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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Life of John of Barneveld, 1609-15, Entire
+#92 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
+
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+Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1609-15, Entire
+
+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4892]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 22, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1609-15 ***
+
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
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+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 92
+
+THE ENTIRE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD 1609-1615
+
+
+
+PREFACE:
+
+These volumes make a separate work in themselves.  They form also the
+natural sequel to the other histories already published by the Author,
+as well as the necessary introduction to that concluding portion of his
+labours which he has always desired to lay before the public; a History
+of the Thirty Years' War.
+
+For the two great wars which successively established the independence
+of Holland and the disintegration of Germany are in reality but one;
+a prolonged Tragedy of Eighty Years.  The brief pause, which in the
+Netherlands was known as the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain, was
+precisely the epoch in which the elements were slowly and certainly
+gathering for the renewal over nearly the whole surface of civilized
+Europe of that immense conflict which for more than forty years had been
+raging within the narrow precincts of the Netherlands.
+
+The causes and character of the two wars were essentially the same.
+There were many changes of persons and of scenery during a struggle which
+lasted for nearly three generations of mankind; yet a natural succession
+both of actors, motives, and events will be observed from the beginning
+to the close.
+
+The designs of Charles V. to establish universal monarchy, which he had
+passionately followed for a lifetime through a series of colossal crimes
+against humanity and of private misdeeds against individuals, such as it
+has rarely been permitted to a single despot to perpetrate, had been
+baffled at last.  Disappointed, broken, but even to our own generation
+never completely unveiled, the tyrant had withdrawn from the stage of
+human affairs, leaving his son to carry on the great conspiracy against
+Human Right, independence of nations, liberty of thought, and equality of
+religions, with the additional vigour which sprang from intensity of
+conviction.
+
+For Philip possessed at least that superiority over his father that he
+was a sincere bigot.  In the narrow and gloomy depths of his soul he had
+doubtless persuaded himself that it was necessary for the redemption of
+the human species that the empire of the world should be vested in his
+hands, that Protestantism in all its forms should be extirpated as a
+malignant disease, and that to behead, torture, burn alive, and bury
+alive all heretics who opposed the decree of himself and the Holy Church
+was the highest virtue by which he could merit Heaven.
+
+The father would have permitted Protestantism if Protestantism would have
+submitted to universal monarchy.  There would have been small difficulty
+in the early part of his reign in effecting a compromise between Rome and
+Augsburg, had the gigantic secular ambition of Charles not preferred to
+weaken the Church and to convert conscientious religious reform into
+political mutiny; a crime against him who claimed the sovereignty of
+Christendom.
+
+The materials for the true history of that reign lie in the Archives of
+Spain, Austria, Rome, Venice, and the Netherlands, and in many other
+places.  When out of them one day a complete and authentic narrative
+shall have been constructed, it will be seen how completely the policy of
+Charles foreshadowed and necessitated that of Philip, how logically,
+under the successors of Philip, the Austrian dream of universal empire
+ended in the shattering, in the minute subdivision, and the reduction to
+a long impotence of that Germanic Empire which had really belonged to
+Charles.
+
+Unfortunately the great Republic which, notwithstanding the aid of
+England on the one side and of France on the other, had withstood almost
+single-handed the onslaughts of Spain, now allowed the demon of religious
+hatred to enter into its body at the first epoch of peace, although it
+had successfully exorcised the evil spirit during the long and terrible
+war.
+
+There can be no doubt whatever that the discords within the interior of
+the Dutch Republic during the period of the Truce, and their tragic
+catastrophe, had weakened her purpose and partially paralysed her arm.
+When the noble Commonwealth went forward to the renewed and general
+conflict which succeeded the concentrated one in which it had been the
+chief actor, the effect of those misspent twelve years became apparent.
+
+Indeed the real continuity of the war was scarcely broken by the fitful,
+armistice.  The death of John of Cleve, an event almost simultaneous with
+the conclusion of the Truce, seemed to those gifted with political vision
+the necessary precursor of a new and more general war.
+
+The secret correspondence of Barneveld shows the almost prophetic
+accuracy with which he indicated the course of events and the approach of
+an almost universal conflict, while that tragedy was still in the future,
+and was to be enacted after he had been laid in his bloody grave.  No man
+then living was so accustomed as he was to sweep the political horizon,
+and to estimate the signs and portents of the times.  No statesman was
+left in Europe during the epoch of the Twelve Years' Truce to compare
+with him in experience, breadth of vision, political tact, or
+administrative sagacity.
+
+Imbued with the grand traditions and familiar with the great personages
+of a most heroic epoch; the trusted friend or respected counsellor of
+William the Silent, Henry IV., Elizabeth, and the sages and soldiers on
+whom they leaned; having been employed during an already long lifetime in
+the administration of greatest affairs, he stood alone after the deaths
+of Henry of France and the second Cecil, and the retirement of Sully,
+among the natural leaders of mankind.
+
+To the England of Elizabeth, of Walsingham, Raleigh, and the Cecils, had
+succeeded the Great Britain of James, with his Carrs and Carletons,
+Nauntons, Lakes, and Winwoods.  France, widowed of Henry and waiting for
+Richelieu, lay in the clutches of Concini's, Epernons, and Bouillons,
+bound hand and foot to Spain.  Germany, falling from Rudolph to Matthias,
+saw Styrian Ferdinand in the background ready to shatter the fabric of a
+hundred years of attempted Reformation.  In the Republic of the
+Netherlands were the great soldier and the only remaining statesman of
+the age.  At a moment when the breathing space had been agreed upon
+before the conflict should be renewed; on a wider field than ever,
+between Spanish-Austrian world-empire and independence of the nations;
+between the ancient and only Church and the spirit of religious Equality;
+between popular Right and royal and sacerdotal Despotism; it would have
+been desirable that the soldier and the statesman should stand side by
+side, and that the fortunate Confederacy, gifted with two such champions
+and placed by its own achievements at the very head of the great party of
+resistance, should be true to herself.
+
+These volumes contain a slight and rapid sketch of Barneveld's career up
+to the point at which the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain was signed in
+the year 1609.  In previous works the Author has attempted to assign the
+great Advocate's place as part and parcel of history during the
+continuance of the War for Independence.  During the period of the Truce
+he will be found the central figure.  The history of Europe, especially
+of the Netherlands, Britain, France, and Germany, cannot be thoroughly
+appreciated without a knowledge of the designs, the labours, and the fate
+of Barneveld.
+
+The materials for estimating his character and judging his judges lie in
+the national archives of the land of which he was so long the foremost
+citizen.  But they have not long been accessible.  The letters, state
+papers, and other documents remain unprinted, and have rarely been read.
+M. van Deventer has published three most interesting volumes of the
+Advocate's correspondence, but they reach only to the beginning of 1609.
+He has suspended his labours exactly at the moment when these volumes
+begin.  I have carefully studied however nearly the whole of that
+correspondence, besides a mass of other papers.  The labour is not light,
+for the handwriting of the great Advocate is perhaps the worst that ever
+existed, and the papers, although kept in the admirable order which
+distinguishes the Archives of the Hague, have passed through many hands
+at former epochs before reaching their natural destination in the
+treasure-house of the nation.  Especially the documents connected with
+the famous trial were for a long time hidden from mortal view, for
+Barneveld's judges had bound themselves by oath to bury the proceedings
+out of sight.  And the concealment lasted for centuries.  Very recently
+a small portion of those papers has been published by the Historical
+Society of Utrecht.  The "Verhooren," or Interrogatories of the Judges,
+and the replies of Barneveld, have thus been laid before the reading
+public of Holland, while within the last two years the distinguished and
+learned historian, Professor Fruin, has edited the "Verhooren" of Hugo
+Grotius.
+
+But papers like these, important as they are, make but a slender portion
+of the material out of which a judgment concerning these grave events can
+be constructed.  I do not therefore offer an apology for the somewhat
+copious extracts which I have translated and given in these volumes from
+the correspondence of Barneveld and from other manuscripts of great
+value--most of them in the Royal Archives of Holland and Belgium--which
+are unknown to the public.
+
+I have avoided as much as possible any dealings with the theological
+controversies so closely connected with the events which I have attempted
+to describe.  This work aims at being a political study.  The subject is
+full of lessons, examples, and warnings for the inhabitants of all free
+states.  Especially now that the republican system of government is
+undergoing a series of experiments with more or less success in one
+hemisphere--while in our own land it is consolidated, powerful, and
+unchallenged--will the conflicts between the spirits of national
+centralization and of provincial sovereignty, and the struggle between
+the church, the sword, and the magistracy for supremacy in a free
+commonwealth, as revealed in the first considerable republic of modern
+history, be found suggestive of deep reflection.
+
+Those who look in this work for a history of the Synod of Dordtrecht will
+look in vain.  The Author has neither wish nor power to grapple with the
+mysteries and passions which at that epoch possessed so many souls.  The
+Assembly marks a political period.  Its political aspects have been
+anxiously examined, but beyond the ecclesiastical threshold there has
+been no attempt to penetrate.
+
+It was necessary for my purpose to describe in some detail the relations
+of Henry IV. with the Dutch Republic during the last and most pregnant
+year of his life, which makes the first of the present history.  These
+relations are of European importance, and the materials for appreciating
+them are of unexpected richness, in the Dutch and Belgian Archives.
+
+Especially the secret correspondence, now at the Hague, of that very able
+diplomatist Francis Aerssens with Barneveld during the years 1609, 1610,
+and 1611, together with many papers at Brussels, are full of vital
+importance.
+
+They throw much light both on the vast designs which filled the brain of
+Henry at this fatal epoch and on his extraordinary infatuation for the
+young Princess of Conde by which they were traversed, and which was
+productive of such widespread political anal tragical results.  This
+episode forms a necessary portion of my theme, and has therefore been set
+forth from original sources.
+
+I am under renewed obligations to my friend M. Gachard, the eminent
+publicist and archivist of Belgium, for his constant and friendly offices
+to me (which I have so often experienced before), while studying the
+documents under his charge relating to this epoch; especially the secret
+correspondence of Archduke Albert with Philip III, and his ministers, and
+with Pecquius, the Archduke's agent at Paris.
+
+It is also a great pleasure to acknowledge the unceasing courtesy and
+zealous aid rendered me during my renewed studies in the Archives at the
+Hague--lasting through nearly two years--by the Chief Archivist, M. van
+den Berg, and the gentlemen connected with that institution, especially
+M. de Jonghe and M. Hingman, without whose aid it would have been
+difficult for me to decipher and to procure copies of the almost
+illegible holographs of Barneveld.
+
+I must also thank M. van Deventer for communicating copies of some
+curious manuscripts relating to my subject, some from private archives in
+Holland, and others from those of Simancas.
+
+A single word only remains to be said in regard to the name of the
+statesman whose career I have undertaken to describe.
+
+His proper appellation and that by which he has always been known in his
+own country is Oldenbarneveld, but in his lifetime and always in history
+from that time to this he has been called Barneveld in English as well as
+French, and this transformation, as it were, of the name has become so
+settled a matter that after some hesitation it has been adopted in the
+present work.
+
+The Author would take this opportunity of expressing his gratitude for
+the indulgence with which his former attempts to illustrate an important
+period of European history have been received by the public, and his
+anxious hope that the present volumes may be thought worthy of attention.
+They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour at the
+original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and
+difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and
+unravel is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt has been
+made.
+
+LONDON, 1873.
+
+
+
+The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v1, 1609
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     John of Barneveld the Founder of the Commonwealth of the United
+     Provinces--Maurice of Orange Stadholder, but Servant to the States-
+     General--The Union of Utrecht maintained--Barneveld makes a
+     Compromise between Civil Functionaries and Church Officials--
+     Embassies to France, England, and to Venice--the Appointment of
+     Arminius to be Professor of Theology at Leyden creates Dissension--
+     The Catholic League opposed by the Great Protestant Union--Death of
+     the Duke of Cleve and Struggle for his Succession--The Elector of
+     Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg hold the Duchies at Barneveld's
+     Advice against the Emperor, though having Rival Claims themselves--
+     Negotiations with the King of France--He becomes the Ally of the
+     States-General to Protect the Possessory Princes, and prepares for
+     war.
+
+I propose to retrace the history of a great statesman's career.  That
+statesman's name, but for the dark and tragic scenes with which it was
+ultimately associated, might after the lapse of two centuries and a half
+have faded into comparative oblivion, so impersonal and shadowy his
+presence would have seemed upon the great European theatre where he was
+so long a chief actor, and where his efforts and his achievements were
+foremost among those productive of long enduring and widespread results.
+
+There is no doubt whatever that John of Barneveld, Advocate and Seal
+Keeper of the little province of Holland during forty years of as
+troubled and fertile an epoch as any in human history, was second to none
+of his contemporary statesmen.  Yet the singular constitution and
+historical position of the republic whose destinies he guided and the
+peculiar and abnormal office which he held combined to cast a veil over
+his individuality.  The ever-teeming brain, the restless almost
+omnipresent hand, the fertile pen, the eloquent and ready tongue, were
+seen, heard, and obeyed by the great European public, by the monarchs,
+statesmen, and warriors of the time, at many critical moments of history,
+but it was not John of Barneveld that spoke to the world.  Those "high
+and puissant Lords my masters the States-General" personified the young
+but already majestic republic.  Dignified, draped, and concealed by that
+overshadowing title the informing and master spirit performed its never
+ending task.
+
+Those who study the enormous masses of original papers in the archives of
+the country will be amazed to find how the penmanship, most difficult to
+decipher, of the Advocate meets them at every turn.  Letters to monarchs,
+generals, ambassadors, resolutions of councils, of sovereign assemblies,
+of trading corporations, of great Indian companies, legal and historical
+disquisitions of great depth and length on questions agitating Europe,
+constitutional arguments, drafts of treaties among the leading powers of
+the world, instructions to great commissions, plans for European
+campaigns, vast combinations covering the world, alliances of empire,
+scientific expeditions and discoveries--papers such as these covered now
+with the satirical dust of centuries, written in the small, crabbed,
+exasperating characters which make Barneveld's handwriting almost
+cryptographic, were once, when fairly engrossed and sealed with the great
+seal of the haughty burgher-aristocracy, the documents which occupied the
+close attention of the cabinets of Christendom.
+
+It is not unfrequent to find four or five important despatches compressed
+almost in miniature upon one sheet of gigantic foolscap.  It is also
+curious to find each one of these rough drafts conscientiously beginning
+in the statesman's own hand with the elaborate phrases of compliment
+belonging to the epoch such as "Noble, strenuous, severe, highly
+honourable, very learned, very discreet, and very wise masters," and
+ending with "May the Lord God Almighty eternally preserve you and hold
+you in His holy keeping in this world and for ever"--decorations which
+one might have thought it safe to leave to be filled in by the secretary
+or copying clerk.
+
+Thus there have been few men at any period whose lives have been more
+closely identical than his with a national history.  There have been few
+great men in any history whose names have become less familiar to the
+world, and lived less in the mouths of posterity.  Yet there can be no
+doubt that if William the Silent was the founder of the independence of
+the United Provinces Barneveld was the founder of the Commonwealth
+itself.  He had never the opportunity, perhaps he might have never had
+the capacity, to make such prodigious sacrifices in the cause of country
+as the great prince had done.  But he had served his country strenuously
+from youth to old age with an abiding sense of duty, a steadiness of
+purpose, a broad vision, a firm grasp, and an opulence of resource such
+as not one of his compatriots could even pretend to rival.
+
+Had that country of which he was so long the first citizen maintained
+until our own day the same proportionate position among the empires of
+Christendom as it held in the seventeenth century, the name of John of
+Barneveld would have perhaps been as familiar to all men as it is at this
+moment to nearly every inhabitant of the Netherlands.  Even now political
+passion is almost as ready to flame forth either in ardent affection or
+enthusiastic hatred as if two centuries and a half had not elapsed since
+his death.  His name is so typical of a party, a polity, and a faith, so
+indelibly associated with a great historical cataclysm, as to render it
+difficult even for the grave, the conscientious, the learned, the
+patriotic of his own compatriots to speak of him with absolute
+impartiality.
+
+A foreigner who loves and admires all that is great and noble in the
+history of that famous republic and can have no hereditary bias as to its
+ecclesiastical or political theories may at least attempt the task with
+comparative coldness, although conscious of inability to do thorough
+justice to a most complex subject.
+
+In former publications devoted to Netherland history I have endeavoured
+to trace the course of events of which the life and works of the Advocate
+were a vital ingredient down to the period when Spain after more than
+forty years of hard fighting virtually acknowledged the independence of
+the Republic and concluded with her a truce of twelve years.
+
+That convention was signed in the spring of 1609.  The ten ensuing years
+in Europe were comparatively tranquil, but they were scarcely to be
+numbered among the full and fruitful sheaves of a pacific epoch.  It was
+a pause, a breathing spell during which the sulphurous clouds which had
+made the atmosphere of Christendom poisonous for nearly half a century
+had sullenly rolled away, while at every point of the horizon they were
+seen massing themselves anew in portentous and ever accumulating
+strength.  At any moment the faint and sickly sunshine in which poor
+exhausted Humanity was essaying a feeble twitter of hope as it plumed
+itself for a peaceful flight might be again obscured.  To us of a remote
+posterity the momentary division of epochs seems hardly discernible.  So
+rapidly did that fight of Demons which we call the Thirty Years' War
+tread on the heels of the forty years' struggle for Dutch Independence
+which had just been suspended that we are accustomed to think and speak
+of the Eighty Years' War as one pure, perfect, sanguinary whole.
+
+And indeed the Tragedy which was soon to sweep solemnly across Europe was
+foreshadowed in the first fitful years of peace.  The throb of the
+elementary forces already shook the soil of Christendom.  The fantastic
+but most significant conflict in the territories of the dead Duke of
+Clove reflected the distant and gigantic war as in a mirage.  It will be
+necessary to direct the reader's attention at the proper moment to that
+episode, for it was one in which the beneficent sagacity of Barneveld was
+conspicuously exerted in the cause of peace and conservation.  Meantime
+it is not agreeable to reflect that this brief period of nominal and
+armed peace which the Republic had conquered after nearly two generations
+of warfare was employed by her in tearing her own flesh.  The heroic
+sword which had achieved such triumphs in the cause of freedom could have
+been bitter employed than in an attempt at political suicide.
+
+In a picture of the last decade of Barneveld's eventful life his
+personality may come more distinctly forward perhaps than in previous
+epochs.  It will however be difficult to disentangle a single thread from
+the great historical tapestry of the Republic and of Europe in which his
+life and achievements are interwoven.  He was a public man in the fullest
+sense of the word, and without his presence and influence the record of
+Holland, France, Spain, Britain, and Germany might have been essentially
+modified.
+
+The Republic was so integral a part of that system which divided Europe
+into two great hostile camps according to creeds rather than frontiers
+that the history of its foremost citizen touches at every point the
+general history of Christendom.
+
+The great peculiarity of the Dutch constitution at this epoch was that no
+principle was absolutely settled.  In throwing off a foreign tyranny and
+successfully vindicating national independence the burghers and nobles
+had not had leisure to lay down any organic law.  Nor had the day for
+profound investigation of the political or social contract arrived.
+Men dealt almost exclusively with facts, and when the facts arranged
+themselves illogically and incoherently the mischief was grave and
+difficult to remedy.  It is not a trifling inconvenience for an organized
+commonwealth to be in doubt as to where, in whom, and of what nature is
+its sovereignty.  Yet this was precisely the condition of the United
+Netherlands.  To the eternal world so dazzling were the reputation and
+the achievements of their great captain that he was looked upon by many
+as the legitimate chief of the state and doubtless friendly monarchs
+would have cordially welcomed him into their brotherhood.
+
+During the war he had been surrounded by almost royal state.  Two hundred
+officers lived daily at his table.  Great nobles and scions of sovereign
+houses were his pupils or satellites.  The splendour of military
+despotism and the awe inspired by his unquestioned supremacy in what was
+deemed the greatest of all sciences invested the person of Maurice of
+Nassau with a grandeur which many a crowned potentate might envy.  His
+ample appointments united with the spoils of war provided him with almost
+royal revenues, even before the death of his elder brother Philip William
+had placed in his hands the principality and wealthy possessions of
+Orange.  Hating contradiction, arbitrary by instinct and by military
+habit, impatient of criticism, and having long acknowledged no master in
+the chief business of state, he found himself at the conclusion of the
+truce with his great occupation gone, and, although generously provided
+for by the treasury of the Republic, yet with an income proportionately
+limited.
+
+Politics and theology were fields in which he had hardly served an
+apprenticeship, and it was possible that when he should step forward as
+a master in those complicated and difficult pursuits, soon to absorb the
+attention of the Commonwealth and the world, it might appear that war
+was not the only science that required serious preliminary studies.
+
+Meantime he found himself not a king, not the master of a nominal
+republic, but the servant of the States-General, and the limited
+stadholder of five out of seven separate provinces.
+
+And the States-General were virtually John of Barneveld.  Could
+antagonism be more sharply defined?  Jealousy, that potent principle
+which controls the regular movements and accounts for the aberrations of
+humanity in widest spheres as well as narrowest circles far more
+generally and conclusively than philosophers or historians have been
+willing to admit, began forthwith to manifest its subtle and irresistible
+influence.
+
+And there were not to be wanting acute and dangerous schemers who saw
+their profit in augmenting its intensity.
+
+The Seven Provinces, when the truce of twelve years had been signed, were
+neither exhausted nor impoverished.  Yet they had just emerged from a
+forty years' conflict such as no people in human history had ever waged
+against a foreign tyranny.  They had need to repose and recruit, but they
+stood among the foremost great powers of the day.  It is not easy in
+imagination to thrust back the present leading empires of the earth into
+the contracted spheres of their not remote past.  But to feel how a
+little confederacy of seven provinces loosely tied together by an ill-
+defined treaty could hold so prominent and often so controlling a place
+in the European system of the seventeenth century, we must remember that
+there was then no Germany, no Russia, no Italy, no United States of
+America, scarcely even a Great Britain in the sense which belongs to that
+mighty empire now.
+
+France, Spain, England, the Pope, and the Emperor were the leading powers
+with which the Netherlands were daily called on to solve great problems
+and try conclusions; the study of political international equilibrium,
+now rapidly and perhaps fortunately becoming one of the lost arts, being
+then the most indispensable duty of kings and statesmen.
+
+Spain and France, which had long since achieved for themselves the
+political union of many independent kingdoms and states into which they
+had been divided were the most considerable powers and of necessity
+rivals.  Spain, or rather the House of Austria divided into its two great
+branches, still pursued its persistent and by no means fantastic dream of
+universal monarchy.  Both Spain and France could dispose of somewhat
+larger resources absolutely, although not relatively, than the Seven
+Provinces, while at least trebling them in population.  The yearly
+revenue of Spain after deduction of its pledged resources was perhaps
+equal to a million sterling, and that of France with the same reservation
+was about as much.  England had hardly been able to levy and make up a
+yearly income of more than L600,000 or L700,000 at the end of Elizabeth's
+reign or in the first years of James, while the Netherlands had often
+proved themselves capable of furnishing annually ten or twelve millions
+of florins, which would be the equivalent of nearly a million sterling.
+
+The yearly revenues of the whole monarchy of the Imperial house of
+Habsburg can scarcely be stated at a higher figure than L350,000.
+
+Thus the political game--for it was a game--was by no means a desperate
+one for the Netherlands, nor the resources of the various players so
+unequally distributed as at first sight it might appear.
+
+The emancipation of the Provinces from the grasp of Spain and the
+establishment by them of a commonwealth, for that epoch a very free one,
+and which contained within itself the germs of a larger liberty,
+religious, political, and commercial, than had yet been known, was
+already one of the most considerable results of the Reformation.  The
+probability of its continued and independent existence was hardly
+believed in by potentate or statesman outside its own borders, and had
+not been very long a decided article of faith even within them.  The
+knotty problem of an acknowledgment of that existence, the admission of
+the new-born state into the family of nations, and a temporary peace
+guaranteed by two great powers, had at last been solved mainly by the
+genius of Barneveld working amid many disadvantages and against great
+obstructions.  The truce had been made, and it now needed all the skill,
+coolness, and courage of a practical and original statesman to conduct
+the affairs of the Confederacy.  The troubled epoch of peace was even now
+heaving with warlike emotions, and was hardly less stormy than the war
+which had just been suspended.
+
+The Republic was like a raft loosely strung together, floating almost on
+a level of the ocean, and often half submerged, but freighted with
+inestimable treasures for itself and the world.  It needed an unsleeping
+eye and a powerful brain to conduct her over the quicksands and through
+the whirlpools of an unmapped and intricate course.
+
+The sovereignty of the country so far as its nature could be
+satisfactorily analysed seemed to be scattered through, and inherent in
+each one of, the multitudinous boards of magistracy--close corporations,
+self-elected--by which every city was governed.  Nothing could be more
+preposterous.  Practically, however, these boards were represented by
+deputies in each of the seven provincial assemblies, and these again sent
+councillors from among their number to the general assembly which was
+that of their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General.
+
+The Province of Holland, being richer and more powerful than all its six
+sisters combined, was not unwilling to impose a supremacy which on the
+whole was practically conceded by the rest.  Thus the Union of Utrecht
+established in 1579 was maintained for want of anything better as the
+foundation of the Commonwealth.
+
+The Advocate and Keeper of the Great Seal of that province was therefore
+virtually prime minister, president, attorney-general, finance minister,
+and minister of foreign affairs of the whole republic.  This was
+Barneveld's position.  He took the lead in the deliberations both of the
+States of Holland and the States-General, moved resolutions, advocated
+great measures of state, gave heed to their execution, collected the
+votes, summed up the proceedings, corresponded with and instructed
+ambassadors, received and negotiated with foreign ministers, besides
+directing and holding in his hands the various threads of the home
+policy and the rapidly growing colonial system of the Republic.
+
+All this work Barneveld had been doing for thirty years.
+
+The Reformation was by no mans assured even in the lands where it had
+at first made the most essential progress.  But the existence of the new
+commonwealth depended on the success of that great movement which had
+called it into being.  Losing ground in France, fluctuating in England,
+Protestantism was apparently more triumphant in vast territories where
+the ancient Church was one day to recover its mastery.  Of the population
+of Bohemia, there were perhaps ten Protestants to one Papist, while in
+the United Netherlands at least one-third of the people were still
+attached to the Catholic faith.
+
+The great religious struggle in Bohemia and other dominions of the
+Habsburg family was fast leading to a war of which no man could even
+imagine the horrors or foresee the vast extent.  The Catholic League and
+the Protestant Union were slowly arranging Europe into two mighty
+confederacies.
