taking on him the Government some new protection was necessary to this Infant-State that had not legs to support it against such a storm as was threatned upon the return of the Spanish and Italian Forces to make the Body of a formidable Army which the Duke of Parma was framing in Namur and Luxenburgh Since the Conference of Bayonne between the Queen-Mother of France and her Daughter Queen of Spain Those two Crowns had continued in the Reign of Francis and Charles to assist one another in the common Design there agreed on of prosecuting with violence those they called the Hereticks in both their Dominions The Peace held constant if not kind between England and Spain so as King Philip had no Wars upon his hands in Christendom during these Commotions in the Low-Countreys And the boldness of the Confederates in their first Revolt and Union seemed greater at such a time than the success of their Resistances afterwards when so many occasions fell in to weaken and divert the Forces of the Spanish Monarchy For Henry the Third coming to the Crown of France and at first only fetter'd and control'd by the Faction of the Guises but afterwards engaged in an open War which They had raised against him upon pretext of preserving the Catholique Religion and in a conjunction of Councels with Spain was forced into better measures with the Hugonots of his Kingdom and fell into ill intelligence with Philip the Second so as Queen Elizabeth having declined to undertake openly the protection of the Low-Countrey Provinces It was by the concurring-resolution of the States and the consent of the French Court devolved upon the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henry the Third But this Prince entered Antwerp with an ill presage to the Flemings by an attempt which a Biscainer made the same day upon the Prince of Orange's Life shooting him though not mortally in the head and He continued his short Government with such mutual distasts between the French and the Flemings the Heat and Violence of one Nation agreeing ill with the Customs and Liberties of the other that the Duke attempting to make himself absolute Master of the City of Antwerp by force was driven out of the Town and thereupon retired out of the Countrey with extream resentment of the Flemings and indignation of the French so as the Prince of Orange being not long after assasin'd at Delph and the Duke of Parma encreasing daily in Reputation and in Force and the Malecontent Party falling back apace to his obedience an end was presaged by most men to the Affairs of the Confederates But the Root was deeper and not so easily shaken For the United Provinces after the unhappy Transactions with the French under the Duke of Alencon reassumed their Union in 583 binding themselves in case by fury of the War any point of it had not been observed To endeavour from that time to see it effected In case any doubt had happened to see it clear'd And any Difficulties composed And in regard the Article concerning Religion had been so fram'd in the Union because in all the other Provinces besides Holland and Zealand The Romish Religion was then used but now the Evangelical It was agreed by all the Provinces of the Union That from this time in them all the Evangelical Reformed Religion should alone be openly preached and exercised They were so far from being broken in their Designs by the Prince of Orange's death That they did all the honour that could be to his Memory substituted Prince Maurice his Son though but Sixteen years old in all his Honours and Commands and obstinately refused all Overtures that were made them of Peace resolving upon all the most desperate Actions and Sufferings rather than return under the Spanish Obedience But these Spirits were fed and heighthen'd in a great degree by the hopes and countenance given them about this time from England for Queen Elizabeth and Philip the Second though they still preserved the Name of Peace yet had worn out in a manner the Effects as well as the Dispositions of it whilst the Spaniard fomented and assisted the Insurrections of the Irish and Queen Elizabeth the new Commonwealth in the Low-Countreys Though neither directly yet by Countenance Money voluntary Troops and ways that were equally felt on both sides and equally understood King Philip had lately encreased the greatness of his Empire by the Inheritance or Invasion of the Kingdoms of Portugal upon King Sebastian's loss in Africa But I know not whether he had encreast his Power by the accession of a Kingdom with disputed Title and a discontented People who could neither be used like good Subjects and governed without Armies nor like a Conquered Nation and so made to bear the charge of their forced obedience But this addition of Empire with the vast Treasure flowing every year out of the Indies had without question raised King Philip's Ambition to vaster designs which made him embrace at once the protection of the League in France against Henry the Third and Fourth and the Donation made him of Ireland by the Pope and so embarque himself in a War with both those Crowns while He was bearded with the open Arms and