Heretic Queen (19 page)

From Elizabeth's perspective, only she could protect her people against the armed insurrections that plagued her neighbors. Her steadfastness against the adversities ahead changed England forever.

 

TEN

The Iconoclastic Fury

If the Low Countries are lost the rest of the Monarchy will not last long.

—Governor of Milan to Philip II, 1566

A week before Elizabeth entered Oxford, and only months after the murder of Mary's secretary, Rizzio, the Low Countries were once again in a state of open revolt. This province of the Hapsburgs, stretching from modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg to the Northern Netherlands, had come to Philip through his inheritance as Duke of Burgundy. A hodgepodge of languages, customs, and natural borders, it was also the economic powerhouse of northern Europe. Only twenty years earlier, the Low Countries had been amalgamated into one administrative province from seventeen smaller ones by Philip II's father.

Charles V had also revamped the States-General (the representative assembly) comprised of the great nobles from each smaller province to self-rule, subject, of course, to the king's will. Unwittingly, Charles had taken a disparate, often quarrelling multilingual group of provinces and molded them into a fledgling nation in the name of easing his personal administrative burden. Within a few years, the Netherlanders spoke of their
patrie
(fatherland) rather than the town or province they hailed from. When Charles had the States-General pass the “Pragmatic Sanction” in November 1549, ensuring that on his death or abdication the provinces would continue to obey his chosen heir under the same central institutions of his reign, he had also enshrined the Netherlanders' “ancient rights” forever.
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By 1566, the Low Countries had undergone a remarkable transformation. Densely populated, with some three million people to England's five million, covering an area a bit larger than England and Wales, the country was renowned for its exceptional artisans, particularly weavers, and abilities to create enormously profitable commerce as middlemen. So when, in Philip's eyes, Elizabeth infringed on his right to dominate trade in the Baltic and the Caribbean, he sparked off a trade war with England, temporarily closing off the staple market of Antwerp to the English. Elizabeth sought another staple town at the Hanseatic town of Emden, but it was always a pale and poor alternative to Antwerp.

The heartland of the Netherlands was the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, where the population was at its most dense in the large towns of Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, Lille, Valenciennes, and Amsterdam. As India would one day become the jewel in the British crown of empire, so the Low Countries had already become the glittering prize in Spain's. These provinces were known for the beauty of their cities and architecture, incredible engineering feats in holding back the seas by an intricate system of dikes, and artists and musicians far ahead of their time. Yet the Spaniards most appreciated the Netherlanders for their ability to generate vast sums of money through commerce to help Charles, then Philip, in their holy wars against the enemies of Roman Catholicism—be they Protestant or Muslim.

In the 1560s, the regent in the economic powerhouse of the Netherlands was Margaret of Parma, Philip's half sister, aided by his trusted minister, Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle. Nonetheless, Granvelle was an untrustworthy pair of hands to hold such a jewel. Philip, long ensconced in Spain, had forgotten about the deal struck for “ancient rights” by his father. He was angered by the blackmail extorted by the States-General where in return for a loan of 3.6 million ducats to fight the Ottoman Turk in the Mediterranean, Philip would agree to remove three thousand of his crack
tercios
troops from the country.
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Worse still, Philip allowed the poisoned pen of Granvelle to further color his thinking.

On Granvelle's advice, Philip responded to the Netherlander arrogance by working tirelessly with the pope on a secret plan to redraw the religious map of the Low Countries. With the administration of the heartland of the States-General in the hands of just three men dedicated to the Netherlanders' ancient rights—Stadtholders William of Orange, the Count of Egmont, and the Count of Horn—it was a dangerous policy for Philip to pursue, much less administer. Elizabeth, as ever kept abreast of events by her able factor to the Low Countries, Sir Thomas Gresham, prayed for peace. Emden could never replace Antwerp, and without peace in the Low Countries, returning there would be impossible.

It was a vain hope. The heavy hand of Rome fell hard. The pope published the new religious map of the Low Countries, augmenting the bishoprics from four to fourteen following linguistic borders. He made the archbishopric of Mechlin the most powerful and wealthy of them all. Naturally, the papal appointment for Mechlin went to Cardinal Granvelle. Of course, the exiled English Catholic community, including William Allen of Oxford, was at Mechlin at the time.