+
+They were to give employment year after year to millions of mercenary
+freebooters who were to practise murder, pillage, and every imaginable
+and unimaginable outrage as the most legitimate industry that could
+occupy mankind.  The Holy Empire which so ingeniously combined the worst
+characteristics of despotism and republicanism kept all Germany and half
+Europe in the turmoil of a perpetual presidential election.  A theatre
+where trivial personages and graceless actors performed a tragi-comedy of
+mingled folly, intrigue, and crime, and where earnestness and vigour were
+destined to be constantly baffled, now offered the principal stage for
+the entertainment and excitement of Christendom.
+
+There was but one king in Europe, Henry the Bearnese.  The men who sat on
+the thrones in Madrid, Vienna, London, would have lived and died unknown
+but for the crowns they wore, and while there were plenty of bustling
+politicians here and there in Christendom, there were not many statesmen.
+
+Among them there was no stronger man than John of Barneveld, and no man
+had harder or more complicated work to do.
+
+Born in Amersfoort in 1547, of the ancient and knightly house of
+Oldenbarneveldt, of patrician blood through all his ancestors both male
+and female, he was not the heir to large possessions, and was a diligent
+student and hardworking man from youth upward.  He was not wont to boast
+of his pedigree until in later life, being assailed by vilest slander,
+all his kindred nearest or most remote being charged with every possible
+and unmentionable crime, and himself stigmatized as sprung from the
+lowest kennels of humanity--as if thereby his private character and
+public services could be more legitimately blackened--he was stung into
+exhibiting to the world the purity and antiquity of his escutcheon, and a
+roll of respectably placed, well estated, and authentically noble, if not
+at all illustrious, forefathers in his country's records of the previous
+centuries.
+
+Without an ancestor at his back he might have valued himself still more
+highly on the commanding place he held in the world by right divine of
+intellect, but as the father of lies seemed to have kept his creatures so
+busy with the Barneveld genealogy, it was not amiss for the statesman
+once for all to make the truth known.
+
+His studies in the universities of Holland, France, Italy, and Germany
+had been profound.  At an early age he was one of the first civilians of
+the time.  His manhood being almost contemporary with the great war of
+freedom, he had served as a volunteer and at his own expense through
+several campaigns, having nearly lost his life in the disastrous attempt
+to relieve the siege of Haarlem, and having been so disabled by sickness
+and exposure at the heroic leaguer of Leyden as to have been deprived of
+the joy of witnessing its triumphant conclusion.
+
+Successfully practising his profession afterwards before the tribunals of
+Holland, he had been called at the comparatively early age of twenty-nine
+to the important post of Chief Pensionary of Rotterdam.  So long as
+William the Silent lived, that great prince was all in all to his
+country, and Barneveld was proud and happy to be among the most
+trusted and assiduous of his counsellors.
+
+When the assassination of William seemed for an instant to strike the
+Republic with paralysis, Barneveld was foremost among the statesmen of
+Holland to spring forward and help to inspire it with renewed energy.
+
+The almost completed negotiations for conferring the sovereignty, not of
+the Confederacy, but of the Province of Holland, upon the Prince had been
+abruptly brought to an end by his death.  To confer that sovereign
+countship on his son Maurice, then a lad of eighteen and a student at
+Leyden, would have seemed to many at so terrible a crisis an act of
+madness, although Barneveld had been willing to suggest and promote the
+scheme.  The confederates under his guidance soon hastened however to lay
+the sovereignty, and if not the sovereignty, the protectorship, of all
+the provinces at the feet first of England and then of France.
+
+Barneveld was at the head of the embassy, and indeed was the
+indispensable head of all important, embassies to each of those two
+countries throughout all this portion of his career.  Both monarchs
+refused, almost spurned, the offered crown in which was involved a war
+with the greatest power in the world, with no compensating dignity or
+benefit, as it was thought, beside.
+
+Then Elizabeth, although declining the sovereignty, promised assistance
+and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general at the head of a
+contingent of English troops.  Precisely to prevent the consolidation
+thus threatened of the Provinces into one union, a measure which had been
+attempted more than once in the Burgundian epoch, and always successfully
+resisted by the spirit of provincial separatism, Barneveld now proposed
+and carried the appointment of Maurice of Nassau to the stadholdership of
+Holland.  This was done against great opposition and amid fierce debate.
+Soon afterwards Barneveld was vehemently urged by the nobles and regents
+of the cities of Holland to accept the post of Advocate of that province.
+After repeatedly declining the arduous and most responsible office, he
+was at last induced to accept it.  He did it under the remarkable
+condition that in case any negotiation should be undertaken for the
+purpose of bringing back the Province of Holland under the dominion of
+the King of Spain, he should be considered as from that moment relieved
+from the service.
+
+His brother Elias Barneveld succeeded him as Pensionary of Rotterdam, and
+thenceforth the career of the Advocate is identical with the history of
+the Netherlands.  Although a native of Utrecht, he was competent to
+exercise such functions in Holland, a special and ancient convention
+between those two provinces allowing the citizens of either to enjoy
+legal and civic rights in both.  Gradually, without intrigue or
+inordinate ambition, but from force of circumstances and the commanding
+power of the man, the native authority stamped upon his forehead, he
+became the political head of the Confederacy.  He created and maintained
+a system of public credit absolutely marvellous in the circumstances, by
+means of which an otherwise impossible struggle was carried to a
+victorious end.
+
+When the stadholderate of the provinces of Gelderland, Utrecht, and
+Overyssel became vacant, it was again Barneveld's potent influence and
+sincere attachment to the House of Nassau that procured the election of
+Maurice to those posts.  Thus within six years after his father's death
+the youthful soldier who had already given proof of his surpassing
+military genius had become governor, commander-in-chief, and high
+admiral, of five of the seven provinces constituting the Confederacy.
+
+At about the same period the great question of Church and State, which
+Barneveld had always felt to be among the vital problems of the age, and
+on which his opinions were most decided, came up for partial solution.
+It would have been too much to expect the opinion of any statesman to
+be so much in advance of his time as to favor religious equality.
+Toleration of various creeds, including the Roman Catholic, so far as
+abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlours could
+be called toleration, was secured, and that was a considerable step in
+advance of the practice of the sixteenth century.  Burning, hanging, and
+burying alive of culprits guilty of another creed than the dominant one
+had become obsolete.  But there was an established creed--the Reformed
+religion, founded on the Netherland Confession and the Heidelberg
+Catechism.  And there was one established principle then considered
+throughout Europe the grand result of the Reformation; "Cujus regio ejus
+religio;" which was in reality as impudent an invasion of human right as
+any heaven-born dogma of Infallibility.  The sovereign of a country,
+having appropriated the revenues of the ancient church, prescribed his
+own creed to his subjects.  In the royal conscience were included the
+million consciences of his subjects.  The inevitable result in a country
+like the Netherlands, without a personal sovereign, was a struggle
+between the new church and the civil government for mastery.  And at this
+period, and always in Barneveld's opinion, the question of dogma was
+subordinate to that of church government.  That there should be no
+authority over the King had been settled in England.
+
+Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and afterwards James, having become popes in
+their own realm, had no great hostility to, but rather an affection for,
+ancient dogma and splendid ceremonial.  But in the Seven Provinces, even
+as in France, Germany, and Switzerland, the reform where it had been
+effected at all had been more thorough, and there was little left of
+Popish pomp or aristocratic hierarchy.  Nothing could be severer than the
+simplicity of the Reformed Church, nothing more imperious than its dogma,
+nothing more infallible than its creed.  It was the true religion, and
+there was none other.  But to whom belonged the ecclesiastical edifices,
+the splendid old minsters in the cities--raised by the people's confiding
+piety and the purchased remission of their sins in a bygone age--and the
+humbler but beautiful parish churches in every town and village?  To the
+State; said Barneveld, speaking for government; to the community
+represented by the states of the provinces, the magistracies of the
+cities and municipalities.  To the Church itself, the one true church
+represented by its elders, and deacons, and preachers, was the reply.
+
+And to whom belonged the right of prescribing laws and ordinances of
+public worship, of appointing preachers, church servants, schoolmasters,
+sextons?  To the Holy Ghost inspiring the Class and the Synod, said the
+Church.
+
+To the civil authority, said the magistrates, by which the churches are
+maintained, and the salaries of the ecclesiastics paid.  The states of
+Holland are as sovereign as the kings of England or Denmark, the electors
+of Saxony or Brandenburg, the magistrates of Zurich or Basel or other
+Swiss cantons.  "Cujus regio ejus religio."
+
+In 1590 there was a compromise under the guidance of Barneveld.  It was
+agreed that an appointing board should be established composed of civil
+functionaries and church officials in equal numbers.  Thus should the
+interests of religion and of education be maintained.
+
+The compromise was successful enough during the war.  External pressure
+kept down theological passion, and there were as yet few symptoms of
+schism in the dominant church.  But there was to come a time when the
+struggle between church and government was to break forth with an
+intensity and to rage to an extent which no man at that moment could
+imagine.
+
+Towards the end of the century Henry IV. made peace with Spain.  It was a
+trying moment for the Provinces.  Barneveld was again sent forth on an
+embassy to the King.  The cardinal point in his policy, as it had ever
+been in that of William the Silent, was to maintain close friendship with
+France, whoever might be its ruler.  An alliance between that kingdom
+and Spain would be instantaneous ruin to the Republic.  With the French
+and English sovereigns united with the Provinces, the cause of the
+Reformation might triumph, the Spanish world-empire be annihilated,
+national independence secured.
+
+Henry assured the Ambassador that the treaty of Vervins was
+indispensable, but that he would never desert his old allies.
+In proof of this, although he had just bound himself to Spain to give no
+assistance to the Provinces, open or secret, he would furnish them with
+thirteen hundred thousand crowns, payable at intervals during four years.
+He was under great obligations to his good friends the States, he said,
+and nothing in the treaty forbade him to pay his debts.
+
+It was at this period too that Barneveld was employed by the King to
+attend to certain legal and other private business for which he professed
+himself too poor at the moment to compensate him.  There seems to
+have been nothing in the usages of the time or country to make the
+transaction, innocent in itself, in any degree disreputable.  The King
+promised at some future clay, when he should be more in funds, to pay him
+a liberal fee.  Barneveld, who a dozen years afterwards received 20,000
+florins for his labour, professed that he would much rather have had one
+thousand at the time.
+
+Thence the Advocate, accompanied by his colleague, Justinus de Nassau,
+proceeded to England, where they had many stormy interviews with
+Elizabeth.  The Queen swore with many an oath that she too would make
+peace with Philip, recommended the Provinces to do the same thing with
+submission to their ancient tyrant, and claimed from the States immediate
+payment of one million sterling in satisfaction of their old debts to
+her.  It would have been as easy for them at that moment to pay a
+thousand million.  It was at last agreed that the sum of the debt should
+be fixed at L800,000, and that the cautionary towns should be held in
+Elizabeth's hands by English troops until all the debt should be
+discharged.  Thus England for a long time afterwards continued to regard
+itself, as in a measure the sovereign and proprietor of the Confederacy,
+and Barneveld then and there formed the resolve to relieve the country of
+the incubus, and to recover those cautionary towns and fortresses at the
+earliest possible moment.  So long as foreign soldiers commanded by
+military governors existed on the soil of the Netherlands, they could
+hardly account themselves independent.  Besides, there was the perpetual
+and horrid nightmare, that by a sudden pacification between Spain and
+England those important cities, keys to the country's defence, might be
+handed over to their ancient tyrant.
+
+Elizabeth had been pacified at last, however, by the eloquence of the
+Ambassador.  "I will assist you even if you were up to the neck in
+water," she said.  "Jusque la," she added, pointing to her chin.
+
+Five years later Barneveld, for the fifth time at the head of a great
+embassy, was sent to England to congratulate James on his accession.
+It was then and there that he took measure of the monarch with whom he
+was destined to have many dealings, and who was to exert so baleful an
+influence on his career.  At last came the time when it was felt that
+peace between Spain and her revolted provinces might be made.  The
+conservation of their ancient laws, privileges, and charters, the
+independence of the States, and included therein the freedom to establish
+the Reformed religion, had been secured by forty years of fighting.
+
+The honour of Spain was saved by a conjunction.  She agreed to treat
+with her old dependencies "as" with states over which she had no
+pretensions.  Through virtue of an "as," a truce after two years'
+negotiation, perpetually traversed and secretly countermined by the
+military party under the influence of Maurice, was carried by the
+determination of Barneveld.  The great objects of the war had been
+secured.  The country was weary of nearly half a century of bloodshed.
+It was time to remember that there could be such a condition as Peace.
+
+The treaty was signed, ratifications exchanged, and the usual presents of
+considerable sums of money to the negotiators made.  Barneveld earnestly
+protested against carrying out the custom on this occasion, and urged
+that those presents should be given for the public use.  He was overruled
+by those who were more desirous of receiving their reward than he was,
+and he accordingly, in common with the other diplomatists, accepted the
+gifts.
+
+The various details of these negotiations have been related by the author
+in other volumes, to which the present one is intended as a sequel.  It
+has been thought necessary merely to recall very briefly a few salient
+passages in the career of the Advocate up to the period when the present
+history really opens.
+
+Their bearing upon subsequent events will easily be observed.  The truce
+was the work of Barneveld.  It was detested by Maurice and by Maurice's
+partisans.
+
+"I fear that our enemies and evil reports are the cause of many of our
+difficulties," said the Advocate to the States' envoy in Paris, in 1606.
+"You are to pay no heed to private advices.  Believe and make others
+believe that more than one half the inhabitants of the cities and in the
+open country are inclined to peace.  And I believe, in case of continuing
+adversities, that the other half will not remain constant, principally
+because the Provinces are robbed of all traffic, prosperity, and
+navigation, through the actions of France and England.  I have always
+thought it for the advantage of his Majesty to sustain us in such wise as
+would make us useful in his service.  As to his remaining permanently at
+peace with Spain, that would seem quite out of the question."
+
+The King had long kept, according to treaty, a couple of French regiments
+in the States' service, and furnished, or was bound to furnish, a certain
+yearly sum for their support.  But the expenses of the campaigning had
+been rapidly increasing and the results as swiftly dwindling.  The
+Advocate now explained that, "without loss both of important places and
+of reputation," the States could not help spending every month that they
+took the field 200,000 florins over and above the regular contributions,
+and some months a great deal more.  This sum, he said, in nine months,
+would more than eat up the whole subsidy of the King.  If they were to be
+in the field by March or beginning of April, they would require from him
+an extraordinary sum of 200,000 crowns, and as much more in June or July.
+
+Eighteen months later, when the magnificent naval victory of Heemskerk
+in the Bay of Gibraltar had just made a startling interlude to the
+languishing negotiations for peace, the Advocate again warned the French
+King of the difficulty in which the Republic still laboured of carrying
+on the mighty struggle alone.  Spain was the common enemy of all.  No
+peace or hope was possible for the leading powers as long as Spain was
+perpetually encamped in the very heart of Western Europe.  The
+Netherlands were not fighting their own battle merely, but that of
+freedom and independence against the all-encroaching world-power.  And
+their means to carry on the conflict were dwindling, while at the same
+time there was a favourable opportunity for cropping some fruit from
+their previous labours and sacrifices.
+
+"We are led to doubt," he wrote once more to the envoy in France,
+"whether the King's full powers will come from Spain.  This defeat is
+hard for the Spaniards to digest.  Meantime our burdens are quite above
+our capacity, as you will understand by the enclosed statement, which is
+made out with much exactness to show what is absolutely necessary for a
+vigorous defence on land and a respectable position at sea to keep things
+from entire confusion.  The Provinces could raise means for the half of
+this estimate.  But, it is a great difference when the means differ one
+half from the expenses.  The sovereignst and most assured remedy would be
+the one so often demanded, often projected, and sometimes almost prepared
+for execution, namely that our neighbour kings, princes, and republics
+should earnestly take the matter in hand and drive the Spaniards and
+their adherents out of the Netherlands and over the mountains.  Their own
+dignity and security ought not to permit such great bodies of troops of
+both belligerents permanently massed in the Netherlands.  Still less
+ought they to allow these Provinces to fall into the hands of the
+Spaniards, whence they could with so much more power and convenience make
+war upon all kings, princes, and republics.  This must be prevented by
+one means or another.  It ought to be enough for every one that we have
+been between thirty and forty years a firm bulwark against Spanish
+ambition.  Our constancy and patience ought to be strengthened by counsel
+and by deed in order that we may exist; a Christian sympathy and a small
+assistance not being sufficient.  Believe and cause to be believed that
+the present condition of our affairs requires more aid in counsel and
+money than ever before, and that nothing could be better bestowed than to
+further this end.
+
+"Messieurs Jeannin, Buzenval, and de Russy have been all here these
+twelve days.  We have firm hopes that other kings, princes, and republics
+will not stay upon formalities, but will also visit the patients here in
+order to administer sovereign remedies.
+
+"Lend no ear to any flying reports.  We say with the wise men over there,
+'Metuo Danaos et dons ferentes.'  We know our antagonists well, and trust
+their hearts no more than before, 'sed ultra posse non est esse.'  To
+accept more burthens than we can pay for will breed military mutiny;
+to tax the community above its strength will cause popular tumults,
+especially in 'rebus adversis,' of which the beginnings were seen last
+year, and without a powerful army the enemy is not to be withstood.  I
+have received your letters to the 17th May.  My advice is to trust to his
+upright proceedings and with patience to overcome all things.  Thus shall
+the detractors and calumniators best be confounded.  Assure his Majesty
+and his ministers that I will do my utmost to avert our ruin and his
+Majesty's disservice."
+
+The treaty was made, and from that time forth the antagonism between the
+eminent statesman and the great military chieftain became inevitable.
+The importance of the one seemed likely to increase day by day.  The
+occupation of the other for a time was over.
+
+During the war Maurice had been, with exception of Henry IV., the most
+considerable personage in Europe.  He was surrounded with that visible
+atmosphere of power the poison of which it is so difficult to resist, and
+through the golden haze of which a mortal seems to dilate for the vulgar
+eye into the supernatural.  The attention of Christendom was perpetually
+fixed upon him.  Nothing like his sieges, his encampments, his military
+discipline, his scientific campaigning had been seen before in modern
+Europe.  The youthful aristocracy from all countries thronged to his camp
+to learn the game of war, for he had restored by diligent study of the
+ancients much that was noble in that pursuit, and had elevated into an
+art that which had long since degenerated into a system of butchery,
+marauding, and rapine.  And he had fought with signal success and
+unquestionable heroism the most important and most brilliant pitched
+battle of the age.  He was a central figure of the current history of
+Europe.  Pagan nations looked up to him as one of the leading sovereigns
+of Christendom.  The Emperor of Japan addressed him as his brother
+monarch, assured him that his subjects trading to that distant empire
+should be welcomed and protected, and expressed himself ashamed that so
+great a prince, whose name and fame had spread through the world, should
+send his subjects to visit a country so distant and unknown, and offer
+its emperor a friendship which he was unconscious of deserving.
+
+He had been a commander of armies and a chief among men since he came to
+man's estate, and he was now in the very vigour of life, in his forty-
+second year.  Of Imperial descent and closely connected by blood or
+alliance with many of the most illustrious of reigning houses, the
+acknowledged master of the most royal and noble of all sciences, he was
+of the stuff of which kings were made, and belonged by what was then
+accounted right divine to the family of kings.  His father's death had
+alone prevented his elevation to the throne of Holland, and such
+possession of half the sovereignty of the United Netherlands would
+probably have expanded into dominion over all the seven with a not
+fantastic possibility of uniting the ten still obedient provinces into a
+single realm.  Such a kingdom would have been more populous and far
+wealthier than contemporary Great Britain and Ireland.  Maurice, then a
+student at Leyden, was too young at that crisis, and his powers too
+undeveloped to justify any serious attempt to place him in his father's
+place.
+
+The Netherlands drifted into a confederacy of aristocratic republics, not
+because they had planned a republic, but because they could not get a
+king, foreign or native.  The documents regarding the offer of the
+sovereign countship to William remained in the possession of Maurice, and
+a few years before the peace there had been a private meeting of leading
+personages, of which Barneveld was the promoter and chief spokesman, to
+take into consideration the propriety and possibility of conferring that
+sovereignty upon the son which had virtually belonged to the father.  The
+obstacles were deemed so numerous, and especially the scheme seemed so
+fraught with danger to Maurice, that it was reluctantly abandoned by his
+best friends, among whom unquestionably was the Advocate.
+
+There was no reason whatever why the now successful and mature soldier,
+to whom the country was under such vast obligations, should not aspire
+to the sovereignty.  The Provinces had not pledged themselves to
+republicanism, but rather to monarchy, and the crown, although secretly
+coveted by Henry IV., could by no possibility now be conferred on any
+other man than Maurice.  It was no impeachment on his character that he
+should nourish thoughts in which there was nothing criminal.
+
+But the peace negotiations had opened a chasm.  It was obvious enough
+that Barneveld having now so long exercised great powers, and become as
+it were the chief magistrate of an important commonwealth, would not be
+so friendly as formerly to its conversion into a monarchy and to the
+elevation of the great soldier to its throne.  The Advocate had even been
+sounded, cautiously and secretly, so men believed, by the Princess-
+Dowager, Louise de Coligny, widow of William the silent, as to the
+feasibility of procuring the sovereignty for Maurice.  She had done this
+at the instigation of Maurice, who had expressed his belief that the
+favourable influence of the Advocate would make success certain and who
+had represented to her that, as he was himself resolved never to marry,
+the inheritance after his death would fall to her son Frederick Henry.
+The Princess, who was of a most amiable disposition, adored her son.
+Devoted to the House of Nassau and a great admirer of its chief, she had
+a long interview with Barneveld, in which she urged the scheme upon his
+attention without in any probability revealing that she had come to him
+at the solicitation of Maurice.
+
+The Advocate spoke to her with frankness and out of the depths of his
+heart.  He professed an ardent attachment to her family, a profound
+reverence for the virtues, sacrifices, and achievements of her lamented
+husband, and a warm desire to do everything to further the interests of
+the son who had proved himself so worthy of his parentage.
+
+But he proved to her that Maurice, in seeking the sovereignty, was
+seeking his ruin.  The Hollanders, he said, liked to be persuaded and not
+forced.  Having triumphantly shaken off the yoke of a powerful king, they
+would scarcely consent now to accept the rule of any personal sovereign.
+The desire to save themselves from the claws of Spain had led them
+formerly to offer the dominion over them to various potentates.  Now that
+they had achieved peace and independence and were delivered from the
+fears of Spanish ferocity and French intrigue, they shuddered at the
+dangers from royal hands out of which they had at last escaped.  He
+believed that they would be capable of tearing in pieces any one who
+might make the desired proposition.  After all, he urged, Maurice was a
+hundred times more fortunate as he was than if he should succeed in
+desires so opposed to his own good.  This splendour of sovereignty was a
+false glare which would lead him to a precipice.  He had now the power of
+a sovereign without the envy which ever followed it.  Having essentially
+such power, he ought, like his father, to despise an empty name, which
+would only make him hated.  For it was well known that William the Silent
+had only yielded to much solicitation, agreeing to accept that which then
+seemed desirable for the country's good but to him was more than
+indifferent.
+
+Maurice was captain-general and admiral-general of five provinces.  He
+appointed to governments and to all military office.  He had a share of
+appointment to the magistracies.  He had the same advantages and the same
+authority as had been enjoyed in the Netherlands by the ancient sovereign
+counts, by the dukes of Burgundy, by Emperor Charles V. himself.
+
+Every one now was in favour of increasing his pensions, his salaries, his
+material splendour.  Should he succeed in seizing the sovereignty, men
+would envy him even to the ribbands of his pages' and his lackeys' shoes.
+He turned to the annals of Holland and showed the Princess that there had
+hardly been a sovereign count against whom his subjects had not revolted,
+marching generally into the very courtyard of the palace at the Hague in
+order to take his life.
+
+Convinced by this reasoning, Louise de Coligny had at once changed her
+mind, and subsequently besought her stepson to give up a project sure to
+be fatal to his welfare, his peace of mind, and the good of the country.
+Maurice listened to her coldly, gave little heed to the Advocate's logic,
+and hated him in his heart from that day forth.
+
+The Princess remained loyal to Barneveld to the last.
+
+Thus the foundation was laid of that terrible enmity which, inflamed by
+theological passion, was to convert the period of peace into a hell, to
+rend the Provinces asunder when they had most need of repose, and to lead
+to tragical results for ever to be deplored.  Already in 1607 Francis
+Aerssens had said that the two had become so embroiled and things had
+gone so far that one or the other would have to leave the country.  He
+permitted also the ridiculous statement to be made in his house at Paris,
+that Henry IV. believed the Advocate to have become Spanish, and had
+declared that Prince Maurice would do well to have him put into a sack
+and thrown into the sea.
+
+His life had been regularly divided into two halves, the campaigning
+season and the period of winter quarters.  In the one his business, and
+his talk was of camps, marches, sieges, and battles only.  In the other
+he was devoted to his stud, to tennis, to mathematical and mechanical
+inventions, and to chess, of which he was passionately fond, and which he
+did not play at all well.  A Gascon captain serving in the States' army
+was his habitual antagonist in that game, and, although the stakes were
+but a crown a game, derived a steady income out of his gains, which were
+more than equal to his pay.  The Prince was sulky when he lost, sitting,
+when the candles were burned out and bed-time had arrived, with his hat
+pulled over his brows, without bidding his guest good night, and leaving
+him to find his way out as he best could; and, on the contrary, radiant
+with delight when successful, calling for valets to light the departing
+captain through the corridor, and accompanying him to the door of the
+apartment himself.  That warrior was accordingly too shrewd not to allow
+his great adversary as fair a share of triumph as was consistent with
+maintaining the frugal income on which he reckoned.
+
+He had small love for the pleasures of the table, but was promiscuous
+and unlicensed in his amours.  He was methodical in his household
+arrangements, and rather stingy than liberal in money matters.  He
+personally read all his letters, accounts, despatches, and other
+documents trivial or important, but wrote few letters with his own hand,
+so that, unlike his illustrious father's correspondence, there is little
+that is characteristic to be found in his own.  He was plain but not
+shabby in attire, and was always dressed in exactly the same style,
+wearing doublet and hose of brown woollen, a silk under vest, a short
+cloak lined with velvet, a little plaited ruff on his neck, and very
+loose boots.  He ridiculed the smart French officers who, to show their
+fine legs, were wont to wear such tight boots as made them perspire to
+get into them, and maintained, in precept and practice, that a man should
+be able to jump into his boots and mount and ride at a moment's notice.