Defiance of his own Subjects in the Low-Countreys But 't is hard to be imagined how far the Spirit of one Great man goes in the Fortunes of any Army or State The Duke of Parma coming to the Government without any footing in more than two of the smallest Provinces collecting an Army from Spain Italy Germany and the broken Troops of the Countrey left him by Don John having all the other Provinces confederated against him and both England and France beginning to take open part in their defence yet by force of his own Valour Conduct and the Discipline of his Army with the dis-interessed and generous Qualities of his mind winning equally upon the Hearts and Arms of the Revolted Countreys and piercing through the Provinces with an uninterrupted course of Successes and the recovery of the most important Towns in Flanders At last by the taking of Anwerp and Groningue reduced the Affairs of the Union to so extream distress that being grown destitute of all hopes and succours from France then deep engaged in their own Civil Wars They threw themselves wholly at the feet of Queen Elizabeth imploring her Protection and offering her the Soveraignty of their Countrey The Queen refused the Dominion but enter'd into Articles with their Deputies in 585 obliging her self to very great Supplies of Men and of Moneys lent them upon the security of the Briel Flussing and Ramekins which were performed and Sir John Norrice sent over to command her Forces and afterwards in 87 upon the War broken out with Spain and the mighty threats of the Spanish Armada she sent over yet greater Forces under the Earl of Leicester whom the States admitted and swore obedience to him as Governour of their United Provinces But this Government lasted not long distastes
Italy and Greece were stiled so by the Romans but whose Victories in obtaining new Seats and Orders in possessing them might make us allow them for a better polici'd people than they appeared by the vastness of their Multitude or the rage of their Battels VVherever they past and seated their Colonies and Dominions they left a Constitution which has since been called in most European Languages The States consisting of Three Orders Noble Ecclesiastical and Popular under the limited Principality of one Person with the stile of King Prince Duke or Count. The remainders at least or traces hereof appear still in all the Principalities founded by those people in Italy France and Spain and were of a piece with the present Constitutions in most of the great Dominions on t'other side the Rhyne And it seems to have been a temper first introduced by them between the Tyranny of the Eastern Kingdoms and the Liberty of the Grecian or Roman Commonwealths 'T is true the Goths were Gentiles when they first broke into the Roman Empire till one great swarm of this people upon treaty with one of the Roman Emperors and upon Concessions of a great Tract of Land to be a Seat for their Nation embraced at once the Christian Faith After which the same people breaking out of the limits had been allowed them and by fresh numbers bearing all down where they bent their march as they were a great means of propagating Religion in many parts of Europe where they extended their Conquests so the zeal of these new Proselytes warmed by the veneration they had for their Bishops and Pastors and enriched by the spoyls and possessions of so vast Countreys seem to have been the First that introduced the maintenance of the Churches and Clergy by endowments of Lands Lordships and Vassals appropriated to them For before this time the Authority of the Priesthood in all Religions seemed wholly to consist in the peoples opinion of their Piety Learning and Virtues or a reverence for their Character and Mystical Ceremonies and Institutions their Support or their Revenues in the voluntary Oblations of pious men the Bounty of Princes or in a certain share out of the Labours and Gains of those who lived under their Cure and not in any subjection of mens Lives or Fortunes which belonged wholly to the Civil Power And Ammianus though he taxes the Luxury of the Bishops in Valentinian's time yet he speaks of their Riches which occasioned or fomented it as arising wholly from the Oblations of the people But the Devotion of these new Christians introducing this new form of endowing their Churches and afterwards Pepin and Charlemaign King of the Franks upon their Victories in Italy and the favour of the Roman Bishop to their Title and Arms having annexed great Territories and Jurisdictions to that See This Example or Custom was followed by most Princes of the Northern Races through the rest of Europe and brought into the Clergy great possessions of Lands and by a necessary consequence a great share of Temporal Power from the dependances of their Subjects or Tenants by which means they came to be generally one of the Three Orders that composed the Assembly of the States in every Countrey This Constitution of the States had been establisht from time immemorial in the several Provinces of the Low-Countreys and was often assembled for determining Disputes about succession of their Princes where doubtful