Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  Spain was a mighty Power, in the full pride of her greatness; the Netherlands were just a few provinces of merchant folk and effete and extravagant nobles. There was no comparison between the two. Yet Spain found it difficult enough to crush them. There were massacres repeatedly, whole populations being wiped out. Alva and his generals rivalled Chengiz Khan and Timur in their destruction of human life. Often they improved on the Mongols. City after city was besieged by Alva, and the untrained men, and often the women of the city, fought the trained soldiers of Alva on land and water till starvation made it impossible for them to carry on. Preferring even absolute destruction of all they valued to the Spanish yoke, the Hollanders broke open the dykes and let in the North Sea to drown and drive away the Spanish troops. As the struggle proceeded it became more and more ruthless, and both sides became exceedingly cruel. The siege of beautiful Haarlem stands out, bravely defended to the last, but ending in the usual massacre and plunder by the Spanish soldiery; the siege of Alkmaar, which escaped by the piercing of the dykes; and Leyden, surrounded by the enemy, with starvation and disease killing thousands. There were no green leaves left on the trees in Leyden; they had all been eaten. Men and women fought with famishing dogs on dunghills for scraps. Still they held out, and from the ramparts haggard and starving people hurled defiance at the enemy, and told the Spaniards that they would live on rats and dogs and anything rather than surrender:

  And when all has perished but ourselves, be sure that we will each devour our left arms, retaining our right to defend our women, our liberty and our religion, against the foreign tyrant. Should God, in His wrath, doom us to destruction, and deny us all relief, even then we will maintain ourselves for ever against your entrance. When the last hour has come, with our hands we shall set fire to the city, and perish men, women, and children together, in the flames, rather than suffer our homes to be polluted, and our liberties to be crushed.

  Such was the spirit of the people of Leyden. But despair reigned there as day after day went by without relief; and they sent a message to their friends of the Estates of Holland outside. The Estates took the great decision to drown their dear land rather than allow Leyden to fall to the enemy. “Better a drowned land than a lost land.” And to Leyden, their sorely stricken sister-city, they sent this answer: “Rather will we see our whole land and all our possessions perish in the waves, than forsake thee, Leyden!”

  At last dyke after dyke was broken and, helped by a favourable wind, the sea-waters rushed in, carrying the Dutch ships, bringing food and relief. And the Spanish troops, fearful of this new enemy, the sea, departed in haste. So Leyden survived, and, in memory of the heroism of her inhabitants, the University of Leyden, famous since then, was established in 1575.

  There are many such tales of heroism, and many of horrible butchery. In beautiful Antwerp there was terrible massacre and looting, 8000 being killed. The “Spanish Fury” it was called.

  But the great struggle was largely carried on by Holland, and not by the southern part of the Netherlands. By bribery and coercion the Spanish rulers succeeded in winning over many of the nobles of the Netherlands and made them crush their own countrymen. They were helped by the fact that there were far more Catholics than Protestants in the south. They tried to win over the Catholics, and partly succeeded. And the nobles! It was shameful to what treason and trickery many of them stooped to win favour and wealth for themselves from the Spanish King, even though their country might perish.

  Addressing the General Assembly of the Netherlands, William of Orange said: “‘Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed. Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, but from yourselves—from Netherland cities? Whence his ships, supplies, money, weapons, soldiers? From the Netherland people.”

  So, ultimately, the Spaniards succeeded in winning over that part of the Netherlands which is roughly Belgium today. But Holland they could not subdue, try as they did. It is curious to notice that right through the struggle, almost to the end, Holland did not disclaim allegiance to Philip II of Spain. They were prepared to keep him as king if he would recognize their liberties. At last they were forced to cut themselves away from him. They offered the crown to their great leader William, but he would not have it. Circumstances thus forced them, almost against their will, to become a republic. So great was the kingly tradition of those days.

  The struggle in Holland went on for many years. It was not till 1609 that Holland became independent. But the real fight in the Netherlands took place from 1567 to 1584. Philip II of Spain, unable to defeat William of Orange, had him killed by an assassin’s hand. He offered a public reward for his assassination, such was the morality of Europe at that time. Many attempts to kill William failed. The sixth attempt succeeded in 1584, and the great man—“Father William” he was called all over Holland—died; but he had done his work. The Dutch Republic had been forged through sacrifice and suffering. Resistance to tyrants and despots does good to a country and to a people. It trains and strengthens. And Holland, strong and self-reliant, immediately became a great naval Power and spread out to the Far East. Belgium, separated from Holland, continued under Spanish rule.

  Let us look at Germany to complete our picture of Europe. There was a terrible civil war here from 1618 to 1648, called the Thirty Years’ War. It was between Catholic and Protestant, and the little princes and electors of Germany fought each other and the Emperor; and the Catholic King of France had a look in on the side of the Protestants just to add to the confusion; and ultimately the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus— the “Lion of the North” he was called—came down and defeated the Emperor, and thus saved the Protestants. But Germany was a ruined country. The mercenary soldiers were like brigands. They went about looting and plundering. Even generals of armies, having no money to pay their soldiers or even to feed them, took to looting. And—think of it!—this lasted for thirty years: massacre and destruction and looting going on year after year. There could be little or no trade; there could be hardly any cultivation. And so there was less and less food, and more and more starvation. And this of course resulted in more brigands and more looting. Germany became a kind of nursery for professional and mercenary soldiers.

