History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609 Part 82

He had taken particular pains to secure his daughter's right in Brittany, while the d.u.c.h.ess of Mercoeur, by the secret orders of her husband, had sent a certain ecclesiastic to Spain to make over the sovereignty of this province to the Infanta. Philip directed that the utmost secrecy should be observed in regard to this transaction with the duke and d.u.c.h.ess, and promised the duke, as his reward for these proposed services in dismembering his country, the government of the province for himself and his heirs.

For the king was quite determined--in case his efforts to obtain the crown for himself or for his daughter were unsuccessful--to dismember France, with the a.s.sistance of those eminent Frenchmen who were now so industriously aiding him in his projects.

"And in the third place," said he, in his secret instructions to Feria, "if for the sins of all, we don't manage to make any election, and if therefore the kingdom (of France) has to come to separation and to be divided into many hands; in this case we must propose to the Duke of Mayenne to a.s.sist him in getting possession of Normandy for himself, and as to the rest of the kingdom, I shall take for myself that which seems good to me--all of us a.s.sisting each other."

But unfortunately it was difficult for any of these fellow-labourers to a.s.sist each other very thoroughly, while they detested each other so cordially and suspected each other with such good reason.

Moreo, Ybarra, Feria, Parma, all a.s.sured their master that Mayenne was taking Spanish money as fast as he could get it, but with the sole purpose of making himself king. As to any of the House of Lorraine obtaining the hand of the Infanta and the throne with it, Feria a.s.sured Philip that Mayenne "would sooner give the crown to the Grand Turk."

Nevertheless Philip thought it necessary to continue making use of the duke. Both were indefatigable therefore in expressing feelings of boundless confidence each in the other.

It has been seen too how entirely the king relied on the genius and devotion of Alexander Farnese to carry out his great schemes; and certainly never had monarch a more faithful, unscrupulous, and dexterous servant. Remonstrating, advising, but still obeying--entirely without conscience, unless it were conscience to carry out his master's commands, even when most puerile or most diabolical--he was nevertheless the object of Philip's constant suspicion, and felt himself placed under perpetual though secret supervision.

Commander Moreo was unwearied in blackening the duke's character, and in maligning his every motive and action, and greedily did the king incline his ear to the calumnies steadily instilled by the chivalrous spy.

"He has caused all the evil we are suffering," said Moreo. "When he sent Egmont to France 'twas without infantry, although Egmont begged hard for it, as did likewise the Legate, Don Bernardino, and Ta.s.sis. Had he done this there is no doubt at all that the Catholic cause in France would have been safe, and your Majesty would now have the control over that kingdom which you desire. This is the opinion of friends and foes. I went to the Duke of Parma and made free to tell him that the whole world would blame him for the damage done to Christianity, since your Majesty had exonerated yourself by ordering him to go to the a.s.sistance of the French Catholics with all the zeal possible. Upon this he was so disgusted that he has never shown me a civil face since. I doubt whether he will send or go to France at all, and although the Duke of Mayenne despatches couriers every day with protestations and words that would soften rocks, I see no indications of a movement."

Thus, while the duke was making great military preparations far invading France without means; p.a.w.ning his own property to get bread for his starving veterans, and hanging those veterans whom starving had made.

mutinous, he was depicted, to the most suspicious and unforgiving mortal that ever wore a crown, as a traitor and a rebel, and this while he was renouncing his own judicious and well-considered policy in obedience to the wild schemes of his master.

"I must make bold to remind your Majesty," again whispered the spy, "that there never was an Italian prince who failed to pursue his own ends, and that there are few in the world that are not wis.h.i.+ng to become greater than they are. This man here could strike a greater blow than all the rest of them put together. Remember that there is not a villain anywhere that does not desire the death of your Majesty. Believe me, and send to cut off my head if it shall be found that I am speaking from pa.s.sion, or from other motive than pure zeal for your royal service."