*   *   *

The new religious map
thinly disguised Philip's endgame: to bring the Inquisition to the Low Countries. Antwerp was the first to rise up, threatening the prosperity of the entire Netherlands. Granvelle became the hated “king's man,” for his falsity in pretending to be on the Netherlanders' side. After these first uprisings, Granvelle wrote to Philip that “people here universally display discontent with any and all Spaniards in these provinces.”
3

Elizabeth and her councillors were utterly dismayed. She had already forged strong links with Protestants in the Netherlands, Sweden, Scotland, and France, as well as the Lutheran princes and electors in the German lands. Secret diplomatic correspondence was replete with references to her exiled English Catholics and their efforts on behalf of Catholicism. She especially noted wisely that William of Orange had married Anna, daughter of the Lutheran elector of Saxony, and that Philip had clearly opposed the match. Though Orange remained Catholic and had no plans to change faiths, his religious outlook was more akin to Elizabeth's than Philip's, seeking to unite his people through religion rather than divide them. Even Orange, however, was powerless to stop Philip and Granvelle in their first onslaught.

The feared Inquisition came, and thousands of Dutch citizens fled to England, where they were welcomed. These were no poor immigrants but skilled merchants and artisans and could only add to the wealth of the realm. Naturally, Orange, Egmont, and Horn sent an ultimatum to Philip, explaining that his Inquisition was impoverishing the Netherlands and demanding the removal of Granvelle. If Philip refused, they would resign from the States and the council.

While this seemed appealing, Philip knew nonetheless that these three men had been maintaining law and order in both the States and the council previously. So Philip hesitated. It was Horn who forced the situation. A member of the French Montigny family, Horn decided on a solemn league against Granvelle, suggesting that each member—whether nobleman or servant—should dress himself in a livery of a single color with the badge of a fool's cap and a bell, parodying the cardinal's hat. They held a number of outrageous meetings and banquets with Granvelle as the brunt of their joke, demanding that he leave the Low Countries at once. The cardinal seemingly retaliated, branding them all “Beggars”—
les Gueux.
Their “beggarly” insult soon became their battle cry, and all who followed Horn became known as “Beggars.”

Eventually, Philip refused, and as threatened the three noblemen replied in July that they would stay away from court in Brussels. At the same time, the States of Brabant refused to pay their taxes to their Spanish king until Granvelle left the country. Margaret of Parma knew that rebellion was in the air and tried to persuade Philip to recall Granvelle, sending her secretary to Spain to plead with him. If he removed the cardinal, she argued, the king would remove the symbol of the hated Inquisition, which would bizarrely allow them to get on with their work of eradicating heresy.
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Still, the Beggars were not Granvelle's only enemies. Spaniards vying for Philip's favor in Madrid finally broke the king's will. Granvelle was recalled from Brussels on March 13, 1564, never to return. With his departure, the incorporation plan of the various bishoprics was dropped, as was the Inquisition. The 700 persecutions against heretics in Flanders alone fell to 250 that year, then down to 175 six months later.
5
The Beggars again took up their natural roles at the States-General and at court, working closely once more with Margaret, who praised their cooperation repeatedly in her letters to her brother. In fact, they were so cooperative that the Brussels government was able to impose an open-ended ban on the importation of English goods until such time as Elizabeth controlled her piratical rovers in the Channel. Elizabeth hadn't foreseen that result, especially in light of their shared Protestant views held with the Netherlanders.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, there were
hotter wars in the Baltic that threatened English trade with other Protestant countries. Denmark had declared war on Sweden and the Hanseatic towns, decimating England's remaining staple trade at Emden. Poland and Russia soon joined in the fray, and the Baltic was essentially closed to the English.

That winter of 1564–65 was one of the harshest of the sixteenth century. Widespread starvation and unemployment were rampant. The Dutch artist Pieter Breughel painted his masterpiece
Hunters in the Snow
with its evocative background depicting the vast frozen wastes and icebergs blocking the port of Delfshaven on the Maas, a centuries-old reminder of the desperate times.

