



Produced by Martin Robb








By Pike and <DW18>:

A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic


by G. A. Henty





PREFACE.

MY DEAR LADS,

In all the pages of history there is no record of a struggle so
unequal, so obstinately maintained, and so long contested as that
by which the men of Holland and Zeeland won their right to worship
God in their own way, and also--although this was but a secondary
consideration with them--shook off the yoke of Spain and achieved
their independence. The incidents of the contest were of a singularly
dramatic character. Upon one side was the greatest power of the
time, set in motion by a ruthless bigot, who was determined either
to force his religion upon the people of the Netherlands, or
to utterly exterminate them. Upon the other were a scanty people,
fishermen, sailors, and agriculturalists, broken up into communities
with but little bond of sympathy, and no communication, standing
only on the defensive, and relying solely upon the justice of their
cause, their own stout hearts, their noble prince, and their one
ally, the ocean. Cruelty, persecution, and massacre had converted
this race of peace loving workers into heroes capable of the most
sublime self sacrifices. Women and children were imbued with a
spirit equal to that of the men, fought as stoutly on the walls,
and died as uncomplainingly from famine in the beleaguered towns.
The struggle was such a long one that I have found it impossible
to recount all the leading events in the space of a single volume;
and, moreover, before the close, my hero, who began as a lad, would
have grown into middle age, and it is an established canon in books
for boys that the hero must himself be young. I have therefore
terminated the story at the murder of William of Orange, and hope
in another volume to continue the history, and to recount the
progress of the war, when England, after years of hesitation, threw
herself into the fray, and joined Holland in its struggle against
the power that overshadowed all Europe, alike by its ambition and
its bigotry. There has been no need to consult many authorities.
Motley in his great work has exhausted the subject, and for all
the historical facts I have relied solely upon him.

Yours very sincerely, G. A. HENTY



CHAPTER I

THE "GOOD VENTURE"


Rotherhithe in the year of 1572 differed very widely from the
Rotherhithe of today. It was then a scattered village, inhabited
chiefly by a seafaring population. It was here that the captains
of many of the ships that sailed from the port of London had their
abode. Snug cottages with trim gardens lay thickly along the banks
of the river, where their owners could sit and watch the vessels
passing up and down or moored in the stream, and discourse with
each other over the hedges as to the way in which they were handled,
the smartness of their equipage, whence they had come, or where
they were going. For the trade of London was comparatively small
in those days, and the skippers as they chatted together could form
a shrewd guess from the size and appearance of each ship as to the
country with which she traded, or whether she was a coaster working
the eastern or southern ports.

Most of the vessels, indeed, would be recognized and the captains
known, and hats would be waved and welcomes or adieus shouted as
the vessels passed. There was something that savoured of Holland
in the appearance of Rotherhithe; for it was with the Low Countries
that the chief trade of England was carried on; and the mariners
who spent their lives in journeying to and fro between London and
the ports of Zeeland, Friesland, and Flanders, who for the most part
picked up the language of the country, and sometimes even brought
home wives from across the sea, naturally learned something from
their neighbours. Nowhere, perhaps, in and about London were the
houses so clean and bright, and the gardens so trimly and neatly
kept, as in the village of Rotherhithe, and in all Rotherhithe not
one was brighter and more comfortable than the abode of Captain
William Martin.

It was