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MARNIX, PHILIPS VAN.

Early Career (§ 1).
Diplomat and Soldier (§ 2).
Theological Position and Bible Translation (§ 4).
Decline of Power (§ 3).
Other works (§ 5).

1. Early Career

Philips van Marnix, Baron Sainte-Aldegonde, renowned as a Dutch Protestant theologian and statesman, was born at Brussels in 1538 and died at Leyden Dec. 15, 1598. After receiving a thor ough education, he resided for a time in Geneva, where he formed a friendship with Calvin and Beza. Returning to his native country between 1560 and 1562, he lived for a time in retirement, from which he was summoned to the struggle to free the Neth erlands from Rome and Spain. Here his first activity was the preparation of the "Compromise" by which the Dutch nobles pledged themselves to resist the introduction of the Inquisition, while the petition to the Regent Margaret of Parma (Apr. 5, 1566) on the same subject was also written by him. He defended the iconoclastic riots in Antwerp in Aug., 1566, in his Van de beelden afgheworpen in de Nederlanden in Augusto 1666 and Vraye narration et apologie des ehoses passes au Pays-Bas. Before long he also took up arms in the cause of the Ref ormation, but, with his brother and Brederode, was repulsed at Austruweel (Mar. 13, 1567) in an attempt to raise the siege of Valenciennes, and fled successively to Breda and Germany. He was ban ished by the "Council of Blood," Aug. 17, 1568, and his estates were confiscated; but in this exile he became the life-long friend of William the Si lent, in whose honor he wrote late in 1568 or early in 1569 the famous "William's Lay," a poem which is still a favorite folk-song in Holland. Meanwhile he had entered the service of the Reformed elector palatine, Frederick III., and at Heidelberg he wrote on Christology and the Eucharist, besides composing his De bienkorf der heiligt roomsche

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kercke (Emden, 1569) and attending the convention at Wesel (Nov., 1568) and the synod at Emden (Oct. 4-14, 1571).

2. Diplomat and Soldier

Holland soon claimed the services of Marnix, whose principal political activity was exercised between 1572 and 1585. In the former year he was the plenipotentiary of William and secured the promise of the Estates to renew the war with Spain. On Nov. 4, 1573, however, he was him If captured by the Spaniards at Maaslandasluis. He was taken first to The Hague and then to Utrecht, where he was induced to make vain negotiations for peace. He was exchanged on Oct. 15, 1574, and from March to June of the following year he acted as William's deputy at the fruitless conferences at Breda. Holland and Zeeland declared themselves independent of Spain and offered the crown, under certain conditions, to Elizabeth of England, Marnix being the head of the embassy which remained in England from Christmas, 1575, to Apr., 1576, in a vain endeavor to persuade Elizabeth to become the sovereign of the Dutch. In the latter year, moreover, he was a leader in the "Pacification of Ghent." Don John of Austria, the Spanish viceroy, who carried through the "Eternal Treaty" (Feb. 17, 1577), recognizing in Marnix a dangerous enemy of Roman Catholicism, now unsuccessfully demanded his expulsion from Brussels. The Spanish attack on the citadel of Namur (July 24, 1577) roused the Dutch to a sense of their situation. Don John was retired from his office on Dec. 7, and three days later the second Brussels union was concluded for mutual protection and toleration. Marnix, as privy councilor after Dec. 29, 1577, first put down the revolts in Groningen and Artois, and, at the Diet of Worms (May 7, 1578), secured German neutrality in the Dutch struggle with Spain.

At this juncture, Marnix and William were attacked in an anonymous pamphlet, to which the former replied in his Response apologetique (see below, § 4) which is particularly interesting for its numerous details of his own life. After

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