The reader will remember into what a paroxysm of rage Alexander was thrown on, a former occasion, when secretly invited to listen to propositions by which the sovereignty over the Netherlands was to be secured to himself, and how near he was to inflicting mortal punishment with his own hand on the man who had ventured to broach that treasonable matter.

Such projects and propositions were ever floating, as it were, in the atmosphere, and it was impossible for the most just men to escape suspicion in the mind of a king who fed upon suspicion as his daily bread. Yet nothing could be fouler or falser than the calumny which described Alexander as unfaithful to Philip. Had he served his G.o.d as he served his master perhaps his record before the highest tribunal would have been a clearer one.

And in the same vein in which he wrote to the monarch in person did the crafty Moreo write to the princ.i.p.al secretary of state, Idiaquez, whose mind, as well as his master's, it was useful to poison, and who was in daily communication with Philip.

"Let us make sure of Flanders," said he, "otherwise we shall all of us be well cheated. I will tell you something of that which I have already told his Majesty, only not all, referring you to Ta.s.sis, who, as a personal witness to many things, will have it in his power to undeceive his Majesty, I have seen very clearly that the duke is disgusted with his Majesty, and one day he told me that he cared not if the whole world went to destruction, only not Flanders."

"Another day he told me that there was a report abroad that his Majesty was sending to arrest him, by means of the Duke of Pastrana, and looking at me he said: 'See here, seignior commander, no threats, as if it were in the power of mortal man to arrest me, much less of such fellows as these.'"

"But this is but a small part of what I could say," continued the detective knight-commander, "for I don't like to trust these ciphers. But be certain that n.o.body in Flanders wishes well to these estates or to the Catholic cause, and the a.s.sociates of the Duke of Parma go about saying that it does not suit the Italian potentates to have his Majesty as great a monarch as he is trying to be."

This is but a sample of the dangerous stuff with which the royal mind was steadily drugged, day after day, by those to whom Farnese was especially enjoined to give his confidence.

Later on it will be seen how-much effect was thus produced both upon the king and upon the duke. Moreo, Mendoza, and Tasais were placed about the governor-general, nominally as his counsellors, in reality as police-officers.

"You are to confer regularly with Mendoza, Ta.s.sis, and Moreo," said Philip to Farnese.

"You are to a.s.sist, correspond, and harmonize in every way with the Duke of Parma," wrote Philip to Mendoza, Ta.s.sis, and Moreo. And thus cordially and harmoniously were the trio a.s.sisting and corresponding with the duke.

But Moreo was right in not wis.h.i.+ng to trust the ciphers, and indeed he had trusted them too much, for Farnese was very well aware of his intrigues, and complained bitterly of them to the king and to Idiaquez.

Most eloquently and indignantly did he complain of the calumnies, ever renewing themselves, of which he was the subject. "'Tis this good Moreo who is the author of the last falsehoods," said he to the secretary; "and this is but poor payment for my having neglected my family, my parents and children for so many years in the king's service, and put my life ever on the hazard, that these fellows should be allowed to revile me and make game of me now, instead of a.s.sisting me."

He was at that time, after almost superhuman exertions, engaged in the famous relief of Paris. He had gone there, he said, against his judgment and remonstrating with his Majesty on the insufficiency of men and money for such an enterprise. His army was half-mutinous and unprovided with food, artillery, or munitions; and then he found himself slandered, ridiculed, his life's life lied away. 'Twas poor payment for his services, he exclaimed, if his Majesty should give ear to these calumniators, and should give him no chance of confronting his accusers and clearing his reputation. Moreo detested him, as he knew, and Prince Doria said that the commander once spoke so ill of Farnese in Genoa that he was on the point of beating him; while Moreo afterwards told the story as if he had been maltreated because of defending Farnese against Doria's slanders.

