us. And May-
ken, my darling, as I look at her in her feverish
broken sleep, and feel how sweet it would be if
by any device I could transfer all my portion of
food to her, and, dying, see something of the
old life come back to the child ; and then by
that love God gave me for her, I feel, I feel He
can never abandon us. Can He mean that Ley-
den shall become one funeral-pile ? And as I
write the words, Ursel's words come back on
me like a knell. "Whatever He has decreed
will be -accomplished, and it will be well."
For in the room below lies XJrsel smitten by
the plague, with Christina nursing her. And
now in all the house there are none left to attend
to the sick and the orphans but Dolores, and I,
and the child Mavken, who moves about as if all
388 THE LIBEKATIOlSr OF HOLLAND.
the child had departed from her, a little feeble,
wise, tender-hearted, helpful woman. She gath-
ers the orphans aromid her, and speaks to them
of Jesus and the Gospel stories, and sings them
to sleep sometimes with that poor, thin, trem-
bling voice, from which all the childish ring has
gone, until my heart almost breaks ; and I can
only thank God Mark is not here to see.
As soon as Truyken recovered so as to be
able to walk, she and Hadewyk disappeared. I
cannot hear of them anywhere.
September 28lh. — A letter to-day from Admiral
Boisot ; the first tidings for so long.
A carrier-pigeon bore it into the city.
He says the fleet at Korth Oa are makino:
eveiy eifort, and that in a very few days at
furthest relief will come. There was also a let-
ter to the Commandant from the Admiral, claim-
ing his hospitality, and promising to be his guest
in a day or two. The brave burgomaster caused
the church-bells to be rung with peals of joy.
When Ursel heard them, she said in her wan-
derings :
"Those are Dolores's wedding bells. Mark
must come. Dolores, did I say? This Great
Day of Joy is come for all. Mark will be there."
September 29th. — Yet to-day the waves still
point to the east; and from the tower, those
who watch say the water is sinking, instead of
THE LIBEEATIOK OP HOLLAND. 389
rising. Oh, is it possible we can be disappointed
again ? JSTo, no ! God does not awaken hope
to blight it. And yet, if, as Christina fears,
Ursel does indeed die, as she predicted, it is
terrible to think the other part of her presenti-
ment may come true also. But I will not think
so. Does God speak to us in presentiments, or
in His promises ? It is only that I am weak
with famine, and have naturally at any time so
little trust, compared to what I should have.
So many trust Thee in this poor famishing city,
so many pray to Thee, surely it would not be
like Thee to let deliverance come so near, and
then fail ?
Our attendance at family prayer is smaller
now. The few starving orphans, Dolores, May-
ken, and I, always contrive to meet for a few
minutes, and then we separate. Except then,
even Dolores and I meet little. There is so
much to do, and so little to say to cheer each
other.
October \sL — A gale, a storm ! The wind rush-
ing from the north-west, beating at our houses,
bringing down the sea, the mighty, irresistible,
overwhelming sea. The gale which swept away
old Jacob Claesen's Friesland farm !
October 2c/. — The wind has changed. It is
blowing furiously from the south-west. God
Las sent His winds to fight for us at last, as
390 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
plainly as for Israel of old. The ocean must
have been piled, they say, by the great dykes on
the coast of South Holland by that north-west
wind — heaped up, as in God's treasure-house;
and then the wind suddenly turned to the south-
west, the very other quarter which was needed,
and is driving the heaped-up waters through the
pierced dykes over the land. Still the terrible
fort of Lammen remains strongly garrisoned and
thoroughly provided with cannon and* ammuni-
tion.
Last night Dolores ventured to the Great
Tower, and there she saw the flashes of the
midnight battle on the waters, revealing for
a moment the fleet of the deliverers, and the
Zealanders assailing the Spaniards as they strug-
gled on the slippery half-submerged pathway in
their flight from the fort of Zoeterwoude, now
dismantled and abandoned.
Another carrier-pigeon from Admiral Boisot.
