USA > New York > New York County > Harlem > Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origin and Early Annals. : Prefaced by Home Scenes in the Fatherlands; Or Notices of Its Founders Before Emigration. Also, Sketches of Numerous Families, and the Recovered History of the Land-titles > Part 5
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
et celebar," says a learned monk of 1655,-"a very handsome and celebrated town."
Many things at Avesnes, surviving its partial ruin by Louis XI., in 1477, still wore both a militant and a religious aspect. The remains of the old feudal castle, hoary with age; the smithy of the armorer, whose forge and skill could fit you a trusty blade or battle-axe, a helmet or a coat of mail; the significant sign-board, on which the. Walloon youth, ambitious of arms, read in rouche francais, his own rude patois, "Sword and Halberd Taught Here." It had its sacred crosses, its religious houses, and its collegiate church, or cathedral, already named, the latter en- dowed in 1534 with a chapter,-or dean, provost, and dozen canons,-through the benevolence and piety of the Lady of Avesnes, Louise l'Albret, widow of its former proprietor, Lord de Croy. Here were convents of the Franciscans, both of monks and nuns, mendicants whose austere life and vow of poverty gave them great favor with the people; and here also was a congre- gation seculiere, or society of Beguines, a less strict order, com- posed of worthy matrons passing their waning years in partial seclusion from the world, in teaching the young, and in works of charity. Devout indeed were its people, Catholics of a loyal type, as was apparent from the number and reputed wealth of the clergy, and the many abbeys and chapters supported by the country at large, from which their superior, the ducal arch- bishop of Cambray, drew a liberal stipend.
Traces of a former vassalage were yet visible among this people; but the innumerable wars that had marked their history had served to foster the martial spirit and love of liberty derived from their ancestors. Yet how cramped the ideas of liberty among a people so intolerant of opinions opposed to the teach- ings of the church, so submissive to lords and masters not. of their own choosing, but holding by inheritance, or marriage, or even by purchase! But now they were drawn to worthier pur- suits than the shedding of blood,-to productive industry; and mainly to those solid and useful branches of labor, in a degree peculiar to the Hainaulters, and well suited to develop their large and sinewy frames, and to form the positive characteristics the Walloons possessed. They wrought in timber, iron, and stone, and the fine, white sculptor's marble found in their quarries. Others worked the collieries, tanneries and potteries scattered over the district, or in mills for expressing vegetable oils from flax and rape seed and beech mast. The abundant forests sup- plied building timber, firewood and charcoal for a large traffic.
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The pastures nourished some flocks and herds. Sheep-rearing and flax-growing bave activity to the woolen and linen workers, whose looms or spinning-wheels in their accustomed niches in the owners' dwellings rarely ceased their hum or clatter in work- ing hours.
The well-preserved annals of Avesnes gave witness to the warlike proclivities of its feudal lords, around whom, as its cen- tre and soul, all its history clustered. Their brilliant exploits, rehearsed by admiring vassals, and transmitted down from age to age in legend and song,-what a stimulus to that courage and martial spirit to which we have alluded! A famous roll it was, of these lords and dames of eighteen generations, who had ruled Avesnes since Werric-with-the-Beard reared his castle there, and all of whom could boast his Belgic blood.