And still more vehemently did he inveigh against Moreo in his direct appeals to Philip. He had intended to pa.s.s over his calumnies, of which he was well aware, because he did not care to trouble the dead--for Moreo meantime had suddenly died, and the gossips, of course, said it was of Farnese poison--but he had just discovered by doc.u.ments that the commander had been steadily and constantly pouring these his calumnies into the monarch's ears. He denounced every charge as lies, and demanded proof. Moreo had further been endeavouring to prejudice the Duke of Mayenne against the King of Spain and himself, saying that he, Farnese, had been commissioned to take Mayenne into custody, with plenty of similar lies.

"But what I most feel," said Alexander, with honest wrath, "is to see that your Majesty gives ear to them without making the demonstration which my services merit, and has not sent to inform me of them, seeing that they may involve my reputation and honour. People have made more account of these calumnies than of my actions performed upon the theatre of the world. I complain, after all my toils and dangers in your Majesty's service, just when I stood with my soul in my mouth and death in my teeth, forgetting children, house, and friends, to be treated thus, instead of receiving rewards and honour, and being enabled to leave to my children, what was better than all the riches the royal hand could bestow, an unsullied and honourable name."

He protested that his reputation had so much suffered that he would prefer to retire to some remote corner as a humble servant of the king, and leave a post which had made him so odious to all. Above all, he entreated his Majesty to look upon this whole affair "not only like a king but like a gentleman."

Philip answered these complaints and reproaches benignantly, expressed unbounded confidence in the duke, a.s.sured him that the calumnies of his supposed enemies could produce no effect upon the royal mind, and coolly professed to have entirely forgotten having received any such letter as that of which his nephew complained. "At any rate I have mislaid it," he said, "so that you see how much account it was with me."

As the king was in the habit of receiving such letters every week, not only from the commander, since deceased, but from Ybarra and others, his memory, to say the least, seemed to have grown remarkably feeble. But the sequel will very soon show that he had kept the letters by him and pondered them to much purpose. To expect frankness and sincerity from him, however, even in his most intimate communications to his most trusted servants, would have been to "swim with fins of lead."

Such being the private relations between the conspirators, it is instructive to observe how they dealt with each other in the great game they were playing for the first throne in Christendom. The military events have been sufficiently sketched in the preceding pages, but the meaning and motives of public affairs can be best understood by occasional glances behind the scenes. It is well for those who would maintain their faith in popular Governments to study the workings of the secret, irresponsible, arbitrary system; for every Government, as every individual, must be judged at last by those moral laws which no man born of woman can evade.

During the first French expedition-in the course of which Farnese had saved Paris from falling into, the hands of Henry, and had been doing his best to convert it prospectively into the capital of his master's empire--it was his duty, of course, to represent as accurately as possible the true state of France. He submitted his actions to his master's will, but he never withheld from him the advantage that he might have derived, had he so chosen, from his nephew's luminous intelligence and patient observation.

With the chief personage he had to deal with he professed himself, at first, well satisfied. "The Duke of Mayenne," said he to Philip, "persists in desiring your Majesty only as King of France, and will hear of no other candidate, which gives me satisfaction such as can't be exaggerated." Although there were difficulties in the way, Farnese thought that the two together with G.o.d's help might conquer them.

"Certainly it is not impossible that your Majesty may succeed," he said, "although very problematical; and in case your Majesty does succeed in that which we all desire and are struggling for, Mayenne not only demands the second place in the kingdom for himself, but the fief of some great province for his family."

Should it not be possible for Philip to obtain the crown, Farnese was, on the whole, of opinion that Mayenne had better be elected. In that event he would make over Brittany and Burgundy to Philip, together with the cities opposite the English coast. If they were obliged to make the duke king, as was to be feared, they should at any rate exclude the Prince of Bearne, and secure, what was the chief point, the Catholic religion.

"This," said Alexander, "is about what I can gather of Mayenne's views, and perhaps he will put them down in a despatch to your Majesty."