Nothing but the fort of Lammen, two hundred
and fifty yards from the city, remains between
us and the deliverers ; between a famishing city
and food. To-night none will sleep in Leyden
but little children and those w^ho sleep the heavy
unrefreshing slumbers of exhaustion. But how
many will pray ! What countless prayers will
go up to God from this starving city, to-night ;
and not one of them shall be lost !
October 3d— Can it be all true ? The skeletoa
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 391
lime-trees stand outside the house, like gaunt
unnatural spectres, their leafless twigs relieved
against the soft blue Summer sky. Yet within,
how all is changed !
On that awful night of the 2d of October, the
wind still blowing in violent gusts from the
south-west, the burgomaster led many of the
bravest of the citizens to the summit of the old
Roman tower. " There," he said, pointing to-
wards the terrible Lammen fort, " yonder, be-
hind that fort, are bread and meat, and brethren
in thousands. Shall all this be destroyed by the
Spanish guns, or shall we rush to the rescue of
our friends ?"
" We will tear the fortress to pieces with our
teeth and nails," was the reply, " before the re-
lief we have looked for so long shall be wrested
from us at the last."
All through that night many watchers sat
alone on housetop and battlement, or with the
numbers on the old Roman tower.
Christina, Dolores, and I, v/atched in turn on
the roof of our house. A long procession of
lights was seen crossing the water from the
dreaded Lammen fort, but they scarcely lighted
up the black night which lay heavily on the
waters. Now and then came a dull splash in
the water, and a cry; but instantly all was
hushed a<jain and still as death. It was as if
the whole city was holding its breath to listen ;
when, at midnight, came a crash like thmiderj
892 THE LIBEEATION OF HOLLAND.
followed by the heavy splash of stones falling
into the water.
" It must be the wall !" said Dolores, who had
just joined me. And we clung togethei*, expect-
ing the next moment to hear the yell of Spanish
storming parties rushing through the breach.
But not a sound followed. There was some
confusion among the strange rows of lights on
the dark waste of waters, then they seemed to
move more rapidly, until the last faint gleam
died away in the distance, as if it had been a
procession of ghosts. All night long we dreaded
some surprise, some sudden war-cry or cannon-
ading, or despairing shrieks, revealing the suc-
cess of the enemy's stratagem. But the silence
deepened until the dawn broke over the water's.
Then we saw that all was unchanged since night-
fall; except that on one side, where the city
wall had been, lay a heap of ruined masonry,
laying open a large space of the city. Lammen
stood bristling with its cannon as before, and the
fleet beyond it.
Who would begin the attack ? The fort was
silent ; but every moment we expected to hear
its fatal voice, and see the smoke and flash from
its many guns. No sound came. At last we
saw a flag waving from the silent fort, and then
a man swimming from it to the fleet. The ships
advanced. They passed close under the cannon
of the dreaded Lammen. Yet not a shot was
fired.
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND. 393
Then Dolores and I began to believe the truth,
and fell into each others' arms, and wept, and
sobbed out thanks to God.
But for a miuute ! And then we went down
to tell the news to all ; and found it was no news
to any. one. The truth seemed to have burst
on the whole at once ; and people wept and
laughed and clasped their hands, and knelt in
the streets in prayer.
The Zealand ships came up the canals ; the
sailors throwing bread on all sides among the
starving people. I gave a loaf to Mayken, and
tried to swallow some myself, but could not.
Then I hurried with Mayken to the site of our
old house. If Mark was in the fleet, I knew he
w^ould look for us there. I saw his look of be-
wilderment and dismay, as his eyes lighted on
the heap of ruins among which we stood, where
the house had been. And then, amidst the ashes
and ruins, once more Mark and Mayken and I
stood together. He took the poor, famished
child in his arms, as light a weight as when she
was many years younger. He brought us home ;
and there, for a few minutes, we sat together in
that kind of joy which must either find a voice
in silence or tears.