It told of bold Thierry, son of Werric, whose hache, or axe, subdued (and whence its name) the adjoining district, Thier- ache; of his nephew and successor, Goswin d'Oisy, proud cas- tellan of Cambray, who essayed to strengthen Avesnes and bid defiance to his liege lord of Hainault, only submitting after a fierce battle of three days on the banks of the Sambre; of the equally stern warrior, Gautier Plukellus, who had succeeded his uncle Goswin, and was slain, 1147, in an attack on the castle at Mons; also of his son Nicholas, who built the castle at Lan- drecy, and his son, Jacques d'Avesnes, "the most renowned, wealthy and daring knight of this country," and a famous cru- sader, who in 119I fell in battle in the Holy Land, fighting the Saracens under Saladin. Among the succeeding lords were two Hughs, counts of St. Paul, also Louis Count of Blois, who was slain at the disastrous battle of Cressy, whither he went to oppose the invading English, with his wife's father, the gallant Sir John de Hainault, whose fame is sung by Froissart. Sad the story which was related of a son of Louis, the brave and generous Guy,-one of the most affluent of the lords of Avesnes, -who, forced to sell his inheritance of Soissons to effect his release when a dreary captive in England, and, later, his earldom of Blois, to satisfy luxurious living, died in 1397, in comparative penury, at Avesnes; this estate passing to his cousin John of Brittany, son of the unlucky Charles of Blois, who, in famous contest to establish his right to Brittany, had lost both his duchy and his life at the battle of Auray. A granddaughter of John of Brittany, Frances, Dame or Lady of Avesnes, gave his estate, with her hand, to Allan d'Albret, one of the most puissant nobles of France, and after her death the unsuccessful suitor of the
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
much-wooed duchess, Anne of Brittany, subsequently the wife of two kings. It was Louise, Lady of Avesnes, Lord Alain's daughter, who, in 1495, by wedding Charles de Croy, Prince of Chimay, placed the Land of Avesnes in possession of the Croys. The latter was an old Picard family; but when Picardy was under Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Jean de Croy, grandsire of Charles, attached himself to that potent duke, who made him a knight of the Golden Fleece, when he first instituted that order at Bruges, in 1430. Charles took his title from the estate of Chimay, to which he fell heir, in 1482, on the death of his father Philip, and which was erected into a principality four years later by the Emperor Maximilian, whose son Philip, King of Spain, con- ferred on the new prince the additional honors of the Golden Fleece. It was a singular pride,-a result of their training under the feudal relation,-felt by the subjects in such marks of distinc- tion bestowed on their chief; and how often told and retold as household stories. And further, that the prince had held the infant Charles V. at the baptismal font, and given him his name, and subsequently received from that emperor and king a costly hel- met, wrought in silver and gold; and how after him his family enjoyed substantial proofs of that monarch's favor. Frances, Lady of Avesnes, eldest daughter and heiress of the prince, marrying her kinsman, Philip de Croy,-for their parents were cousins,-the latter took the estates on the death of his father- in-law, in 1527, the next year further securing the land of Aves- nes to his house by a release obtained from Henry d'Albert, King of Navarre, cousin to his wife, and grandfather of Henry IV. of France.
Since Avesnes fell to the house of Croy, no less than five wars between France and Spain had successively convulsed these exposed borders. In the earlier of these contests, Philip de Croy, now Prince of Chimay and Knight of the Fleece, rendered impor- tant service with his Walloon troop; and Charles V., in 1533. showed his love for his "nephew" by giving him the title of Duke of Arschot, from an estate he held in Brahant. In the destructive war of 1543, armies of Francis I. overran this part of Hainault, holding Landrecy against a siege of six months, conducted by Charles in person: but peace ensuing the next year, France restored to Spain its several conquests. Soon after this Landrecy was detached from Avesnes, and ceded to the crown by the Duke of Arschot, who meanwhile had been created a grandee of Spain. After his decease, in 1549, leaving his heirs such rich possessions and dignities, the family of Croy became
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
"of greatest revenue and authority of any in Belgium." Philip, second duke, now enjoying his father's titles and estates, includ- ing Avesnes, had great influence in governmental affairs, as had also his brother, Charles Croy, Marquis of Havre, in Hainault; in which province their no less proud and aspiring cousins, the Counts Lalain, seemed born to the gubernatoral seat. Great destinies were in the grasp of this influential family. Time was to eliminate, as one of the results, an humble transatlantic enter- prise, to which some of their born subjects were to contribute.
Hainault was to have its share in that bloody struggle with despotism which rent the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. Spain now ruled these provinces as with a rod of iron. This policy began with Charles V., and culminated under his son, Philip II. One oppressive measure after another, subversive of their civil rights, had reduced the inhabitants to a subjection well-nigh absolute.
The religious reform which was rife in France and Germany had also spread through the Netherlands, but met with deadly opposition from the ruling powers, civil and ecclesiastical, being subjected to every cruel means for its suppression that these could exert, among which was the infamous system of espionage and torture known as the Spanish Inquisition. The Walloons were of all others most inveterate in their religious attachments ; but being essentially French, and living in close proximity to France, the Calvinistic views had found early entrance among them and made many warm adherents. As a people, their loyalty to the crown had been much shaken by the grave inroads upon their ancient rights and form of government. The Walloon, ever impatient of subjection,-whence the boastful proverb, that "Hainault is subject only to God and the sun,"-beheld with the utmost jealousy his country brought under the dominion of foreign tyrants, every part of it swarming with Spanish soldiers, whose presence and arrogance so spirited a people could ill brook; while the vile Inquisition, thrust upon them and work- ing dismay and death among those indulging the new doctrines, was repulsive and terrible, even to many of the Catholics them- selves.
