TH

dom!

CHAPTER II

THE NETHERLANDS REPUBLIC

HERE is Holland. What a handbreadth of territory! In area about twelve thousand five hundred square miles, and at the time of the Reformation with not more than three million inhabitants. "A mere handful of people and a worm compared to the King of Spain," said William, Prince of Orange, to Don John's deputies while discussing the pacification of Ghent. Yet what wealth did that territory represent! What healthy political action ! What valour! What martyrWhat patriotism! What faith in the true glory of civilised men ! Here is a solid and a permanent contribution to the advancement of human kind, and among the triumphs of which Europe is now living. The ideas for which the Netherland Reformers fought serve as our guides in this day and generation. The union of the Netherlands was in many respects the prototype of our own, though not so vast or powerful. The principle of toleration emerged out of that struggle into an entity, and heralded the dawn of a new and a better age; it coloured and affected the literature and the politics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The spirit of liberty was never seen in more majestic proportions; never did patriots express their wrongs with less exaggeration, or proclaim their rights with greater moderation; never was a movement for constitutional rights prosecuted on lines more in accord both with national laws and with the laws of nature; never did a cause rest so much upon facts and so little upon fantasies. Not that their Constitution admitted of no improvement, but it was as much as the world had a right to look for in the sixteenth century. The Netherland Reformers did not enter into the conflict with cut-and-dried theories and doctrines;

they had neither democracy nor aristocracy in their minds; they had no express intention of establishing a Republic; that was a social and a political development. These Reformers were willing to be governed and had a strong disposition for hereditary sovereignty, combined with popular representation; but they claimed that government should be founded upon reason and justice, and that it should exist, primarily, for the benefit of the governed. Even a Sovereign had duties as well as privileges, and should he fail to perform his allotted task as Protector, the States had a moral and a lawful right to depose him and to elect another in his room. These rights were proclaimed in defiance of a vast, intolerant, and overshadowing ecclesiastical organisation which was allied to the mightiest empire on earth. The union involved the right of the Church to prosecute; it involved the mutual obligation of the Church and State to work together in the realms of art; feeling and judgment it disregarded; it disregarded the distinction between the political and the religious, and repudiated the twin-principle of conscience and individuality that formed the ground-work of the Reformation. But even the Pope had to be consistent, and even the King had to be loyal. The unity and supremacy of the Catholic Church, the unlimited authority of the King, were alike absolute. The State utilised the Church to further its own purposes, and the Church put forward the State to minister to her own greed, and to extend her dominion; hence arose Wars, Crusades, Persecutions, and Inquisitions. The deeds of both Church and State at that period represented the utmost refinement of diabolical cruelty. In order to keep the faith pure, and to effect the extirpation of heresy, every means, however loathsome, was considered proper and legitimate. While deeds dark and hideous enough to cause hell itself to shudder were being perpetrated, monks carried standards on which were emblazoned the crucified Saviour and the Virgin Mary; while innocent children with their mothers were tortured, and had their tongues torn off from the roots, priests were haranguing the multitude on the blessings of the Inquisition, and melodious chimes sounded forth from the belfries of cathedrals.

In vain did the Netherland Reformers look to France or

Germany-whether Catholic or Protestant-for encouragement. Even England, a country supposed to be the bulwark of Protestantism, stood aloof during the initiatory stages of the conflict. Queen Elizabeth, a Princess descended from the blood of Holland, hesitated and prevaricated; partly because of the perpetual dangers that threatened her from the side of Scotland; partly because she dreaded the wrath of Philip; partly because of the perversity of her own nature. Elizabeth was weak in will and incapable of promptness, but as it becomes the character of patriots to act, and not to wait, when action is imperative, the Netherland Reformers fell back upon their own resources, and proceeded on the maxim that the best way to trust God is to do the best for oneself. True, the Queen at a later period lent her credit, and England established the principle of subsidy and protection. Never did a Queen espouse a worthier cause, or a nation befriend a worthier people-brave, law-abiding, industrious, patient, and prodigal in nothing save in the shedding of their life-blood.