Then Dolores joined us, with the Seigneur de
Clairvaux. How they found each other I have
no idea, nor, I believe, have they. Every one
seemed dehrious with sui-prise and joy that morn-
ing ; and if each one tried to write a history of
S94 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
the day, I think there would not be one history-
corresponding with another, so that future gen-
erations might come to doubt whether the whole
history were not a glowing sunset crown of ro-
mance to a long day of bustle and toil and weep-
ing. But it is true. "VVe are all here. Mark is
here, and Mayken ; and on the table, loaves of
bread, not malt-cake, or lime leaves, but bread,
God's perpetual miracle, His ceaseless manna,
springing golden from the earth, His unfailing
gift to man. Bread ! loaves, when we have given
thanks for crumbs ! j^ure wheateu loves, where
we have said grace for nettles from the church-
yards, and too often have failed even to find such
sustenance as these. O gracious God ! if I be-
gin to thank Thee, my words will change into
tears.
From the house Christina, Dolores, Leonard
. de Clairvaux, Mark, Mayken, and I, went and
joined the solemn procession to the great church,
with the noble Adrien van der Werf and Admiral
Boisot at the head, and all the city who could
walk or stand, the scarred and war-worn civic
guard, famine-stricken men, women, and chiklren,
and the wild Zealand sailors.
At the church we knelt in prayer together, all
of us. And then thousands of voices beo-an the
hymn of thanksgiving, which was never finished :
at least never finislied in words. Abruptly it
broke off. Not a voice could raise another note.
The whole congregation burst forth in tears and
THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAISD. 395
sobs of speechless gratitude. All heroic and
patient Leydcn ! prepared only three days before
to die amidst the burning, rather than surrender,
wept and sobbed like a child on its mother's
heart. Thus the service ended, no one attempted
any more words. Never, I think, did thanks-
giving hymn give more joy in heaven than that.
We returned in silence, and then, and not till
then, the food was quietly and systematically
distributed among the citizens.
First the thanksgiving and then the enjoy-
ment.
On our way home, we heard the sound as of a
low moan from the door of a poor cottage.
Mark and I entered. "We feared it might be
some suiferer, the last of a starved family, and
we would not that any should feel forsaken or
forgotten on this day of joy. A faint voice mur-
mured :
" Is it the Spaniards ? Have they come at
last ? I will not fear what flesh can do to me."
The room was dark ; but, faint as it was, the
voice was fomiliar indeed.
'' Truyken ! Truyken Ketel !" said Mark, kneel-
ing beside her.
" Thank God, thank God, I see the master
asrain before I die."
" You will not die, Truyken," he said tenderly ;
" we are to take you back."
" No, no," she said, bewildered by the sudden
joy, and Avandering a little in her faintness ; " I
396 THE LIBERATION OF HOLXAND.
will not come again to take the last morsel from
her lips and the child's.
" It is not the last morsel, Truyken," I said, as
quietly as I could, taking from Mayken the loaf
I had given her, and which the child had carried
with hei" to church, unwilling to trust the treasure
out of her hands. .
Truyken looked up. She began to understand.
" God has sent His angels on the storm," I
said. " That storm-wind last night brought them."
She sat up with feverish strength for a moment,
and clasped her hands in thanksgiving. And
then she let us take her home.
Slowly she is recovering strength; and this
morning she shook her head, as Mark and I con-
gratulated her on her improved looks, and said
with a smile :
"You had better have let me go. I am well
enough in stormy times, but you know very well
old Truyken's temper makes many a storm for
you when things are smooth."
Nor, I think, will Ursel be taken from us.
When Mark came to her bedside to see her, she
clung to his hand, as if she could never let it go.
And yesterday she acknowledged to us :
" I was not so willing to go as I had thought.
I had imagined death coming suddenly on the
ramparts, amidst all those sights and sounds of
conflict and agony. But when it seemed likely
to come on me on this bed, with Christina
watching over me like a mother, and your voice
THE LIBERATION OV HOLLAND. 397
and darling Mayken's whispering anxiously at
the door, I did feel it would be very hard to
leave you all. And I prayed to live, and to see
Mark again."
" If it had been God's time, He would have
made you ready to depart," Mark said. "And
now, dear Ursel, we will have you back again ;
but we cannot recognize you as a prophetess, nor
suffer you to become a nun, in spite of these
clipped locks," said Mark, smoothing the short
hair on her temples.
She held one hand of each of us, and smiled a
smile of sweet childlike gratitude, which went
to my inmost heart, coming, as it did, from the
depths of that deep and determined nature. It
showed such a deep rest all through her heart.