At Avesnes, which since the year 1559 had had a Spanish garrison, the new religion found no toleration ; yet, nevertheless, some of its worthy people, members of its old De Forest family included, had embraced the new faith, though this exposed them to imminent peril; for woe to him who dared avow that heresy or quit the old church.
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
Beyond the Sambre, within the borders of the Cambresis, was the handsome forest of Mourmal, consisting of heights covered with oaks. With a breadth of six miles it stretched northward as many leagues, from the bounds of Vermandois in Picardy, to near Bavay, the ancient capital of the Nervii. At its western edge, on the Selle, an effluent of the Scheldt, five leagues from Cambray and two west of Landrecy, stood the small city of Le Cateau, or The Castle, so called from its very old tower, built by Bishop Erluin. The Cambresis being a fief of the German empire, Le Cateau, through the favor of the em- perors, had long enjoyed immunities and privileges of which its citizens were justly proud.
For the space of some years many of its good burghers and their families had talked together freely and earnestly about the Holy Scriptures; but with great secrecy, fearing persecution, if it were known to any not in sympathy with them. Unobserved, they made visits to the neighborhood of Bohain, a city up the Selle, in Vermandois, to hear the evangelical preaching; also to Tupigny, in Thierache, and even as far as Crespy, near Laon, and Chauny, on the Oise; only to return with stronger faith in the gospel plan as found in the Scriptures, and utterly dis- satisfied with their old belief. The new doctrines thus spread quietly but surely, and the whole town was leavened with them.
So it stood when Archbishop De Berghes, who was lord temporal as well as spiritual of the Cambresis, in order to check the growing disaffection of the church, fulminated an edict against the practice of attending the so-called Reformed preach- ing, reading heretical books, or chanting the psalms of Marot and Beza. To this little regard was paid, and two years passed by. Then it was repeated, and its execution enjoined upon all magistrates. A case was soon found. Certain burghers, who with their wives and children had attended the preaching of Rev. Pincheart, at Honnechy, a village south of Le Cateau, near Premont, on the line of Picardy, were tried and sentenced to be banished. This, and other attacks by the archbishop's officers upon the rights of the people of Le Cateau, led to popular meet- ings and strong remonstrances on the part of the latter. The numbers of the Reformed meanwhile had rapidly increased, and Rev. Philippe, minister of the church of Tupigny, by invitation preached for them many times in the faubourgs of the city, and organized a church, with a consistory of ten members. On August 18th; 1566, a deputation from the archbishop visited the town, and held grand mass in the Church of St. Martin, when
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Dr. Gemelli harangued the people, threatening them, should they not at once return to the Roman Church and make peace with the archbishop, with a ruin as dire as that which over- whelmed Jerusalem. Then a conference was held in the town- hall; but the appeals of the learned doctor fell powerless upon men who valued God's truth more than an archbishop's favor. Two days after this, the Dean of Avesnes, anxious for some of his own flock who had left his fold, visited Le Cateau on his return from an interview with the archbishop, and reiterated in the ears of the burghers what dangers hung over them all, the good with the evil; but to all his arguments they gave so brave a response from the Scriptures that he accomplished nothing.
In the midst of many trials of patience, from the repeated interference of the castellan and magistrates with the exercise of their religion, the news reached Le Cateau August 25th, from Valenciennes, a large Walloon town fifteen miles northward, that the people there had cast out all the images, relics, and other symbols of Romanism from their churches, and that the same had also been done in many other cities. This startling intelligence brought together that evening a large concourse of people, with torches, in the cemetery of St. Martin, to discuss this new condition of affairs. Very early the next morning Rev. Philippe arrived, and meeting with the consistory at the house of Claude Raverdy, it was resolved, after discussion, to follow the example of those of Valenciennes, and clear the churches of the objects deemed offensive, beginning at St. Martin's. So to St. Martin's they went, Philippe and a few others, pulled down the images and altars, and burnt them, with all their ornaments, and the missals, anthem books and others relating to the mass; the like being done in all the other churches, both in the city and faubourgs. This ebullition of iconoclastic zeal has been much condemned; but if the Reformed, where largely in the majority, as at Le Cateau, claimed the right to order their worship as best pleased them, who may question it?
