Читать книгу William, by the Grace of God - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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William, acting on a change of humour prompted AM, his visit to Heidelberg, decided not to go to Dillenburg.

The sight of those dear to him, his motherless children, the wreck of his once princely establishment, always disturbed him—now he felt he would not face them—and with empty news as always—to talk of further need of money, to demand new sacrifices from those who had already sacrificed almost everything—to be reminded, most painfully, of his mad wife and his son a prisoner in the hands of Philip.

This time he would avoid these things.

He turned aside instead to a little village on the edge of the Nassau lands and went to the house of a certain miller who was one of his agents; with great labour William had constructed an elaborate system of spies and agents in Germany, France and even the Netherlands and Spain; he had been trained by Charles V and was no novice in ways of guile, he even had his emissary in the very cabinet of Philip.

It was to pay for these things that he wore a threadbare suit and rode a worn hack.

One of his posts or messengers was waiting at the mill for news, on meeting the Prince in person, he handed him a packet in cipher that had come slowly from Spain, having been slipped secretly from one faithful hand to another.

William finished the letter to his brother that had been interrupted by the entrance of Rénée le Meuny and added a postscript telling of his whereabouts and asking Count John to come there and see him—"as for the moment I have no courage for Dillenburg."

He sent this on by the messenger who had brought him the news from Spain and took up his lodging in the mill-house.

The place was curiously peaceful with that sense of utter detachment from the world found in some rustic spots that are unvisited by change or trouble.

Behind, the hill rose to a little forest of chestnut and briar hedges where the first wild roses showed; a little vineyard and a little vegetable garden were attached to the house, both, at present, bare, with the fresh earth newly turned.

The mill-wheel, dark and dripping with weeds and slime, stood the other side of the house where the stream rushed past the rock on which the building stood.

Here the Prince must pass the empty hours, looking up at the high line of the bare chestnut trees against the cold blue sky, or down at the racing water.

Here, seated on a fallen log, he read the letter from Spain.

It told him little or nothing that he had not known or guessed before.

Spain was full of unrest, the King was desperately in want of money, the people were bent beneath the load of taxation, the Court favourites absorbed all, Philip was driven by the monks—"like a blinded mule."

Yet, as William knew, the King had his secret obstinate principles and ideas from which not even monks could have moved him.

If the Pope himself had preached tolerance and mercy, Philip would have given no heed, but would have quoted the council of Trent as the yardstick by which to measure Christians and have gone his way.

His was the terrible strength of bigotry, of a nature unbalanced by unlimited power, his was the unswerving purpose of a nature corrupt and cruel to the inmost fibre, the diseased, half-insane product of a degenerate race.

William had never deceived himself into thinking of Philip as a puppet in the hands of men like Granvelle and Alva or women like the Princess of Eboli—Philip in himself was terrible, awful and greatly to be feared.

His personal, ceaseless industry had woven the nets that had caught the grandees of the Netherlands, his personal flattery had lured Egmont to the block and Berghen to his secret death, his personal wish had forced the Inquisition on the Netherlands and imposed those edicts which had made a hideous ruin of a prosperous country and condemned to deaths of a horror unspeakable thousands of those innocent of all save the desire of liberty of conscience.

He had had willing, greedy and unscrupulous tools, but the mainspring of all their actions had been his own inexorable will, his unfaltering command, his pitiless intrigue, his insatiable cruelty.

Behind Alva, as behind Granvelle, was always Philip.

William knew that he had to struggle with Philip of Spain, that thin precise figure with the white face and reddish hair and beard, the bright blue eyes, and the under-hanging jaw that he had known in the old days when he was friend and favourite of Charles V.

What use the corruption, the faction, the intrigue, the financial embarrassments of Spain while Philip continued her unquestioned ruler—his narrow policies might involve in ruin his own empire as well as the countries subject to him, but they would never yield.

No peace, no agreement could ever be come to with Philip, who "would rather lose all his dominions than see them peopled with heretics," and who would never spare even his own in pursuance of his inflexible resolves, as he had not spared his miserable son. William had long ago faced this, he was fighting a foe who had stripped him of everything and was using infinite pains to deprive him of life itself. To fight Philip was like fighting wind and tide in a rudderless boat.

Yet the Prince of Orange never faltered in his belief that it could be done.

He slowly read the letter which contained details of the recent death of Hoorne's brother, Montigny.

The gallant young Netherlander, after long enduring the torture of a Spanish jail, had been secretly executed on the eve of Philip's third wife's entry into Spain.

The king knew that the dowager Countess of Hoorne had besought this bride, the Austrian Princess, to ask her son's life as a first favour from her husband and he had forestalled her petition.

William folded up the paper and stared down into the swirling mill-stream.

A slow colour mounted into his face; Montigny had been his friend—well he recalled him, young, honourable, and impetuous.

A brilliant life, full of promise—and because he had defied Philip it had ended in the executioner putting the cord round his neck.

William mused bitterly; he wondered, if ever he should even partially succeed, whether any of his friends would be there to rejoice with him.

Even now there were so few...he felt curiously lonely; yet if only they left him Louis, his beloved brother, and Henry, the boy who had so eagerly followed the fortunes of his elders, and John, the faithful and loyal—

Could these but remain there might yet be happiness snatched from bereavement.

He wished Louis would marry, and, thinking this, he thought of Charlotte de Bourbon.

She would make a man happy in his home; she was formed for that; his mind dwelt on her with great tenderness.

He had no passion to give any woman now—but he might need a wife. At this reflection he smiled to himself—she a renegade, a runaway nun, he a homeless exile.

And his wife lived, disgraced, mad, repudiated, she yet lived.

