The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 32: 1582-84Motley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 32: 1582-84
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
Don John, at the Breda negotiations, at the Cologne conferences, we have
seen how calmly these offers were waved aside, as if their rejection was
so simple that it hardly required many words for its signification, yet
he had mortgaged his estates so deeply that his heirs hesitated at
accepting their inheritance, for fear it should involve them in debt.
Ten years after his death, the account between his executors and his
brother John amounted to one million four hundred thousand florins--due
to the Count, secured by various pledges of real and personal property;
and it was finally settled upon this basis. He was besides largely
indebted to every one of his powerful relatives, so that the payment of
the incumbrances upon his estate very nearly justified the fears of his
children. While on the one hand, therefore, he poured out these enormous
sums like water, and firmly refused a hearing to the tempting offers of
the royal government, upon the other hand he proved the disinterested
nature of his services by declining, year after year, the sovereignty
over the provinces; and by only accepting, in the last days of his life,
when refusal had become almost impossible, the limited, constitutional
supremacy over that portion of them which now makes the realm of his
descendants. He lived and died, not for himself, but for his country:
"God pity this poor people!" were his dying words.
His intellectual faculties were various and of the highest order. He had
the exact, practical, and combining qualities which make the great
commander, and his friends claimed that, in military genius, he was
second to no captain in Europe. This was, no doubt, an exaggeration
of partial attachment, but it is certain that the Emperor Charles had
an exalted opinion of his capacity for the field. His fortification of
Philippeville and Charlemont, in the face of the enemy his passage of the
Meuse in Alva's sight--his unfortunate but well-ordered campaign against
that general--his sublime plan of relief, projected and successfully
directed at last from his sick bed, for the besieged city of Leyden--
will always remain monuments of his practical military skill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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