The harsh winter was followed by a ruined harvest. In Catholic Ghent, the magistrates recorded that “the evident danger from the dearth of corn and the large number of paupers, coupled with the arrival in this town of about 300 people from the region of Armentières who, it is feared, are infected with heresy” spoke volumes. Farther north in Holland, people were “murmuring and voicing criticisms which might tend towards sedition, and also singing songs with the same end.” As in England, ballads spread the word. In the south at Brussels, a government minister wrote, “If the people rise up, I fear that the religious issue will become involved.”
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The link between hard times and the rise of Protestantism is unmistakable.

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The Netherlands had adopted
Calvinism as its favored form of Protestantism. Calvinism, as opposed to the English Puritanism or the German Lutheranism, arrived late in the Netherlands but spread like a ferocious fire. With the outbreak of the first religious war in France between Huguenot and Catholic, thousands of Huguenot refugees had poured across the frontier to the Low Countries or across the seas to England for protection. There they preached and taught their coreligionists the Word according to John Calvin. “Heresy grows here,” Margaret of Parma wrote, echoing Elizabeth's fears, “in proportion to the situation in our neighbors' countries.”
7
It was the Huguenots who gave the necessary instruction in the dogma of the Reformed faith, and the English Puritans who gave them their first churches in London. From England, the Dutch exile Guy de Brès learned how to organize the Reformed Church back home.

Meanwhile, Calvinism evolved rapidly into the Dutch Reformed Church. Debating chambers of rhetoric and amateur dramatic societies were used as meeting places to give voice to their ideas. Prominent Protestants belonged to these, as did Marrano Jews who had fled the Spanish Inquisition.
8
Many of these Marranos who had been quietly allowed to observe Judaism for over a century became sympathetic to the Protestant dilemma and joined the Calvinist Reformed Church. With their membership came new ideas on the art of avoiding detection and persecution.

Still, the religious situation was intolerable. The States met in the spring of 1565 and settled on sending Egmont to Spain to discuss revising the heresy laws. When he returned at the end of April from his mission, Orange was speechless with outrage. Not only had Egmont failed in his mission, but he had been utterly charmed by Philip. When official instructions arrived a week later, Philip made his policy clear. Heresy would not be tolerated in the Low Countries. Only the regent, Margaret of Parma, could call a council of bishops. A new education policy would be implemented to stamp out Calvinism, as the heretics had “usurped the sovereign control of all business.”
9

Then, in June, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, third Duke of Alba, who had been out of favor and a strong supporter of Granvelle, was suddenly back in good odor.
10
Alba accompanied the Spanish queen to visit her mother, Catherine de' Medici, at Fuenterrabia on the border with France. There, Alba held secret discussions with the leading French councillors of state concerning the “heretical threats” to their kingdoms behind the innocent cloak of a family reunion.
11
The result was a series of vicious documents known as “the letters from the Segovia Woods”—written by Alba but signed by Philip—directly challenging the Netherlander nobles and their Protestant cause. Either they would obey their king and enforce the laws against heresy or they would be accused of treason. The choice was theirs.

Margaret of Parma delayed in publishing Philip's orders until two days after her son's wedding on November 11 to Maria of Portugal, giving the Council of State until November 30 to consider the full impact of the king's orders. Only on December 20 was a proclamation made to all provincial authorities to enforce the new heresy laws.

Even before the proclamation had been published, Orange, Egmont, and Horn had decided to withhold their cooperation and maintain their solemn league against the heresy laws, which were a direct contravention of their ancient privileges. Their stance shocked Elizabeth. These men were Philip's peacekeepers, not some evangelical preachers. This was Philip's aristocracy who were near revolt. By January 1566, as many as four hundred signatures of noblemen and administrators were sealed on what became known as the Compromise of the Nobility demanding a confederation against the Inquisition. Missing from the Compromise were the signatures of the three most powerful men in the country: Orange, Egmont, and Horn. They had no need to sign, they argued. They simply refused to carry out the king's orders in their provinces.