After this work of expurgation, a large number of the citi- zens gathered in the Church of St. Martin to hear a sermon from Rev. Philippe; many others also from the neighboring villages being present, who had come to the grain market. He also baptized three infants, and in the afternoon another.
Though the citizens, Reformed and Catholics, had wisely agreed not to harm each other on account of religion, the suc- ceeding months were those of great public excitement. Two
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
Huguenots being held prisoners in the neighboring village of Troisville by the castellan and echevins of Le Cateau, David Du Four and others went with arms and liberated them. These magistrates, finding themselves powerless, retired to Cambray, leaving the field to the Reformed. The latter chose new muni- cipal officers, and put the city in a better state of defense. Pas- tor Philippe continued his services at St. Martin's. Three couples were joined in marriage December 15th, one of the brides being the daughter of Jean De Forest, then living at Le Cateau. On Christmas the church, to their joy, celebrated the Lord's Supper in the city; whereas hitherto they had gone to Valenciennes, or to Premont or Tupigny, and even as far as St. Quentin and Laon.
The next spring, a terrible stroke, planned by the archbishop, fell upon Le Cateau. On March 24th, 1567, two hundred cava- liers, led by the noted Count of Mansfield, soon after made Governor of Avesnes, surrounded the city. The gates being secured, the people made a good defense from the ramparts, pastor Philippe going from gate to gate to encourage them. But an entrance being gained through treachery, the city was taken. Philippe and his deacon were the first victims: the one, after a cruel beating, was hung; the other, beheaded. The pastor's wife was subjected to gross treatment. Many execu- tions followed during the ensuing month. One was that of David Du Four, before named. He was a tailor at Le Cateau, and only twenty-two years of age. But on his examination he with firmness declared that "he paid more regard to his salva- tion and to God, than to men." He and four others were hung, on April 9th. The Reformed who saved their lives were now in great affliction. An oath of fidelity to the archbishop and the Roman Church being imposed on the citizens, such as could not take it were expelled from the city. The Reformed Church, if it survived there, existed only in secret.
Hope was awakened the following year. The persecutions under the royal governor, the bloody Duke of Alva, had become so insufferable that, in 1568, the more northerly provinces broke out in revolt, and took up arms under the lead of that noble patriot, William of Orange. Fortune at first did not favor, and the prince, with a depleted but heroic band, concluded to join the Huguenot army in France. Passing Le Cateau, he "ob- tained a slight and easy victory" over the Spaniards at that place. But the city being well defended by the archbishop's soldiers, and Alva pressing hard on his rear, the great patriot,
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whose triumph yet lay in the future, was constrained to pass on.
.
Brighter were the prospects when, eight years later, the Walloons struck for their liberties. Unable longer to bear the outrages heaped upon them, these at length appealed to arms, joining the Flemings and Hollanders in the effort to drive the Spaniards from the country; for which a formal league was made at Ghent, November 8th, 1576. Sustained by "almost all the nobility of Hainault and Artois," the Walloon people, Catholic and Reformed, joined heartily in the common cause. With the latter class, now numerous, especially in the cities and towns on and near the Scheldt, this struggle was of highest im- port, not only appealing to their patriotism, but holding out the promise of religious toleration in case victory crowned their arms. But this gleam of hope, bright as a passing meteor, was equally transient. The struggle was maintained but two short years, when the Walloon leaders, cajoled by royal emissaries, and ex- cited to jealousy of their compatriots, the Dutch, first refused to contribute further of men or means; then renounced the con- federacy, and privately formed a separate league, January 6th, 1579, in which Walloon Flanders, Artois, and Hainault uniting, promised to stand by the king and adhere to holy church. In a reconciliation with the king, and renewal of their allegiance which followed on September 4th ensuing, the heads of the provinces aforesaid pledged themselves to extirpate hersy.
Thus a death-blow was given to Walloon liberty, while the Spanish cause secured the active support of the Catholic Wal- loons, both nobles and people; turning their weapons against their deserted friends, the Hollanders and Flemings, in their life and death struggle. Indeed, the king found no readier recruits nor better soldiers than the Walloons; "a people," says a contem- porary writer, "taking delight in war, and whom the Spaniards might safely make use of in all dangers."
