The Dutch (29 page)

The Baron's face lit up with the glow of a proud father as he told Jon, “Your birth signaled a return of complete contentment for the entire household for our noble linage were assured. Those wonderful years were only dampened somewhat for Karl and Sara when it was becoming apparent they would not be blessed with children, yet for everyone else those times were almost magical years. Life in the castle revolved around your presence.”

The Baron's face lost its glow as he remembered that it was only a few years and many tears later that the dreaded plague reappeared. “It was similar to the same horror that had visited the Droger Land over a hundred years before. Soon all knew a few purple blemishes on one's skin foretold a hideous death. It took grandfather and grandmother and hundreds of others before the disease began to ebb. Your mother was one of the last victims for Lillian ignored the obvious danger and tendered to the victims, first at the castle, and then in the town. She left you in Sara's care, refusing to re-enter the castle even at night, fearing she could be bringing the disease home. I still blame myself for not curtailing her care-giving activities. It was a time when the bravest and most pious of men regularly refused to help even bury the dead. After her death I was so overwhelmed with sadness. Sara was forced to become your loving protector. Immediately following Lillian's death, she took you, to the high tower, and barred even Karl and me from entering until the plague had passed.”

With tears in his eyes, he continued uninterrupted, “I did little but mourn your mother's loss for the next few years. It was the Spanish invasion that finally distracted me from my selfish sadness. It was as if the ancient gods were urging me to awake from my despair. Voices within me began to tell me to take up my sword against the invaders. The voices promised Karl would rule as a magnificent lord in my stead and that he and Sara would raise you well until my return. When I left to join Prince William, I knew my son and my domain were in good hands. Yet no one ever expected this war to go on endlessly: we all thought reason would eventually prevail. ”

Jon had waited a lifetime for this conversation with his father but was unable to manage a word in reply. He lovingly placed his hand upon his father's shoulder and for a long time, father and son, stood side by side, content that together they would accept the fate that the old gods or the new God had pre ordained for them. After listening to his father, Jon almost welcomed the on-coming invasion. This son, like his father, believed that no men had yet been born, who could take the Droger Land from their family.

The eminent return of Baron Clifford van Weir as the Great Lord was met with mixed reaction by the population. The people welcomed the extensive military experience the Baron brought to the coming struggle against the Germanic threat, but most hoped he would not overstay his welcome as he had done in Amsterdam. Virtually no one contested his right to rule but Lord Karl had won the respect, loyalty, and affection of the people in his absence. The inhabitants cared little about the aristocratic codes that bound patrician succession; they only knew that Lord Karl, with the good Lady Sara at his side, was a benevolent and wise ruler who anticipated the needs of the people. In the first few days of his reign, he began public works projects that improved the canals and roads, expanding transportation to all corners of the realm. His foresight that the conflict for independence would reach Holland's interior, allowed the Duchy the time needed to prepare for the upcoming struggle. His prompting initiated the erection of the star-shaped, earthen outer wall that now surrounded the old town. Karl surmised the old stone inner wall could not withstand the siege weapons used against other towns and cities in the Netherlands. The presence of the new wall, along with the Droger Land's reputation for invulnerability kept the Spanish at bay during the first year of the foreign occupation when most of the country fell to the invaders. Yet, the Droger Land remained unconquered after every major Dutch province or city had been occupied or forced to pledge loyalty to the king. The people tended to forget that the massive Spanish army became preoccupied with a mutiny over pay at precisely the time it was ordered to move against the Droger Land. If the enemy soldiers had been paid, the Droger Land would have certainly fallen, with or without, those preparations.

By being a compassionate Calvinist leader, Lord Karl was able to keep his people united. He tried not to antagonize those with a different religious viewpoint. In fact, he vigorously protected the rights of those citizens who choose to retain their Catholic faith after the majority converted to Calvinism. He demanded that his people respect and tolerate all religions and banished members of both religions who disagreed. Those moderate positions allowed him to offer sanctuary to those who suffered early religious persecution at the hands of Spanish, primarily Flemish Protestants from Flanders and fellow Calvinists from the conquered South without opposition from local Catholics. They accepted his action as a merciful act and it helped that those expatriates had not arrived empty handed. Many brought special talents or personal wealth to invest into the local economy, igniting a wave of prosperity for everyone. Having suffered from tyrannical rule, the newcomers became extremely loyal to the ruling family. Lord Karl also fostered the idea of self-government by allowing each wave of refugees to select leaders to govern their villages. He gave them some of the family's land on the mainland shore of Lake Derick. Those villages were now ideally located to check the enemy advance against the southern shoreline.