  At last this war came to an end, when, perhaps, there was nothing left to plunder. But it took a long, long time for Germany to recover and pull herself together again. In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia put an end to the German civil war. By this the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire became a shadow and a ghost with no power. France took a big slice, Alsace; to keep it for over 200 years, and then to be forced to give it back to a new Germany; and again to take it back after the Great War of 1914-1918. France thus profited by this peace. But another Power now arose in Germany which was going to be a thorn in the side of France. This was Prussia, ruled by the House of Hohenzollern.

  The Peace of Westphalia finally recognized the republics of Switzerland and Holland.

  What a tale of war and massacre and plundering and bigotry, I tell you! And yet this was Europe just after the Renaissance, when there had been such an outburst of energy and artistic and literary activity. I have compared Europe to the countries of Asia, and pointed out the new life that was stirring in Europe. One can see this new life trying to struggle through. The birth of a new child and of a new order is accompanied with much suffering. When there is economic instability at the base, society and politics shake at the top. That a new life was stirring in Europe is obvious enough. But all round it what barbarous behaviour! It was a maxim of the time that “the science of reigning was the science of lying”. The whole atmosphere reeks with lies and intrigue, violence and cruelty, and one wonders how people put up with it.

  87

  England Cuts off the Head of Her King

  August 29, 1932

  We shall spend some little time on England’s history now. We have largely ignored this so far, as there was little of interest there during the Middle Ages. The country was more backward than Fra
nce or Italy. The University of Oxford, however, early became a famous seat of learning, and, a little later, Cambridge followed. It was Oxford that produced Wycliffe, about whom I have already written to you.

  The chief interest in early English history centres round the development of Parliament. From early days efforts were made by the nobles to limit the power of the king. There was the Magna Charta in 1215. A little later the beginnings of Parliament are visible. They are crude beginnings. There are the great nobles and bishops who develop into a House of Lords. But more important ultimately was an elected council consisting of knights and the smaller landowners and some representatives of the towns. This elected council developed into the House of Commons. Both these Councils or Houses consisted of landowners and wealthy men. Even the men in the House of Commons represented a small number of rich landowners and merchants only.

  The House of Commons had little power. They petitioned and pointed out grievances to the king and gradually began to interfere with taxation. Without their approval it was difficult for new taxes to be imposed or collected and so the king began the practice of asking for their approval for such taxation. The power of the purse is always a great power, and Parliament, and especially the Commons’ House, increased in strength and prestige as it gained this power. Often there was friction between the king and the Commons. But still Parliament was a feeble thing, and the Tudor rulers, as I have told you, were more or less absolute monarchs. But the Tudors were clever, and they avoided forcing a struggle with Parliament.

  England escaped the bitter religious struggles of the Continent. There was a great deal of religious conflict and rioting and bigotry, and a scandalous number of women were burnt alive because they were considered to be witches. But compared to the Continent, England was peaceful. With Henry VIII the country was supposed to turn Protestant. Of course there were many Catholics in the land, and there were also many extreme Protestants. The new Church of England, however, was something between the two; calling itself Protestant, but perhaps more Catholic than Protestant, and in reality a department of State with the king for its head. The break with Rome and the Pope, however, was complete, and there was many an “anti-Popery” riot. In Queen Elizabeth’s time (she was the daughter of Henry VIII), the opening of the new sea-routes to the East and to America, and the new opportunities for trade, lured many people. Fascinated by the success of Spanish and Portuguese seamen, and covetous of the wealth to be gained, England took to the sea. Sir Francis Drake and others like him at first became the pirates of the seas, plundering Spanish vessels from America. Drake then went for a mighty voyage round the world. Sir Walter Raleigh crossed the Atlantic and tried to found a settlement on the east coast of what is now the United States. This was called Virginia, as a compliment to Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. It was Raleigh who first brought the habit of smoking tobacco to Europe from America. Then came the Spanish Armada, and the complete failure of this proud enterprise encouraged England a great deal. All this has little to do with the struggle between king and Parliament, except that it kept people’s minds occupied and turned to foreign affairs. But even in Tudor times trouble brewed under the surface.

  The Elizabethan period is one of the brightest in England. Elizabeth was a great queen, and England produced many a great man of action in her time. But greater than the Queen and her adventurer knights were the poets and dramatists of this generation, and above them all towers the immortal William Shakespeare. His plays are, of course, known the world over today, although we know little enough about him personally. He was one of a brilliant band which has enriched the English language with numerous precious gems which fill us with delight. Even the small lyrical poems of the Elizabethan period have a peculiar charm which none others have. In the simplest and sweetest of language they trip along merrily, telling us of everyday happenings in a way all their own. Writing of this period, an English critic, Lytton Strachey, has told us of the “noble band of Elizabethans whose strong and splendid spirit gave to England, in one miraculous generation, the most glorious heritage of drama that the world has ever known”.