After all, the duke was explicit enough. He was for taking all he could get--the whole kingdom if possible--but if foiled, then as large a slice of it as Philip would give him as the price of his services. And Philip's ideas were not materially different from those of the other conspirator.

Both were agreed on one thing. The true heir must be kept out of his rights, and the Catholic religion be maintained in its purity. As to the inclination of the majority of the inhabitants, they could hardly be in the dark. They knew that the Bearnese was instinctively demanded by the nation; for his accession to the throne would furnish the only possible solution to the entanglements which had so long existed.

As to the true sentiments of the other politicians and soldiers of the League with whom Bearnese came in contact in France, he did not disguise from his master that they were anything but favourable.

"That you may know, the humour of this kingdom," said he, "and the difficulties in which I am placed, I must tell you that I am by large experience much confirmed in that which I have always suspected. Men don't love nor esteem the royal name of your Majesty, and whatever the benefits and a.s.sistance they get from you they have no idea of anything redounding to your benefit and royal service, except so far as implied in maintaining the Catholic religion and keeping out the Bearne. These two things, however, they hold to be so entirely to your Majesty's profit, that all you are doing appears the fulfilment of a simple obligation.

They are filled with fear, jealousy, and suspicion of your Majesty. They dread your acquiring power here. Whatever negotiations they pretend in regard to putting the kingdom or any of their cities under your protection, they have never had any real intention of doing it, but their only object is to keep up our vain hopes while they are carrying out their own ends. If to-day they seem to have agreed upon any measure, tomorrow they are sure to get out of it again. This has always been the case, and all your Majesty's ministers that have had dealings here would say so, if they chose to tell the truth. Men are disgusted with the entrance of the army, and if they were not expecting a more advantageous peace in the kingdom with my a.s.sistance than without it, I don't know what they would do; for I have heard what I have heard and seen what I have seen. They are afraid of our army, but they want its a.s.sistance and our money."

Certainly if Philip desired enlightenment as to the real condition of the country he had determined to, appropriate; and the true sentiments of its most influential inhabitants, here, was the man most competent of all the world to advise him; describing the situation for him, day by day, in the most faithful manner. And at every step the absolutely puerile inadequacy of the means, employed by the king to accomplish his gigantic purposes became apparent. If the crime of subjugating or at least dismembering the great kingdom of France were to, be attempted with any hope of success, at least it might have been expected that the man employed to consummate the deed would be furnished with more troops and money than would be required to appropriate a savage island off the Caribbean, or a German princ.i.p.ality. But Philip expected miracles to be accomplished by the mere private a.s.sertion of his will. It was so easy to conquer realms the writing table.

"I don't say," continued Farnese, "if I could have entered France with a competent army, well paid and disciplined, with plenty of artillery, and munitions, and with funds enough to enable Mayenne to buy up the n.o.bles of his party, and to conciliate the leaders generally with presents and promises, that perhaps they might not have softened. Perhaps interest and fear would have made that name agreeable which pleases them so little, now that the very reverse of all this has occurred. My want of means is causing a thousand disgusts among the natives of the country, and it is this penury that will be the chief cause of the disasters which may occur."

Here was sufficiently plain speaking. To conquer a war-like nation without an army; to purchase a rapacious n.o.bility with an empty purse, were tasks which might break the stoutest heart. They were breaking Alexander's.