The first group of refugees, the Flemish Protestants arrived first, after Flanders became a battleground for the earlier ongoing border conflict between them and the French and Spanish kings. These immigrants included skilled craftsmen who developed a local textile industry and established a local market for the materials produced by farmers. They settled within a stone's throw of the old entrance way to the canal built by the great Lord Derick. Karl prudently required these Flemish settlers to surround their village with an earthen wall, which they built higher and with greater mass than requested. Lord Karl knew that their wall would not only defend the villages but, when embedded with cannons, would challenge access to the canal. The wall and the cannons could block a waterborne advance into the interior.

The other village was built near the boathouse by a very different group. These people were primarily well-to-do Dutch families and their servants who had fled the initial activities of the Blood Court in Brussels. Their ranks included a number of Jewish families driven off by the intolerant climate created by the Spanish occupiers. The heads of these families, both Christians and Jews, were mainly wealthy entrepreneurs, involved in trade and finance. Many had acquired great wealth and wanted to make the Droger Land their permanent home. The community later attracted a sprinkling of refugee artists and intellectuals, mainly from Antwerp and Ghent. These men of the arts considered the Droger Land a temporary haven from oppression. Lord Karl placed two preconditions on these new residents. They were told to build a formidable stone wall around their entire settlement. He also asked them to fund the construction of a number of redoubts along the shoreline of Lake Derick. Having lived through the horrors of Spanish occupation they readily complied. The walls and small fortifications were completed with little delay.

Yet Lord Karl's greatest contribution to the coming conflict was that he prepared the people militarily for the struggle ahead. For the previous ten years, he stringently enforced the requirement that all male residents develop a skill with an individual weapon, and Karl's preference was firearms. The men in the town and villages were well armed with pistols and muskets. He formed these men into militia units capable of defending their homes. Farmers and others with access to horses were formed into mounted units. They became detachments of cavalrymen or mounted musketeers, depending on the quality of their mounts and weaponry of their riders. There was no class or religious distinctions in these units; the wealthiest Calvinist merchant might very well ride beside a lowly Catholic bargeman who owned a good horse. Karl knew his older brother Clifford could turn these separate militias and mounted units into an army. Karl also built powder magazines throughout the realm and filled each to capacity with ball and shot. He wanted his brother to have sufficient munitions on hand if his army went to war. While Karl prepared the land and the people for war, the most difficult task would fall to his brother. He must now lead them to victory for nothing less than the survival of the Duchy was at stake.

The Baron and his son arrived in darkness, leaving the barge near the Keep and making their way on horseback to the castle. Long hooded cloaks hid their uniforms and their identities; giving the few residents they met little anxiety over the return of the Great Lord and his son. Of course, there would have been no ambivalence in welcoming home Jon van Weir, for even the newer residents remembered the brave and personable young man, who the citizens believed a protégé of his enlightened uncle rather than his aloof father. Even most Calvinists liked the idea that Jon had demonstrated an independent spirit by choosing his own wife and all took pride in his heroic voyage to Italy. They would have given the young lord a warm reception, but by sunrise, Jon, accompanied by Gypsy guides was already on his way to reconnoiter the activities of the enemy in the Great Swamp.

The Baron secluded himself in the castle scanning maps and meeting privately with local leaders. The embargo on Dutch ports had reduced the supply of available Baltic grain which made the pending domestic grain crop more important, for it might be needed to feed the army he assembled. The Lord of the Droger Land issued a proclamation announcing his return. Attached were two commands to his people. The first ordered all citizens to put aside other duties and assist the farmers in collecting the grain harvest; the second set the second Monday in November as the date for “Gathering” on the common green. That part of the proclamation required every able bodied man or boy to congregate at first light, with whatever weapons they possessed, for the defense of the homeland.

He shared with his magistrates and the leaders of different military units a part of his plan to defend the homeland. The strategy called for guerrilla tactics to delay the enemy's early advance in the swamp. He hoped to maul the invaders as they built their roadways by battering the enemy columns before they reached Lake Derick, where a surprise would await them. The Baron told his leaders that he planned to attack the invaders with two fleets of gunboats. The old fleet would be refitted and rearmed with more powerful swivels while a new and larger fleet, armed with cannons, was already being constructed in Rotterdam. He hoped the gunboats would decimate the enemy as they reached the shores of the lake, but was careful to emphasize that such tactics by themselves would not bring an ultimate victory. The invaders were numerous and might be able to ignore such causalities. However he hoped the tactics would split the enemy's forces, allowing the main army to deal with the different parts separately. He told them it would take a series of battles to defeat such a formidable enemy. He reminded them that when (not if) the enemy reached the shores of the mainland, they must be pushed back into the lake.