+The only ornaments he indulged in, except, of course, on state occasions,
+were a golden hilt to his famous sword, and a rope of diamonds tied
+around his felt hat.
+
+He was now in the full flower of his strength and his fame, in his forty-
+second year, and of a noble and martial presence.  The face, although
+unquestionably handsome, offered a sharp contrast within itself; the
+upper half all intellect, the lower quite sensual.  Fair hair growing
+thin, but hardly tinged with grey, a bright, cheerful, and thoughtful
+forehead, large hazel eyes within a singularly large orbit of brow; a
+straight, thin, slightly aquiline, well-cut nose--such features were at
+open variance with the broad, thick-lipped, sensual mouth, the heavy
+pendant jowl, the sparse beard on the glistening cheek, and the moleskin-
+like moustachio and chin tuft.  Still, upon the whole, it was a face and
+figure which gave the world assurance of a man and a commander of men.
+Power and intelligence were stamped upon him from his birth.
+
+Barneveld was tall and majestic of presence, with large quadrangular
+face, austere, blue eyes looking authority and command, a vast forehead,
+and a grizzled beard.  Of fluent and convincing eloquence with tongue and
+pen, having the power of saying much in few words, he cared much more for
+the substance than the graces of speech or composition.  This tendency
+was not ill exemplified in a note of his written on a sheet of questions
+addressed to him by a States' ambassador about to start on an important
+mission, but a novice in his business, the answers to which questions
+were to serve for his diplomatic instructions.
+
+"Item and principally," wrote the Envoy, "to request of M. de Barneveld
+a formulary or copy of the best, soundest, wisest, and best couched
+despatches done by several preceding ambassadors in order to regulate
+myself accordingly for the greater service of the Province and for my
+uttermost reputation."
+
+The Advocate's answer, scrawled in his nearly illegible hand, was--
+
+"Unnecessary.  The truth in shortest about matters of importance shall be
+taken for good style."
+
+With great love of power, which he was conscious of exerting with ease to
+himself and for the good of the public, he had little personal vanity,
+and not the smallest ambition of authorship.  Many volumes might be
+collected out of the vast accumulation of his writings now mouldering and
+forgotten in archives.  Had the language in which they are written become
+a world's language, they would be worthy of attentive study, as
+containing noble illustrations of the history and politics of his age,
+with theories and sentiments often far in advance of his age.  But he
+cared not for style.  "The truth in shortest about matters of importance"
+was enough for him; but the world in general, and especially the world of
+posterity, cares much for style.  The vehicle is often prized more than
+the freight.  The name of Barneveld is fast fading out of men's memory.
+The fame of his pupil and companion in fortune and misfortune, Hugo
+Grotius, is ever green.  But Grotius was essentially an author rather
+than a statesman: he wrote for the world and posterity with all the love,
+pride, and charm of the devotee of literature, and he composed his
+noblest works in a language which is ever living because it is dead.
+Some of his writings, epochmaking when they first appeared, are text-
+books still familiar in every cultivated household on earth.  Yet
+Barneveld was vastly his superior in practical statesmanship, in law, in
+the science of government, and above all in force of character, while
+certainly not his equal in theology, nor making any pretensions to
+poetry.  Although a ripe scholar, he rarely wrote in Latin, and not often
+in French.  His ambition was to do his work thoroughly according to his
+view of duty, and to ask God's blessing upon it without craving overmuch
+the applause of men.
+
+Such were the two men, the soldier and the statesman.  Would the
+Republic, fortunate enough to possess two such magnificent and widely
+contrasted capacities, be wise enough to keep them in its service, each
+supplementing the other, and the two combining in a perfect whole?
+
+Or was the great law of the Discords of the World, as potent as that
+other principle of Universal Harmony and planetary motion which an
+illustrious contemporary--that Wurtemberg astronomer, once a soldier of
+the fierce Alva, now the half-starved astrologer of the brain-sick
+Rudolph--was at that moment discovering, after "God had waited six
+thousand years for him to do it," to prevail for the misery of the
+Republic and shame of Europe?  Time was to show.
+
+The new state had forced itself into the family of sovereignties somewhat
+to the displeasure of most of the Lord's anointed.  Rebellious and
+republican, it necessarily excited the jealousy of long-established and
+hereditary governments.
+
+The King of Spain had not formally acknowledged the independence of the
+United Provinces.  He had treated with them as free, and there was
+supposed to be much virtue in the conjunction.  But their sovereign
+independence was virtually recognized by the world.  Great nations had
+entered into public and diplomatic relations and conventions with them,
+and their agents at foreign courts were now dignified with the rank and
+title of ambassadors.
+
+The Spanish king had likewise refused to them the concession of the right
+of navigation and commerce in the East Indies, but it was a matter of
+notoriety that the absence of the word India, suppressed as it was in the
+treaty, implied an immense triumph on the part of the States, and that
+their flourishing and daily increasing commerce in the farthest East and
+the imperial establishments already rising there were cause of envy and
+jealousy not to Spain alone, but to friendly powers.
+
+Yet the government of Great Britain affected to regard them as
+something less than a sovereign state.  Although Elizabeth had refused
+the sovereignty once proffered to her, although James had united with
+Henry IV. in guaranteeing the treaty just concluded between the States
+and Spain, that monarch had the wonderful conception that the Republic
+was in some sort a province of his own, because he still held the
+cautionary towns in pledge for the loans granted by his predecessor.
+His agents at Constantinople were instructed to represent the new state
+as unworthy to accredit its envoys as those of an independent power.
+The Provinces were represented as a collection of audacious rebels,
+a piratical scum of the sea.  But the Sultan knew his interests better
+than to incur the enmity of this rising maritime power.  The Dutch envoy
+declaring that he would sooner throw himself into the Bosphorus than
+remain to be treated with less consideration than that accorded to the
+ministers of all great powers, the remonstrances of envious colleagues
+were hushed, and Haga was received with all due honours.
+
+Even at the court of the best friend of the Republic, the French king,
+men looked coldly at the upstart commonwealth.  Francis Aerssens, the
+keen and accomplished minister of the States, resident in Paris for many
+years, was received as ambassador after the truce with all the ceremonial
+befitting the highest rank in the diplomatic service; yet Henry could not
+yet persuade himself to look upon the power accrediting him as a
+thoroughly organized commonwealth.
+
+The English ambassador asked the King if he meant to continue his aid and
+assistance to the States during the truce.  "Yes," answered Henry.
+
+"And a few years beyond it?"
+
+"No.  I do not wish to offend the King of Spain from mere gaiety of
+heart."
+
+"But they are free," replied the Ambassador; "the King of Spain could
+have no cause for offence."
+
+"They are free," said the King, "but not sovereign."--"Judge then," wrote
+Aerssens to Barneveld, "how we shall be with the King of Spain at the end
+of our term when our best friends make this distinction among themselves
+to our disadvantage.  They insist on making a difference between liberty
+and sovereignty; considering liberty as a mean term between servitude and
+sovereignty."
+
+"You would do well," continued the Dutch ambassador, "to use the word
+'sovereignty' on all occasions instead of 'liberty.'"  The hint was
+significant and the advice sound.
+
+The haughty republic of Venice, too, with its "golden Book" and its
+pedigree of a thousand years, looked askance at the republic of yesterday
+rising like herself out of lagunes and sand banks, and affecting to place
+herself side by side with emperors, kings, and the lion of St. Mark.  But
+the all-accomplished council of that most serene commonwealth had far too
+much insight and too wide experience in political combinations to make
+the blunder of yielding to this aristocratic sentiment.
+
+The natural enemy of the Pope, of Spain, of Austria, must of necessity
+be the friend of Venice, and it was soon thought highly desirable to
+intimate half officially that a legation from the States-General to the
+Queen of the Adriatic, announcing the conclusion of the Twelve Years'
+Truce, would be extremely well received.
+
+The hint was given by the Venetian ambassador at Paris to Francis
+Aerssens, who instantly recommended van der Myle, son-in-law of
+Barneveld, as a proper personage to be entrusted with this important
+mission.  At this moment an open breach had almost occurred between Spain
+and Venice, and the Spanish ambassador at Paris, Don Pedro de Toledo,
+naturally very irate with Holland, Venice, and even with France, was
+vehement in his demonstrations.  The arrogant Spaniard had for some time
+been employed in an attempt to negotiate a double marriage between the
+Dauphin and the eldest daughter of Philip III., and between the eldest
+son of that king and the Princess Elizabeth of France.  An indispensable
+but secret condition of this negotiation was the absolute renunciation by
+France of its alliance and friendly relations with the United Provinces.
+The project was in truth a hostile measure aimed directly at the life of
+the Republic.  Henry held firm however, and Don Pedro was about to depart
+malcontent, his mission having totally failed.  He chanced, when going to
+his audience of leave-taking, after the arrival of his successor, Don
+Inigo de Cardenas, to meet the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Foscarini.
+An altercation took place between them, during which the Spaniard poured
+out his wrath so vehemently, calling his colleague with neat alliteration
+"a poltroon, a pantaloon, and a pig," that Henry heard him.
+
+What Signor Antonio replied has not been preserved, but it is stated that
+he was first to seek a reconciliation, not liking, he said, Spanish
+assassinations.
+
+Meantime the double marriage project was for a season at least suspended,
+and the alliance between the two republics went forwards.  Van der Myle,
+appointed ambassador to Venice, soon afterwards arrived in Paris, where
+he made a very favourable impression, and was highly lauded by Aerssens
+in his daily correspondence with Barneveld.  No portentous shadow of
+future and fatal discord between those statesmen fell upon the cheerful
+scene.  Before the year closed, he arrived at his post, and was received
+with great distinction, despite the obstacles thrown in his way by Spain
+and other powers; the ambassador of France itself, de Champigny, having
+privately urged that he ought to be placed on the same footing with the
+envoys of Savoy and of Florence.
+
+Van der Myle at starting committed the trifling fault of styling the
+States-General "most illustrious" (illustrissimi) instead of "most
+serene," the title by which Venice designated herself.
+
+The fault was at once remedied, however, Priuli the Doge seating the
+Dutch ambassador on his right hand at his solemn reception, and giving
+directions that van der Myle should be addressed as Excellency, his post
+being assigned him directly after his seniors, the ambassadors of Pope,
+Emperor, and kings.  The same precedence was settled in Paris, while
+Aerssens, who did not consider himself placed in a position of greater
+usefulness by his formal installation as ambassador, received private
+intimation from Henry, with whom he was on terms of great confidence and
+intimacy, that he should have private access to the King as frequently
+and as in formally as before.  The theory that the ambassador,
+representing the personality of his sovereign, may visit the monarch
+to whom he is accredited, without ceremony and at his own convenience,
+was as rarely carried into practice in the sixteenth century as in the
+nineteenth, while on the other hand Aerssens, as the private and
+confidential agent of a friendly but not publicly recognized
+commonwealth, had been for many years in almost daily personal
+communication with the King.
+
+It is also important to note that the modern fallacy according to which
+republics being impersonal should not be represented by ambassadors had
+not appeared in that important epoch in diplomatic history.  On the
+contrary, the two great republics of the age, Holland and Venice,
+vindicated for themselves, with as much dignity and reason as success,
+their right to the highest diplomatic honours.
+
+The distinction was substantial not shadowy; those haughty commonwealths
+not considering it advantageous or decorous that their representatives
+should for want of proper official designations be ranked on great
+ceremonial occasions with the ministers of petty Italian principalities
+or of the three hundred infinitesimal sovereignties of Germany.
+
+It was the advice of the French king especially, who knew politics and
+the world as well as any man, that the envoys of the Republic which he
+befriended and which stood now on the threshold of its official and
+national existence, should assert themselves at every court with the
+self-reliance and courtesy becoming the functionaries of a great power.
+That those ministers were second to the representatives of no other
+European state in capacity and accomplishment was a fact well known to
+all who had dealings with them, for the States required in their
+diplomatic representatives knowledge of history and international law,
+modern languages, and the classics, as well as familiarity with political
+customs and social courtesies; the breeding of gentlemen in short, and
+the accomplishments of scholars.  It is both a literary enjoyment and a
+means of historical and political instruction to read after the lapse of
+centuries their reports and despatches.  They worthily compare as works
+of art with those diplomatic masterpieces the letters and 'Relazioni' of
+the Venetian ambassadors; and it is well known that the earlier and some
+of the most important treatises on public and international law ever
+written are from the pens of Hollanders, who indeed may be said to have
+invented that science.'
+
+The Republic having thus steadily shouldered its way into the family of
+nations was soon called upon to perform a prominent part in the world's
+affairs.  More than in our own epoch there was a close political
+commingling of such independent states as held sympathetic views on the
+great questions agitating Europe.  The policy of isolation so wisely and
+successfully carried out by our own trans-Atlantic commonwealth was
+impossible for the Dutch republic, born as it was of a great religious
+schism, and with its narrow territory wedged between the chief political
+organizations of Christendom.  Moreover the same jealousy on the part of
+established powers which threw so many obstacles in its path to
+recognized sovereignty existed in the highest degree between its two
+sponsors and allies, France and England, in regard to their respective
+relations to the new state.
+
+"If ever there was an obliged people," said Henry's secretary of state,
+Villeroy, to Aerssens, "then it is you Netherlanders to his Majesty.  He
+has converted your war into peace, and has never abandoned you.  It is
+for you now to show your affection and gratitude."
+
+In the time of Elizabeth, and now in that of her successor, there was
+scarcely a day in which the envoys of the States were not reminded of the
+immense load of favour from England under which they tottered, and of the
+greater sincerity and value of English friendship over that of France.
+
+Sully often spoke to Aerssens on the subject in even stronger language,
+deeming himself the chief protector and guardian angel of the Republic,
+to whom they were bound by ties of eternal gratitude.  "But if the
+States," he said, "should think of caressing the King of England more
+than him, or even of treating him on an equality with his Majesty, Henry
+would be very much affronted.  He did not mean that they should neglect
+the friendship of the King of Britain, but that they should cultivate it
+after and in subordination to his own, for they might be sure that James
+held all things indifferent, their ruin or their conservation, while his
+Majesty had always manifested the contrary both by his counsels and by
+the constant furnishing of supplies."
+
+Henry of France and Navarre--soldier, statesman, wit, above all a man
+and every inch a king--brimful of human vices, foibles, and humours, and
+endowed with those high qualities of genius which enabled him to mould
+events and men by his unscrupulous and audacious determination to conform
+to the spirit of his times which no man better understood than himself,
+had ever been in such close relations with the Netherlands as to seem in
+some sort their sovereign.
+
+James Stuart, emerging from the school of Buchanan and the atmosphere of
+Calvinism in which he had been bred, now reigned in those more sunny and
+liberal regions where Elizabeth so long had ruled.  Finding himself at
+once, after years of theological study, face to face with a foreign
+commonwealth and a momentous epoch, in which politics were so commingled
+with divinity as to offer daily the most puzzling problems, the royal
+pedant hugged himself at beholding so conspicuous a field for his
+talents.
+
+To turn a throne into a pulpit, and amaze mankind with his learning,
+was an ambition most sweet to gratify.  The Calvinist of Scotland now
+proclaimed his deadly hatred of Puritans in England and Holland, and
+denounced the Netherlanders as a pack of rebels whom it always pleased
+him to irritate, and over whom he too claimed, through the possession of
+the cautionary towns, a kind of sovereignty.  Instinctively feeling that
+in the rough and unlovely husk of Puritanism was enclosed the germ of a
+wider human liberty than then existed, he was determined to give battle
+to it with his tongue, his pen, with everything but his sword.
+
+Doubtless the States had received most invaluable assistance from both
+France and England, but the sovereigns of those countries were too apt to
+forget that it was their own battles, as well as those of the Hollanders,
+that had been fought in Flanders and Brabant.  But for the alliance and
+subsidies of the faithful States, Henry would not so soon have ascended
+the throne of his ancestors, while it was matter of history that the
+Spanish government had for years been steadily endeavouring to subjugate
+England not so much for the value of the conquest in itself as for a
+stepping-stone to the recovery of the revolted Netherlands.
+
+For the dividing line of nations or at least of national alliances was a
+frontier not of language but of faith.  Germany was but a geographical
+expression.  The union of Protestantism, subscribed by a large proportion
+of its three hundred and seven sovereigns, ran zigzag through the
+country, a majority probably of the people at that moment being opposed
+to the Roman Church.
+
+It has often been considered amazing that Protestantism having
+accomplished so much should have fallen backwards so soon, and yielded
+almost undisputed sway in vast regions to the long dominant church.  But
+in truth there is nothing surprising about it.  Catholicism was and
+remained a unit, while its opponents were eventually broken up into
+hundreds of warring and politically impotent organizations.  Religious
+faith became distorted into a weapon for selfish and greedy territorial
+aggrandizement in the hands of Protestant princes.  "Cujus regio ejus
+religio" was the taunt hurled in the face of the imploring Calvinists of
+France and the Low Countries by the arrogant Lutherans of Germany.  Such
+a sword smote the principle of religious freedom and mutual toleration
+into the dust, and rendered them comparatively weak in the conflict with
+the ancient and splendidly organized church.
+
+The Huguenots of France, notwithstanding the protection grudgingly
+afforded them by their former chieftain, were dejected and discomfited
+by his apostasy, and Henry, placed in a fearfully false position, was an
+object of suspicion to both friends and foes.  In England it is difficult
+to say whether a Jesuit or a Puritan was accounted the more noxious
+animal by the dominant party.
+
+In the United Provinces perhaps one half the population was either openly
+or secretly attached to the ancient church, while among the Protestant
+portion a dire and tragic convulsion was about to break forth, which for
+a time at least was to render Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants more
+fiercely opposed to each other than to Papists.
+
+The doctrine of predestination in its sternest and strictest sense had
+long been the prevailing one in the Reformed Church of the revolted
+Netherlands, as in those of Scotland, France, Geneva, and the Palatinate.
+No doubt up to the period of the truce a majority had acquiesced in that
+dogma and its results, although there had always been many preachers to
+advocate publicly a milder creed.  It was not until the appointment of
+Jacob Arminius to the professorship of theology at Leyden, in the place
+of Francis Junius, in the year 1603, that a danger of schism in the
+Church, seemed impending.  Then rose the great Gomarus in his wrath,
+and with all the powers of splendid eloquence, profound learning,
+and the intense bigotry of conviction, denounced the horrible heresy.
+Conferences between the two before the Court of Holland, theological
+tournaments between six champions on a side, gallantly led by their
+respective chieftains, followed, with the usual result of confirming
+both parties in the conviction that to each alone belonged exclusively
+the truth.
+
+The original influence of Arminius had however been so great that when
+the preachers of Holland had been severally called on by a synod to sign
+the Heidelberg Catechism, many of them refused.  Here was open heresy and
+revolt.  It was time for the true church to vindicate its authority.
+The great war with Spain had been made, so it was urged and honestly
+believed, not against the Inquisition, not to prevent Netherlanders from
+being burned and buried alive by the old true church, not in defence of
+ancient charters, constitutions, and privileges--the precious result of
+centuries of popular resistance to despotic force--not to maintain an
+amount of civil liberty and local self-government larger in extent than
+any then existing in the world, not to assert equality of religion for
+all men, but simply to establish the true religion, the one church, the
+only possible creed; the creed and church of Calvin.
+
+It is perfectly certain that the living fire which glowed in the veins of
+those hot gospellers had added intense enthusiasm to the war spirit
+throughout that immense struggle.  It is quite possible that without that
+enthusiasm the war might not have been carried on to its successful end.
+But it is equally certain that Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, and
+devotees of many other creeds, had taken part in the conflict in defence
+both of hearth and altar, and that without that aid the independence of
+the Provinces would never have been secured.
+
+Yet before the war was ended the arrogance of the Reformed priesthood had
+begun to dig a chasm.  Men who with William the Silent and Barneveld had
+indulged in the vision of religious equality as a possible result of so
+much fighting against the Holy Inquisition were perhaps to be
+disappointed.
+
+Preachers under the influence of the gentle Arminius having dared to
+refuse signing the Creed were to be dealt with.  It was time to pass from
+censure to action.
+
+Heresy must be trampled down.  The churches called for a national synod,
+and they did this as by divine right.  "My Lords the States-General must
+observe," they said, "that this assembly now demanded is not a human
+institution but an ordinance of the Holy Ghost in its community, not
+depending upon any man's authority, but proceeding from God to the
+community."  They complained that the true church was allowed to act only
+through the civil government, and was thus placed at a disadvantage
+compared even with Catholics and other sects, whose proceedings were
+winked at.  "Thus the true church suffered from its apparent and public
+freedom, and hostile sects gained by secret connivance."
+
+A crisis was fast approaching.  The one church claimed infallibility and
+superiority to the civil power.  The Holy Ghost was placed in direct,
+ostentatious opposition to My Lords the States-General.  It was for
+Netherlanders to decide whether, after having shaken off the Holy
+Inquisition, and subjected the old true church to the public authority,
+they were now to submit to the imperious claims of the new true church.
+
+There were hundreds of links connecting the Church with the State.  In
+that day a divorce between the two was hardly possible or conceivable.
+The system of Congregationalism so successfully put into practice soon
+afterwards in the wilderness of New England, and to which so much of
+American freedom political as well as religious is due, was not easy
+to adopt in an old country like the Netherlands.  Splendid churches and
+cathedrals, the legal possession of which would be contended for by rival
+sects, could scarcely be replaced by temporary structures of lath and
+plaster, or by humble back parlours of mechanics' shops.  There were
+questions of property of complicated nature.  Not only the states and the
+communities claimed in rivalry the ownership of church property, but many
+private families could show ancient advowsons and other claims to present
+or to patronize, derived from imperial or ducal charters.
+
+So long as there could be liberty of opinion within the Church upon
+points not necessarily vital, open schism could be avoided, by which the
+cause of Protestantism throughout Europe must be weakened, while at the
+same time subordination of the priesthood to the civil authority would be
+maintained.  But if the Holy Ghost, through the assembled clergy, were
+to dictate an iron formulary to which all must conform, to make laws for
+church government which every citizen must obey, and to appoint preachers
+and school-masters from whom alone old and young could receive
+illumination and instruction religious or lay, a theocracy would be
+established which no enlightened statesman could tolerate.
+
+The States-General agreed to the synod, but imposed a condition that
+there should be a revision of Creed and Catechism.  This was thundered
+down with one blast.  The condition implied a possibility that the vile
+heresy of Arminius might be correct.  An unconditional synod was
+demanded.  The Heidelberg Creed and Netherland Catechism were sacred,
+infallible, not to be touched.  The answer of the government, through
+the mouth of Barneveld, was that "to My Lords the States-General as the
+foster-fathers and protectors of the churches every right belonged."
+
+Thus far the States-General under the leadership of the Advocate were
+unanimous.  The victory remained with State against Church.  But very
+soon after the truce had been established, and men had liberty to devote
+themselves to peaceful pursuits, the ecclesiastical trumpet again sounded
+far and wide, and contending priests and laymen rushed madly to the fray.
+The Remonstrance and Contra-Remonstrance, and the appointment of Conrad
+Vorstius, a more abominable heretic than Arminius, to the vacant chair
+of Arminius--a step which drove Gomarus and the Gomarites to frenzy,
+although Gomarus and Vorstius remained private and intimate friends
+to the last--are matters briefly to be mentioned on a later page.
+
+Thus to the four chief actors in the politico-religious drama, soon to be
+enacted as an interlude to an eighty years' war, were assigned parts at
+first sight inconsistent with their private convictions.  The King of
+France, who had often abjured his religion, and was now the best of
+Catholics, was denounced ferociously in every Catholic pulpit in
+Christendom as secretly an apostate again, and the open protector of
+heretics and rebels.  But the cheerful Henry troubled himself less than
+he perhaps had cause to do with these thunderblasts.  Besides, as we
+shall soon see, he had other objects political and personal to sway his
+opinions.
+
+James the ex-Calvinist, crypto-Arminian, pseudo-Papist, and avowed
+Puritan hater, was girding on his armour to annihilate Arminians and to
+defend and protect Puritans in Holland, while swearing that in England he
+would pepper them and harry them and hang them and that he would even
+like to bury them alive.
+
+Barneveld, who turned his eyes, as much as in such an inflammatory age it
+was possible, from subtle points of theology, and relied on his great-
+grandfather's motto of humility, "Nil scire tutissima fides" was perhaps
+nearer to the dogma of the dominant Reformed Church than he knew,
+although always the consistent and strenuous champion of the civil
+authority over Church as well as State.
+
+Maurice was no theologian.  He was a steady churchgoer, and his
+favorite divine, the preacher at his court chapel, was none other than
+Uytenbogaert.  The very man who was instantly to be the champion of the
+Arminians, the author of the Remonstrance, the counsellor and comrade of
+Barneveld and Grotius, was now sneered at by the Gomarites as the "Court
+Trumpeter."  The preacher was not destined to change his opinions.
+Perhaps the Prince might alter.  But Maurice then paid no heed to the
+great point at issue, about which all the Netherlanders were to take each
+other by the throat--absolute predestination.  He knew that the Advocate
+had refused to listen to his stepmother's suggestion as to his obtaining
+the sovereignty.  "He knew nothing of predestination," he was wont to
+say, "whether it was green or whether it was blue.  He only knew that his
+pipe and the Advocate's were not likely to make music together."  This
+much of predestination he did know, that if the Advocate and his friends
+were to come to open conflict with the Prince of Orange-Nassau, the
+conqueror of Nieuwpoort, it was predestined to go hard with the Advocate
+and his friends.
+
+The theological quibble did not interest him much, and he was apt to
+blunder about it.
+
+"Well, preacher," said he one day to Albert Huttenus, who had come to him
+to intercede for a deserter condemned to be hanged, "are you one of those
+Arminians who believe that one child is born to salvation and another to
+damnation?"
+
+Huttenus, amazed to the utmost at the extraordinary question, replied,
+"Your Excellency will be graciously pleased to observe that this is not
+the opinion of those whom one calls by the hateful name of Arminians, but
+the opinion of their adversaries."
+
+"Well, preacher," rejoined Maurice, "don't you think I know better?"  And
+turning to Count Lewis William, Stadholder of Friesland, who was present,
+standing by the hearth with his hand on a copper ring of the
+chimneypiece, he cried,
+
+"Which is right, cousin, the preacher or I?"
+
+"No, cousin," answered Count Lewis, "you are in the wrong."
