Part 15 (1/2)
Apologising, he opened another, which all could see was a sound, fine mussel, and offered it to another of the women. No sooner was it in her mouth than it turned into a huge spider. The women thereupon set upon him, but he defended himself so rudely that two of them were nearly killed, when he suddenly vanished, leaving only an echo of wild laughter.
In the country to the east of Antwerp there are many quaint legends still told at the peasants' firesides on stormy winter nights about the Kaboutermannekens who in ancient times frequented that neighbourhood. Near the village of Gelrode there is a small hill on the sides of which are many little caves which were formerly the abode of these fairies, the hill being called the Kabouterberg to this day in consequence. There is a similar hill, called Kaboutermannekensberg, between Turnhout and Casterle. They were also called Red Caps or Klabbers, and were usually clad in red from head to foot, and often had green hands and faces, according to those who were so fortunate as to see them. These little gnomes or elves seem to have resembled their kind as reported in the folk-lore of other northern countries, being the willing and loyal slaves of those who treated them kindly, and the bitter, and sometimes dangerous, enemies of those who misused them.
Still another local sprite--this time a spirit of evil resembling in some respects the Long Wapper--was known as Kludde. This fiend was often met with after dark in many parts of Flanders, and even in Brabant. At times Kludde would appear to the peasants as the dusk of twilight was deepening into the intense darkness of night on the Flemish plains, in the guise of an old, half-starved horse. If a farmer or stable-boy mistook him for one of his own horses and mounted on Kludde he instantly rushed off at an incredible speed until he came to some water into which he pitched his terrified rider headlong.
This accomplished to his satisfaction he vanished, crying ”Kludde, Kludde!” as he went away, whence came his name.
CHAPTER XIX
THREE CENTURIES OF ANTWERP PRINTERS
The joyous entry of the boy prince who was afterward to become Charles V was the signal for ten days of rejoicing by the citizens of Antwerp.
This was early in the year 1515; and, in truth, the city prospered mightily under the rule of the great Emperor, who favoured it on many notable occasions. The bankers and merchant princes of Antwerp became renowned the world over for their wealth and magnificence. Anthony Fugger, who was the banker of Maximilian and Charles V, left a fortune of six million golden crowns, and it is said that his name survives to this day as a synonym for wealth--the common people calling any one who is extremely rich a _rykke Fokker_, a rich Fugger. It is related that another rich Antwerp merchant, Gasparo Dozzo, on being privileged to entertain the Emperor in his house, cast into the fire a promissory note for a large loan he had formerly made to his sovereign.
This period of wealth and prosperity continued till the very end of the reign of the Emperor, but under his successor, Philip II, the city was plunged into misfortunes and miseries as swift and as appalling as those that befell in the terrible Fall of 1914. In 1556 Philip opened a chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece at St. Mary's, afterward the cathedral, in Antwerp--thereby recognising the supremacy of this town over the others in his Flemish dominions. Among the new knights to whom he gave the accolade were William the Silent and the Count of Horn. Little men thought on that day of festivity and good will what the future held in store for them all!
On August 18, 1566, the miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin was taken from its place in St. Mary's church and carried through the streets of the city in a solemn procession--as it had been for nearly two hundred years. This time there were murmurs of disapproval from the crowds that lined the streets, some stones were thrown, and the procession hastily returned to the church. The next day a small mob, composed for the most part of boys and men of the lowest cla.s.s, entered the church and destroyed the statue and the entire contents of the sacred edifice, including some seventy altars, and paintings and statues almost without number. The organ, then the wonder of Europe, was ruined, and the rabble dressed itself in the costly vestments of the clergy and carried away the treasures of the church and even the contents of the poor boxes. This was the beginning of the work of the image-breakers, as they came to be called, which spread throughout Flanders until scarcely a religious edifice had escaped the destruction of its movable contents, while a few here and there were burned. As noted in the chapter on Audenaerde, Margaret of Parma was Regent at this time and acted resolutely to suppress the disorders--which were largely due to the supine att.i.tude of the local magistrates at the beginning.
She had all but succeeded in restoring peace and quiet throughout Flanders when Philip suddenly decided to send an army there, and selected the Duke of Alva to command it. The story of the eighty years' war that followed is familiar to every American through Motley's account of it, although that brilliant writer is more concerned with the details relating to the Dutch provinces than those regarding the portion of the Netherlands that remained subject to Spain. Two events, however, in the long war were so directly concerned with Antwerp, and loom so large in its history, that they cannot be pa.s.sed over here. Both have a renewed interest in view of the history of Antwerp's latest siege in 1914. These are the Spanish Fury, and the great siege of the city by the Duke of Parma.
