The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 04: 1555-59Motley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 04: 1555-59
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
Besides, however, the answers thus addressed by the separate states to
the royal address, a formal remonstrance had also been drawn up in the
name of the States General, and signed by the Prince of Orange, Count
Egmont, and many of the leading patricians of the Netherlands. This
document, which was formally presented to the King before the adjournment
of the assembly, represented the infamous "pillaging, insults, and
disorders" daily exercised by the foreign soldiery; stating that the
burthen had become intolerable, and that the inhabitants of Marienburg,
and of many other large towns and villages had absolutely abandoned their
homes rather than remain any longer exposed to such insolence and
oppression.
The king, already enraged, was furious at the presentation of this
petition. He arose from his seat, and rushed impetuously from the
assembly, demanding of the members as he went, whether he too, as a
Spaniard, was expected immediately to leave the land, and to resign all
authority over it. The Duke of Savoy made use of this last occasion in
which he appeared in public as Regent, violently to rebuke the estates
for the indignity thus offered to their sovereign.
It could not be forgotten, however, by nobles and burghers, who had not
yet been crushed by the long course of oppression which was in store for
them, that there had been a day when Philip's ancestors had been more
humble in their deportment in the face of the provincial authorities.
His great-grandfather, Maximilian, kept in durance by the citizens of
Bruges; his great-grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, with streaming eyes and
dishevelled hair, supplicating in the market-place for the lives of her
treacherous ambassadors, were wont to hold a less imperious language to
the delegates of the states.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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