+
+Thus to the Catholic League organized throughout Europe in solid and
+consistent phalanx was opposed the Great Protestant Union, ardent and
+enthusiastic in detail, but undisciplined, disobedient, and inharmonious
+as a whole.
+
+The great principle, not of religious toleration, which is a phrase of
+insult, but of religious equality, which is the natural right of mankind,
+was to be evolved after a lapse of, additional centuries out of the
+elemental conflict which had already lasted so long.  Still later was
+the total divorce of State and Church to be achieved as the final
+consummation of the great revolution.  Meantime it was almost inevitable
+that the privileged and richly endowed church, with ecclesiastical armies
+and arsenals vastly superior to anything which its antagonist could
+improvise, should more than hold its own.
+
+At the outset of the epoch which now occupies our attention, Europe was
+in a state of exhaustion and longing for repose.  Spain had submitted to
+the humiliation of a treaty of truce with its rebellious subjects which
+was substantially a recognition of their independence.  Nothing could be
+more deplorable than the internal condition of the country which claimed
+to be mistress of the world and still aspired to universal monarchy.
+
+It had made peace because it could no longer furnish funds for the war.
+The French ambassador, Barante, returning from Madrid, informed his
+sovereign that he had often seen officers in the army prostrating
+themselves on their knees in the streets before their sovereign as he
+went to mass, and imploring him for payment of their salaries, or at
+least an alms to keep them from starving, and always imploring in vain.
+
+The King, who was less than a cipher, had neither capacity to feel
+emotion, nor intelligence to comprehend the most insignificant affair of
+state.  Moreover the means were wanting to him even had he been disposed
+to grant assistance.  The terrible Duke of Lerma was still his inexorably
+lord and master, and the secretary of that powerful personage, who kept
+an open shop for the sale of offices of state both high and low, took
+care that all the proceeds should flow into the coffers of the Duke and
+his own lap instead of the royal exchequer.
+
+In France both king and people declared themselves disgusted with war.
+Sully disapproved of the treaty just concluded between Spain and the
+Netherlands, feeling sure that the captious and equivocal clauses
+contained in it would be interpreted to the disadvantage of the Republic
+and of the Reformed religion whenever Spain felt herself strong enough to
+make the attempt.  He was especially anxious that the States should make
+no concessions in regard to the exercise of the Catholic worship within
+their territory, believing that by so doing they would compromise their
+political independence besides endangering the cause of Protestantism
+everywhere.  A great pressure was put upon Sully that moment by the King
+to change his religion.
+
+"You will all be inevitably ruined if you make concessions in this
+regard," said he to Aerssens.  "Take example by me.  I should be utterly
+undone if I had listened to any overture on this subject."
+
+Nevertheless it was the opinion of the astute and caustic envoy that the
+Duke would be forced to yield at last.  The Pope was making great efforts
+to gain him, and thus to bring about the extirpation of Protestantism in
+France.  And the King, at that time much under the influence of the
+Jesuits, had almost set his heart on the conversion.  Aerssens insinuated
+that Sully was dreading a minute examination into the affairs of his
+administration of the finances--a groundless calumny--and would be thus
+forced to comply.  Other enemies suggested that nothing would effect this
+much desired apostasy but the office of Constable of France, which it was
+certain would never be bestowed on him.
+
+At any rate it was very certain that Henry at this period was bent on
+peace.
+
+"Make your account," said Aerssens to Barneveld, as the time for signing
+the truce drew nigh, "on this indubitable foundation that the King is
+determined against war, whatever pretences he may make.  His bellicose
+demeanour has been assumed only to help forward our treaty, which he
+would never have favoured, and ought never to have favoured, if he had
+not been too much in love with peace.  This is a very important secret if
+we manage it discreetly, and a very dangerous one if our enemies discover
+it."
+
+Sully would have much preferred that the States should stand out for a
+peace rather than for a truce, and believed it might have been obtained
+if the King had not begun the matter so feebly, and if he had let it be
+understood that he would join his arms to those of the Provinces in case
+of rupture.
+
+He warned the States very strenuously that the Pope, and the King of
+Spain, and a host of enemies open and covert, were doing their host to
+injure them at the French court.  They would find little hindrance in
+this course if the Republic did not show its teeth, and especially if it
+did not stiffly oppose all encroachments of the Roman religion, without
+even showing any deference to the King in this regard, who was much
+importuned on the subject.
+
+He advised the States to improve the interval of truce by restoring order
+to their finances and so arranging their affairs that on the resumption
+of hostilities, if come they must, their friends might be encouraged to
+help them, by the exhibition of thorough vigour on their part.
+
+France then, although utterly indisposed for war at that moment, was
+thoroughly to be relied on as a friend and in case of need an ally, so
+long as it was governed by its present policy.  There was but one king
+left in Europe since the death of Elizabeth of England.
+
+But Henry was now on the abhorred threshold of old age which he
+obstinately refused to cross.
+
+There is something almost pathetic, in spite of the censure which much of
+his private life at this period provokes, in the isolation which now
+seemed his lot.
+
+Deceived and hated by his wife and his mistresses, who were conspiring
+with each other and with his ministers, not only against his policy but
+against his life; with a vile Italian adventurer, dishonouring his
+household, entirely dominating the queen, counteracting the royal
+measures, secretly corresponding, by assumed authority, with Spain, in
+direct violation of the King's instructions to his ambassadors, and
+gorging himself with wealth and offices at the expense of everything
+respectable in France; surrounded by a pack of malignant and greedy
+nobles, who begrudged him his fame, his authority, his independence;
+without a home, and almost without a friend, the Most Christian King in
+these latter days led hardly as merry a life as when fighting years long
+for his crown, at the head of his Gascon chivalry, the beloved chieftain
+of Huguenots.
+
+Of the triumvirate then constituting his council, Villeroy, Sillery, and
+Sully, the two first were ancient Leaguers, and more devoted at heart to
+Philip of Spain than to Henry of France and Navarre.
+
+Both silent, laborious, plodding, plotting functionaries, thriftily
+gathering riches; skilled in routine and adepts at intrigue; steady self-
+seekers, and faithful to office in which their lives had passed, they
+might be relied on at any emergency to take part against their master,
+if to ruin would prove more profitable than to serve him.
+
+There was one man who was truer to Henry than Henry had been to himself.
+The haughty, defiant, austere grandee, brave soldier, sagacious
+statesman, thrifty financier, against whom the poisoned arrows of
+religious hatred, envious ambition, and petty court intrigue were daily
+directed, who watched grimly over the exchequer confided to him, which
+was daily growing fuller in despite of the cormorants who trembled at his
+frown; hard worker, good hater, conscientious politician, who filled his
+own coffers without dishonesty, and those of the state without tyranny;
+unsociable, arrogant; pious, very avaricious, and inordinately vain,
+Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, loved and respected Henry as no man
+or woman loved and respected him.  In truth, there was but one living
+being for whom the Duke had greater reverence and affection than for the
+King, and that was the Duke of Sully himself.
+
+At this moment he considered himself, as indeed he was, in full
+possession of his sovereign's confidence.  But he was alone in this
+conviction.  Those about the court, men like Epernon and his creatures,
+believed the great financier on the brink of perdition.  Henry, always
+the loosest of talkers even in regard to his best friends, had declared,
+on some temporary vexation in regard to the affair between Aiguillon and
+Balagny, that he would deal with the Duke as with the late Marshal de
+Biron, and make him smaller than he had ever made him great: goading him
+on this occasion with importunities, almost amounting to commands, that
+both he and his son should forthwith change their religion or expect
+instant ruin.  The blow was so severe that Sully shut himself up, refused
+to see anyone, and talked of retiring for good to his estates.  But he
+knew, and Henry knew, how indispensable he was, and the anger of the
+master was as shortlived as the despair of the minister.
+
+There was no living statesman for whom Henry had a more sincere respect
+than for the Advocate of Holland.  "His Majesty admires and greatly
+extols your wisdom, which he judges necessary for the preservation of
+our State; deeming you one of the rare and sage counsellors of the age."
+It is true that this admiration was in part attributed to the singular
+coincidence of Barneveld's views of policy with the King's own.  Sully,
+on his part, was a severe critic of that policy.  He believed that better
+terms might have been exacted from Spain in the late negotiations, and
+strongly objected to the cavilling and equivocal language of the treaty.
+Rude in pen as in speech, he expressed his mind very freely in his
+conversation and correspondence with Henry in regard to leading
+personages and great affairs, and made no secret of his opinions
+to the States' ambassador.
+
+He showed his letters in which he had informed the King that he ought
+never to have sanctioned the truce without better securities than
+existed, and that the States would never have moved in any matter without
+him.  It would have been better to throw himself into a severe war than
+to see the Republic perish.  He further expressed the conviction that
+Henry ought to have such authority over the Netherlands that they would
+embrace blindly whatever counsel he chose to give them, even if they saw
+in it their inevitable ruin; and this not so much from remembrance of
+assistance rendered by him, but from the necessity in which they should
+always feel of depending totally upon him.
+
+"You may judge, therefore," concluded Aerssens, "as to how much we can
+build on such foundations as these.  I have been amazed at these frank
+communications, for in those letters he spares neither My Lords the
+States, nor his Excellency Prince Maurice, nor yourself; giving his
+judgment of each of you with far too much freedom and without sufficient
+knowledge."
+
+Thus the alliance between the Netherlands and France, notwithstanding
+occasional traces of caprice and flaws of personal jealousy, was on
+the whole sincere, for it was founded on the surest foundation of
+international friendship, the self-interest of each.  Henry, although
+boasting of having bought Paris with a mass, knew as well as his worst
+enemy that in that bargain he had never purchased the confidence of the
+ancient church, on whose bosom he had flung himself with so much dramatic
+pomp.  His noble position, as champion of religious toleration, was not
+only unappreciated in an age in which each church and every sect
+arrogated to itself a monopoly of the truth, but it was one in which
+he did not himself sincerely believe.
+
+After all, he was still the chieftain of the Protestant Union, and,
+although Eldest Son of the Church, was the bitter antagonist of the
+League and the sworn foe to the House of Austria.  He was walking through
+pitfalls with a crowd of invisible but relentless foes dogging his every
+footstep.  In his household or without were daily visions of dagger and
+bowl, and he felt himself marching to his doom.  How could the man on
+whom the heretic and rebellious Hollanders and the Protestant princes of
+Germany relied as on their saviour escape the unutterable wrath and the
+patient vengeance of a power that never forgave?
+
+In England the jealousy of the Republic and of France as co-guardian and
+protector of the Republic was even greater than in France.  Though placed
+by circumstances in the position of ally to the Netherlands and enemy to
+Spain, James hated the Netherlands and adored Spain.  His first thought
+on escaping the general destruction to which the Gunpowder Plot was to
+have involved himself and family and all the principal personages of the
+realm seems to have been to exculpate Spain from participation in the
+crime.  His next was to deliver a sermon to Parliament, exonerating the
+Catholics and going out of his way to stigmatize the Puritans as
+entertaining doctrines which should be punished with fire.  As the
+Puritans had certainly not been accused of complicity with Guy Fawkes
+or Garnet, this portion of the discourse was at least superfluous.  But
+James loathed nothing so much as a Puritan.  A Catholic at heart, be
+would have been the warmest ally of the League had he only been permitted
+to be Pope of Great Britain.  He hated and feared a Jesuit, not for his
+religious doctrines, for with these he sympathized, but for his political
+creed.  He liked not that either Roman Pontiff or British Presbyterian
+should abridge his heaven-born prerogative.  The doctrine of Papal
+superiority to temporal sovereigns was as odious to him as Puritan
+rebellion to the hierarchy of which he was the chief.  Moreover,
+in his hostility to both Papists and Presbyterians, there was much of
+professional rivalry.  Having been deprived by the accident of birth of
+his true position as theological professor, he lost no opportunity of
+turning his throne into a pulpit and his sceptre into a controversial
+pen.
+
+Henry of France, who rarely concealed his contempt for Master Jacques, as
+he called him, said to the English ambassador, on receiving from him one
+of the King's books, and being asked what he thought of it--"It is not
+the business of us kings to write, but to fight.  Everybody should mind
+his own business, but it is the vice of most men to wish to appear
+learned in matters of which they are ignorant."
+
+The flatterers of James found their account in pandering to his
+sacerdotal and royal vanity.  "I have always believed," said the Lord
+Chancellor, after hearing the King argue with and browbeat a Presbyterian
+deputation, "that the high-priesthood and royalty ought to be united, but
+I never witnessed the actual junction till now, after hearing the learned
+discourse of your Majesty."  Archbishop Whitgift, grovelling still lower,
+declared his conviction that James, in the observations he had deigned to
+make, had been directly inspired by the Holy Ghost.
+
+Nothing could be more illogical and incoherent with each other than his
+theological and political opinions.  He imagined himself a defender of
+the Protestant faith, while hating Holland and fawning on the House of
+Austria.
+
+In England he favoured Arminianism, because the Anglican Church
+recognized for its head the temporal chief of the State.  In Holland
+he vehemently denounced the Arminians, indecently persecuting their
+preachers and statesmen, who were contending for exactly the same
+principle--the supremacy of State over Church.  He sentenced Bartholomew
+Legate to be burned alive in Smithfield as a blasphemous heretic, and did
+his best to compel the States of Holland to take the life of Professor
+Vorstius of Leyden.  He persecuted the Presbyterians in England as
+furiously as he defended them in Holland.  He drove Bradford and Carver
+into the New England wilderness, and applauded Gomarus and Walaeus and
+the other famous leaders of the Presbyterian party in the Netherlands
+with all his soul and strength.
+
+He united with the French king in negotiations for Netherland
+independence, while denouncing the Provinces as guilty of criminal
+rebellion against their lawful sovereign.
+
+"He pretends," said Jeannin, "to assist in bringing about the peace, and
+nevertheless does his best openly to prevent it."
+
+Richardot declared that the firmness of the King of Spain proceeded
+entirely from reliance on the promise of James that there should be no
+acknowledgment in the treaty of the liberty of the States.  Henry wrote
+to Jeannin that he knew very well "what that was capable of, but that he
+should not be kept awake by anything he could do."
+
+As a king he spent his reign--so much of it as could be spared from
+gourmandizing, drunkenness, dalliance with handsome minions of his own
+sex, and theological pursuits--in rescuing the Crown from dependence on
+Parliament; in straining to the utmost the royal prerogative; in
+substituting proclamations for statutes; in doing everything in his
+power, in short, to smooth the path for his successor to the scaffold.
+As father of a family he consecrated many years of his life to the
+wondrous delusion of the Spanish marriages.
+
+The Gunpowder Plot seemed to have inspired him with an insane desire
+for that alliance, and few things in history are more amazing than the
+persistency with which he pursued the scheme, until the pursuit became
+not only ridiculous, but impossible.
+
+With such a man, frivolous, pedantic, conceited, and licentious, the
+earnest statesmen of Holland were forced into close alliance.  It is
+pathetic to see men like Barneveld and Hugo Grotius obliged, on great
+occasions of state, to use the language of respect and affection to one
+by whom they were hated, and whom they thoroughly despised.
+
+But turning away from France, it was in vain for them to look for kings
+or men either among friends or foes.  In Germany religious dissensions
+were gradually ripening into open war, and it would be difficult to
+imagine a more hopelessly incompetent ruler than the man who was
+nominally chief of the Holy Roman Realm.  Yet the distracted Rudolph was
+quite as much an emperor as the chaos over which he was supposed to
+preside was an empire.  Perhaps the very worst polity ever devised by
+human perverseness was the system under which the great German race was
+then writhing and groaning.  A mad world with a lunatic to govern it;
+a democracy of many princes, little and big, fighting amongst each
+other, and falling into daily changing combinations as some masterly or
+mischievous hand whirled the kaleidoscope; drinking Rhenish by hogsheads,
+and beer by the tun; robbing churches, dictating creeds to their
+subjects, and breaking all the commandments themselves; a people at the
+bottom dimly striving towards religious freedom and political life out of
+abject social, ecclesiastical, and political serfdom, and perhaps even
+then dumbly feeling within its veins, with that prophetic instinct which
+never abandons great races, a far distant and magnificent Future of
+national unity and Imperial splendour, the very reverse of the confusion
+which was then the hideous Present; an Imperial family at top with many
+heads and slender brains; a band of brothers and cousins wrangling,
+intriguing, tripping up each others' heels, and unlucky Rudolph, in his
+Hradschin, looking out of window over the peerless Prague, spread out in
+its beauteous landscape of hill and dale, darkling forest, dizzy cliffs,
+and rushing river, at his feet, feebly cursing the unhappy city for its
+ingratitude to an invisible and impotent sovereign; his excellent brother
+Matthias meanwhile marauding through the realms and taking one crown
+after another from his poor bald head.
+
+It would be difficult to depict anything more precisely what an emperor
+in those portentous times should not be.  He collected works of art of
+many kinds--pictures, statues, gems.  He passed his days in his galleries
+contemplating in solitary grandeur these treasures, or in his stables,
+admiring a numerous stud of horses which he never drove or rode.
+Ambassadors and ministers of state disguised themselves as grooms and
+stable-boys to obtain accidental glimpses of a sovereign who rarely
+granted audiences.  His nights were passed in star-gazing with Tycho de
+Brake, or with that illustrious Suabian whose name is one of the great
+lights and treasures of the world.  But it was not to study the laws of
+planetary motion nor to fathom mysteries of divine harmony that the
+monarch stood with Kepler in the observatory.  The influence of countless
+worlds upon the destiny of one who, by capricious accident, if accident
+ever exists in history, had been entrusted with the destiny of so large a
+portion of one little world; the horoscope, not of the Universe, but of
+himself; such were the limited purposes with which the Kaiser looked upon
+the constellations.
+
+For the Catholic Rudolph had received the Protestant Kepler, driven from
+Tubingen because Lutheran doctors, knowing from Holy Writ that the sun
+had stood still in Ajalon, had denounced his theory of planetary motion.
+His mother had just escaped being burned as a witch, and the world owes
+a debt of gratitude to the Emperor for protecting the astrologer, when
+enlightened theologians might, perhaps, have hanged the astronomer.
+
+A red-faced, heavy fowled, bald-headed, somewhat goggle-eyed old
+gentleman, Rudolph did his best to lead the life of a hermit, and escape
+the cares of royalty.  Timid by temperament, yet liable to fits of
+uncontrollable anger, he broke his furniture to pieces when irritated,
+and threw dishes that displeased him in his butler's face, but left
+affairs of state mainly to his valet, who earned many a penny by selling
+the Imperial signature.
+
+He had just signed the famous "Majestatsbrief," by which he granted vast
+privileges to the Protestants of Bohemia, and had bitten the pen to
+pieces in a paroxysm of anger, after dimly comprehending the extent of
+the concessions which he had made.
+
+There were hundreds of sovereign states over all of which floated the
+shadowy and impalpable authority of an Imperial crown scarcely fixed
+on the head of any one of the rival brethren and cousins; there was a
+confederation of Protestants, with the keen-sighted and ambitious
+Christian of Anhalt acting as its chief, and dreaming of the Bohemian
+crown; there was the just-born Catholic League, with the calm, far-
+seeing, and egotistical rather than self-seeking Maximilian at its head;
+each combination extending over the whole country, stamped with
+imbecility of action from its birth, and perverted and hampered by
+inevitable jealousies.  In addition to all these furrows ploughed by
+the very genius of discord throughout the unhappy land was the wild and
+secret intrigue with which Leopold, Archduke and Bishop, dreaming also
+of the crown of Wenzel, was about to tear its surface as deeply as he
+dared.
+
+Thus constituted were the leading powers of Europe in the earlier part of
+1609--the year in which a peaceful period seemed to have begun.  To those
+who saw the entangled interests of individuals, and the conflict of
+theological dogmas and religious and political intrigue which furnished
+so much material out of which wide-reaching schemes of personal ambition
+could be spun, it must have been obvious that the interval of truce was
+necessarily but a brief interlude between two tragedies.
+
+It seemed the very mockery of Fate that, almost at the very instant when
+after two years' painful negotiation a truce had been made, the signal
+for universal discord should be sounded.  One day in the early summer of
+1609, Henry IV. came to the Royal Arsenal, the residence of Sully,
+accompanied by Zamet and another of his intimate companions.  He asked
+for the Duke and was told that he was busy in his study.  "Of course,"
+said the King, turning to his followers, "I dare say you expected to be
+told that he was out shooting, or with the ladies, or at the barber's.
+But who works like Sully?  Tell him," he said, "to come to the balcony
+in his garden, where he and I are not accustomed to be silent."
+
+As soon as Sully appeared, the King observed: "Well; here the Duke of
+Cleve is dead, and has left everybody his heir."
+
+It was true enough, and the inheritance was of vital importance to the
+world.
+
+It was an apple of discord thrown directly between the two rival camps
+into which Christendom was divided.  The Duchies of Cleve, Berg, and
+Julich, and the Counties and Lordships of Mark, Ravensberg, and
+Ravenstein, formed a triangle, political and geographical, closely wedged
+between Catholicism and Protestantism, and between France, the United
+Provinces, Belgium, and Germany.  Should it fall into Catholic hands, the
+Netherlands were lost, trampled upon in every corner, hedged in on all
+sides, with the House of Austria governing the Rhine, the Meuse, and the
+Scheldt.  It was vital to them to exclude the Empire from the great
+historic river which seemed destined to form the perpetual frontier of
+jealous powers and rival creeds.
+
+Should it fall into heretic hands, the States were vastly strengthened,
+the Archduke Albert isolated and cut off from the protection of Spain and
+of the Empire.  France, although Catholic, was the ally of Holland and
+the secret but well known enemy of the House of Austria.  It was
+inevitable that the king of that country, the only living statesman that
+wore a crown, should be appealed to by all parties and should find
+himself in the proud but dangerous position of arbiter of Europe.
+
+In this emergency he relied upon himself and on two men besides,
+Maximilian de Bethune and John of Barneveld.  The conference between the
+King and Sully and between both and Francis Aerssens, ambassador of the
+States, were of almost daily occurrence.  The minute details given in the
+adroit diplomatist's correspondence indicate at every stage the extreme
+deference paid by Henry to the opinion of Holland's Advocate and the
+confidence reposed by him in the resources and the courage of the
+Republic.
+
+All the world was claiming the heritage of the duchies.
+
+It was only strange that an event which could not be long deferred and
+the consequences of which were soon to be so grave, the death of the Duke
+of Cleve, should at last burst like a bomb-shell on the council tables of
+the sovereigns and statesmen of Europe.  That mischievous madman John
+William died childless in the spring of 1609.  His sister Sibylla, an
+ancient and malignant spinster, had governed him and his possessions
+except in his lucid intervals.  The mass of the population over which he
+ruled being Protestant, while the reigning family and the chief nobles
+were of the ancient faith, it was natural that the Catholic party under,
+the lead of Maximilian of Bavaria should deem it all-important that there
+should be direct issue to that family.  Otherwise the inheritance on his
+death would probably pass to Protestant princes.
+
+The first wife provided for him was a beautiful princess; Jacobea of
+Baden.  The Pope blessed the nuptials, and sent the bride a golden rose,
+but the union was sterile and unhappy.  The Duke, who was in the habit
+of careering through his palace in full armour, slashing at and wounding
+anyone that came in his way, was at last locked up.  The hapless Jacobea,
+accused by Sibylla of witchcraft and other crimes possible and
+impossible, was thrown into prison.  Two years long the devilish
+malignity of the sister-in-law was exercised upon her victim, who, as it
+is related, was not allowed natural sleep during all that period, being
+at every hour awakened by command of Sibylla.  At last the Duchess was
+strangled in prison.  A new wife was at once provided for the lunatic,
+Antonia of Lorraine.  The two remained childless, and Sibylla at the age
+of forty-nine took to herself a husband, the Margrave of Burgau, of the
+House of Austria, the humble birth of whose mother, however, did not
+allow him the rank of Archduke.  Her efforts thus to provide Catholic
+heirs to the rich domains of Clove proved as fruitless as her previous
+attempts.
+
+And now Duke John William had died, and the representatives of his three
+dead sisters, and the living Sibylla were left to fight for the duchies.
+
+It would be both cruel and superfluous to inflict on the reader a
+historical statement of the manner in which these six small provinces
+were to be united into a single state.  It would be an equally sterile
+task to retrace the legal arguments by which the various parties prepared
+themselves to vindicate their claims, each pretender more triumphantly
+than the other.  The naked facts alone retain vital interest, and of
+these facts the prominent one was the assertion of the Emperor that the
+duchies, constituting a fief masculine, could descend to none of the
+pretenders, but were at his disposal as sovereign of Germany.
+
+On the other hand nearly all the important princes of that country sent
+their agents into the duchies to look after the interests real or
+imaginary which they claimed,
+
+There were but four candidates who in reality could be considered serious
+ones.
+
+Mary Eleanor, eldest sister of the Duke, had been married in the lifetime
+of their father to Albert Frederic of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia.  To
+the children of this marriage was reserved the succession of the whole
+property in case of the masculine line becoming extinct.  Two years
+afterwards the second sister, Anne, was married to Duke Philip Lewis,
+Count-Palatine of Neuburg; the children of which marriage stood next
+in succession to those of the eldest sister, should that become
+extinguished.  Four years later the third sister, Magdalen, espoused
+the Duke John, Count-Palatine of Deux-Ponts; who, like Neuburg, made
+resignation of rights of succession in favour of the descendants of the
+Brandenburg marriage.  The marriage of the youngest sister, Sibylla, with
+the Margrave of Burgau has been already mentioned.  It does not appear
+that her brother, whose lunatic condition hardly permitted him to assure
+her the dowry which had been the price of renunciation in the case of her
+three elder sisters, had obtained that renunciation from her.
+
+The claims of the childless Sibylla as well as those of the Deux-Ponts
+branch were not destined to be taken into serious consideration.
+
+The real competitors were the Emperor on the one side and the Elector of
+Brandenburg and the Count-Palatine of Neuburg on the other.
+
+It is not necessary to my purpose to say a single word as to the legal
+and historical rights of the controversy.  Volumes upon volumes of
+forgotten lore might be consulted, and they would afford exactly as much
+refreshing nutriment as would the heaps of erudition hardly ten years
+old, and yet as antiquated as the title-deeds of the Pharaohs, concerning
+the claims to the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein.  The fortunate house of
+Brandenburg may have been right or wrong in both disputes.  It is certain
+that it did not lack a more potent factor in settling the political
+problems of the world in the one case any more than in the other.