Alva, who superseded the gentle Margaret of Parma as Regent of the Netherlands, quickly took stern measures for the repression of further disorders at Antwerp, which he regarded as a hot-bed of heresy. A huge citadel was built at the southern end of the town, near the Scheldt, in 1572, in the centre of which Alva erected a bronze statue of himself. On the marble pedestal the inscription related how ”the most faithful minister of the best of Kings had stamped out sedition, repelled the rebels, set up religion, and restored justice and peace to the country.” So far were these boasts from being true that only the following year, in 1573, Alva stole away to Spain secretly, his government a failure, his army mutinous, and half of the country he had been sent to rule in open and successful revolt. War with England had ruined the commerce of Antwerp, Alva's fiscal policy and incessant taxes had half beggared the people of the entire country, while thousands of the n.o.blest and bravest in the land had met death on the scaffold or in the torture chambers of the Inquisition.
Requesens, the next Regent, was unable either to stem the rising tide of revolt or to pay his soldiers--King Philip failing to send funds until the pay of the Spanish veterans was at one time twenty-two months in arrears. The sudden death of Requesens in 1576 left matters in a nearly chaotic condition. The veterans who had been fighting in Zeeland against the Dutch mutinied and returning to Flanders captured the town of Alost, where they forced the citizens to give them food and shelter. On November 4th, 1576, the mutineers marched to Antwerp, some two thousand strong, where they joined the Spaniards and mercenaries in the citadel. They were under the command of an _Eletto_, or elected leader. Jerome Roda, a Spaniard, had proclaimed himself the commandant of the fortress until the new Regent, Don John of Austria, should arrive in Flanders. Under these two worthies the combined forces in the citadel, some five thousand men in all, proceeded to attack the city. The citizens, on their side, had for some time feared such an attack and should have been able to repel it. There were fourteen thousand armed burghers, four thousand Walloons and an equal number of German troops--twenty-two thousand in all. It may have been that they felt unduly secure against an attack on that day because it was Sunday. It is certain that they were badly commanded.
Shortly after noon the Spaniards rushed from the citadel and across the broad open esplanade cleared a few years before by Alva, shouting their war cry, _Sant Jago y cierra Espana_. The _Eletto_ was the first to fall, but the rush of furious soldiers was not to be stopped by a single volley. The Walloons put up a brave fight but part of the Germans treacherously lowered their pikes and let the Spaniards pa.s.s down the rue St. Georges. On the Place de Meir the defenders made another stand, but were swiftly swept back in a confused and disorganised ma.s.s by the Spanish cavalry. At the Hotel de Ville the burghers fought fiercely until the mutineers set fire to the edifice.
In the conflagration that followed not only this n.o.ble structure, one of the finest in Europe, but the adjoining guild houses and some eighty other buildings were consumed. Of the Hotel de Ville only the blackened walls remained. By nightfall the Spaniards and the German mercenaries, most of whom had joined the victors in order to share in the spoils, were masters of the doomed city.
That night the scenes of pillage and rapine as the savage and half drunken soldiers swept through the streets and ransacked the houses of all who did not instantly pay a stiff ransom, exceed the descriptive powers of the contemporary historians. One of the burgomasters was stabbed to end a quarrel as to his ransom. Many burghers were killed near the town hall, or were burned within it like rats. For three days the city was given up to be sacked. The number who were killed, including women and children, has been variously estimated at from seven thousand to seventeen thousand of the citizens and defenders of the city, and from two hundred and fifty to six hundred of the Spaniards. The loss in property amounted to many millions, but no accurate estimate could be made of it, as many who suffered most in this respect lost their lives as well. Cartloads of plunder were sent out of the city, while much of it was actually sold by those who did not care or dare to keep it in a temporary market-place at the Bourse.
Some were said to have concealed their wealth by having sword hilts and breastplates made of solid gold. Like the ill-gotten gains of the Spaniards in America, however, none of this booty--the reward of treachery, of a.s.sa.s.sination, of cruelty and the sudden setting free of all the basest elements in human nature--profited its captors very greatly. In a few days after the arrival of Don John, the new Regent, the mutinous soldiers were paid off and marched away to Maestricht and presently to other battlefields, from Flanders to Lombardy, where, no doubt, most of the golden breastplates and sword hilts fell--in due time--to other conquerors. Such was the Spanish Fury--until 1914 the worst blot on civilisation that history records.
Soon after the Spaniards left the city permission was given to the people to destroy the citadel that the tyrant Alva had built to overawe the town. The entire population flocked to this welcome task--men, women and children, each taking a shovel, a basket or a barrow. It is related that even the great ladies of the city took part in the work of demolition--so hated had the grim fortress become. The statue of the cruel Duke that he had so vaingloriously erected in the centre of the citadel only five years before was torn down and dragged through the streets by a cheering throng. Charles Verlat has given the world a vivid picture of this incident which hangs in the Antwerp museum.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”DRAGGING THE STATUE OF THE DUKE OF ALVA THROUGH THE STREETS OF ANTWERP.”--C. VERLAT.]