February 5, 1575. — My little chronicle may well
end, now that all those who would care to read
it are within reach^ of each other's voices.
On October the 4th, the day after our great
deliverance, the Prince of Orange came to share
our joy. And then first we learned from his
worn and hagsrard countenance that he had
suffered on our account in body as well as in
mind scarcely less than we had. More than one
of those cheering letters of his which had encour-
aged us to endure, were written, as now first
we discovered, from a bed of dangerous illness,
once nearly brought to a hopeless pass by a false
rumour that Levden had fallen.
84
398 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
He offered the city, as a reward for its heroic
■defense, to receive a perpetual exemption from'
cei'tain taxes, or to become the seat of a univer-
sity. The citizens chose the latter. And yester-
day another procession stirred the streets of
Leyden, not silent with sudden and imutterablo
joy, like that last one, but gay with music and
banners and classical imagery, in honour of the
new literary glories whicli are to be ours. The
nine muses, Apollo, Neptune, the Goddess of
Medicine, Minerva with her aegis, sailed in orna-
mented barges up our canals, and rode through
our streets, preceded by the Holy Gospel in a
white dress, and seated in a chariot and four
with the four Evangelists walking by her side.
But this splendid allegorical festival has to our
eyes been rather eclipsed by a little family proces-
sion of our own to the great church to-day.
There where all Leyden had met to sing that
holy hymn of praise, Dolores and Leonard de
Clairvaux were married this morning, with
simple reverent ceremony, by a Lutheran pastor.
Christina and LTrsel are established in full and
happy activity, with the charge of the orphans
made by the wai-s of those troublous years, and
by the famine and pestilence during the siege.
ITadewyk has reappeared and loves to help them.
The church at Amsterdam, a few years since, .
chose certain ancient and virtuous women of their
number, and solemnly set them apart as deacon-
esses. Christina, Urscl, and Hadewyk have not
THE LIBEKATIOX OF HOLLAND. 399
yet received the title, but they certainly exercise
. the ministry. And Christina's linen-presses and
provision stores, well-stocked as they always are,
are not likely to become mildewed or moth-
eaten.
Our little household is thus diminished, being
reduced, besides the servants, who are trained
for us by Christina and Ursel, to Mark, Mayken,
Truyken, and me.
Truyken would be disposed to assist in Chris-
tina's orphan home, but for a fear which she
modestly expresses that our household would
go to ruin without her, " especially now that all
those wild young things are turned in upon us
by the Yrouw van Broek, under the name of
servants, but without an idea how to scnib a
floor, or turn a joint, or wring out a mop."
Happier days have indeed come on earth for
Mayken as old Jacob Claesen prophesied, and
when I hear her joyous laugh pealing like silver
joy-bells through the house at some sally of
Truyken's, I smile to think how I feared the sweet
ringing tone of youth would never come back
to her voice or her heart. But yet I would not for
the world liave her lose the depth of sympathy
and faith those days of agony have given her.
Mark believes the standard of true liberty will
ne\er be torn down, and the light of true relig-
ion never quenched in those lands rescued at so
great a cost from tyranny and superstition. And
Dolores says, " Who knows how the martyr-fires
400 THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND.
of Spain have aided in the liberation of Holland?
Like ISTaarden and Haarlem in the siege of Ley-
den, have not the Spanish Autos-da-fe been a
terrible beacon before the eyes of those northern
subjects of King Philip, warning, strengthening
them never to surrender ?" It is comfortinsj to
Dolores and me to think that thus the suflerings
of our countrymen may not have been without
their fruits even on these shores of time. But
we can disentangle little of God's purposes on
earth, and we wait submissively to learn why
the martyrs were suffered thus to perish, from
their own lips in the better world.
Hands are clasped, and hearts are bound to-
gether in these days for mutual aid in many a
stormy conflict. For the warfare is not yet
accomplished. Nor will it be, as Mark said, as
long as God has soldiers to train, that they may
wear the palms and crowns, and cast both at the
feet of Him through whom alone one of that
white-robed host will have overcome.
THE END
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