+
+But on the occasion with which we are occupied it was not on the might of
+his own right hand that the Elector of Brandenburg relied.  Moreover, he
+was dilatory in appealing to the two great powers on whose friendship he
+must depend for the establishment of his claims: the United Republic and
+the King of France.  James of England was on the whole inclined to
+believe in the rights of Brandenburg.  His ambassador, however, with more
+prophetic vision than perhaps the King ever dreamt--of, expressed a fear
+lest Brandenburg should grow too great and one day come to the Imperial
+crown.
+
+The States openly favoured the Elector.  Henry as at first disposed
+towards Neuburg, but at his request Barneveld furnished a paper on the
+subject, by which the King seems to have been entirely converted to the
+pretensions of Brandenburg.
+
+But the solution of the question had but little to do with the legal
+claim of any man.  It was instinctively felt throughout Christendom that
+the great duel between the ancient church and the spirit of the
+Reformation was now to be renewed upon that narrow, debateable spot.
+
+The Emperor at once proclaimed his right to arbitrate on the succession
+and to hold the territory until decision should be made; that is to say,
+till the Greek Kalends.  His familiar and most tricksy spirit, Bishop-
+Archduke Leopold, played at once on his fears and his resentments,
+against the ever encroaching, ever menacing, Protestantism of Germany,
+with which he had just sealed a compact so bitterly detested.
+
+That bold and bustling prelate, brother of the Queen of Spain and of
+Ferdinand of Styria, took post from Prague in the middle of July.
+Accompanied by a certain canon of the Church and disguised as his
+servant, he arrived after a rapid journey before the gates of Julich,
+chief city and fortress of the duchies.  The governor of the place,
+Nestelraed, inclined like most of the functionaries throughout the
+duchies to the Catholic cause, was delighted to recognize under the
+livery of the lackey the cousin and representative of the Emperor.
+Leopold, who had brought but five men with him, had conquered his capital
+at a blow.  For while thus comfortably established as temporary governor
+of the duchies he designed through the fears or folly of Rudolph to
+become their sovereign lord.  Strengthened by such an acquisition and
+reckoning on continued assistance in men and money from Spain and the
+Catholic League, he meant to sweep back to the rescue of the perishing
+Rudolph, smite the Protestants of Bohemia, and achieve his appointment to
+the crown of that kingdom.
+
+The Spanish ambassador at Prague had furnished him with a handsome sum
+of money for the expenses of his journey and preliminary enterprise.  It
+should go hard but funds should be forthcoming to support him throughout
+this audacious scheme.  The champion of the Church, the sovereign prince
+of important provinces, the possession of which ensured conclusive
+triumph to the House of Austria and to Rome--who should oppose him in
+his path to Empire?  Certainly not the moody Rudolph, the slippery and
+unstable Matthias, the fanatic and Jesuit-ridden Ferdinand.
+
+"Leopold in Julich," said Henry's agent in Germany, "is a ferret in a
+rabbit warren."
+
+But early in the spring and before the arrival of Leopold, the two
+pretenders, John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Philip Lewis,
+Palatine of Neuburg, had made an arrangement.  By the earnest advice
+of Barneveld in the name of the States-General and as the result of a
+general council of many Protestant princes of Germany, it had been
+settled that those two should together provisionally hold and administer
+the duchies until the principal affair could be amicably settled.
+
+The possessory princes were accordingly established in Dusseldorf with
+the consent of the provincial estates, in which place those bodies were
+wont to assemble.
+
+Here then was Spain in the person of Leopold quietly perched in the chief
+citadel of the country, while Protestantism in the shape of the
+possessory princes stood menacingly in the capital.
+
+Hardly was the ink dry on the treaty which had suspended for twelve years
+the great religious war of forty years, not yet had the ratifications
+been exchanged, but the trumpet was again sounding, and the hostile
+forces were once more face to face.
+
+Leopold, knowing where his great danger lay, sent a friendly message to
+the States-General, expressing the hope that they would submit to his
+arrangements until the Imperial decision should be made.
+
+The States, through the pen and brain of Barneveld, replied that they
+had already recognized the rights of the possessory princes, and were
+surprised that the Bishop-Archduke should oppose them.  They expressed
+the hope that, when better informed, he would see the validity of the
+Treaty of Dortmund.  "My Lords the States-General," said the Advocate,
+"will protect the princes against violence and actual disturbances, and
+are assured that the neighbouring kings and princes will do the same.
+They trust that his Imperial Highness will not allow matters, to proceed
+to extremities."
+
+This was language not to be mistaken.  It was plain that the Republic did
+not intend the Emperor to decide a question of life and death to herself,
+nor to permit Spain, exhausted by warfare, to achieve this annihilating
+triumph by a petty intrigue.
+
+While in reality the clue to what seemed to the outside world a
+labyrinthine maze of tangled interests and passions was firmly held in
+the hand of Barneveld, it was not to him nor to My Lords the States-
+General that the various parties to the impending conflict applied in the
+first resort.
+
+Mankind were not yet sufficiently used to this young republic, intruding
+herself among the family of kings, to defer at once to an authority which
+they could not but feel.
+
+Moreover, Henry of France was universally looked to both by friends and
+foes as the probable arbiter or chief champion in the great debate.  He
+had originally been inclined to favour Neuberg, chiefly, so Aerssens
+thought, on account of his political weakness.  The States-General on the
+other hand were firmly disposed for Brandenburg from the first, not only
+as a strenuous supporter of the Reformation and an ancient ally of their
+own always interested in their safety, but because the establishment of
+the Elector on the Rhine would roll back the Empire beyond that river.
+As Aerssens expressed it, they would have the Empire for a frontier, and
+have no longer reason to fear the Rhine.
+
+The King, after the representations of the States, saw good ground to
+change his opinion and; becoming convinced that the Palatine had long
+been coquetting with the Austrian party, soon made no secret of his
+preference for Brandenburg.  Subsequently Neuburg and Brandenburg fell
+into a violent quarrel notwithstanding an arrangement that the Palatine
+should marry the daughter of the Elector.  In the heat of discussion
+Brandenburg on one occasion is said to have given his intended son-in-law
+a box on the ear! an argument 'ad hominem' which seems to have had the
+effect of sending the Palatine into the bosom of the ancient church and
+causing him to rely thenceforth upon the assistance of the League.
+Meantime, however, the Condominium settled by the Treaty of Dortmund
+continued in force; the third brother of Brandenburg and the eldest son
+of Neuburg sharing possession and authority at Dusseldorf until a final
+decision could be made.
+
+A flock of diplomatists, professional or volunteers, openly accredited or
+secret, were now flying busily about through the troubled atmosphere,
+indicating the coming storm in which they revelled.  The keen-sighted,
+subtle, but dangerously intriguing ambassador of the Republic, Francis
+Aerssens, had his hundred eyes at all the keyholes in Paris, that centre
+of ceaseless combination and conspiracy, and was besides in almost daily
+confidential intercourse with the King.  Most patiently and minutely he
+kept the Advocate informed, almost from hour to hour, of every web that
+was spun, every conversation public or whispered in which important
+affairs were treated anywhere and by anybody.  He was all-sufficient as a
+spy and intelligencer, although not entirely trustworthy as a counsellor.
+Still no man on the whole could scan the present or forecast the future
+more accurately than he was able to do from his advantageous position and
+his long experience of affairs.
+
+There was much general jealousy between the States and the despotic king,
+who loved to be called the father of the Republic and to treat the
+Hollanders as his deeply obliged and very ungrateful and miserly little
+children.  The India trade was a sore subject, Henry having throughout
+the negotiations sought to force or wheedle the States into renouncing
+that commerce at the command of Spain, because he wished to help himself
+to it afterwards, and being now in the habit of secretly receiving Isaac
+Le Maire and other Dutch leaders in that lucrative monopoly, who lay
+disguised in Paris and in the house of Zamet--but not concealed from
+Aerssens, who pledged himself to break, the neck of their enterprise--and
+were planning with the King a French East India Company in opposition to
+that of the Netherlands.
+
+On the whole, however, despite these commercial intrigues which Barneveld
+through the aid of Aerssens was enabled to baffle, there was much
+cordiality and honest friendship between the two countries.  Henry, far
+from concealing his political affection for the Republic, was desirous of
+receiving a special embassy of congratulation and gratitude from the
+States on conclusion of the truce; not being satisfied with the warm
+expressions of respect and attachment conveyed through the ordinary
+diplomatic channel.
+
+"He wishes," wrote Aerssens to the Advocate, "a public demonstration--in
+order to show on a theatre to all Christendom the regard and deference of
+My Lords the States for his Majesty."  The Ambassador suggested that
+Cornelis van der Myle, son-in-law of Barneveld, soon to be named first
+envoy for Holland to the Venetian republic, might be selected as chief of
+such special embassy.
+
+"Without the instructions you gave me," wrote Aerssens, "Neuburg might
+have gained his cause in this court.  Brandenburg is doing himself much
+injury by not soliciting the King."
+
+"Much deference will be paid to your judgment," added the envoy, "if you
+see fit to send it to his Majesty."
+
+Meantime, although the agent of Neuburg was busily dinning in Henry's
+ears the claims of the Palatine, and even urging old promises which, as
+he pretended, had been made, thanks to Barneveld, he took little by his
+importunity, notwithstanding that in the opinion both of Barneveld and
+Villeroy his claim 'stricti-juris' was the best.  But it was policy and
+religious interests, not the strict letter of the law, that were likely
+to prevail.  Henry, while loudly asserting that he would oppose any
+usurpation on the part of the Emperor or any one else against the
+Condominium, privately renewed to the States assurances of his intention
+to support ultimately the claims of Brandenburg, and notified them to
+hold the two regiments of French infantry, which by convention they still
+kept at his expense in their service, to be ready at a moment's warning
+for the great enterprise which he was already planning.  "You would do
+well perhaps," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld, "to set forth the various
+interests in regard to this succession, and of the different relations of
+the claimants towards our commonwealth; but in such sort nevertheless and
+so dexterously that the King may be able to understand your desires, and
+on the other hand may see the respect you bear him in appearing to defer
+to his choice."
+
+Neuburg, having always neglected the States and made advances to Archduke
+Albert, and being openly preferred over Brandenburg by the Austrians, who
+had however no intention of eventually tolerating either, could make but
+small headway at court, notwithstanding Henry's indignation that
+Brandenburg had not yet made the slightest demand upon him for
+assistance.
+
+The Elector had keenly solicited the aid of the states, who were bound to
+him by ancient contract on this subject, but had manifested wonderful
+indifference or suspicion in regard to France.  "These nonchalant
+Germans," said Henry on more than one occasion, "do nothing but sleep
+or drink."
+
+It was supposed that the memory of Metz might haunt the imagination of
+the Elector.  That priceless citadel, fraudulently extorted by Henry II.
+as a forfeit for assistance to the Elector of Saxony three quarters of a
+century before, gave solemn warning to Brandenburg of what might be
+exacted by a greater Henry, should success be due to his protection.
+It was also thought that he had too many dangers about him at home, the
+Poles especially, much stirred up by emissaries from Rome, making many
+troublesome demonstrations against the Duchy of Prussia.
+
+It was nearly midsummer before a certain Baron Donals arrived as emissary
+of the Elector.  He brought with him, many documents in support of the
+Brandenburg claims, and was charged with excuses for the dilatoriness of
+his master.  Much stress was laid of course on the renunciation made by
+Neuburg at the tithe of his marriage, and Henry was urged to grant his
+protection to the Elector in his good rights.  But thus far there were
+few signs of any vigorous resolution for active measures in an affair
+which could scarcely fail to lead to war.
+
+"I believe," said Henry to the States ambassador, "that the right of
+Brandenburg is indubitable, and it is better for you and for me that he
+should be the man rather than Neuburg, who has always sought assistance
+from the House of Austria.  But he is too lazy in demanding possession.
+It is the fault of the doctors by whom he is guided.  This delay works
+in favour of the Emperor, whose course however is less governed by any
+determination of his own than by the irresolution of the princes."
+
+Then changing the conversation, Henry asked the Ambassador whether the
+daughter of de Maldere, a leading statesman of Zealand, was married or
+of age to be married, and if she was rich; adding that they must make a
+match between her and Barneveld's second son, then a young gentleman in
+the King's service, and very much liked by him.
+
+Two months later a regularly accredited envoy, Belin by name, arrived
+from the Elector.  His instructions were general.  He was to thank the
+King for his declarations in favour of the possessory princes, and
+against all usurpation on the part of the Spanish party.  Should the
+religious cord be touched, he was to give assurances that no change would
+be made in this regard.  He was charged with loads of fine presents in
+yellow amber, such as ewers, basins, tables, cups, chessboards, for the
+King and Queen, the Dauphin, the Chancellor, Villeroy, Sully, Bouillon,
+and other eminent personages.  Beyond the distribution of these works of
+art and the exchange of a few diplomatic commonplaces, nothing serious in
+the way of warlike business was transacted, and Henry was a few weeks
+later much amused by receiving a letter from the possessory princes
+coolly thrown into the post-office, and addressed like an ordinary letter
+to a private person, in which he was requested to advance them a loan
+of 400,000 crowns.  There was a great laugh at court at a demand made
+like a bill of exchange at sight upon his Majesty as if he had been a
+banker, especially as there happened to be no funds of the drawers in his
+hands.  It was thought that a proper regard for the King's quality and
+the amount of the sum demanded required that the letter should be brought
+at least by an express messenger, and Henry was both diverted and
+indignant at these proceedings, at the months long delay before the
+princes had thought proper to make application for his protection, and
+then for this cool demand for alms on a large scale as a proper beginning
+of their enterprise.
+
+Such was the languid and extremely nonchalant manner in which the early
+preparations for a conflict which seemed likely to set Europe in a blaze,
+and of which possibly few living men might witness the termination, were
+set on foot by those most interested in the immediate question.
+
+Chessboards in yellow amber and a post-office order for 400,000 crowns
+could not go far in settling the question of the duchies in which the
+great problem dividing Christendom as by an abyss was involved.
+
+Meantime, while such were the diplomatic beginnings of the possessory
+princes, the League was leaving no stone unturned to awaken Henry to a
+sense of his true duty to the Church of which he was Eldest Son.
+
+Don Pedro de Toledo's mission in regard to the Spanish marriages had
+failed because Henry had spurned the condition which was unequivocally
+attached to them on the part of Spain, the king's renunciation of his
+alliance with the Dutch Republic, which then seemed an equivalent to its
+ruin.  But the treaty of truce and half-independence had been signed at
+last by the States and their ancient master, and the English and French
+negotiators had taken their departure, each receiving as a present for
+concluding the convention 20,000 livres from the Archdukes, and 30,000
+from the States-General.  Henry, returning one summer's morning from the
+chase and holding the Count of Soissons by one hand and Ambassador
+Aerssens by the other, told them he had just received letters from Spain
+by which he learned that people were marvellously rejoiced at the
+conclusion of the truce.  Many had regretted that its conditions were so
+disadvantageous and so little honourable to the grandeur and dignity of
+Spain, but to these it was replied that there were strong reasons why
+Spain should consent to peace on these terms rather than not have it at
+all.  During the twelve years to come the King could repair his disasters
+and accumulate mountains of money in order to finish the war by the
+subjugation of the Provinces by force of gold.
+
+Soissons here interrupted the King by saying that the States on their
+part would finish it by force of iron.
+
+Aerssens, like an accomplished courtier, replied they would finish it by
+means of his Majesty's friendship.
+
+The King continued by observing that the clear-sighted in Spain laughed
+at these rodomontades, knowing well that it was pure exhaustion that had
+compelled the King to such extremities.  "I leave you to judge," said
+Henry, "whether he is likely to have any courage at forty-five years of
+age, having none now at thirty-two.  Princes show what they have in them
+of generosity and valour at the age of twenty-five or never."  He said
+that orders had been sent from Spain to disband all troops in the
+obedient Netherlands except Spaniards and Italians, telling the Archdukes
+that they must raise the money out of the country to content them.  They
+must pay for a war made for their benefit, said Philip.  As for him he
+would not furnish one maravedi.
+
+Aerssens asked if the Archdukes would disband their troops so long as the
+affair of Cleve remained unsettled.  "You are very lucky," replied the
+King, "that Europe is governed by such princes as you wot of.  The King
+of Spain thinks of nothing but tranquillity.  The Archdukes will never
+move except on compulsion.  The Emperor, whom every one is so much afraid
+of in this matter, is in such plight that one of these days, and before
+long, he will be stripped of all his possessions.  I have news that the
+Bohemians are ready to expel him."
+
+It was true enough that Rudolph hardly seemed a formidable personage.
+The Utraquists and Bohemian Brothers, making up nearly the whole
+population of the country, were just extorting religious liberty from
+their unlucky master in his very palace and at the point of the knife.
+The envoy of Matthias was in Paris demanding recognition of his master
+as King of Hungary, and Henry did not suspect the wonderful schemes of
+Leopold, the ferret in the rabbit warren of the duchies, to come to the
+succour of his cousin and to get himself appointed his successor and
+guardian.
+
+Nevertheless, the Emperor's name had been used to protest solemnly
+against the entrance into Dusseldorf of the Margrave Ernest of
+Brandenburg and Palatine Wolfgang William of Neuburg, representatives
+respectively of their brother and father.
+
+The induction was nevertheless solemnly made by the Elector-Palatine
+and the Landgrave of Hesse, and joint possession solemnly taken by
+Brandenburg and Neuburg in the teeth of the protest, and expressly in
+order to cut short the dilatory schemes and the artifices of the Imperial
+court.
+
+Henry at once sent a corps of observation consisting of 1500 cavalry to
+the Luxemburg frontier by way of Toul, Mezieres, Verdun, and Metz, to
+guard against movements by the disbanded troops of the Archdukes, and
+against any active demonstration against the possessory princes on the
+part of the Emperor.
+
+The 'Condominium' was formally established, and Henry stood before the
+world as its protector threatening any power that should attempt
+usurpation.  He sent his agent Vidomacq to the Landgrave of Hesse with
+instructions to do his utmost to confirm the princes of the Union in
+organized resistance to the schemes of Spain, and to prevent any
+interference with the Condominium.
+
+He wrote letters to the Archdukes and to the Elector of Cologne,
+sternly notifying them that he would permit no assault upon the princes,
+and meant to protect them in their rights.  He sent one of his most
+experienced diplomatists, de Boississe, formerly ambassador in England,
+to reside for a year or more in the duchies as special representative of
+France, and directed him on his way thither to consult especially with
+Barneveld and the States-General as to the proper means of carrying out
+their joint policy either by diplomacy or, if need should be, by their
+united arms.
+
+Troops began at once to move towards the frontier to counteract the plans
+of the Emperor's council and the secret levies made by Duchess Sibylla's
+husband, the Margrave of Burgau.  The King himself was perpetually at
+Monceaux watching the movements of his cavalry towards the Luxemburg
+frontier, and determined to protect the princes in their possession until
+some definite decision as to the sovereignty of the duchies should be
+made.
+
+Meantime great pressure was put upon him by the opposite party.  The Pope
+did his best through the Nuncius at Paris directly, and through agents at
+Prague, Brussels, and Madrid indirectly, to awaken the King to a sense of
+the enormity of his conduct.
+
+Being a Catholic prince, it was urged, he had no right to assist
+heretics.  It was an action entirely contrary to his duty as a Christian
+and of his reputation as Eldest Son of the Church.  Even if the right
+were on the side of the princes, his Majesty would do better to strip
+them of it and to clothe himself with it than to suffer the Catholic
+faith and religion to receive such notable detriment in an affair likely
+to have such important consequences.
+
+Such was some of the advice given by the Pontiff.  The suggestions were
+subtle, for they were directed to Henry's self-interest both as champion
+of the ancient church and as a possible sovereign of the very territories
+in dispute.  They were also likely, and were artfully so intended, to
+excite suspicion of Henry's designs in the breasts of the Protestants
+generally and of the possessory princes especially.  Allusions indeed to
+the rectification of the French border in Henry II.'s time at the expense
+of Lorraine were very frequent.  They probably accounted for much of the
+apparent supineness and want of respect for the King of which he
+complained every day and with so much bitterness.
+
+The Pope's insinuations, however, failed to alarm him, for he had made up
+his mind as to the great business of what might remain to him of life; to
+humble the House of Austria and in doing so to uphold the Dutch Republic
+on which he relied for his most efficient support.  The situation was a
+false one viewed from the traditional maxims which governed Europe.  How
+could the Eldest Son of the Church and the chief of an unlimited monarchy
+make common cause with heretics and republicans against Spain and Rome?
+That the position was as dangerous as it was illogical, there could be
+but little doubt.  But there was a similarity of opinion between the King
+and the political chief of the Republic on the great principle which was
+to illume the distant future but which had hardly then dawned upon the
+present; the principle of religious equality.  As he protected
+Protestants in France so he meant to protect Catholics in the duchies.
+Apostate as he was from the Reformed Church as he had already been from
+the Catholic, he had at least risen above the paltry and insolent maxim
+of the princely Protestantism of Germany: "Cujus regio ejus religio."
+
+While refusing to tremble before the wrath of Rome or to incline his ear
+to its honeyed suggestions, he sent Cardinal Joyeuse with a special
+mission to explain to the Pope that while the interests of France would
+not permit him to allow the Spaniard's obtaining possession of provinces
+so near to her, he should take care that the Church received no detriment
+and that he should insist as a price of the succour he intended for the
+possessory princes that they should give ample guarantees for the liberty
+of Catholic worship.
+
+There was no doubt in the mind either of Henry or of Barneveld that the
+secret blows attempted by Spain at the princes were in reality aimed at
+the Republic and at himself as her ally.
+
+While the Nuncius was making these exhortations in Paris, his colleague
+from Spain was authorized to propound a scheme of settlement which did
+not seem deficient in humour.  At any rate Henry was much diverted with
+the suggestion, which was nothing less than that the decision as to the
+succession to the duchies should be left to a board of arbitration
+consisting of the King of Spain, the Emperor, and the King of France.
+As Henry would thus be painfully placed by himself in a hopeless
+minority, the only result of the scheme would be to compel him to
+sanction a decision sure to be directly the reverse of his own resolve.
+He was hardly such a schoolboy in politics as to listen to the proposal
+except to laugh at it.
+
+Meantime arrived from Julich, without much parade, a quiet but somewhat
+pompous gentleman named Teynagel.  He had formerly belonged to the
+Reformed religion, but finding it more to his taste or advantage to
+become privy councillor of the Emperor, he had returned to the ancient
+church.  He was one of the five who had accompanied the Archduke Leopold
+to Julich.
+
+That prompt undertaking having thus far succeeded so well, the warlike
+bishop had now despatched Teynagel on a roving diplomatic mission.
+Ostensibly he came to persuade Henry that, by the usages and laws of the
+Empire, fiefs left vacant for want of heirs male were at the disposal of
+the Emperor.  He expressed the hope therefore of obtaining the King's
+approval of Leopold's position in Julich as temporary vicegerent of his
+sovereign and cousin.  The real motive of his mission, however, was
+privately to ascertain whether Henry was really ready to go to war for
+the protection of the possessory princes, and then, to proceed to Spain.
+It required an astute politician, however, to sound all the shoals,
+quicksands, and miseries through which the French government was then
+steering, and to comprehend with accuracy the somewhat varying humours
+of the monarch and the secret schemes of the ministers who immediately
+surrounded him.
+
+People at court laughed at Teynagel and his mission, and Henry treated
+him as a crackbrained adventurer.  He announced himself as envoy of the
+Emperor, although he had instructions from Leopold only.  He had
+interviews with the Chancellor and with Villeroy, and told them that
+Rudolf claimed the right of judge between the various pretenders to the
+duchies.  The King would not be pleased, he observed, if the King of
+Great Britain should constitute himself arbiter among claimants that
+might make their appearance for the crown of France; but Henry had set
+himself up as umpire without being asked by any one to act in that
+capacity among the princes of Germany.  The Emperor, on the contrary,
+had been appealed to by the Duke of Nevers, the Elector of Saxony, the
+Margrave of Burgau, and other liege subjects of the Imperial crown as a
+matter of course and of right.  This policy of the King, if persisted in,
+said Teynagel, must lead to war.  Henry might begin such a war, but he
+would be obliged to bequeath it to the Dauphin.  He should remember that
+France had always been unlucky when waging war with the Empire and with
+the house of Austria.'
+
+The Chancellor and Villeroy, although in their hearts not much in love
+with Henry's course, answered the emissary with arrogance equal to his
+own that their king could finish the war as well as begin it, that he
+confided in his strength and the justice of his cause, and that he knew
+very well and esteemed very little the combined forces of Spain and the
+Empire.  They added that France was bound by the treaty of Vervins to
+protect the princes, but they offered no proof of that rather startling
+proposition.
+
+Meantime Teynagel was busy in demonstrating that the princes of Germany
+were in reality much more afraid of Henry than of the Emperor.  His
+military movements and deep designs excited more suspicion throughout
+that country and all Europe than the quiet journey of Leopold and five
+friends by post to Julich.
+
+He had come provided with copies of the King's private letters to the
+princes, and seemed fully instructed as to his most secret thoughts.
+For this convenient information he was supposed to be indebted to the
+revelations of Father Cotton, who was then in disgrace; having been
+detected in transmitting to the General of Jesuits Henry's most sacred
+confidences and confessions as to his political designs.
+
+Fortified with this private intelligence, and having been advised by
+Father Cotton to carry matters with a high hand in order to inspire the
+French court with a wholesome awe, he talked boldly about the legitimate
+functions of the Emperor.  To interfere with them, he assured the
+ministers, would lead to a long and bloody war, as neither the King nor
+the Archduke Albert would permit the Emperor to be trampled upon.
+
+Peter Pecquius, the crafty and experienced agent of the Archduke at
+Paris, gave the bouncing envoy more judicious advice, however, than that
+of the Jesuit, assuring him that he would spoil his whole case should he
+attempt to hold such language to the King.
+
+He was admitted to an audience of Henry at Monceaux, but found him
+prepared to show his teeth as Aerssens had predicted.  He treated
+Teynagel as a mere madcap and, adventurer who had no right to be received
+as a public minister at all, and cut short his rodomontades by assuring
+him that his mind was fully made up to protect the possessory princes.
+Jeannin was present at the interview, although, as Aerssens well
+observed, the King required no pedagogue on such an occasion?  Teynagel
+soon afterwards departed malcontent to Spain, having taken little by his
+abnormal legation to Henry, and being destined to find at the court of
+Philip as urgent demands on that monarch for assistance to the League
+as he was to make for Leopold and the House of Austria.
