FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436   437   438   439   440  
441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   453   454   455   456   457   458   459   460   461   462   463   464   465   >>   >|  
t of view, his actions, instead of being criminal, have been commendable, and because the multitude and continuity of his offences prove him to have been sincere. And because anointed monarchs are amenable to no human tribunal, save to that terrible assize which the People, bursting its chain from time to time in the course of the ages, sets up for the trial of its oppressors, and which is called Revolution, it is the more important for the great interests of humanity that before the judgment-seat of History a crown should be no protection to its wearer. There is no plea to the jurisdiction of history, if history be true to itself. As for the royal criminal called Philip II., his life is his arraignment, and these volumes will have been written in vain if a specification is now required. Homicide such as was hardly ever compassed before by one human being was committed by Philip when in the famous edict of 1568 he sentenced every man, woman, and child in the Netherlands to death. That the whole of this population, three millions or more, were not positively destroyed was because no human energy could suffice to execute the diabolical decree. But Alva, toiling hard, accomplished much of this murderous work. By the aid of the "Council of Blood," and of the sheriffs and executioners of the Holy Inquisition, he was able sometimes to put eight hundred human beings to death in a single week for the crimes of Protestantism or of opulence, and at the end of half a dozen years he could boast of having strangled, drowned, burned, or beheaded somewhat more than eighteen thousand of his fellow-creatures. These were some of the non-combatant victims; for of the tens of thousands who perished during his administration alone, in siege and battle, no statistical record has been preserved. In face of such wholesale crimes, of these forty years of bloodshed, it is superfluous to refer to such isolated misdeeds as his repeated attempts to procure the assassination of the Prince of Orange, crowned at last by the success of Balthazar Gerard, nor to his persistent efforts to poison the Queen of England; for the enunciation of all these murders or attempts at murder would require a repetition of the story which it has been one of the main purposes of these volumes to recite. For indeed it seems like mere railing to specify his crimes. Their very magnitude and unbroken continuity, together with their impunity, give them almost the appe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436   437   438   439   440  
441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   453   454   455   456   457   458   459   460   461   462   463   464   465   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

crimes

 
called
 

volumes

 
attempts
 
Philip
 

history

 
continuity
 

criminal

 
fellow
 

thousand


combatant
 

creatures

 

impunity

 

battle

 

administration

 

eighteen

 

thousands

 

perished

 
victims
 
Protestantism

opulence

 

single

 

beings

 
hundred
 

burned

 

beheaded

 
statistical
 

drowned

 

strangled

 
unbroken

persistent

 
efforts
 

poison

 
Gerard
 

crowned

 

success

 

Balthazar

 
England
 

murders

 
murder

require
 

recite

 
purposes
 

enunciation

 
Orange
 
Prince
 

wholesale

 

bloodshed

 

preserved

 
repetition