Those days were days of conflicting passions and interests; the days of the formalist and the theologian, when truth was supposed to be in the custody of the priests, when repression was the most potent form of argument. The system of absolutism had only one logical result, namely, the suppression of individual opinion; and the instruments of suppression were as brutal as were the amusements of the people. Justice halted and erred. The Anabaptists received as little consideration from the sects as they did from the Papists and the Royalists. Intense and prolonged were the conflicts between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. The violent and unseemly disputes between Luther and Erasmus regarding predestination, between Luther and Zwingli concerning the real presence, did much to menace and to dishonour the cause of the reformed religion. Dissenters were not unwilling in their turn to resort to excommunication and even to the faggot-the evil demon of religious bigotry had tainted the whole body politic. In the hands of the Iconoclasts reformation degenerated into destruction, though both Catholic and Protestant historians agree that while they destroyed Catholic churches and images, they committed no personal violence and no acts of confisca

tion. Bitterness begets bitterness, and persecution begets counter-persecution, abuses follow in the wake of reform. It is not unnatural that those who were devoted to freedom should over-step the bounds of moderation in the exultation of temporary triumphs.

The age was one of intolerance, a more presumptuous and less candid age than our own. It was merely a question of power; whoever had the might had the right. "There is something to be said on both sides," was an unborn maxim. Civil and ecclesiastical power were largely autocratic. Conscience was coerced by law, and persecution was regarded as a necessity. It is a sad reflection on human nature that when minorities are converted into majorities, they become oppressive. The battle for toleration has been wontheoretically; practically it is only partially applied. This is the iniquitous irony of civilisation. Cromwell and his followers committed just those breaches of the law for which they had brought Charles Stuart to the block. The Pilgrims went to New England to escape persecution in the Old Country, but they instituted the most violent and ingenious persecution against the Quakers in their new home. Toleration in the twentieth century is more of an ideal than a fact. The legal facilities for avenging upon those who decline to subscribe to our political and theological maxims are not within our reach, but the spirit that brought "heretics" to judgment, torture, and death, still survives. It is in our Trades Unions, Nonconformity, Anglicanism, our political system, that hybrid god of Undenominationalism, and in the Church of Rome. With the latter her boast is that she changeth not; and in that respect she is, at any rate, both honest and consistent. Theology still goes before piety, party before principle, and sect before sainthood. But what would have become of the world were it not for "heretics"? What would have become of toleration were it not for "Atheists" and "Agnostics"? Monks and ecclesiastical statesmen have checked and betrayed the cause of freedom; they have robbed religion of its sweetness, its catholicity, and its universality, and made it exclusive, pedantic, and aristocratic. Toleration was for princes and gentlemen, not for weavers and tailors.

What would have become of Holland were it not for the "ignoble herd" whose only crime was the rejection of the Pope as the dictator of their consciences?

No system can be compared to that of Rome with its combination of politics and religion; with its pride, its insolence, its tyranny and self-sufficiency. For refusing to make obeisance to a crucifix when they met it in the street, men were persecuted and tortured; they were slain and executed by thousands, for no other crime than that of reading and preaching the Word of God, and for practising private worship at home. They were arrested on suspicion, convicted without defence, and put to death without right of appeal. "Ye are bloody murderers," said a poor idiot when he saw his patron bound to the stake -a man of charity and of virtue. Two days later he picked up his half-burned skeleton, and carrying it through the streets to the house of the Chief Burgomaster and laying his burden at his feet and the feet of the Magistrates who were with him, he exclaimed: "There, murderers, ye have eaten his flesh, now eat his bones!" "What rites do you practise in your own homes?" asked the inhuman Titelmann of a man and his wife and two sons who were under arrest. One of the sons, a mere boy, answered: "We fall on our knees and pray to God that He may lighten our hearts and forgive our sins. We pray for our Sovereign that his reign may be prosperous and his life be prolonged. We also pray for the Magistrates and others in authority that God may protect and preserve them." There never was simpler or profounder eloquence. It is recorded that it drew tears from the eyes of some of the judges who formed the civil tribunal, but the lad was consigned to the flames, and when he prayed, "O Eternal Father, accept the sacrifice of our lives in the name of Thy beloved Son," one of the monks, who was lighting the fire by which the lad's flesh was consumed, cried out, "Scoundrel, thou liest! All Hell is opening, and ten thousand devils hurling you into eternal fire." Men had their arms and legs tied together behind their backs, their bodies hooked to iron chains and made to swing to and fro over a fire until death released them from their agony. No deeds were too bloody for those who executed the decrees of Philip with such unhesitating docility. They stained