+
+For the League, hardly yet thoroughly organized under the leadership of
+Maximilian of Bavaria, was rather a Catholic corrival than cordial ally
+of the Imperial house.  It was universally suspected that Henry meant to
+destroy and discrown the Habsburgs, and it lay not in the schemes of
+Maximilian to suffer the whole Catholic policy to be bound to the
+fortunes of that one family.
+
+Whether or not Henry meant to commit the anachronism and blunder of
+reproducing the part of Charlemagne might be doubtful.  The supposed
+design of Maximilian to renew the glories of the House of Wittelsbach was
+equally vague.  It is certain, however, that a belief in such ambitious
+schemes on the part of both had been insinuated into the ears of Rudolf,
+and had sunk deeply into his unsettled mind.
+
+Scarcely had Teynagel departed than the ancient President Richardot
+appeared upon the scene.  "The mischievous old monkey," as he had
+irreverently been characterized during the Truce negotiations, "who
+showed his tail the higher he climbed," was now trembling at the thought
+that all the good work he had been so laboriously accomplishing during
+the past two years should be annihilated.  The Archdukes, his masters,
+being sincerely bent on peace, had deputed him to Henry, who, as they
+believed, was determined to rekindle war.  As frequently happens in such
+cases, they were prepared to smooth over the rough and almost impassable
+path to a cordial understanding by comfortable and cheap commonplaces
+concerning the blessings of peace, and to offer friendly compromises by
+which they might secure the prizes of war without the troubles and
+dangers of making it.
+
+They had been solemnly notified by Henry that he would go to war
+rather than permit the House of Austria to acquire the succession to the
+duchies.  They now sent Richardot to say that neither the Archdukes nor
+the King of Spain would interfere in the matter, and that they hoped the
+King of France would not prevent the Emperor from exercising his rightful
+functions of judge.
+
+Henry, who knew that Don Baltasar de Cuniga, Spanish ambassador at the
+Imperial court, had furnished Leopold, the Emperor's cousin, with 50,000
+crowns to defray his first expenses in the Julich expedition, considered
+that the veteran politician had come to perform a school boy's task.
+He was more than ever convinced by this mission of Richardot that the
+Spaniards had organized the whole scheme, and he was likely only to smile
+at any propositions the President might make.
+
+At the beginning of his interview, in which the King was quite alone,
+Richardot asked if he would agree to maintain neutrality like the King of
+Spain and the Archdukes, and allow the princes to settle their business
+with the Emperor.
+
+"No," said the King.
+
+He then asked if Henry would assist them in their wrong.
+
+"No," said the King.
+
+He then asked if the King thought that the princes had justice on their
+side, and whether, if the contrary were shown, he would change his
+policy?
+
+Henry replied that the Emperor could not be both judge and party in the
+suit and that the King of Spain was plotting to usurp the provinces
+through the instrumentality of his brother-in-law Leopold and under the
+name of the Emperor.  He would not suffer it, he said.
+
+"Then there will be a general war," replied Richardot, since you are
+determined to assist these princes."
+
+"Be it so," said the King.
+
+"You are right," said the President, "for you are a great and puissant
+monarch, having all the advantages that could be desired, and in case of
+rupture I fear that all this immense power will be poured out over us who
+are but little princes."
+
+"Cause Leopold to retire then and leave the princes in their right," was
+the reply.  "You will then have nothing to fear.  Are you not very
+unhappy to live under those poor weak archdukes?  Don't you foresee that
+as soon as they die you will lose all the little you have acquired in the
+obedient Netherlands during the last fifty years?"
+
+The President had nothing to reply to this save that he had never
+approved of Leopold's expedition, and that when Spaniards make mistakes
+they always had recourse to their servants to repair their faults.  He
+had accepted this mission inconsiderately, he said, inspired by a hope to
+conjure the rising storms mingled with fears as to the result which were
+now justified.  He regretted having come, he said.
+
+The King shrugged his shoulders.
+
+Richardot then suggested that Leopold might be recognized in Julich, and
+the princes at Dusseldorf, or that all parties might retire until the
+Emperor should give his decision.
+
+All these combinations were flatly refused by the King, who swore that no
+one of the House of Austria should ever perch in any part of those
+provinces.  If Leopold did not withdraw at once, war was inevitable.
+
+He declared that he would break up everything and dare everything,
+whether the possessory princes formally applied to him or not.  He would
+not see his friends oppressed nor allow the Spaniard by this usurpation
+to put his foot on the throat of the States-General, for it was against
+them that this whole scheme was directed.
+
+To the President's complaints that the States-General had been moving
+troops in Gelderland, Henry replied at once that it was done by his
+command, and that they were his troops.
+
+With this answer Richardot was fain to retire crestfallen, mortified, and
+unhappy.  He expressed repentance and astonishment at the result, and
+protested that those peoples were happy whose princes understood affairs.
+His princes were good, he said, but did not give themselves the trouble
+to learn their business.
+
+Richardot then took his departure from Paris, and very soon afterwards
+from the world.  He died at Arras early in September, as many thought of
+chagrin at the ill success of his mission, while others ascribed it to a
+surfeit of melons and peaches.
+
+"Senectus edam maorbus est," said Aerssens with Seneca.
+
+Henry said he could not sufficiently wonder at these last proceedings
+at his court, of a man he had deemed capable and sagacious, but who had
+been committing an irreparable blunder.  He had never known two such
+impertinent ambassadors as Don Pedro de Toledo and Richardot on this
+occasion.  The one had been entirely ignorant of the object of his
+mission; the other had shown a vain presumption in thinking he could
+drive him from his fixed purpose by a flood of words.  He had accordingly
+answered him on the spot without consulting his council, at which poor
+Richardot had been much amazed.
+
+And now another envoy appeared upon the scene, an ambassador coming
+directly from the Emperor.  Count Hohenzollern, a young man, wild,
+fierce, and arrogant, scarcely twenty-three years of age, arrived in
+Paris on the 7th of September, with a train of forty horsemen.
+
+De Colly, agent of the Elector-Palatine, had received an outline of
+his instructions, which the Prince of Anhalt had obtained at Prague.
+He informed Henry that Hohenzollern would address him thus: "You are a
+king.  You would not like that the Emperor should aid your subjects in
+rebellion.  He did not do this in the time of the League, although often
+solicited to do so.  You should not now sustain the princes in disobeying
+the Imperial decree.  Kings should unite in maintaining the authority and
+majesty of each other."  He would then in the Emperor's name urge the
+claims of the House of Saxony to the duchies.
+
+Henry was much pleased with this opportune communication by de Colly of
+the private instructions to the Emperor's envoy, by which he was enabled
+to meet the wild and fierce young man with an arrogance at least equal to
+his own.
+
+The interview was a stormy one.  The King was alone in the gallery of the
+Louvre, not choosing that his words and gestures should be observed.  The
+Envoy spoke much in the sense which de Colly had indicated; making a long
+argument in favour of the Emperor's exclusive right of arbitration, and
+assuring the King that the Emperor was resolved on war if interference
+between himself and his subjects was persisted in.  He loudly pronounced
+the proceedings of the possessory princes to be utterly illegal, and
+contrary to all precedent.  The Emperor would maintain his authority at
+all hazards, and one spark of war would set everything in a blaze within
+the Empire and without.
+
+Henry replied sternly but in general terms, and referred him for a final
+answer to his council.
+
+"What will you do," asked the Envoy, categorically, at a subsequent
+interview about a month later, "to protect the princes in case the
+Emperor constrains them to leave the provinces which they have unjustly
+occupied?"
+
+"There is none but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say,"
+replied the King.  "It is enough for you to know that I will never
+abandon my friends in a just cause.  The Emperor can do much for the
+general peace.  He is not to lend his name to cover this usurpation."
+
+And so the concluding interview terminated in an exchange of threats
+rather than with any hope of accommodation.
+
+Hohenzollern used as high language to the ministers as to the monarch,
+and received payment in the same coin.  He rebuked their course not very
+adroitly as being contrary to the interests of Catholicism.  They were
+placing the provinces in the hands of Protestants, he urged.  It required
+no envoy from Prague to communicate this startling fact.  Friends and
+foes, Villeroy and Jeannin, as well as Sully and Duplessis, knew well
+enough that Henry was not taking up arms for Rome.  "Sir! do you look at
+the matter in that way?" cried Sully, indignantly.  "The Huguenots are as
+good as the Catholics.  They fight like the devil!"
+
+"The Emperor will never permit the, princes to remain nor Leopold to
+withdraw," said the Envoy to Jeannin.
+
+Jeannin replied that the King was always ready to listen to reason, but
+there was no use in holding language of authority to him.  It was money
+he would not accept.
+
+"Fiat justitia pereat mundus," said the haggard Hohenzollern.
+
+"Your world may perish," replied Jeannin, "but not ours.  It is much
+better put together."
+
+A formal letter was then written by the King to the Emperor, in which
+Henry expressed his desire to maintain peace and fraternal relations, but
+notified him that if, under any pretext whatever, he should trouble the
+princes in their possession, he would sustain them with all his power,
+being bound thereto by treaties and by reasons of state.
+
+This letter was committed to the care of Hohenzollern, who forthwith
+departed, having received a present of 4000 crowns.  His fierce, haggard
+face thus vanishes for the present from our history.
+
+The King had taken his ground, from which there was no receding.  Envoys
+or agents of Emperor, Pope, King of Spain, Archduke at Brussels, and
+Archduke at Julich, had failed to shake his settled purpose.  Yet the
+road was far from smooth.  He had thus far no ally but the States-
+General.  He could not trust James of Great Britain.  Boderie came back
+late in the summer from his mission to that monarch, reporting him as
+being favourably inclined to Brandenburg, but hoping for an amicable
+settlement in the duchies.  No suggestion being made even by the
+sagacious James as to the manner in which the ferret and rabbits were
+to come to a compromise, Henry inferred, if it came to fighting, that the
+English government would refuse assistance.  James had asked Boderie in
+fact whether his sovereign and the States, being the parties chiefly
+interested, would be willing to fight it out without allies.  He had also
+sent Sir Ralph Winwood on a special mission to the Hague, to Dusseldorf,
+and with letters to the Emperor, in which he expressed confidence that
+Rudolph would approve the proceedings of the possessory princes.  As he
+could scarcely do that while loudly claiming through his official envoy
+in Paris that the princes should instantly withdraw on pain of instant
+war, the value of the English suggestion of an amicable compromise might
+easily be deduced.
+
+Great was the jealousy in France of this mission from England.  That the
+princes should ask the interference of James while neglecting, despising,
+or fearing Henry, excited Henry's wrath.  He was ready, and avowed his
+readiness, to put on armour at once in behalf of the princes, and to
+arbitrate on the destiny of Germany, but no one seemed ready to follow
+his standard.  No one asked him to arbitrate.  The Spanish faction
+wheedled and threatened by turns, in order to divert him from his
+purpose, while the Protestant party held aloof, and babbled of
+Charlemagne and of Henry II.
+
+He said he did not mean to assist the princes by halves, but as became a
+King of France, and the princes expressed suspicion of him, talked of the
+example of Metz, and called the Emperor their very clement lord.
+
+It was not strange that Henry was indignant and jealous.  He was holding
+the wolf by the ears, as he himself observed more than once.  The war
+could not long be delayed; yet they in whose behalf it was to be waged
+treated him with a disrespect and flippancy almost amounting to scorn.
+
+They tried to borrow money of him through the post, and neglected to send
+him an ambassador.  This was most decidedly putting the cart before the
+oxen, so Henry said, and so thought all his friends.  When they had
+blockaded the road to Julich, in order to cut off Leopold's supplies,
+they sent to request that the two French regiments in the States' service
+might be ordered to their assistance, Archduke Albert having threatened
+to open the passage by force of arms.  "This is a fine stratagem," said
+Aerssens, "to fling the States-General headlong into the war, and, as it
+were, without knowing it."
+
+But the States-General, under the guidance of Barneveld, were not likely
+to be driven headlong by Brandenburg and Neuburg.  They managed with
+caution, but with perfect courage, to move side by side with Henry, and
+to leave the initiative to him, while showing an unfaltering front to the
+enemy.  That the princes were lost, Spain and the Emperor triumphant,
+unless Henry and the States should protect them with all their strength,
+was as plain as a mathematical demonstration.
+
+Yet firm as were the attitude and the language of Henry, he was thought
+to be hoping to accomplish much by bluster.  It was certain that the bold
+and unexpected stroke of Leopold had produced much effect upon his mind,
+and for a time those admitted to his intimacy saw, or thought they saw,
+a decided change in his demeanour.  To the world at large his language
+and his demonstrations were even more vehement than they had been at the
+outset of the controversy; but it was believed that there was now a
+disposition to substitute threats for action.  The military movements set
+on foot were thought to be like the ringing of bells and firing of cannon
+to dissipate a thunderstorm.  Yet it was treason at court to doubt the
+certainty of war.  The King ordered new suits of armour, bought splendid
+chargers,  and gave himself all the airs of a champion rushing to a
+tournament as gaily as in the earliest days of his king-errantry.
+He spoke of his eager desire to break a lance with Spinola, and give a
+lesson to the young volunteer who had sprung into so splendid a military
+reputation, while he had been rusting, as he thought, in pacific
+indolence, and envying the laurels of the comparatively youthful Maurice.
+Yet those most likely to be well informed believed that nothing would
+come of all this fire and fury.
+
+The critics were wrong.  There was really no doubt of Henry's sincerity,
+but his isolation was terrible.  There was none true to him at home but
+Sully.  Abroad, the States-General alone were really friendly, so far as
+positive agreements existed.  Above all, the intolerable tergiversations
+and suspicions of those most interested, the princes in possession, and
+their bickerings among themselves, hampered his movements.
+
+Treason and malice in his cabinet and household, jealousy and fear
+abroad, were working upon and undermining him like a slow fever.  His
+position was most pathetic, but his purpose was fixed.
+
+James of England, who admired, envied, and hated Henry, was wont to
+moralize on his character and his general unpopularity, while engaged in
+negotiations with him.  He complained that in the whole affair of the
+truce he had sought only his particular advantage.  "This is not to be
+wondered at in one of his nature," said the King, "who only careth to
+provide for the felicities of his present life, without any respect for
+his life to come.  Indeed, the consideration of his own age and the youth
+of his children, the doubt of their legitimation, the strength of
+competitioners, and the universal hatred borne unto him, makes him seek
+all means of security for preventing of all dangers."
+
+There were changes from day to day; hot and cold fits necessarily
+resulting from the situation.  As a rule, no eminent general who has had
+much experience wishes to go into a new war inconsiderately and for the
+mere love of war.  The impatience is often on the part of the non-
+combatants.  Henry was no exception to the rule.  He felt that the
+complications then existing, the religious, political, and dynastic
+elements arrayed against each other, were almost certain to be brought to
+a crisis and explosion by the incident of the duchies.  He felt that the
+impending struggle was probably to be a desperate and a general one, but
+there was no inconsistency in hoping that the show of a vigorous and
+menacing attitude might suspend, defer, or entirely dissipate the
+impending storm.
+
+The appearance of vacillation on his part from day to day was hardly
+deserving of the grave censure which it received, and was certainly in
+the interests of humanity.
+
+His conferences with Sully were almost daily and marked by intense
+anxiety.  He longed for Barneveld, and repeatedly urged that the
+Advocate, laying aside all other business, would come to Paris, that they
+might advise together thoroughly and face to face.  It was most important
+that the combination of alliances should be correctly arranged before
+hostilities began, and herein lay the precise difficulty.  The princes
+applied formally and freely to the States-General for assistance.  They
+applied to the King of Great Britain.  The agents of the opposite party
+besieged Henry with entreaties, and, failing in those, with threats;
+going off afterwards to Spain, to the Archdukes, and to other Catholic
+powers in search of assistance.
+
+The States-General professed their readiness to put an army of 15,000
+foot and 3000 horse in the field for the spring campaign, so soon as they
+were assured of Henry's determination for a rupture.
+
+"I am fresh enough still," said he to their ambassador, "to lead an army
+into Cleve.  I shall have a cheap bargain enough of the provinces.  But
+these Germans do nothing but eat and sleep.  They will get the profit
+and assign to me the trouble.  No matter, I will never suffer the
+aggrandizement of the House of Austria.  The States-General must disband
+no troops, but hold themselves in readiness."
+
+Secretary of State Villeroy held the same language, but it was easy to
+trace beneath his plausible exterior a secret determination to traverse
+the plans of his sovereign.  "The Cleve affair must lead to war," he
+said.  "The Spaniard, considering how necessary it is for him to have a
+prince there at his devotion, can never quietly suffer Brandenburg and
+Neuburg to establish themselves in those territories.  The support thus
+gained by the States-General would cause the loss of the Spanish
+Netherlands."
+
+This was the view of Henry, too, but the Secretary of State, secretly
+devoted to the cause of Spain, looked upon the impending war with much
+aversion.
+
+"All that can come to his Majesty from war," he said, "is the glory of
+having protected the right.  Counterbalance this with the fatigue, the
+expense, and the peril of a great conflict, after our long repose, and
+you will find this to be buying glory too dearly."
+
+When a Frenchman talked of buying glory too dearly, it seemed probable
+that the particular kind of glory was not to his taste.
+
+Henry had already ordered the officers, then in France, of the 4000
+French infantry kept in the States' service at his expense to depart at
+once to Holland, and he privately announced his intention of moving to
+the frontier at the head of 30,000 men.
+
+'Yet not only Villeroy, but the Chancellor and the Constable, while
+professing opposition to the designs of Austria and friendliness to those
+of Brandenburg and Neuburg, deprecated this precipitate plunge into war.
+"Those most interested," they said, "refuse to move; fearing Austria,
+distrusting France.  They leave us the burden and danger, and hope for
+the spoils themselves.  We cannot play cat to their monkey.  The King
+must hold himself in readiness to join in the game when the real players
+have shuffled and dealt the cards.  It is no matter to us whether the
+Spaniard or Brandenburg or anyone else gets the duchies.  The States-
+General require a friendly sovereign there, and ought to say how much
+they will do for that result."
+
+The Constable laughed at the whole business.  Coming straight from the
+Louvre, he said "there would be no serious military movement, and that
+all those fine freaks would evaporate in air."
+
+But Sully never laughed.  He was quietly preparing the ways and means for
+the war, and he did not intend, so far as he had influence, that France
+should content herself with freaks and let Spain win the game.  Alone in
+the council he maintained that "France had gone too far to recede without
+sacrifice of reputation."--"The King's word is engaged both within and
+without," he said.  "Not to follow it with deeds would be dangerous to
+the kingdom.  The Spaniard will think France afraid of war.  We must
+strike a sudden blow, either to drive the enemy away or to crush him at
+once.  There is no time for delay.  The Netherlands must prevent the
+aggrandizement of Austria or consent to their own ruin."
+
+Thus stood the game therefore.  The brother of Brandenburg and son of
+Neuburg had taken possession of Dusseldorf.
+
+The Emperor, informed of this, ordered them forthwith to decamp.  He
+further summoned all pretenders to the duchies to appear before him, in
+person or by proxy, to make good their claims.  They refused and appealed
+for advice and assistance to the States-General.  Barneveld, aware of the
+intrigues of Spain, who disguised herself in the drapery of the Emperor,
+recommended that the Estates of Cleve, Julich, Berg, Mark, Ravensberg,
+and Ravenstein, should be summoned in Dusseldorf.  This was done and a
+resolution taken to resist any usurpation.
+
+The King of France wrote to the Elector of Cologne, who, by directions
+of Rome and by means of the Jesuits, had been active in the intrigue,
+that he would not permit the princes to be disturbed.
+
+The Archduke Leopold suddenly jumped into the chief citadel of the
+country and published an edict of the Emperor.  All the proceedings were
+thereby nullified as illegal and against the dignity of the realm and the
+princes proclaimed under ban.
+
+A herald brought the edict and ban to the princes in full assembly.
+The princes tore it to pieces on the spot.  Nevertheless they were much
+frightened, and many members of the Estates took themselves off; others
+showing an inclination to follow.
+
+The princes sent forth with a deputation to the Hague to consult My Lords
+the States-General.  The States-General sent an express messenger to
+Paris.  Their ambassador there sent him back a week later, with notice of
+the King's determination to risk everything against everything to
+preserve the rights of the princes.  It was added that Henry required to
+be solicited by them, in order not by volunteer succour to give cause for
+distrust as to his intentions.  The States-General were further apprised
+by the King that his interests and theirs were so considerable in the
+matter that they would probably be obliged to go into a brisk and open
+war, in order to prevent the Spaniard from establishing himself in the
+duchies.  He advised them to notify the Archdukes in Brussels that they
+would regard the truce as broken if, under pretext of maintaining the
+Emperor's rights, they should molest the princes.  He desired them
+further to send their forces at once to the frontier of Gelderland under
+Prince Maurice, without committing any overt act of hostility, but in
+order to show that both the King and the States were thoroughly in
+earnest.
+
+The King then sent to Archduke Albert, as well as to the Elector of
+Cologne, and despatched a special envoy to the King of Great Britain.
+
+Immediately afterwards came communications from Barneveld to Henry, with
+complete adhesion to the King's plans.  The States would move in exact
+harmony with him, neither before him nor after him, which was precisely
+what he wished.  He complained bitterly to Aerssens, when he communicated
+the Advocate's despatches, of the slothful and timid course of the
+princes.  He ascribed it to the arts of Leopold, who had written and
+inspired many letters against him insinuating that he was secretly in
+league and correspondence with the Emperor; that he was going to the
+duchies simply in the interest of the Catholics; that he was like Henry
+II. only seeking to extend the French frontier; and Leopold, by these
+intrigues and falsehoods, had succeeded in filling the princes with
+distrust, and they had taken umbrage at the advance of his cavalry.
+
+Henry professed himself incapable of self-seeking or ambition.  He meant
+to prevent the aggrandizement of Austria, and was impatient at the
+dilatoriness and distrust of the princes.
+
+"All their enemies are rushing to the King of Spain.  Let them address
+themselves to the King of France," he said, "for it is we two that must
+play this game."
+
+And when at last they did send an embassy, they prefaced it by a post
+letter demanding an instant loan, and with an intimation that they would
+rather have his money than his presence!
+
+Was it surprising that the King's course should seem occasionally
+wavering when he found it so difficult to stir up such stagnant waters
+into honourable action?  Was it strange that the rude and stern Sully
+should sometimes lose his patience, knowing so much and suspecting more
+of the foul designs by which his master was encompassed, of the web of
+conspiracy against his throne, his life, and his honour, which was daily
+and hourly spinning?
+
+"We do nothing and you do nothing," he said one day to Aerssens.  "You
+are too soft, and we are too cowardly.  I believe that we shall spoil
+everything, after all.  I always suspect these sudden determinations of
+ours.  They are of bad augury.  We usually founder at last when we set
+off so fiercely at first.  There are words enough an every side, but
+there will be few deeds.  There is nothing to be got out of the King of
+Great Britain, and the King of Spain will end by securing these provinces
+for himself by a treaty."  Sully knew better than this, but he did not
+care to let even the Dutch envoy know, as yet, the immense preparations
+he had been making for the coming campaign.
+
+The envoys of the possessory princes, the Counts Solms, Colonel Pallandt,
+and Dr. Steyntgen, took their departure, after it had been arranged that
+final measures should be concerted at the general congress of the German
+Protestants to be held early in the ensuing year at Hall, in Suabia.
+
+At that convention de Boississe would make himself heard on the part of
+France, and the representatives of the States-General, of Venice, and
+Savoy, would also be present.
+
+Meantime the secret conferences between Henry and his superintendent of
+finances and virtual prime minister were held almost every day.  Scarcely
+an afternoon passed that the King did not make his appearance at the
+Arsenal, Sully's residence, and walk up and down the garden with him for
+hours, discussing the great project of which his brain was full.  This
+great project was to crush for ever the power of the Austrian house; to
+drive Spain back into her own limits, putting an end to her projects for
+universal monarchy; and taking the Imperial crown from the House of
+Habsburg.  By thus breaking up the mighty cousinship which, with the aid
+of Rome, overshadowed Germany and the two peninsulas, besides governing
+the greater part of both the Indies, he meant to bring France into the
+preponderant position over Christendom which he believed to be her due.
+
+It was necessary, he thought, for the continued existence of the Dutch
+commonwealth that the opportunity should be taken once for all, now that
+a glorious captain commanded its armies and a statesman unrivalled for
+experience, insight, and patriotism controlled its politics and its
+diplomacy, to drive the Spaniard out of the Netherlands.
+
+The Cleve question, properly and vigorously handled, presented exactly
+the long desired opportunity for carrying out these vast designs.
+
+The plan of assault upon Spanish power was to be threefold.  The King
+himself at the head of 35,000 men, supported by Prince Maurice and the
+States' forces amounting to at least 14,000, would move to the Rhine and
+seize the duchies.  The Duke de la Force would command the army of the
+Pyrenees and act in concert with the Moors of Spain, who roused to frenzy
+by their expulsion from the kingdom could be relied on for a revolt or at
+least a most vigorous diversion.  Thirdly, a treaty with the Duke of
+Savoy by which Henry accorded his daughter to the Duke's eldest son, the
+Prince of Piedmont, a gift of 100,000 crowns, and a monthly pension
+during the war of 50,000 crowns a month, was secretly concluded.
+
+Early in the spring the Duke was to take the field with at least 10,000
+foot and 1200 horse, supported by a French army of 12,000 to 15,000 men
+under the experienced Marshal de Lesdiguieres.  These forces were to
+operate against the Duchy of Milan with the intention of driving the
+Spaniards out of that rich possession, which the Duke of Savoy claimed
+for himself, and of assuring to Henry the dictatorship of Italy.  With
+the cordial alliance of Venice, and by playing off the mutual jealousies
+of the petty Italian princes, like Florence, Mantua, Montserrat, and
+others, against each other and against the Pope, it did not seem doubtful
+to Sully that the result would be easily accomplished.  He distinctly
+urged the wish that the King should content himself with political
+influence, with the splendid position of holding all Italy dependent upon
+his will and guidance, but without annexing a particle of territory to
+his own crown.
+
+It was Henry's intention, however, to help himself to the Duchy of Savoy,
+and to the magnificent city and port of Genoa as a reward to himself for
+the assistance, matrimonial alliance, and aggrandizement which he was
+about to bestow upon Charles Emmanuel.  Sully strenuously opposed these
+self-seeking views on the part of his sovereign, however, constantly
+placing before him the far nobler aim of controlling the destinies of
+Christendom, of curbing what tended to become omnipotent, of raising up
+and protecting that which had been abased, of holding the balance of
+empire with just and steady hand in preference to the more vulgar and
+commonplace ambition of annexing a province or two to the realms of
+France.
