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| Charles V |
An Imperial Abdication
On 25th
October 1555, dressed in black and leaning on William’s arm with Prince Philip
and Mary of Austria behind him, and surrounded by the knights of the Golden Fleece, Charles V a broken man at the age
of fifty-five and riddled with gout, announced his abdication as ruler of the Netherlands and Charolais to
the States General of the Netherlands[i]. At the same time Charles announced
his intent to retire to a monastery[ii]. He claimed that it was
not ambition but a sense of duty that had guided him throughout his years in
charge.
‘And here he brake into a
weeping, whereunto, besides the dolefulness of the matter, I think he was moche
provoked by seeing the whole company to doo the like before; there being in
myne opinion not one man in the whole assemblie, stranger or other, that
dewring the time of a good piece of his oracion poured not oute abondantly
teares.’[iii]
Finally
Philip, on his knees, received his father’s blessing and was given his
birthright, the Netherlands. Then Cardinal Granvelle[iv] had to read Philip’s reply as Philip only spoke Spanish, an indication of
the problems ahead. Charles made a series of official appointments before his
retirement and made a point of reminding Philip that William was especially fit
for high office.
Charles drafted
Spanish troops into the Netherlands to help the defence against the French
incursions. A victory at St Quentin ended the war with France; William’s
brother Louis had served with valour and was popular with the Bruxellois.
Charles’
final abdication, that of Holy Roman Emperor, came in August 1556; once again
he used William as a go-between. Along with Charles’ vice Chancellor Georg
Sigmund Selg, William was commissioned to persuade Charles’ younger brother Ferdinand
to accept the position of Holy Roman Emperor[v].
Death of an Emperor
.jpg/426px-Emmanuel_Philibert_of_Savoy_(1580).jpg) |
| Emmanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy |
In the summer of 1557 the French invaded the Netherlands
as the third Italian
War moved its focus to Flanders. Philip organised a
counter-force of 35,000 under the command of Emanuele
Filiberto of Savoy. William,
along with the other Dutch nobility were seconded to Savoy; while Egmont
commanded the cavalry.
William’s wife Anna died on 24 March 1558. William
hastened home from Frankfurt[vii],
arriving at her bedside on 20th March. Shock and the hurried journey
home made William ill; he responded to Philip’s awkward condolences with a
brief;
‘I am the unhappiest man in the world.’[viii]
Yet even while organising Anna’s funeral, William wrote
to Philip on behalf of one of his soldiers who’d killed a man in a brawl. Later
William had a brief relationship with one Eva Elincx, who gave birth to a son, Justinus van Nassau[ix]. William
officially recognised his only illegitimate child and took responsibility for
his education[x].
On 21st September 1558 Charles died and the
last fetter on Philip’s behaviour was gone. William had a key role in the funeral
ceremonies. The Netherlands were now part and parcel of the Spanish crown and
were to be milked for Spain’s benefit. Dutch money was being used to prosecute
a war that benefitted the Spanish.
The nobility in the Low Countries regarded the Spanish
grandees as nouveaux arrivées on the European scene and were unimpressed, at
best, by Philip’s decision to place Spanish nobles in charge of them.
 |
| Elisabeth de Valois |
The peace
treaty of Câteau Cambrésis ending the war was signed on 3rd
April 1559. William was one of the Empire’s delegates. It was agreed that the
Hapsburgs would continue their direct control of Milan, Naples, Sicily and other key
Italian states. Henry’s daughter Elizabeth would
marry Philip, recently widowed for a second time.
One of the key protagonists at the peace talks was the Duke of
Alba[xi], a
religious fanatic like his master and a rigid authoritarian. William, a
Protestant for the first half of his life and with Protestant relatives at
Dillenburg, was elusive when Alba and Cardinal Granvelle discussed the vexing
matter of the Protestants with the French.
William was sent to Paris as a hostage along with Alba and the Count von Egmont,
arriving on June 16th. It was planned to engage Henry in the Counter-Reformation’s
plan to eradicate Protestantism. During the gaiety and festivities celebrating
the peace treaty William was much taken with one of the richest women in France,
recently widowed. Henry was not prepared to allow her fortune to transfer out
of France to a supporter of the Hapsburgs so William withdrew his suit.
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| Henri II's fatal tourney |
While in France, William was treated to a discourse from
Henry who unburdened his heart on the matters, pertaining to treatment of
heretics, discussed in William’s absence during the treaty negotiations.
