Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/378

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NOTES AND QUEKIES.

. NO 19., MAT 10. '56.

to be received by understandings which fear and hatred have disordered."

" Much more was to be got by testifying to an ima- ginary conspiracy, than by robbing on the highway or clipping the coin."

Gates is Mr. Macaulay's pet scoundrel : but, however superior in the extent of his crimes, I must claim originality for mine, Tichelaer, who preceded him by six years.

I do not suppose that Tichelaer, when he sought an interview with the Ruart, intended to get up an accusation. He remained two days at Dor- drecht, and six more elapsed before he communi- cated to Albrantswart, the prince's maitre (Thotel, the business he had undertaken. Probably in the meantime he had come to the conclusion that he could get more by false testimony than by bleed- ing or shaving. Albrantswart prudently suggested that such a witness would require confirmation, and offered to disguise himself, and to be intro- duced by Tichelaer to tlie Ruart as an accom- plice ; but on the matter being told to .the prince, he immediately laid it before the High Court, and the Ruart was arrested and brought to the Hague. Tichelaer's story was so absurd that we cannot fancy that so calm and wise a man as the prince believed any part of it ; but the courts were at his disposal ; for during the seditions the magis- trates of the principal towns of Holland had been removed, and their places filled at his discretion. He could at any moment have stopped the pro- ceedings. Tichelaer's bad character was known before the Ruart was tortured ; yet even that court seems to have had some sense of shame, for the sentence of confiscation and banishment against the Ruart did not state the crime for which it was passed.

On the morning of August 20, when the popu- lace were about to attack the prison, the States of the Hajrue assembled. They dispatched a courier to the Prince of Orange for soldiers. He did not send any. The nobles ordered three companies of cavalry, under the command of Count Tilly, to disperse the rabble, and fire upon them if they would not withdraw. The deputies called out six companies of the civic guard, who sided with the mob. Tilly's men and the guards faced each other for four hours in front of the prison ; the former with drawn swords, the latter with mus- kets on the rests. A false report was spread that the peasants were coming to plunder the town. The deputies ordered Tilly to march and stop them. He refused to move without an order in writing. Two deputies signed one, on which he withdrew, saying, " j'obeirai ; mais les deux freres sont morts." The Orange party thought this a good stratagem, and praised it as such in their pamphlets. The position of the cavalry and civic guard is represented in De Bloedige Haeg, pi. v., below which are these explanatory lines :

" Een aen-gehitste gilt is qualijik om te temmen, Dat sou den heelen Haeg wel in het bloet doen swem-

men.

Van Borger en Soldaet, het vuur is aen-gestoockt, En raeckt in vollen brant, een yeders herte koockt, En roept, en snackt na wraeck, sie al de stedelingen, Den modigen soldaet venvoet in't aensicht dringeu ; Die trachten hunne plaets te winnen, en dit is Gegeven open baen aen Wits gevankenis."

The mob took this open path, and did their work in an orderly way. No one but the brothers was injured. Basnage says :

"Apres le massacre des deux freres et les indignitez commis centre leurs corps, les Bourgeois se ^-etirerent tambour battant, et allerent celebrer cette fete dans les cabarets." Tom. ii. p. 316.

Some slight differences occur in the accounts of the prince's conduct after the murder. Mr. Wal- lace, in his continuation of Mackintosh (vol. vii. p. 110.), says :

" He came to the Hague the next day, and gave orders with the imperiousness of the most absolute prince in Europe, that no steps should be taken for bringing the guilty to justice."

Mr. Wallace generally follows Basnage, who does not go so far upon this point :

" On le sollicita fortement de faire poursuivre les assas- sins. Mais les Bourgeois lui presentirent en corps une requete afin d'empecher les poursuites. Elle etoit ap- puvee sur le nombre et la qualite des coupables. M. de Maasdam, membre du College de Nobles, dit a leurs nobles et grandes Puissances que son altesse trouvoit cette recherche trop dangereuse pour Pentreprendre, et, sans prendre 1'avis des Etats on suivit celle du Prince comme une loi, et on ne parla plus de poursuite." Annales, ii. 317.

Ramsay says :

"Le Prince d'Orange a qui ses partisans avoient fait cet horrible sacrifice, parut etre trouble du malheureux sort des deux illustres freres ; il fit, quoiqu' assez froidement 1'eloge du Pensionnairc, et ordonna que 1'on poursuivit les auteurs de cet attentat, mais la clemence dont il usa enters eux donna lieu de soup9onner qn'il avoit autorise le mas- sacre." Mem. de Turenne, ii. 467.

Mr. Macaulay says :

" The Prince of Orange, who had no share in the guilt of the murder, but who on this occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years later, extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which has left a stain upon his glory, became head of the state without a rival." *

says :
 * Southey, in his notes to Joan of Arc (vol. i. p. 197.),

" There is a way of telling truth so as to convey false- hood. After the capture of Harfleur, Stowe says, 'All the soldiers and inhabitants, both of the towne and towers, were suffered to goe freely, unharmed, whither they would.' Holling^hed's version is, 'Thus doth Anglorum Pralia report, saieng, not without good ground I believe, as followeth :

" Turn flenres tenera cum prole parentes Virgineusque chorus veteres liquere penates. Turn populus cunctus de portis gallicis exit Mcestus inarmatus, vacuus miser, seger, inopsque ;