+
+It is true that these virtuous homilies, so often preached by him against
+territorial aggrandizement in one direction, did not prevent him from
+indulging in very extensive visions of it in another.  But the dreams
+pointed to the east rather than to the south.  It was Sully's policy to
+swallow a portion not of Italy but of Germany.  He persuaded his master
+that the possessory princes, if placed by the help of France in the
+heritage which they claimed, would hardly be able to maintain themselves
+against the dangers which surrounded them except by a direct dependence
+upon France.  In the end the position would become an impossible one,
+and it would be easy after the war was over to indemnify Brandenburg with
+money and with private property in the heart of France for example, and
+obtain the cession of those most coveted provinces between the Meuse and
+the Weser to the King.  "What an advantage for France," whispered Sully,
+"to unite to its power so important a part of Germany.  For it cannot be
+denied that by accepting the succour given by the King now those princes
+oblige themselves to ask for help in the future in order to preserve
+their new acquisition.  Thus your Majesty will make them pay for it very
+dearly."
+
+Thus the very virtuous self-denial in regard to the Duke of Savoy did not
+prevent a secret but well developed ambition at the expense of the
+Elector of Brandenburg.  For after all it was well enough known that the
+Elector was the really important and serious candidate.  Henry knew full
+well that Neuburg was depending on the Austrians and the Catholics, and
+that the claims of Saxony were only put forward by the Emperor in order
+to confuse the princes and excite mutual distrust.
+
+The King's conferences with the great financier were most confidential,
+and Sully was as secret as the grave.  But Henry never could keep a
+secret even when it concerned his most important interests, and nothing
+would serve him but he must often babble of his great projects even to
+their minutest details in presence of courtiers and counsellors whom in
+his heart he knew to be devoted to Spain and in receipt of pensions from
+her king.  He would boast to them of the blows by which he meant to
+demolish Spain and the whole house of Austria, so that there should be
+no longer danger to be feared from that source to the tranquillity and
+happiness of Europe, and he would do this so openly and in presence of
+those who, as he knew, were perpetually setting traps for him and
+endeavouring to discover his deepest secrets as to make Sully's hair
+stand on end.  The faithful minister would pluck his master by the cloak
+at times, and the King, with the adroitness which never forsook him when
+he chose to employ it, would contrive to extricate himself from a dilemma
+and pause at the brink of tremendous disclosures.--[Memoires de Sully,
+t. vii.  p. 324.]--But Sully could not be always at his side, nor were
+the Nuncius or Don Inigo de Cardenas or their confidential agents and
+spies always absent.  Enough was known of the general plan, while as to
+the probability of its coming into immediate execution, perhaps the
+enemies of the King were often not more puzzled than his friends.
+
+But what the Spanish ambassador did not know, nor the Nuncius, nor even
+the friendly Aerssens, was the vast amount of supplies which had been
+prepared for the coming conflict by the finance minister.  Henry did not
+know it himself.  "The war will turn on France as on a pivot," said
+Sully; "it remains to be seen if we have supplies and money enough.
+I will engage if the war is not to last more than three years and you
+require no more than 40,000 men at a time that I will show you munitions
+and ammunition and artillery and the like to such an extent that you will
+say, 'It is enough.'
+
+"As to money--"
+
+"How much money have I got?" asked the King; "a dozen millions?"
+
+"A little more than that," answered the Minister.
+
+"Fourteen millions?"
+
+"More still."
+
+"Sixteen?" continued the King.
+
+"More yet," said Sully.
+
+And so the King went on adding two millions at each question until thirty
+millions were reached, and when the question as to this sum was likewise
+answered in the affirmative, he jumped from his chair, hugged his
+minister around the neck, and kissed him on both cheeks.
+
+"I want no more than that," he cried.
+
+Sully answered by assuring him that he had prepared a report showing a
+reserve of forty millions on which he might draw for his war expenses,
+without in the least degree infringing on the regular budget for ordinary
+expenses.
+
+The King was in a transport of delight, and would have been capable of
+telling the story on the spot to the Nuncius had he met him that
+afternoon, which fortunately did not occur.
+
+But of all men in Europe after the faithful Sully, Henry most desired to
+see and confer daily and secretly with Barneveld.  He insisted vehemently
+that, neglecting all other business, he should come forthwith to Paris at
+the head of the special embassy which it had been agreed that the States
+should send.  No living statesman, he said, could compare to Holland's
+Advocate in sagacity, insight, breadth of view, knowledge of mankind and
+of great affairs, and none he knew was more sincerely attached to his
+person or felt more keenly the value of the French alliance.
+
+With him he indeed communicated almost daily through the medium of
+Aerssens, who was in constant receipt of most elaborate instructions
+from Barneveld, but he wished to confer with him face to face, so that
+there would be no necessity of delay in sending back for instructions,
+limitations, and explanation.  No man knew better than the King did that
+so far as foreign affairs were concerned the States-General were simply
+Barneveld.
+
+On the 22nd January the States' ambassador had a long and secret
+interview with the King.'  He informed him that the Prince of Anhalt had
+been assured by Barneveld that the possessory princes would be fully
+supported in their position by the States, and that the special deputies
+of Archduke Albert, whose presence at the Hague made Henry uneasy, as he
+regarded them as perpetual spies, had been dismissed.  Henry expressed
+his gratification.  They are there, he said, entirely in the interest of
+Leopold, who has just received 500,000 crowns from the King of Spain, and
+is to have that sum annually, and they are only sent to watch all your
+proceedings in regard to Cleve.
+
+The King then fervently pressed the Ambassador to urge Barneveld's coming
+to Paris with the least possible delay.  He signified his delight with
+Barneveld's answer to Anhalt, who thus fortified would be able to do good
+service at the assembly at Hall.  He had expected nothing else from
+Barneveld's sagacity, from his appreciation of the needs of Christendom,
+and from his affection for himself.  He told the Ambassador that he was
+anxiously waiting for the Advocate in order to consult with him as to all
+the details of the war.  The affair of Cleve, he said, was too special a
+cause.  A more universal one was wanted.  The King preferred to begin
+with Luxemburg, attacking Charlemont or Namur, while the States ought at
+the same time to besiege Venlo, with the intention afterwards of uniting
+with the King in laying siege to Maestricht.
+
+He was strong enough, he said, against all the world, but he still
+preferred to invite all princes interested to join him in putting down
+the ambitious and growing power of Spain.  Cleve was a plausible pretext,
+but the true cause, he said, should be found in the general safety of
+Christendom.
+
+Boississe had been sent to the German princes to ascertain whether and to
+what extent they would assist the King.  He supposed that once they found
+him engaged in actual warfare in Luxemburg, they would get rid of their
+jealousy and panic fears of him and his designs.  He expected them to
+furnish at least as large a force as he would supply as a contingent.
+
+For it was understood that Anhalt as generalissimo of the German forces
+would command a certain contingent of French troops, while the main army
+of the King would be led by himself in person.
+
+Henry expressed the conviction that the King of Spain would be taken by
+surprise finding himself attacked in three places and by three armies at
+once, he believing that the King of France was entirely devoted to his
+pleasures and altogether too old for warlike pursuits, while the States,
+just emerging from the misery of their long and cruel conflict, would be
+surely unwilling to plunge headlong into a great and bloody war.
+
+Henry inferred this, he said, from observing the rude and brutal manner
+in which the soldiers in the Spanish Netherlands were now treated.  It
+seemed, he said, as if the Archdukes thought they had no further need of
+them, or as if a stamp of the foot could raise new armies out of the
+earth.  "My design," continued the King, "is the more likely to succeed
+as the King of Spain, being a mere gosling and a valet of the Duke of
+Lerma, will find himself stripped of all his resources and at his wits'
+end; unexpectedly embarrassed as he will be on the Italian side, where we
+shall be threatening to cut the jugular vein of his pretended universal
+monarchy."
+
+He intimated that there was no great cause for anxiety in regard to the
+Catholic League just formed at Wurzburg.  He doubted whether the King of
+Spain would join it, and he had learned that the Elector of Cologne was
+making very little progress in obtaining the Emperor's adhesion.  As to
+this point the King had probably not yet thoroughly understood that the
+Bavarian League was intended to keep clear of the House of Habsburg,
+Maximilian not being willing to identify the success of German
+Catholicism with the fortunes of that family.
+
+Henry expressed the opinion that the King of Spain, that is to say, his
+counsellors, meant to make use of the Emperor's name while securing all
+the profit, and that Rudolph quite understood their game, while Matthias
+was sure to make use of this opportunity, supported by the Protestants of
+Bohemia, Austria, and Moravia, to strip the Emperor of the last shred of
+Empire.
+
+The King was anxious that the States should send a special embassy at
+once to the King of Great Britain.  His ambassador, de la Boderie, gave
+little encouragement of assistance from that quarter, but it was at least
+desirable to secure his neutrality.  "'Tis a prince too much devoted to
+repose," said Henry, "to be likely to help in this war, but at least he
+must not be allowed to traverse our great designs.  He will probably
+refuse the league offensive and defensive which I have proposed to him,
+but he must be got, if possible, to pledge himself to the defensive.  I
+mean to assemble my army on the frontier, as if to move upon Julich, and
+then suddenly sweep down on the Meuse, where, sustained by the States'
+army and that of the princes, I will strike my blows and finish my
+enterprise before our adversary has got wind of what is coming.  We must
+embark James in the enterprise if we can, but at any rate we must take
+measures to prevent his spoiling it."
+
+Henry assured the Envoy that no one would know anything of the great
+undertaking but by its effect; that no one could possibly talk about it
+with any knowledge except himself, Sully, Villeroy, Barneveld, and
+Aerssens.  With them alone he conferred confidentially, and he doubted
+not that the States would embrace this opportunity to have done for ever
+with the Spaniards.  He should take the field in person, he said, and
+with several powerful armies would sweep the enemy away from the Meuse,
+and after obtaining control of that river would quietly take possession
+of the sea-coast of Flanders, shut up Archduke Albert between the States
+and the French, who would thus join hands and unite their frontiers.
+
+Again the King expressed his anxiety for Barneveld's coming, and directed
+the Ambassador to urge it, and to communicate to him the conversation
+which had just taken place.  He much preferred, he said, a general war.
+He expressed doubts as to the Prince of Anhalt's capacity as chief in the
+Cleve expedition, and confessed that being jealous of his own reputation
+he did not like to commit his contingent of troops to the care of a
+stranger and one so new to his trade.  The shame would fall on himself,
+not on Anhalt in case of any disaster.  Therefore, to avoid all petty
+jealousies and inconveniences of that nature by which the enterprise
+might be ruined, it was best to make out of this small affair a great
+one, and the King signified his hope that the Advocate would take this
+view of the case and give him his support.  He had plenty of grounds of
+war himself, and the States had as good cause of hostilities in the
+rupture of the truce by the usurpation attempted by Leopold with the
+assistance of Spain and in the name of the Emperor.  He hoped, he said,
+that the States would receive no more deputations from Archduke Albert,
+but decide to settle everything at the point of the sword.  The moment
+was propitious, and, if neglected, might never return.  Marquis Spinola
+was about to make a journey to Spain on various matters of business.  On
+his return, Henry said, he meant to make him prisoner as a hostage for
+the Prince of Conde, whom the Archdukes were harbouring and detaining.
+This would be the pretext, he said, but the object would be to deprive
+the Archdukes of any military chief, and thus to throw them into utter
+confusion.  Count van den Berg would never submit to the authority of Don
+Luis de Velasco, nor Velasco to his, and not a man could come from Spain
+or Italy, for the passages would all be controlled by France.
+
+Fortunately for the King's reputation, Spinola's journey was deferred,
+so that this notable plan for disposing of the great captain fell to the
+ground.
+
+Henry agreed to leave the two French regiments and the two companies of
+cavalry in the States' service as usual, but stipulated in certain
+contingencies for their use.
+
+Passing to another matter concerning which there had been so much
+jealousy on the part of the States, the formation of the French East
+India Company--to organize which undertaking Le Roy and Isaac Le Maire
+of Amsterdam had been living disguised in the house of Henry's famous
+companion, the financier Zamet at Paris--the King said that Barneveld
+ought not to envy him a participation in the great profits of this
+business.
+
+Nothing would be done without consulting him after his arrival in Paris.
+He would discuss the matter privately with him, he said, knowing that
+Barneveld was a great personage, but however obstinate he might be, he
+felt sure that he would always yield to reason.  On the other hand the
+King expressed his willingness to submit to the Advocate's opinions if
+they should seem the more just.
+
+On leaving the King the Ambassador had an interview with Sully, who again
+expressed his great anxiety for the arrival of Barneveld, and his hopes
+that he might come with unlimited powers, so that the great secret might
+not leak out through constant referring of matters back to the Provinces.
+
+After rendering to the Advocate a detailed account of this remarkable
+conversation, Aerssens concluded with an intimation that perhaps his own
+opinion might be desired as to the meaning of all those movements
+developing themselves so suddenly and on so many sides.
+
+"I will say," he observed, "exactly what the poet sings of the army of
+ants--
+
+         'Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta
+          Pulveris exigui jactu contacts quiescunt.'
+
+If the Prince of Conde comes back, we shall be more plausible than ever.
+If he does not come back, perhaps the consideration of the future will
+sweep us onwards.  All have their special views, and M. de Villeroy more
+warmly than all the rest."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlour
+Allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body
+Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics
+Christian sympathy and a small assistance not being sufficient
+Contained within itself the germs of a larger liberty
+Could not be both judge and party in the suit
+Covered now with the satirical dust of centuries
+Deadly hatred of Puritans in England and Holland
+Doctrine of predestination in its sternest and strictest sense
+Emperor of Japan addressed him as his brother monarch
+Estimating his character and judging his judges
+Everybody should mind his own business
+He was a sincere bigot
+Impatience is often on the part of the non-combatants
+Intense bigotry of conviction
+International friendship, the self-interest of each
+It was the true religion, and there was none other
+James of England, who admired, envied, and hated Henry
+Jealousy, that potent principle
+Language which is ever living because it is dead
+More fiercely opposed to each other than to Papists
+None but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say
+Power the poison of which it is so difficult to resist
+Presents of considerable sums of money to the negotiators made
+Princes show what they have in them at twenty-five  or never
+Putting the cart before the oxen
+Religious toleration, which is a phrase of insult
+Secure the prizes of war without the troubles and dangers
+Senectus edam maorbus est
+So much in advance of his time as to favor religious equality
+The Catholic League and the Protestant Union
+The truth in shortest about matters of importance
+The vehicle is often prized more than the freight
+There was but one king in Europe, Henry the Bearnese
+There was no use in holding language of authority to him
+Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of the forty years
+Unimaginable outrage as the most legitimate industry
+Wish to appear learned in matters of which they are ignorant
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v1, Motley #86
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v2, 1609-10
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Passion of Henry IV. for Margaret de Montmorency--Her Marriage with
+     the Prince of Conde--Their Departure for the Country--Their Flight to
+     the Netherlands-Rage of the King--Intrigues of Spain--Reception of
+     the Prince and Princess of Conde by the Archdukes at Brussels--
+     Splendid Entertainments by Spinola--Attempts of the King to bring
+     the Fugitives back--Mission of De Coeuvres to Brussels--Difficult
+     Position of the Republic--Vast but secret Preparations for War.
+
+"If the Prince of Conde comes back."  What had the Prince of Conde, his
+comings and his goings, to do with this vast enterprise?
+
+It is time to point to the golden thread of most fantastic passion which
+runs throughout this dark and eventful history.
+
+One evening in the beginning of the year which had just come to its close
+there was to be a splendid fancy ball at the Louvre in the course of
+which several young ladies of highest rank were to perform a dance in
+mythological costume.
+
+The King, on ill terms with the Queen, who harassed him with scenes of
+affected jealousy, while engaged in permanent plots with her paramour and
+master, the Italian Concini, against his policy and his life; on still
+worse terms with his latest mistress in chief, the Marquise de Verneuil,
+who hated him and revenged herself for enduring his caresses by making
+him the butt of her venomous wit, had taken the festivities of a court in
+dudgeon where he possessed hosts of enemies and flatterers but scarcely a
+single friend.
+
+He refused to attend any of the rehearsals of the ballet, but one day a
+group of Diana and her nymphs passed him in the great gallery of the
+palace.  One of the nymphs as she went by turned and aimed her gilded
+javelin at his heart.  Henry looked and saw the most beautiful young
+creature, so he thought, that mortal eye had ever gazed upon, and
+according to his wont fell instantly over head and ears in love.
+He said afterwards that he felt himself pierced to the heart and
+was ready to faint away.
+
+The lady was just fifteen years of age.  The King was turned of fifty-
+five.  The disparity of age seemed to make the royal passion ridiculous.
+To Henry the situation seemed poetical and pathetic.  After this first
+interview he never missed a single rehearsal.  In the intervals he called
+perpetually for the services of the court poet Malherbe, who certainly
+contrived to perpetrate in his behalf some of the most detestable verses
+that even he had ever composed.
+
+The nymph was Marguerite de Montmorency, daughter of the Constable of
+France, and destined one day to become the mother of the great Conde,
+hero of Rocroy.  There can be no doubt that she was exquisitely
+beautiful.  Fair-haired, with a complexion of dazzling purity, large
+expressive eyes, delicate but commanding features, she had a singular
+fascination of look and gesture, and a winning, almost childlike,
+simplicity of manner.  Without feminine artifice or commonplace coquetry,
+she seemed to bewitch and subdue at a glance men of all ranks, ages, and
+pursuits; kings and cardinals, great generals, ambassadors and statesmen,
+as well as humbler mortals whether Spanish, Italian, French, or Flemish.
+The Constable, an ignorant man who, as the King averred, could neither
+write nor read, understood as well as more learned sages the manners and
+humours of the court.  He had destined his daughter for the young and
+brilliant Bassompierre, the most dazzling of all the cavaliers of the
+day.  The two were betrothed.
+
+But the love-stricken Henry, then confined to his bed with the gout, sent
+for the chosen husband of the beautiful Margaret.
+
+"Bassompierre, my friend," said the aged king, as the youthful lover
+knelt before him at the bedside, "I have become not in love, but mad,
+out of my senses, furious for Mademoiselle de Montmorency.  If she should
+love you, I should hate you.  If she should love me, you would hate me.
+'Tis better that this should not be the cause of breaking up our good
+intelligence, for I love you with affection and inclination.  I am
+resolved to marry her to my nephew the Prince of Conde, and to keep her
+near my family.  She will be the consolation and support of my old age
+into which I am now about to enter.  I shall give my nephew, who loves
+the chase a thousand times better than he does ladies, 100,000 livres a
+year, and I wish no other favour from her than her affection without
+making further pretensions."
+
+It was eight o'clock of a black winter's morning, and the tears as he
+spoke ran down the cheeks of the hero of Ivry and bedewed the face of the
+kneeling Bassompierre.
+
+The courtly lover sighed and--obeyed.  He renounced the hand of the
+beautiful Margaret, and came daily to play at dice with the King at
+his bedside with one or two other companions.
+
+And every day the Duchess of Angouleme, sister of the Constable, brought
+her fair niece to visit and converse with the royal invalid.  But for the
+dark and tragic clouds which were gradually closing around that eventful
+and heroic existence there would be something almost comic in the
+spectacle of the sufferer making the palace and all France ring with the
+howlings of his grotesque passion for a child of fifteen as he lay
+helpless and crippled with the gout.
+
+One day as the Duchess of Angouleme led her niece away from their morning
+visit to the King, Margaret as she passed by Bassompierre shrugged her
+shoulders with a scornful glance.  Stung by this expression of contempt,
+the lover who had renounced her sprang from the dice table, buried his
+face in his hat, pretending that his nose was bleeding, and rushed
+frantically from the palace.
+
+Two days long he spent in solitude, unable to eat, drink, or sleep,
+abandoned to despair and bewailing his wretched fate, and it was long
+before he could recover sufficient equanimity to face his lost Margaret
+and resume his place at the King's dicing table.  When he made his
+appearance, he was according to his own account so pale, changed, and
+emaciated that his friends could not recognise him.
+
+The marriage with Conde, first prince of the blood, took place early in
+the spring.  The bride received magnificent presents, and the husband a,
+pension of 100,000 livres a year.  The attentions of the King became soon
+outrageous and the reigning scandal of the hour.  Henry, discarding the
+grey jacket and simple costume on which he was wont to pride himself,
+paraded himself about in perfumed ruffs and glittering doublet, an
+ancient fop, very little heroic, and much ridiculed.  The Princess made
+merry with the antics of her royal adorer, while her vanity at least, if
+not her affection, was really touched, and there was one great round of
+court festivities in her honour, at which the King and herself were ever
+the central figures.  But Conde was not at all amused.  Not liking the
+part assigned to him in the comedy thus skilfully arranged by his cousin
+king, never much enamoured of his bride, while highly appreciating the
+100,000 livres of pension, he remonstrated violently with his wife,
+bitterly reproached the King, and made himself generally offensive.
+"The Prince is here," wrote Henry to Sully, "and is playing the very
+devil.  You would be in a rage and be ashamed of the things he says of
+me.  But at last I am losing patience, and am resolved to give him a bit
+of my mind."  He wrote in the same terms to Montmorency.  The Constable,
+whose conduct throughout the affair was odious and pitiable, promised to
+do his best to induce the Prince, instead of playing the devil, to listen
+to reason, as he and the Duchess of Angouleme understood reason.
+
+Henry had even the ineffable folly to appeal to the Queen to use her
+influence with the refractory Conde.  Mary de' Medici replied that there
+were already thirty go-betweens at work, and she had no idea of being the
+thirty-first--[Henrard, 30].
+
+Conde, surrounded by a conspiracy against his honour and happiness,
+suddenly carried off his wife to the country, much to the amazement and
+rage of Henry.
+
+In the autumn he entertained a hunting party at a seat of his, the Abbey
+of Verneuille, on the borders of Picardy.  De Traigny, governor of
+Amiens, invited the Prince, Princess, and the Dowager-Princess to a
+banquet at his chateau not far from the Abbey.  On their road thither
+they passed a group of huntsmen and grooms in the royal livery.  Among
+them was an aged lackey with a plaister over one eye, holding a couple of
+hounds in leash.  The Princess recognized at a glance under that
+ridiculous disguise the King.
+
+"What a madman!" she murmured as she passed him, "I will never forgive
+you;" but as she confessed many years afterwards, this act of gallantly
+did not displease her.'
+
+In truth, even in mythological fable, Trove has scarcely ever reduced
+demi-god or hero to more fantastic plight than was this travesty of the
+great Henry.  After dinner Madame de Traigny led her fair guest about the
+castle to show her the various points of view.  At one window she paused,
+saying that it commanded a particularly fine prospect.
+
+The Princess looked from it across a courtyard, and saw at an opposite
+window an old gentleman holding his left hand tightly upon his heart to
+show that it was wounded, and blowing kisses to her with the other: "My
+God! it is the King himself," she cried to her hostess.  The princess
+with this exclamation rushed from the window, feeling or affecting much
+indignation, ordered horses to her carriage instantly, and overwhelmed
+Madame de Traigny with reproaches.  The King himself, hastening to the
+scene, was received with passionate invectives, and in vain attempted to
+assuage the Princess's wrath and induce her to remain.
+
+They left the chateau at once, both Prince and Princess.
+
+One night, not many weeks afterwards, the Due de Sully, in the Arsenal at
+Paris, had just got into bed at past eleven o'clock when he received a
+visit from Captain de Praslin, who walked straight into his bed-chamber,
+informing him that the King instantly required his presence.
+
+Sully remonstrated.  He was obliged to rise at three the next morning,
+he said, enumerating pressing and most important work which Henry
+required to be completed with all possible haste.  "The King said you
+would be very angry," replied Praslin; "but there is no help for it.
+Come you must, for the man you know of has gone out of the country, as
+you said he would, and has carried away the lady on the crupper behind
+him."
+
+"Ho, ho," said the Duke, "I am wanted for that affair, am I?"  And the
+two proceeded straightway to the Louvre, and were ushered, of all
+apartments in the world, into the Queen's bedchamber.  Mary de' Medici
+had given birth only four days before to an infant, Henrietta Maria,
+future queen of Charles I. of England.  The room was crowded with
+ministers and courtiers; Villeroy, the Chancellor, Bassompierre, and
+others, being stuck against the wall at small intervals like statues,
+dumb, motionless, scarcely daring to breathe.  The King, with his hands
+behind him and his grey beard sunk on his breast, was pacing up and down
+the room in a paroxysm of rage and despair.
+
+"Well," said he, turning to Sully as he entered, "our man has gone off
+and carried everything with him.  What do you say to that?"
+
+The Duke beyond the boding "I told you so" phrase of consolation which
+he was entitled to use, having repeatedly warned his sovereign that
+precisely this catastrophe was impending, declined that night to offer
+advice.  He insisted on sleeping on it.  The manner in which the
+proceedings of the King at this juncture would be regarded by the
+Archdukes Albert and Isabella--for there could be no doubt that Conde had
+escaped to their territory--and by the King of Spain, in complicity with
+whom the step had unquestionably been taken--was of gravest political
+importance.
+
+Henry had heard the intelligence but an hour before.  He was at cards in
+his cabinet with Bassompierre and others when d'Elbene entered and made a
+private communication to him.  "Bassompierre, my friend," whispered the
+King immediately in that courtier's ear, "I am lost.  This man has
+carried his wife off into a wood.  I don't know if it is to kill her or
+to take her out of France.  Take care of my money and keep up the game."
+
+Bassompierre followed the king shortly afterwards and brought him his
+money.  He said that he had never seen a man so desperate, so
+transported.
+
+The matter was indeed one of deepest and universal import.  The reader
+has seen by the preceding narrative how absurd is the legend often
+believed in even to our own days that war was made by France upon the
+Archdukes and upon Spain to recover the Princess of Conde from captivity
+in Brussels.
+
+From contemporary sources both printed and unpublished; from most
+confidential conversations and revelations, we have seen how broad,
+deliberate, and deeply considered were the warlike and political
+combinations in the King's ever restless brain.  But although the
+abduction of the new Helen by her own Menelaus was not the cause of the
+impending, Iliad, there is no doubt whatever that the incident had much
+to do with the crisis, was the turning point in a great tragedy, and that
+but for the vehement passion of the King for this youthful princess
+events might have developed themselves on a far different scale from that
+which they were destined to assume.  For this reason a court intrigue,
+which history under other conditions might justly disdain, assumes vast
+proportions and is taken quite away from the scandalous chronicle which
+rarely busies itself with grave affairs of state.