William was horrified by the content and felt a surge of;
‘Pity and compassion for all these good people doomed to destruction…..[and
to] a country to which I had so great an obligation.’[xii]
In July Henry died following an accident at a tourney he was competing in
and the involvement of France in encircling the German and Dutch Protestants
had to be set aside. The new king François II was only 16 as was his
young wife, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. Philip’s marriage to Elisabeth
was solemnised in heavy gloom; Alba acting as proxy bridegroom as Philip was
too busy planning his return to Spain to visit France.
Laying the Foundations
In the summer of 1559 Philip sent the Estates General of the
Netherlands a demand for nine years’ worth of subsidies. This demand, so soon after
the end of the war, raised questions about what the monies were to be used for.
It also meant that the estates would be abdicating such powers as they did
hold.
Philip wanted to use the genial William to help persuade the Estates to do
their duty and appointed him to the Council of State. An additional bribe was the
offer of a joint command with Count Egmont of the Spanish troops in the
Netherlands. William was aware that the offer of membership of the council was
empty as Philip listened to only one or two key ministers. While commanding the
troops was akin to giving approval of their being stationed in the Netherlands.
The subsidy was granted but was accompanied by a remonstrance signed by the
senior nobles in the country. The remonstrance asked for the Spanish troops to
be removed and set out the constitutional rights granted to the Low Countries. Philip
agreed to this condition.
Changing the Baseline
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| Margaret of Parma |
Philip appointed his half-sister Margaret of Parma to act as governor in
his absence. The post was very much nominal; Philip was determined to keep
control for himself. He departed in August, more than happy to return to Spain.
While waiting for a favourable wind he insisted that two heretics be tortured;
claiming that their interrogation to date had been insufficiently rigorous.
Although he never directly opposed the Spanish king,
William soon became one of the most prominent members of the opposition in the
Council of State, together with Philip de Montmorency, Count of
Hoorn, and Count Egmont. They were mainly seeking more
political power for themselves against the de facto government of Count Berlaymont, Cardinal Granvelle
and Viglius
of Aytta, but also for the Dutch nobility and, ostensibly, for
the Estates, and complained that too many Spaniards were involved in governing
the Netherlands.
William was also dissatisfied with the increasing
persecution of Protestants in the
Netherlands. Brought up as a Lutheran and later a Catholic, William was very
religious but was still a proponent of freedom of religion for all people. The
activity of the Inquisition in the
Netherlands, directed by Cardinal
Granvelle, now prime minister to Margaret of Parma[xiii],
increased opposition to Spanish rule among the then mostly Catholic population
of the Netherlands.
Bibliography
The Age of
Religious Wars – Richard S Dunn, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1971
The Revolt
of the Netherlands – Pieter Geyl, Cassell History 1988
The Holy
Roman Empire – Friedrich Heer, Phoenix 1995
The Spanish
Inquisition – Henry Kamen, Phoenix 1998
Philip of
Spain – Henry Kamen, Yale University Press 1998
Charles V –
Harald Kleinschmidt, Sutton Publishing Ltd 2004
The Grand
Strategy of Philip II – Geoffrey Parker, Yale University Press 1998
Emperor
Charles V – James D Tracy, Cambridge University Press 2002
William the
Silent – CV Wedgewood, Readers Union Ltd 1945
The Hapsburgs
– Andrew Wheatcroft, Folio Society 2004
www.wikipedia.en
[i]
Charles abdicated the thrones of
Sicily and Naples, both fiefs of the Papacy, and the Duchy of Milan to Philip the previous year
[ii]
Charles mother, the rightful ruler of Spain, had died in the April after nearly
fifty years incarcerated at Tordesillas.
It is unlikely that guilt played a part in Charles’ decision (see Juana
la Loca V)
[iii]
The Revolt of the Netherlands - Geyl
[iv]
Brother of Jerôme Perenot de
Granvelle who had been William’s tutor
[v]
Officially this was not in the gift of Charles but the Electors, but no emperor
had previously abdicated
[vii]
Where he had been attending a meeting of German princes
[viii]
William the Silent - Wedgewood
[x]
Justinus was to become an admiral in
later life
[xi]
Master of Philip’s Household
[xii]
William the Silent - Wedgewood
[xiii]
Like his father Philip used family to help govern his far-flung empire
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