Yet Philip had funds enough, if he had possessed financial ability himself, or any talent for selecting good financiers. The richest countries of the old world and the new were under his sceptre; the mines of Peru and Mexico; the wealth of farthest Ind, were at his disposition; and moreover he drove a lucrative traffic in the sale of papal bulls and ma.s.sbooks, which were furnished to him at a very low figure, and which he compelled the wild Indians of America and the savages of the Pacific to purchase of him at an enormous advance. That very year, a Spanish carrack had been captured by the English off the Barbary coast, with an a.s.sorted cargo, the miscellaneous nature of which gives an idea of royal commercial pursuits at that period. Besides wine in large quant.i.ties there were fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, an article indispensable to the working of the silver mines, and which no one but the king could, upon pain of death, send to America. He received, according to contract; for every pound of quicksilver thus delivered a pound of pure silver, weight for weight. The s.h.i.+p likewise contained ten cases of gilded ma.s.s-books and papal bulls. The bulls, two million and seventy thousand in number, for the dead and the living, were intended for the provinces of New Spain, Yucatan, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Philippines. The quicksilver and the bulls cost the king three hundred thousand florins, but he sold them for five million. The price at, which the bulls were to be sold varied-according to the letters of advice found in the s.h.i.+ps--from two to four reals a piece, and the inhabitants of those conquered regions were obliged to buy them. "From all this," says a contemporary chronicler; "is to be seen what a thrifty trader was the king."

The affairs of France were in such confusion that it was impossible for them, according to Farnese, to remain in such condition much longer without bringing about entire decomposition. Every man was doing as he chose--whether governor of a city, commander of a district, or gentleman in his castle. Many important n.o.bles and prelates followed the Bearnese party, and Mayenne was ent.i.tled to credit for doing as well as he did.

There was no pretence, however, that his creditable conduct was due to anything but the hope of being well paid. "If your Majesty should decide to keep Mayenne," said Alexander, "you can only do it with large: sums of money. He is a good Catholic and very firm in his purpose, but is so much opposed by his own party, that if I had not so stimulated him by hopes of his own grandeur, he would have grown desperate--such small means has he of maintaining his party--and, it is to be feared, he would have made arrangements with Bearne, who offers him carte-blanche."

The disinterested man had expressed his a.s.sent to the views of Philip in regard to the a.s.sembly of the estates and the election of king, but had claimed the sum of six hundred thousand dollars as absolutely necessary to the support of himself and followers until those events should occur.

Alexander not having that sum at his disposal was inclined to defer matters, but was more and more confirmed in his opinion that the Duke was a "man of truth, faith, and his word." He had distinctly agreed that no king should be elected, not satisfactory to Philip, and had "stipulated in return that he should have in this case, not only the second place in the kingdom, but some very great and special reward in full property."

Thus the man of truth, faith, and his word had no idea of selling himself cheap, but manifested as much commercial genius as the Fuggers themselves could have displayed, had they been employed as brokers in these mercantile transactions.

Above all things, Alexander implored the king to be expeditious, resolute, and liberal; for, after all, the Bearnese might prove a more formidable compet.i.tor than he was deemed. "These matters must be arranged while the iron is hot," he said, "in order that the name and memory of the Bearne and of all his family may be excluded at once and forever; for your Majesty must not doubt that the whole kingdom inclines to him, both because he is natural successor, to the crowns and because in this way the civil war would cease. The only thing that gives trouble is the religions defect, so that if this should be remedied in appearance, even if falsely, men would spare no pains nor expense in his cause."

No human being at that moment, a.s.suredly, could look into the immediate future accurately enough to see whether the name and memory of the man, whom his adherents called Henry the Fourth of France, and whom Spaniards, legitimists and enthusiastic papists, called the Prince of Bearne, were to be for ever excluded from the archives of France; whether Henry, after spending the whole of his life as a pretender, was destined to bequeath the same empty part to his descendants, should they think it worth their while to play it. Meantime the sages smiled superior at his delusion; while Alexander Farnese, on the contrary, better understanding the chances of the great game which they were all playing, made bold to tell his master that all hearts in France were inclining to their natural lord. "Differing from your Majesty," said he, "I am of opinion that there is no better means of excluding him than to make choice of the Duke of Mayenne, as a person agreeable to the people, and who could only reign by your permission and support."

Thus, after much hesitation and circ.u.mlocution, the nephew made up his mind to chill his uncle's hopes of the crown, and to speak a decided opinion in behalf of the man of his word, faith and truth.