Six years later the Duke d'Alencon, who had been made nominal sovereign over the Low Countries by William the Silent, planned to treacherously attack and sack the city with his French soldiers, some three thousand, five hundred strong. This time, however, the citizens were not caught napping and when the tocsin in the cathedral called the alarm the burghers rushed out in thousands. The French swashbucklers proved to be less stubborn fighters than the Spanish veterans and soon were driven back in a confused ma.s.s to the city gates, most of them being killed and the cowardly Duke only saving himself by flight. This episode has been derisively called the French Fury. It happened January 17, 1583.
The following year Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma--and the son of the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, whose career as Regent of the Netherlands was briefly described in the chapter on Audenaerde, her birthplace--determined to besiege Antwerp, which, since the Spanish Fury, had fallen into the hands of the revolted Provinces.
Unfortunately for its defenders, William the Silent had just died at the hands of an a.s.sa.s.sin and his plans for the protection of the city by flooding all of the marshes surrounding it were not followed. The butchers opposed flooding all of their pasture lands and the important Kowenstein d.y.k.e was not cut. The Prince of Parma, who was the greatest military leader of his age, swiftly captured the forts on the Flemish side of the river, seized the Kowenstein d.y.k.e--which extended on the Brabant side from a point opposite Calloo to Starbroeck--and began to build a bridge across the river itself. This daring project, if successful, would completely isolate Antwerp from the sea and its Dutch allies and render certain its ultimate subjection by starvation.
The bridge was built partly on piles, as far out as the water was sufficiently shallow, then the intervening gap was spanned by means of thirty-two large vessels anch.o.r.ed at both ends and lashed together by chains and heavy cables. The structure was completed in February, 1585, to the amazement of the besieged burghers and the great joy of the Prince's army. It would seem a small affair to the pontoon bridge builders of to-day, being two thousand, four hundred feet long and twelve feet wide, but at that time it was deemed one of the most notable achievements ever known. The defenders of the city sent huge fires.h.i.+ps down the river to destroy the bridge. One of these actually exploded against the structure and another off Calloo, destroying more than eight hundred Spanish soldiers and endangering their intrepid leader himself. The bridge was wrecked, but Farnese repaired it before the people at Antwerp learned of the success of their attempt.
A tremendous attack was next made on the Kowenstein d.y.k.e, with a view to cutting it--a feat that could have been done without any trouble if the Prince of Orange's counsels had been followed a few months earlier. A fleet of one hundred and fifty Dutch s.h.i.+ps joined in the battle from the sea side, while a strong force of Flemings, English and Dutch from Antwerp attacked the d.y.k.e from the land side. After a fierce struggle it was cut, the waters rushed through and one vessel loaded with provisions for the beleaguered city made its way past.
That night Antwerp rejoiced, but in the darkness the Prince of Parma made another furious a.s.sault and finally drove back the allies, capturing twenty-eight s.h.i.+ps of the Dutch fleet and filling in the d.y.k.e once more. This victory--which as a feat of arms was one of the most brilliant of the war--sealed the fate of the city, which finally capitulated August 17th. So important was this success to the Spanish, cause that Isabella, the daughter of King Philip, was awakened by her father during the night by the tidings, ”Antwerp is ours!” Its fall settled approximately the extent of the region that was left to the Spanish Crown out of the wreck of its former empire in the Low Countries. Thenceforth all of the provinces to the west and south of Antwerp--the region now comprised in the Kingdom of Belgium--remained subject to the King of Spain and his Austrian successors until the great French Revolution. The remaining provinces became the Dutch Republic and now form the Kingdom of Holland.
The Spanish Fury and the great siege had together well-nigh destroyed the commerce of the port, and the heavy fine imposed by the conquerors upon the city for its rebellion completed its ruin. Packs of wild dogs are said to have roamed unmolested through the outlying villages, which stood deserted, while even wolves were seen. Gra.s.s grew in the once crowded streets of the city, and famine added to the miseries of its fast declining population. It would hardly be conceivable that a quarter of a century of hideous misrule could have so utterly obliterated the prosperity of this once opulent city, but for the fearful object lesson afforded in 1914 that war is still as potent a breeder of destruction and despair as it was in that dark age.
Enough, however, of wars and sieges and the sack of cities. Antwerp's past includes many pleasanter stories as well--stories of progress and achievement. To those who are interested in the n.o.ble art of printing, and the various branches of the fine arts that serve as handmaids to the printer, Antwerp possesses one of the rarest treasure-houses in the world. This is the Museum Plantin-Moretus, for three centuries the head office and workshop of the great printing-house whose name it bears.