He thought of her with no pity; that loveless marriage of convenience had burnt itself out into bitter ashes indeed and he could rake no spark of sympathy nor kindness from them; but he thought of her son Maurice with affection—his only son, since that poor prisoner in Spain was dead to him and to the Netherlanders.

But Maurice "who may live to complete what I can scarcely begin"—William dwelt on him with pride—a fine boy, and again he thought, he and the others would be better for a home.

Count John came to the mill as fast as his horse could carry him, but the time of waiting had seemed long to William, who almost regretted that he had not pushed on to Dillenburg.

They met outside the mill-house, on the rocky banks of the stream.

John of Nassau was the most ordinary member of his house, he had neither the genius of his elder nor fire of his younger brothers, but he was dearly loved by all, and his character, loyal and courageous, was felt by them to be something always stable and unchanging in the midst of their shifting and desperate fortunes.

They could always turn to John, keeping up the home at Dillenburg, offering asylum and protection to the weaker members of the family, supplying what assistance he could.

He was not, perhaps, the man to have done what William and Louis had done, but rather one to go peacefully with the tide, but this made his self-sacrifice the finer, for he had practically ruined himself for the cause which his brothers had embraced and staked all, without a complaint, in a quarrel that was none of his seeking.

The Prince often thought, with a gratitude that was not unlike remorse, of what the quiet John had done for him without a thought of recompense or return and in his heavy moments it seemed to him as if he had dragged the whole of his family into an undeserved ruin.

The brothers sat down on the short dry grass.

"It is so dark in those small rooms," said William, "and I have grown enamoured of the open air."

He asked after all at Dillenburg, and John answered with an eagerness that was almost impatience; it was plain that he had great news to impart.

"You have something to tell me?" asked the Prince keenly.

"Something that you should have known before," replied the other with a certain reproach, "but you keep us so short of news—we know not of your whereabouts from one week to another."

"It is not so easy to send messengers," said William, "wandering as I do in disguise from place to place through unfriendly countries. Now give me your news."

His worn face slightly flushed in response to the obvious excitement of his brother's.

"Guess," said John, "from where it comes."

"From England?"

"Nay, their game is too cautious, they play but for their own profit—it is no great nation, but your Sea Beggars who have brought you fortune."

"The Sea Beggars!" said William, and the light died from his eyes.

He had no faith in these pirates who sailed his flag and held his charter and had long since dismissed them from his mind as of no profit and some disgrace to his cause.

Under his right as a sovereign Prince he had some years ago issued "letters of mark" to a number of Netherland nobles, with the idea that the ships they commanded would form the nucleus of a navy to annoy Philip and defend the Low Countries.

But his mandates had been disobeyed and his authority defied, and the Sea Beggars, as they called themselves, had degenerated into pirates, whose excesses had dishonoured their flag and whose plunder went no further than their own pockets.

The last that William had heard of them was that Elizabeth of England, in deference either to the continued protests of Philip, or because of the behaviour of the pirates themselves, had closed her ports to them and that they were, henceforth, without harbours or any refuge, but compelled to remain on the High Seas, without a base, and depending on coast raids, and now his brother told him that these ruffians, lately reduced to desperation, had brought him fortune.

"I had not looked to hear good news from De la Marck," smiled William.

John laid his hand on his brother's shabby sleeve. "He has descended on Brill—captured the Spanish garrison, received the keys in your name and hoisted your flag."

William coloured swiftly.

"De la Marck has done this?" he exclaimed, and he thought of the despair and contempt with which he had hitherto regarded his Admiral—as a useless instrument he had always considered him.

"Yes. We have now a base in the Netherlands, a town we can call our own. It is a great thing—the turning of the tide."

For one moment William shared his brother's enthusiasm; he saw this success as the beginning of a real change of fortune—himself taking up, by will of the people, the former stadtholderships he had held, Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht—then his native prudence, strengthened by so many disappointments, cast down his spirits.

"Can one trust De la Marck or his Beggars?" he asked sadly. "The thing is hasty, I will not build on it. I have better hopes in this tax of Alva, which he is resolved to enforce and which greatly rouses the Netherlands."

"That also works in our favour," agreed John. "There has not been so much dissatisfaction since Alva began to rule."

"That I count on—not on De la Marck!"

"But you are wrong," said John earnestly. "Have you heard Louis' news?"

"He is still at La Rochelle?"

"No—but descending into the Netherlands on Mons—he too, they say, called the Beggars hasty, but he is endeavouring to follow up their success, I believe he has affected some agreement with the French Huguenots, but his letters are brief."

William sat thoughtful.

"Louis was ever sanguine," he said, "and so he would fall on Mons, eh?"

"And you?" asked John.

"You would ask what I have done? I rely on Coligny, John—he is a great power, and may bring a quarter of France to our aid, the Protestant faction is strong there."

"And the King—the Queen-Mother?"

"I believe that they may think it wise to conclude a Protestant alliance—the marriage between the King's sister and the King of Navarre seems likely to be accomplished."

"You trust them?"

"Nay,—but I believe that expediency will force them to act in our interests—and on Coligny I do rely."

"What will you do?" asked John.

"I must a little while consider," replied the Prince; he rose, "let us into the house."

As they turned towards the mill he spoke again and abruptly.

"What of the Princess—Anne my wife?"

"She is at Beilstein still, under restraint—partially."

"She should be wholly so—we maintain her?"

"Yes—it is a heavy drain, William, her mad fancies cost dearly."

"She shall," replied the Prince with a most unusual force, "be returned to her people. And Jan Rubens?"

"Is still in prison."

"Let him go—to punish him would be to make the affair public, and, poor fool, we know whose fault it was."

"She did confess as much when writing to me to intercede for her."

"I will never," said William, "see her again, yet I would have her dishonour kept secret, for the sake of the name—and of Maurice."