As a sequence, Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, and other prov- inces, by a union published at Utrecht, January 29th, 1579, formed the free republic known as the Seven United Provinces; achieving their independence after a long and obstinate struggle. But the remaining Netherlands, part unwilling, part unable to shake off their fetters, relapsed into a more servile bondage to Spain and the Papacy. By the king's great clemency, the Prot- estant Walloons were allowed two years in which either to return to the bosom of the church or leave the country. Shut up to this alternative, thousands sought safety in exile.
Arschot, and the Croys and Lalains, all deeply implicated in
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the late revolt against the Spaniards, whom at heart they de- voutly hated, were yet among the most active in promoting the submission of 1579; and now the Spanish cause had nowhere more zealous partisans. And they were pledged to root out the new religion, toward which they had only waxed more bitter since their cousin Antoine de Croy had embraced it and attached himself to the fortunes of Admiral Coligny; and another kins- man, William Robert, Prince of Sedan, had generously opened his gates to their persecuted and fleeing subjects, with whose faith and trials he was in sympathy. How opposite a character the Duke of Arschot, the ambitious, selfish courtier, whose frown was to be dreaded by the Huguenots, more especially those who, living on his own domains, were directly subject to his imperious will !
In the keeping of such were the destinies of Avesnes. The region round had indeed felt the blighting effects of the late war. It was invaded in the spring of 1578 by Don John, Alva's successor, who, advancing from eastward up the valley of the Sambre with his destroying army, captured the chief places in revolt, as far as Berlaimont, eight miles northwest of Avesnes, with many small towns "commodious for quartering the army ;" then again moving eastward, he took Beaumont, a seat of the Duke of Arschot, six miles south of the Sambre; also Chimay, in which was the young prince, the duke's son, and his troop of horse, these, by courtesy, being allowed to march out with their carbines, Then storming Philipville, the Don departed, leaving his general, Gonzaga, with horse and infantry, to guard these frontiers,-a duty he well performed, dispersing several par- ties from France coming to the aid of the Belgian patriots, while he also scoured and wasted the country to the very corn-crops in the field.
But this was as nothing to a people inured to the chances of war, or the general impoverishment to which they were now re- duced, while there was hope of deliverance. But upon the igno- minious submission of the Walloon nobles to the Spanish yoke,- with the crushing blow thus given to the cause of patriotism and religious liberty ; and the successes of the Spanish arms in the Cambresis, which reduced the few places still held by the mal- contents, to whom no mercy was shown,-the Reformed realized their desperate situation, and hastened to act upon the proffered alternative, abjuration or flight!
Deeply involved in these trying scenes were some of the De Forests already noticed, and of whom much remains to be said.
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HISTORY OF HARLEM.
The family, judging from its numbers, had been some time settled at Avesnes, where members of it still resided many years later. So much is well attested, though there is no redundance of details. Of Avesnes we have drawn the sketch as it had been and now was; the little world beyond which, probably, they they had never far roamed, till forced to it by the untoward cir- cumstances here related. Past are those blithe and budding years, spent in childish gambols along its rippling streams and through its oaken groves; or in listening to those winning tales of olden times about the lordly tenants of the castle,-whose gray, dilapi- dated walls still linked so closely the present with the past, till its martial annals were as household words. Maturer life, with its stern realities, has also brought more tender attach- ments and domestic cheer, as Heaven's kind gifts, and the fruits of arduous but welcome toil,-and which, despite life's corroding cares, have multiplied the ties of home, kindred and friend- ships, which now can grow neither stronger nor dearer. But what a change in the times and in our family's prospects? They have heard, have embraced those soul-saving truths, revealed, as they believe, from heaven; and, leaving the confessional and the mass,-altars at which they had so blindly knelt,-have cast in their lot with the devout but despised Huguenots. Their kindred adhering only more closely to the old church, caused a wide breech : and would it were only in sentiment! Dangers surround the Huguenot portion, and the safety of themselves and little ones of tender years depends upon an immediate flight. In the face of grave difficulties they have renounced the altars and faith of their fathers ; and what heart-struggles it had cost them none may realize but those who are led to relinquish a belief in which they have been trained and educated from youth to manhood. Now they lack not courage to accept the issue, to follow the utmost mandate of duty. though home endearments must give place to a painful exile. Noble proof of their faith and piety!
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