A few days later, the Baron Clifford Van Weir, riding an innocuous bay mare and wearing a cloak to hide his identity, began a tour of the Droger Land's defenses. His first stop was an obscure fortification known as the First Fort. It was one of the original stone Roman watchtowers built by the first patriarch and later enclosed by a stone wall. It had once stood on the most eastern tip of the Droger Land where the salt water marsh and the fresh water swamp met and blended into each other. It was now situated more than a mile inland as land was reclaimed from the wetlands. The ground was a dark rich soil that was collected from the bottom of Lake Derick when it was swampland. The area was an important agricultural region and grew the hardiest cool weather crop: turnips.

The Baron was met at the fort by an old friend who commanded the mere sergeant's guard that garrisoned the place. “Old Andries” was the second son of a tenant farmer and became one of the Duchy's bravest men-at-arms. He had first gone to war against the French with Lord Willem and had fought at the Baron's side opposing the Spanish until an injury made mounting a horse impossible. The Baron knew him as a man of limited words with contempt for exaggeration. He was surprised when his old comrade began to babble, “Lord Clifford, I knew you would come! I knew you knew! It's made for cavalry and will bear the weight of cannons. They will come this way my Lord. They will come this way!” The Baron put a finger to his lips to quiet Old Andries, and placed an arm on the old soldier's shoulder, nudging him toward the stairway that led up the ancient tower. Once on top, Old Andries pointed toward the mile of turnip fields and told the Baron to glimpse at what divided those fields. Excitedly he muttered, “It's not a swale; it's a Roman road.” They were looking at a slight indenture in the reclaimed landscape. It was built naturally by excessive rain from the adjacent fields draining back to the wetlands. Over time the soil had washed away leaving a bed of gravel. The Baron saw farmers harvesting the latest crop of turnips and noticed they parked their heavy farm wagons three abreast on the solid gravel of the swale. Old Andries reminded the Baron that the surrounding wetlands were the first to freeze in winter, long before the areas around the lake became ice. He also reminded the Baron that this part of the swamp had hidden footpaths that sometimes allowed men fleeing sheriffs to escape to Germany. The Baron didn't need to be told that such men would show the Spanish engineers the best route to bridge a return. A little later, with a local youth as a guide, the Baron did what his son had done three days earlier; he too faded into the swamp. In five day he emerged and immediately rode to the Keep before returning to the castle. He ordered its commander to see to it personally that all but one of the Keep's cannons was moved to the First Fortification. Upon reaching the castle, he conferred with his brother. Karl ordered the castle's cannons dismantled and sent to the Flemish village. He also had the few pieces of field artillery, stored in the armory, moved to the other village. After some food and more sober conversation with his brother, the Baron retired for some needed rest.

Jon returned a few days later and the atmosphere within the castle's walls became tenser. He had spied upon some of the Germanic forces approaching, and estimated their numbers at over four thousand infantrymen under two separate commanders. A captured prisoner told him that each column was ordered to bridge the swampland by mid-November. The Baron relentlessly questioned his son about what he had specifically witnessed. He repeatedly asked Jon about the presence of cavalry or siege guns until it became annoying. He had Jon repeat exactly what the captive told him about the commanders. Prince Otto Von Werner commanded one force. He was a Catholic prince from Thuringia with strong family ties to the Spanish king. His forces consisted of inexperienced but loyal Catholic conscripts. They were well armed and led in the field by seasoned mercenary officers. The prisoner said that Von Werner, his noble staff and common soldiers had never been to war; their only combat experience was skirmishing against rebellious peasants in Thuringia. According to the captive, the second column and its commander were more formidable. He was he Count Victor Alschultz of Bavaria, who fought for both France and Spain in Italy and was now in the pay of King Philip. He became a mercenary commander because his ancestors foolishly sold the municipal taxing rights within his principality. He used Parma's money to recruit his soldiers. Though less equipped than Werner's men, his troops were more disciplined and making better progress on their roadway. Jon saw long columns of carts and wagons carrying food, supplies, and small boats parked on the finished sections of Alschultz's road. He had also observed a few batteries of light field artillery.

Jon's observations and the captive's account confirmed the Baron's own reconnaissance. He thought the greatest threat would come from the column he discovered. That force was building a much more substantial roadway toward the eastern tip of the mainland. The Baron wondered who Count Parma had entrusted to command this force which he suspected included the missing siege guns and cavalry.