Murder’s Aftermath

Today’s installment concludes William of Orange Murdered; Netherlands Divides,
our selection from The Rise of the Dutch Republic by John Lothrop Motley published in 1856.

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Previously in William of Orange Murdered; Netherlands Divides.

Time: 1584
Place: Belgium and the Netherlands

These were the last words he ever spoke, save that, when his sister, Catherine of Schwarzburg, immediately afterward asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, “Yes.” His master of the horse, Jacob van Maldere, had caught him in his arms as the fatal shot was fired. The Prince was then placed on the stairs for an instant, when he immediately began to swoon. He was afterward laid upon a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he breathed his last in the arms of his wife and sister.

The murderer succeeded in making his escape through the side door and sped swiftly up the narrow lane. He had almost reached the ramparts, from which he intended to spring into the moat, when he stumbled over a heap of rubbish. As he rose he was seized by several pages and halberdiers, who had pursued him from the house. He had dropped his pistols upon the spot where he had committed the crime, and upon his person were found a couple of bladders, provided with a piece of pipe, with which he had intended to assist himself across the moat, beyond which a horse was waiting for him. He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed himself and his deed. He was brought back to the house, where he immediately underwent a preliminary examination before the city magistrates. He was afterward subjected to excruciating tortures; for the fury against the wretch who had destroyed the “father of the country” was uncontrollable, and William the Silent was no longer alive to intercede — as he had often done before — in behalf of those who assailed his life.

The sentence pronounced against the assassin was execrable — a crime against the memory of the great man whom it professed to avenge. It was decreed that the right hand of Gérard should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in six different places, that he should be quartered and disemboweled alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his face, and that, finally, his head should be taken off. Not even his horrible crime, with its endless consequences, not the natural frenzy of indignation which it had excited, could justify this savage decree, to rebuke which the murdered hero might have almost risen from the sleep of death. The sentence was literally executed on July 14th, the criminal supporting its horrors with the same astonishing fortitude. So calm were his nerves, crippled and half roasted as he was ere he mounted the scaffold, that, when one of the executioners was slightly injured in the ear by the flying from the handle of the hammer with which he was breaking the fatal pistol in pieces, as the first step in the execution — a circumstance which produced a general laugh in the crowd — a smile was observed upon Balthazar’s face in sympathy with the general hilarity. His lips were seen to move up to the moment when his heart was thrown in his face. “Then,” said a looker-on, “he gave up the ghost.”

The reward promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange was paid to the heirs of Gérard. Parma informed his sovereign that the “poor man” had been executed, but that his father and mother were still living, to whom he recommended the payment of that “merced” which “the laudable and generous deed had so well deserved.” This was accordingly done, and the excellent parents, ennobled and enriched by the crime of their son, received, instead of the twenty-five thousand crowns promised in the Ban, the three seigniories of Livermont, Hostal, and Dampmartin, in the Franche Comté, and took their place at once among the landed aristocracy. Thus the bounty of the Prince had furnished the weapon by which his life was destroyed, and his estates supplied the fund out of which the assassin’s family received the price of blood. At a later day, when the unfortunate eldest son of Orange returned from Spain after twenty-seven years’ absence, a changeling and a Spaniard, the restoration of those very estates was offered to him by Philip II provided he would continue to pay a fixed proportion of their rents to the family of his father’s murderer. The education which Philip William had received, under the King’s auspices, had, however, not entirely destroyed all his human feelings and he rejected the proposal with scorn. The estates remained with the Gérard family, and the patents of nobility which they had received were used to justify their exemption from certain taxes, until the union of Franche-Comté with France, when a French governor tore the documents in pieces and trampled them under foot.

The life and labors of Orange had established the emancipated commonwealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered the union of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless. The efforts of the malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the consummate ability, both political and military, of Parma, all combined with the lamentable loss of William the Silent to separate forever the Southern and Catholic provinces from the Northern confederacy. So long as the Prince remained alive, he was the father of the whole country, the Netherlands — saving only two Walloon provinces — constituting a whole. Notwithstanding the spirit of faction and the blight of the long civil war, there was at least one country, or the hope of a country, one strong heart, one guiding head, for the patriotic party throughout the land. Philip and Granvella were right in their estimate of the advantage to be derived from the Prince’s death; in believing that an assassin’s hand could achieve more than all the wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship could teach, or all the armies which Spain or Italy could muster. The pistol of the insignificant Gérard destroyed the possibility of a united Netherland state, while during the life of William there was union in the policy, unity in the history of the country.

This ends our series of passages on William of Orange Murdered; Netherlands Divides by John Lothrop Motley from his book The Rise of the Dutch Republic published in 1856. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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