  Elizabeth died in 1603, just two years before the great Akbar died in India. She was succeeded by the then King of Scotland because he was supposed to be next in the line of succession. He became James I, and England and Scotland thus became one kingdom. What England had failed to do by violence was done peacefully. James I was a believer in the divine right of kings, and disliked Parliament. He was not as clever as Elizabeth, and very soon trouble arose between him and Parliament. It was during his reign that many stiff-necked Protestants in England left their native country for good and sailed in the Mayflower in 1620 to settle in America. They objected to the autocratic method of James I and they disliked the new Church of England, and did not consider it Protestant enough. So they left home and country and set sail for the wild new land across the Atlantic. They landed on the northern coasts in a place which they called New Plymouth. More colonists followed them, and gradually the settlements increased till there were thirteen colonies all along the eastern coast. These colonies ultimately developed into the United States of America. But that was a long way off yet.

  The son of James I was Charles I, and matters very soon came to a head after he became King in 1625. Parliament therefore presented to him in 1628 the “Petition of Right”, which is a famous document in English history. In this petition the King was told that he was not an absolute monarch and could not do many things. He could not tax or imprison people illegally. He could not even do in the seventeenth century what the English Viceroy of India does in the twentieth—issue ordinances and imprison people under them.

  Annoyed at being told what he could do and what he could not, Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled without it. After some years, however, he was so hard up for money that he had to call another Parliament. There had been great anger at all that Charles had been doing without Parliament, and the new Parliament was spoiling for a fight with him. Within two years, in 1642, civil war began, the King on one side, supported by many nobles and a great part of the army, the Parliament on the other, supported by the rich merchants and the city of London. For several years this war dragged on, till there arose on the side of Parliament a great leader, Oliver Cromwell. He was a great organizer, a stern disciplinarian and a man full of religious enthusiasm for the cause. “In the dark perils of war,” says Carlyle about Cromwell, “in the high places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone out in all the others.” Cromwell built up a new army, the “Ironsides” they were called, and filled them with his own disciplined enthusiasm. The “Puritans” of the army of Parliament faced the “Cavaliers” of Charles. Cromwell won in the end, and Charles, the King, became a prisoner of Parliament.

  Many members of Parliament still wanted to compromise with the King, but Cromwell’s new army would not listen to this, and an officer of this army, Colonel Pride, boldly marched into the Parliament House and turned out all such members. Pride’s Purge this has been called. It was a drastic remedy, and not very complimentary to Parliament. If Parliament objected to the King’s autocracy, here was another power, their own army, which paid little attention to their legal quibbles. Such is the way of revolutions. The remaining members of the House of Commons, called the Rump Parliament, decided to try Charles, in spite of the objection of the House of Lords, and they condemned him to death “as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy of his country”. And in 1649 this man, who had been their King, and who had talked of his divine right to rule, was beheaded in Whitehall in London.

  Kings die like other people. Indeed, many of them in history have died violent deaths. Autocracy and kingship breed assassination and murder, and English royalties had had enough of assassination in the past. But that an elected assembly should presume to constitute itself into a court, and try the King, and condemn him to death, and then have him beheaded, was a novel and an amazing thing. It was curious that the English people, who have al
ways been very conservative and averse to rapid changes, should thus set an example of how a tyrant and traitorous king should be treated. But the deed was done not so much by the English people as a whole as by the new “Ironsides” under Cromwell.

  All the kings and Caesars and princes and petty royalties of Europe were greatly shocked. What would happen to them if the common people became so presumptuous and followed the example of England? Many of them would have attacked England and crushed her, but the destinies of England were not in charge of an incompetent king then. England was for the first time a republic, and Cromwell and his army were there to defend her. Cromwell was practically a dictator. He was called the “Lord Protector” Under his stern and efficient rule England’s strength grew and her fleets drove away the Dutch and French and Spanish fleets. For the first time England became the chief naval Power in Europe.

  But the English Republic had a very short life—hardly eleven years after the death of Charles I. Cromwell died in 1658, and two years later the Republic fell. The son of Charles I, who had taken refuge in foreign countries, came back to England, and he was welcomed and crowned as Charles II. This second Charles was a low and disreputable person, and his idea of kingship was just to have a good time. But he was clever enough not to go against Parliament too much. He was actually in the secret pay of the French King. England lost the position she had gained in Europe during Cromwell’s time, and the Dutch actually came up and burnt the English fleet in the Thames.

  Charles’ brother, James II, succeeded him, and immediately there was trouble with Parliament. James was a devout Catholic, and he wanted to establish the Pope’s ascendancy again in England. But whatever ideas the English people had on religion—and they were vague enough— most of them were bitter against the Pope and all “Popery”. James II could do nothing against this widespread feeling and, having angered Parliament, he had to fly to France for refuge.