or contested For deciding those between the great Towns For raising a Milice for the defence of their Countreys in the wars of their Neighbours For Advice in time of Dangers abroad or Discontents at home But always upon the new Succession of a Prince and upon any new Impositions that were necessary on the people The use of this Assembly was another of those Liberties whereof the Inhabitants of these Provinces were so fond and so tenacious The rest besides those ancient Priviledges already mentioned of their Towns were Concessions and Graces of several Princes in particular Exemptions or Immunities Jurisdiction both in choice and exercise of Magigistracy and Civil Judicature within themselves or else in the customs of using none but Natives in Charges and Offices and passing all weighty Affairs by the great Council composed of the great Lords of the Countrey who were in a manner all Temporal there being but three Bishops in all the Seventeen Provinces till the time of Philip the second of Spain The Revenues of these Princes consisted in their ancient Demesnes in small Customs which yet grew considerable by the greatness of Trade in the Maritime Towns and in the voluntary Contributions of their Subjects either in the States or in particular Cities according to the necessities of their Prince or the affections of the people Nor were these frequent for the Forces of these Counts were composed of such Lords who either by their Governments or other Offices or by the tenure of their Lands were obliged to attend their Prince on Horse-back with certain numbers of men upon all his wars or else of a Milice which was call'd Les gens d' ordonnance who served on foot and were not unlike our Train-bands the use or at least stile whereof was renewed in Flanders upon the last VVar with France in 1667 when the Count Egmont was made by the Governour General de gens d' ordonnance These Forces were defrayed by the Cities or Countreys as the others were raised by the Lords when occasion required and all were licensed immediately when it was past so that they were of little charge to the Prince His wars were but with other Princes of his own size or Competitors to his Principality or sometimes with the Mutineys of his great Towns Short though violent and decided by one Battel or Siege unless they fell into the quarrels between England and France and then they were engaged but in the skirts of the VVar the gross of it being waged between the two Kings and these smaller Princes made use of for the credit of Alliance or sometimes the commodiousness of a Diversion rather than for any great weight they made in the main of the Affair The most frequent VVars of the Counts of Holland were with the Frisons a part of the old Saxons and the fiercest battels of some of the Counts of Flanders were with the Normans who past that way into France and were the last of those Nations that have infested the more Southern parts of Europe I have sometimes thought how it should have come to pass that the infinite swarm of that vast Northern-Hive which so often shook the world like a great Tempest and overflowed it like a great Torrent changing Names and Customs and Government and Language and the very face of Nature wherever they seated themselves which upon record of story under the name of Gauls pierced into Greece and Italy sacking Rome and besieging the Capitol in Camillus his time under that of the Cimbers marcht through France to the very confines of
and suspition soon breaking out between Leicester and the States Partly from the jealousie of his affecting an Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary disposal of all Offices But chiefly of the Queen's Intentions to make a Peace with Spain And the easie loss of some of their Towns by Governours placed in them by the Earl of Leicester encreased their discontents Notwithstanding this ill intercourse the Queen re-assures them in both those points disapproves some of Leicester's proceedings receives franc and hearty assistances from them in her Naval Preparations against the Spaniards and at length upon the disorders encreasing between the Earl of Leicester and the States commands him to resign his Government and release the States of the Oath they had taken to obey him And after all this had past the Queen easily sacrificing all particular resentments to the Interest of her Crown continued her Favour Protection and Assistances to the States during the whole course of Her Reign which were return'd with the greatest deference and veneration to her Person that was ever paid by them to any Forreign Prince and continues still to her Name in the remembrance and frequently in the mouths of all sorts of people among them After Leicester's departure Prince Maurice was by the consent of the Union chosen their Governour but with a reservation to Queen Elizabeth and enter'd that Command with the hopes which he made good in the execution of it for many years proving the greatest Captain of his Age famous particularly in the discipline and ordonance of his Armies and the ways of Fortification by him first invented or perfected and since his time