Literature had assumed during the revolution in the Netherlands the almost exclusive and repulsive aspect of controversial learning.  The university of Douay, installed in 1562 as a new screen against the piercing light of reform, quickly became the stronghold of intolerance.  That of Leyden, established by the efforts of the Prince of Orange, soon after the famous siege of that town in 1574, was on a less exclusive plan—­its professors being in the first instance drawn from Germany.  Many Flemish historians succeeded in this century to the ancient and uncultivated chroniclers of preceding times; the civil wars drawing forth many writers, who recorded what they witnessed, but often in a spirit of partisanship and want of candor, which seriously embarrasses him who desires to learn the truth on both sides of an important question.  Poetry declined and drooped in the times of tumult and suffering; and the chambers of rhetoric, to which its cultivation had been chiefly due, gradually lost their influence, and finally ceased to exist.

In fixing our attention on the republic of the United Provinces during the epoch now completed, we feel the desire, and lament the impossibility, of entering on the details of government in that most remarkable state.  For these we must refer to what appears to us the best authority for clear and ample information on the prerogative of the stadtholder, the constitution of the states-general, the privileges of the tribunals and local assemblies, and other points of moment concerning the principles of the Belgic confederation.[4]

[Footnote 4:  See Cerisier, Hist.  Gen. des Prov.  Unies.]

CHAPTER XV

TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA

A.D. 1599—­1604

Previous to his departure for Spain, the archduke Albert had placed the government of the provinces which acknowledged his domination in the hands of his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of Austria, leaving in command of the army Francisco Mendoza, admiral of Aragon.  The troops at his disposal amounted to twenty-two thousand fighting men—­a formidable force, and enough to justify the serious apprehensions of the republic.  Albert, whose finances were exhausted by payments made to the numerous Spanish and Italian mutineers, had left orders with Mendoza to secure some place on the Rhine, which might open a passage for free quarters in the enemy’s country.  But this unprincipled officer forced his way into the neutral districts of Cleves and Westphalia; and with a body of executioners ready to hang up all who might resist, and of priests to prepare them for death, he carried such terror on his march that no opposition was ventured.  The atrocious cruelties of Mendoza and his troops baffle all description:  on one occasion they murdered, in cold blood, the count of Walkenstein, who surrendered his castle on the express condition of his freedom; and they committed every possible excess that may be imagined of ferocious soldiery encouraged by a base commander.