imitated by all But the great breath that was given the States in the heat of their Affairs was by the sharp Wars made by Queen Elizabeth upon the Spaniards at Sea in the Indies and the Expeditions of Lisbon and Cadiz and by the declining-affairs of the League in France for whose support Philip the Second was so passionately engaged that twice he commanded the Duke of Parma to interrupt the course of his Victories in the Low-Countreys and march into France for the relief of Roan and Paris Which much augmented the Renown of this great Captain but as much impaired the state of the Spanish Affairs in Flanders For in the Duke of Parma's absence Prince Maurice took in all the places held by the Spaniard on t'other side the Rhine which gave them entrance into the United Provinces The succession of Henry the Fourth to the Crown of France gave a mighty blow to the Designs of King Philip and much greater The general obedience and acknowledgment of him upon his change of Religion With this King the States began to enter a confidence and kindness and the more by that which interceded between Him and the Queen of England who had all their dependance during her life But after her death King Henry grew to have greater credit than ever in the United Provinces though upon the decay of the Spanish Power under the Ascendent of this King the States fell into very early jealousies of his growing too great and too near them in Flanders With the Duke of Parma died all the Discipline and with that all the Fortunes of the Spanish Arms in Flanders The frequent Mutinies of their Soldiers dangerous in effect and in example were more talkt of than any other of their actions in the short Government of Manstsield Ernest and Fuentes Till the old Discipline of their Armies began to revive and their Fortune a little to respire under the new Government of Cardinal Albert who came into Flanders both Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys in the head of a mighty Army drawn out of Germany and Italy to try the last effort of the Spanish Power either in a prosperous War or at least in making way for a necessary Peace But the choice of the Arch-Duke and this new Authority had a deeper root and design than at first appear'd For that mighty King Philip the Second born to so vast Possessions and to so much vaster Desires after a long dream of raising his head into the Clouds found it now ready to lye down in the dust His Body broken with age and infirmities his Mind with cares and distemper'd thoughts and the Royal servitude of a sollicitous life He began to see in the glass of Time and Experience the true shapes of all human Greatness and Designs And finding to what Airy Figures he had hitherto sacrificed his Health and Ease and the Good of his Life He now turn'd his thoughts wholly to rest and quiet which he had never yet allowed either the World or Himself His Designs upon England and his Invincible Armada had ended in smoak Those upon France in Events the most contrary to what he had proposed And instead of mastering the Liberties and breaking the Stomach of his Low-Countrey Subjects He had lost Seven of his Provinces and held the rest by the tenure of a War that cost him more than they were worth He had made lately a Peace with England and desir'd it with France and though he scorn'd it with his revolted Subjects in his own Name yet he wisht it in another's and was unwilling to entail a quarrel upon his Son which had crost his Fortunes and busied his thoughts all the course of his Reign He therefore resolved to commit these two Designs to the management of Arch-Duke Albert with the stile of Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys to the end that if he could reduce the Provinces to their old subjection He should govern them as Spanish Dominions If that was once more in vain attempted He should by a Marriage with Clara Isabella Eugenia King Philip's beloved Daughter receive those Provinces as a Dowry and become the Prince of them with a condition only of their returning to Spain in case of Isabella's dying without Issue King Philip believed that the presence of a natural Prince among his Subjects That the Birth and Customs of Arch-Duke Albert being a German The generous and obliging dispositions of Isabella might gain further upon this stubborn people than all the Force and Rigor of his former Counsels And at the worst That they might make a Peace if they could not a War and without interessing the Honour and Greatness of the Spanish Crown In pursuit of this determination like a wise King while he intended nothing but Peace He made Preparations as if he design'd nothing but War knowing that his own desires of Peace would signifie nothing unless he could force his Enemies to desire it too He therefore sent the Arch-Duke into Flanders at the head of such an Army that believing the Peace with France must be the first in order and make way for either the War or Peace afterward in the Low-Countreys He marcht into France and took Amiens the chief City of Picardy and thereby gave such an Alarm to the French Court as they little expected and had never received in the