+
+"The flight of Conde," wrote Aerssens, "is the catastrophe to the comedy
+which has been long enacting.  'Tis to be hoped that the sequel may not
+prove tragical."
+
+"The Prince," for simply by that title he was usually called to
+distinguish him from all other princes in France, was next of blood.
+Had Henry no sons, he would have succeeded him on the throne.  It was a
+favourite scheme of the Spanish party to invalidate Henry's divorce from
+Margaret of Valois, and thus to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the
+Dauphin and the other children of Mary de' Medici.
+
+The Prince in the hands of the Spanish government might prove a docile
+and most dangerous instrument to the internal repose of France not only
+after Henry's death but in his life-time.  Conde's character was
+frivolous, unstable, excitable, weak, easy to be played upon by designing
+politicians, and he had now the deepest cause for anger and for indulging
+in ambitious dreams.
+
+He had been wont during this unhappy first year of his marriage to loudly
+accuse Henry of tyranny, and was now likely by public declaration to
+assign that as the motive of his flight.  Henry had protested in reply
+that he had never been guilty of tyranny but once in his life, and that
+was when he allowed this youth to take the name and title of Conde?
+
+For the Princess-Dowager his mother had lain for years in prison, under
+the terrible accusation of having murdered her husband, in complicity
+with her paramour, a Gascon page, named Belcastel.  The present prince
+had been born several months after his reputed father's death.  Henry,
+out of good nature, or perhaps for less creditable reasons, had come to
+the rescue of the accused princess, and had caused the process to be
+stopped, further enquiry to be quashed, and the son to be recognized as
+legitimate Prince of Conde.  The Dowager had subsequently done her best
+to further the King's suit to her son's wife, for which the Prince
+bitterly reproached her to her face, heaping on her epithets which she
+well deserved.
+
+Henry at once began to threaten a revival of the criminal suit, with a
+view of bastardizing him again, although the Dowager had acted on all
+occasions with great docility in Henry's interests.
+
+The flight of the Prince and Princess was thus not only an incident of
+great importance to the internal politics of trance, but had a direct and
+important bearing on the impending hostilities.  Its intimate connection
+with the affairs of the Netherland commonwealth was obvious.  It was
+probable that the fugitives would make their way towards the Archdukes'
+territory, and that afterwards their first point of destination would be
+Breda, of which Philip William of Orange, eldest brother of Prince
+Maurice, was the titular proprietor.  Since the truce recently concluded
+the brothers, divided so entirely by politics and religion, could meet
+on fraternal and friendly terms, and Breda, although a city of the
+Commonwealth, received its feudal lord.  The Princess of Orange was the
+sister of Conde.  The morning after the flight the King, before daybreak,
+sent for the Dutch ambassador.  He directed him to despatch a courier
+forthwith to Barneveld, notifying him that the Prince had left the
+kingdom without the permission or knowledge of his sovereign, and stating
+the King's belief that he had fled to the territory of the Archdukes.  If
+he should come to Breda or to any other place within the jurisdiction of
+the States, they were requested to make sure of his person at once, and
+not to permit him to retire until further instructions should be received
+from the King.  De Praslin, captain of the body-guards and lieutenant of
+Champagne, it was further mentioned, was to be sent immediately on secret
+mission concerning this affair to the States and to the Archdukes.
+
+The King suspected Conde of crime, so the Advocate was to be informed.
+He believed him to be implicated in the conspiracy of Poitou; the six who
+had been taken prisoners having confessed that they had thrice conferred
+with a prince at Paris, and that the motive of the plot was to free
+themselves and France from the tyranny of Henry IV.  The King insisted
+peremptorily, despite of any objections from Aerssens, that the thing
+must be done and his instructions carried out to the letter.  So much he
+expected of the States, and they should care no more for ulterior
+consequences, he said, than he had done for the wrath of Spain when he
+frankly undertook their cause.  Conde was important only because his
+relative, and he declared that if the Prince should escape, having once
+entered the territory of the Republic, he should lay the blame on its
+government.
+
+"If you proceed languidly in the affair," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld,
+"our affairs will suffer for ever."
+
+Nobody at court believed in the Poitou conspiracy, or that Conde had any
+knowledge of it.  The reason of his flight was a mystery to none, but as
+it was immediately followed by an intrigue with Spain, it seemed
+ingenious to Henry to make, use of a transparent pretext to conceal the
+ugliness of the whole affair.
+
+He hoped that the Prince would be arrested at Breda and sent back by the
+States.  Villeroy said that if it was not done, they would be guilty of
+black ingratitude.  It would be an awkward undertaking, however, and the
+States devoutly prayed that they might not be put to the test.  The
+crafty Aerssens suggested to Barneveld that if Conde was not within their
+territory it would be well to assure the King that, had he been there, he
+would have been delivered up at once.  "By this means," said the
+Ambassador, "you will give no cause of offence to the Prince, and will at
+the same time satisfy the King.  It is important that he should think
+that you depend immediately upon him.  If you see that after his arrest
+they take severe measures against him, you will have a thousand ways of
+parrying the blame which posterity might throw upon you.  History teaches
+you plenty of them."
+
+He added that neither Sully nor anyone else thought much of the Poitou
+conspiracy.  Those implicated asserted that they had intended to raise
+troops there to assist the King in the Cleve expedition.  Some people
+said that Henry had invented this plot against his throne and life.  The
+Ambassador, in a spirit of prophecy, quoted the saying of Domitian:
+"Misera conditio imperantium quibus de conspiratione non creditor nisi
+occisis."
+
+Meantime the fugitives continued their journey.  The Prince was
+accompanied by one of his dependants, a rude officer, de Rochefort, who
+carried the Princess on a pillion behind him.  She had with her a lady-
+in-waiting named du Certeau and a lady's maid named Philippote.  She had
+no clothes but those on her back, not even a change of linen.  Thus the
+young and delicate lady made the wintry journey through the forests.
+They crossed the frontier at Landrecies, then in the Spanish Netherlands,
+intending to traverse the Archduke's territory in order to reach Breda,
+where Conde meant to leave his wife in charge of his sister, the Princess
+of Orange, and then to proceed to Brussels.
+
+He wrote from the little inn at Landrecies to notify the Archduke of his
+project.  He was subsequently informed that Albert would not prevent his
+passing through his territories, but should object to his making a fixed
+residence within them.  The Prince also wrote subsequently to the King of
+Spain and to the King of France.
+
+To Henry he expressed his great regret at being obliged to leave the
+kingdom in order to save his honour and his life, but that he had no
+intention of being anything else than his very humble and faithful
+cousin, subject, and servant.  He would do nothing against his service,
+he said, unless forced thereto, and he begged the King not to take it
+amiss if he refused to receive letters from any one whomsoever at court,
+saving only such letters as his Majesty himself might honour him by
+writing.
+
+The result of this communication to the King was of course to enrage that
+monarch to the utmost, and his first impulse on finding that the Prince
+was out of his reach was to march to Brussels at once and take possession
+of him and the Princess by main force.  More moderate counsels prevailed
+for the moment however, and negotiations were attempted.
+
+Praslin did not contrive to intercept the fugitives, but the States-
+General, under the advice of Barneveld, absolutely forbade their coming
+to Breda or entering any part of their jurisdiction.  The result of
+Conde's application to the King of Spain was an ultimate offer of
+assistance and asylum, through a special emissary, one Anover; for the
+politicians of Madrid were astute enough to see what a card the Prince
+might prove in their hands.
+
+Henry instructed his ambassador in Spain to use strong and threatening
+language in regard to the harbouring a rebel and a conspirator against
+the throne of France; while on the other hand he expressed his
+satisfaction with the States for having prohibited the Prince from
+entering their territory.  He would have preferred, he said, if they had
+allowed him entrance and forbidden his departure, but on the whole he was
+content.  It was thought in Paris that the Netherland government had
+acted with much adroitness in thus abstaining both from a violation of
+the law of nations and from giving offence to the King.
+
+A valet of Conde was taken with some papers of the Prince about him,
+which proved a determination on his part never to return to France during
+the lifetime of Henry.  They made no statement of the cause of his
+flight, except to intimate that it might be left to the judgment of
+every one, as it was unfortunately but too well known to all.
+
+Refused entrance into the Dutch territory, the Prince was obliged to
+renounce his project in regard to Breda, and brought his wife to
+Brussels.  He gave Bentivoglio, the Papal nuncio, two letters to forward
+to Italy, one to the Pope, the other to his nephew, Cardinal Borghese.
+Encouraged by the advices which he had received from Spain, he justified
+his flight from France both by the danger to his honour and to his life,
+recommending both to the protection of his Holiness and his Eminence.
+Bentivoglio sent the letters, but while admitting the invincible reasons
+for his departure growing out of the King's pursuit of the Princess, he
+refused all credence to the pretended violence against Conde himself.
+Conde informed de Praslin that he would not consent to return to France.
+Subsequently he imposed as conditions of return that the King should
+assign to him certain cities and strongholds in Guienne, of which
+province he was governor, far from Paris and very near the Spanish
+frontier; a measure dictated by Spain and which inflamed Henry's wrath
+almost to madness.  The King insisted on his instant return, placing
+himself and of course the Princess entirely in his hands and receiving a
+full pardon for this effort to save his honour.  The Prince and Princess
+of Orange came from Breda to Brussels to visit their brother and his
+wife.  Here they established them in the Palace of Nassau, once the
+residence in his brilliant youth of William the Silent; a magnificent
+mansion, surrounded by park and garden, built on the brow of the almost
+precipitous hill, beneath which is spread out so picturesquely the
+antique and beautiful capital of Brabant.
+
+The Archdukes received them with stately courtesy at their own palace.
+On their first ceremonious visit to the sovereigns of the land, the
+formal Archduke, coldest and chastest of mankind, scarcely lifted his
+eyes to gaze on the wondrous beauty of the Princess, yet assured her
+after he had led her through a portrait gallery of fair women that
+formerly these had been accounted beauties, but that henceforth it was
+impossible to speak of any beauty but her own.
+
+The great Spinola fell in love with her at once, sent for the illustrious
+Rubens from Antwerp to paint her portrait, and offered Mademoiselle de
+Chateau Vert 10,000 crowns in gold if she would do her best to further
+his suit with her mistress.  The Genoese banker-soldier made love, war,
+and finance on a grand scale.  He gave a magnificent banquet and ball in
+her honour on Twelfth Night, and the festival was the wonder of the town.
+Nothing like it had been seen in Brussels for years.  At six in the
+evening Spinola in splendid costume, accompanied by Don Luis Velasco,
+Count Ottavio Visconti, Count Bucquoy, with other nobles of lesser note,
+drove to the Nassau Palace to bring the Prince and Princess and their
+suite to the Marquis's mansion.  Here a guard of honour of thirty
+musketeers was standing before the door, and they were conducted from
+their coaches by Spinola preceded by twenty-four torch-bearers up the
+grand staircase to a hall, where they were received by the Princesses of
+Mansfeld, Velasco, and other distinguished dames.  Thence they were led
+through several apartments rich with tapestry and blazing with crystal
+and silver plate to a splendid saloon where was a silken canopy, under
+which the Princess of Conde and the Princess of Orange seated themselves,
+the Nuncius Bentivoglio to his delight being placed next the beautiful
+Margaret.  After reposing for a little while they were led to the ball-
+room, brilliantly lighted with innumerable torches of perfumed wax and
+hung with tapestry of gold and silk, representing in fourteen embroidered
+designs the chief military exploits of Spinola.  Here the banquet, a cold
+collation, was already spread on a table decked and lighted with regal
+splendour.  As soon as the guests were seated, an admirable concert of
+instrumental music began.  Spinola walked up and down providing for the
+comforts of his company, the Duke of Aumale stood behind the two
+princesses to entertain them with conversation, Don Luis Velasco served
+the Princess of Conde with plates, handed her the dishes, the wine, the
+napkins, while Bucquoy and Visconti in like manner waited upon the
+Princess of Orange; other nobles attending to the other ladies.  Forty-
+eight pages in white, yellow, and red scarves brought and removed the
+dishes.  The dinner, of courses innumerable, lasted two hours and a half,
+and the ladies, being thus fortified for the more serious business of the
+evening, were led to the tiring-rooms while the hall was made ready for
+dancing.  The ball was opened by the Princess of Conde and Spinola, and
+lasted until two in the morning.  As the apartment grew warm, two of the
+pages went about with long staves and broke all the windows until not a
+single pane of glass remained.  The festival was estimated by the thrifty
+chronicler of Antwerp to have cost from 3000 to 4000 crowns.  It was, he
+says, "an earthly paradise of which soon not a vapour remained."  He
+added that he gave a detailed account of it "not because he took pleasure
+in such voluptuous pomp and extravagance, but that one might thus learn
+the vanity of the world."  These courtesies and assiduities on the part
+of the great "shopkeeper," as the Constable called him, had so much
+effect, if not on the Princess, at least on Conde himself, that he
+threatened to throw his wife out of window if she refused to caress
+Spinola.  These and similar accusations were made by the father and aunt
+when attempting to bring about a divorce of the Princess from her
+husband.  The Nuncius Bentivoglio, too, fell in love with her, devoting
+himself to her service, and his facile and eloquent pen to chronicling
+her story.  Even poor little Philip of Spain in the depths of the
+Escurial heard of her charms, and tried to imagine himself in love with
+her by proxy.
+
+Thenceforth there was a succession of brilliant festivals in honour of
+the Princess.  The Spanish party was radiant with triumph, the French
+maddened with rage.  Henry in Paris was chafing like a lion at bay.  A
+petty sovereign whom he could crush at one vigorous bound was protecting
+the lady for whose love he was dying.  He had secured Conde's exclusion
+from Holland, but here were the fugitives splendidly established in
+Brussels; the Princess surrounded by most formidable suitors, the Prince
+encouraged in his rebellious and dangerous schemes by the power which the
+King most hated on earth, and whose eternal downfall he had long since
+sworn to accomplish.
+
+For the weak and frivolous Conde began to prattle publicly of his deep
+projects of revenge.  Aided by Spanish money and Spanish troops he would
+show one day who was the real heir to the throne of France--the
+illegitimately born Dauphin or himself.
+
+The King sent for the first president of Parliament, Harlay, and
+consulted with him as to the proper means of reviving the suppressed
+process against the Dowager and of publicly degrading Conde from his
+position of first prince of the blood which he had been permitted to
+usurp.  He likewise procured a decree accusing him of high-treason and
+ordering him to be punished at his Majesty's pleasure, to be prepared
+by the Parliament of Paris; going down to the court himself in his
+impatience and seating himself in everyday costume on the bench of
+judges to see that it was immediately proclaimed.
+
+Instead of at once attacking the Archdukes in force as he intended in
+the first ebullition of his wrath, he resolved to send de Boutteville-
+Montmorency, a relative of the Constable, on special and urgent mission
+to Brussels.  He was to propose that Conde and his wife should return
+with the Prince and Princess of Orange to Breda, the King pledging
+himself that for three or four months nothing should be undertaken
+against him.  Here was a sudden change of determination fit to surprise
+the States-General, but the King's resolution veered and whirled about
+hourly in the tempests of his wrath and love.
+
+That excellent old couple, the Constable and the Duchess of Angouleme,
+did their best to assist their sovereign in his fierce attempts to get
+their daughter and niece into his power.
+
+The Constable procured a piteous letter to be written to Archduke Albert,
+signed "Montmorency his mark," imploring him not to "suffer that his
+daughter, since the Prince refused to return to France, should leave
+Brussels to be a wanderer about the world following a young prince who
+had no fixed purpose in his mind."
+
+Archduke Albert, through his ambassador in Paris, Peter Pecquius,
+suggested the possibility of a reconciliation between Henry and his
+kinsman, and offered himself as intermediary.  He enquired whether the
+King would find it agreeable that he should ask for pardon in name of the
+Prince.  Henry replied that he was willing that the Archduke should
+accord to Conde secure residence for the time within his dominions on
+three inexorable conditions:--firstly, that the Prince should ask for
+pardon without any stipulations, the King refusing to listen to any
+treaty or to assign him towns or places of security as had been vaguely
+suggested, and holding it utterly unreasonable that a man sueing for
+pardon should, instead of deserved punishment, talk of terms and
+acquisitions; secondly, that, if Conde should reject the proposition,
+Albert should immediately turn him out of his country, showing himself
+justly irritated at finding his advice disregarded; thirdly, that,
+sending away the Prince, the Archduke should forthwith restore the
+Princess to her father the Constable and her aunt Angouleme, who had
+already made their petitions to Albert and Isabella for that end, to
+which the King now added his own most particular prayers.
+
+If the Archduke should refuse consent to these three conditions, Henry
+begged that he would abstain from any farther attempt to effect a
+reconciliation and not suffer Conde to remain any longer within his
+territories.
+
+Pecquius replied that he thought his master might agree to the two first
+propositions while demurring to the third, as it would probably not seem
+honourable to him to separate man and wife, and as it was doubtful
+whether the Princess would return of her own accord.
+
+The King, in reporting the substance of this conversation to Aerssens,
+intimated his conviction that they were only wishing in Brussels to gain
+time; that they were waiting for letters from Spain, which they were
+expecting ever since the return of Conde's secretary from Milan, whither
+he had been sent to confer with the Governor, Count Fuentes.  He said
+farther that he doubted whether the Princess would go to Breda, which he
+should now like, but which Conde would not now permit.  This he imputed
+in part to the Princess of Orange, who had written a letter full of
+invectives against himself to the Dowager--Princess of Conde which she
+had at once sent to him.  Henry expressed at the same time his great
+satisfaction with the States-General and with Barneveld in this affair,
+repeating his assurances that they were the truest and best friends he
+had.
+
+The news of Conde's ceremonious visit to Leopold in Julich could not fail
+to exasperate the King almost as much as the pompous manner in which he
+was subsequently received at Brussels; Spinola and the Spanish Ambassador
+going forth to meet him.  At the same moment the secretary of Vaucelles,
+Henry's ambassador in Madrid, arrived in Paris, confirming the King's
+suspicions that Conde's flight had been concerted with Don Inigo de
+Cardenas, and was part of a general plot of Spain against the peace of
+the kingdom.  The Duc d'Epernon, one of the most dangerous plotters at
+the court, and deep in the intimacy of the Queen and of all the secret
+adherents of the Spanish policy, had been sojourning a long time at Metz,
+under pretence of attending to his health, had sent his children to
+Spain, as hostages according to Henry's belief, had made himself master
+of the citadel, and was turning a deaf ear to all the commands of the
+King.
+
+The supporters of Conde in France were openly changing their note and
+proclaiming by the Prince's command that he had left the kingdom in order
+to preserve his quality of first prince of the blood, and that he meant
+to make good his right of primogeniture against the Dauphin and all
+competitors.
+
+Such bold language and such open reliance on the support of Spain in
+disputing the primogeniture of the Dauphin were fast driving the most
+pacifically inclined in France into enthusiasm for the war.
+
+The States, too, saw their opportunity more vividly every day.  "What
+could we desire more," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld, "than open war
+between France and Spain?  Posterity will for ever blame us if we reject
+this great occasion."
+
+Peter Pecquius, smoothest and sliest of diplomatists, did his best to
+make things comfortable, for there could be little doubt that his masters
+most sincerely deprecated war.  On their heads would come the first
+blows, to their provinces would return the great desolation out of which
+they had hardly emerged.  Still the Archduke, while racking his brains
+for the means of accommodation, refused, to his honour, to wink at any
+violation of the law of nations, gave a secret promise, in which the
+Infanta joined, that the Princess should not be allowed to leave Brussels
+without her husband's permission, and resolutely declined separating the
+pair except with the full consent of both.  In order to protect himself
+from the King's threats, he suggested sending Conde to some neutral place
+for six or eight months, to Prague, to Breda, or anywhere else; but Henry
+knew that Conde would never allow this unless he had the means by Spanish
+gold of bribing the garrison there, and so of holding the place in
+pretended neutrality, but in reality at the devotion of the King of
+Spain.
+
+Meantime Henry had despatched the Marquis de Coeuvres, brother of the
+beautiful Gabrielle, Duchess de Beaufort, and one of the most audacious
+and unscrupulous of courtiers, on a special mission to Brussels.  De
+Coeuvres saw Conde before presenting his credentials to the Archduke, and
+found him quite impracticable.  Acting under the advice of the Prince of
+Orange, he expressed his willingness to retire to some neutral city of
+Germany or Italy, drawing meanwhile from Henry a pension of 40,000 crowns
+a year.  But de Coeuvres firmly replied that the King would make no terms
+with his vassal nor allow Conde to prescribe conditions to him.  To leave
+him in Germany or Italy, he said, was to leave him in the dependence of
+Spain.  The King would not have this constant apprehension of her
+intrigues while, living, nor leave such matter in dying for turbulence in
+his kingdom.  If it appeared that the Spaniards wished to make use of the
+Prince for such purposes, he would be beforehand with them, and show them
+how much more injury he could inflict on Spain than they on France.
+Obviously committed to Spain, Conde replied to the entreaties of the
+emissary that if the King would give him half his kingdom he would not
+accept the offer nor return to France; at least before the 8th of
+February, by which date he expected advices from Spain.  He had given his
+word, he said, to lend his ear to no overtures before that time.  He made
+use of many threats, and swore that he would throw himself entirely into
+the arms of the Spanish king if Henry would not accord him the terms
+which he had proposed.
+
+To do this was an impossibility.  To grant him places of security would,
+as the King said, be to plant a standard for all the malcontents of
+France to rally around.  Conde had evidently renounced all hopes of a
+reconciliation, however painfully his host the Archduke might intercede
+for it.  He meant to go to Spain.  Spinola was urging this daily and
+hourly, said Henry, for he had fallen in love with the Princess, who
+complained of all these persecutions in her letters to her father, and
+said that she would rather die than go to Spain.
+
+The King's advices from de Coeuvres were however to the effect that the
+step would probably be taken, that the arrangements were making, and that
+Spinola had been shut up with Conde six hours long with nobody present
+but Rochefort and a certain counsellor of the Prince of Orange named
+Keeremans.
+
+Henry was taking measures to intercept them on their flight by land, but
+there was some thought of their proceeding to Spain by sea.  He therefore
+requested the States to send two ships of war, swift sailors, well
+equipped, one to watch in the roads of St. Jean and the other on the
+English coast.  These ships were to receive their instructions from
+Admiral de Vicq, who would be well informed of all the movements of
+the Prince and give warning to the captains of the Dutch vessels by a
+preconcerted signal.  The King begged that Barneveld would do him this
+favour, if he loved him, and that none might have knowledge of it but
+the Advocate and Prince Maurice.  The ships would be required for two
+or three months only, but should be equipped and sent forth as soon
+as possible.
+
+The States had no objection to performing this service, although it
+subsequently proved to be unnecessary, and they were quite ready at that
+moment to go openly into the war to settle the affairs of Clove, and once
+for all to drive the Spaniards out of the Netherlands and beyond seas and
+mountains.  Yet strange to say, those most conversant with the state of
+affairs could not yet quite persuade themselves that matters were
+serious, and that the King's mind was fixed.  Should Conde return,
+renounce his Spanish stratagems, and bring back the Princess to court, it
+was felt by the King's best and most confidential friends that all might
+grow languid again, the Spanish faction get the upper hand in the King's
+councils, and the States find themselves in a terrible embarrassment.
+
+On the other hand, the most prying and adroit of politicians were puzzled
+to read the signs of the times.  Despite Henry's garrulity, or perhaps in
+consequence of it, the envoys of Spain, the Empire, and of Archduke
+Albert were ignorant whether peace were likely to be broken or not, in
+spite of rumours which filled the air.  So well had the secrets been kept
+which the reader has seen discussed in confidential conversations--the
+record of which has always remained unpublished--between the King and
+those admitted to his intimacy that very late in the winter Pecquius,
+while sadly admitting to his masters that the King was likely to take
+part against the Emperor in the affair of the duchies, expressed the
+decided opinion that it would be limited to the secret sending of succour
+to Brandenburg and Neuburg as formerly to the United Provinces, but that
+he would never send troops into Cleve, or march thither himself.
+
+It is important, therefore, to follow closely the development of these
+political and amorous intrigues, for they furnish one of the most curious
+and instructive lessons of history; there being not the slightest doubt
+that upon their issue chiefly depended the question of a great and
+general war.
+
+Pecquius, not yet despairing that his master would effect a
+reconciliation between the King and Conde, proposed again that the Prince
+should be permitted to reside for a time in some place not within the
+jurisdiction of Spain or of the Archdukes, being allowed meantime to draw
+his annual pension of 100,000 livres.  Henry ridiculed the idea of
+Conde's drawing money from him while occupying his time abroad with
+intrigues against his throne and his children's succession.  He scoffed
+at the Envoy's pretences that Conde was not in receipt of money from
+Spain, as if a man so needy and in so embarrassing a position could live
+without money from some source; and as if he were not aware, from his
+correspondents in Spain, that funds were both promised and furnished to
+the Prince.
+
+He repeated his determination not to accord him pardon unless he returned
+to France, which he had no cause to leave, and, turning suddenly on
+Pecquius, demanded why, the subject of reconciliation having failed, the
+Archduke did not immediately fulfil his promise of turning Conde out of
+his dominions.
+
+Upon this Albert's minister drew back with the air of one amazed, asking
+how and when the Archduke had ever made such a promise.
+
+"To the Marquis de Coeuvres," replied Henry.
+
+Pecquius asked if his ears had not deceived him, and if the King had
+really said that de Coeuvres had made such a statement.
+
+Henry repeated and confirmed the story.
+
+Upon the Minister's reply that he had himself received no such
+intelligence from the Archduke, the King suddenly changed his tone,
+and said,
+
+"No, I was mistaken--I was confused--the Marquis never wrote me this; but
+did you not say yourself that I might be assured that there would be no
+difficulty about it if the Prince remained obstinate."
+
+Pecquius replied that he had made such a proposition to his masters by
+his Majesty's request; but there had been no answer received, nor time
+for one, as the hope of reconciliation had not yet been renounced.  He
+begged Henry to consider whether, without instructions from his master,
+he could have thus engaged his word.
+
+"Well," said the King, "since you disavow it, I see very well that the
+Archduke has no wish to give me pleasure, and that these are nothing but
+tricks that you have been amusing me with all this time.  Very good; each
+of us will know what we have to do."
+
+Pecquius considered that the King had tried to get him into a net, and to
+entrap him into the avowal of a promise which he had never made.  Henry
+remained obstinate in his assertions, notwithstanding all the envoy's
+protestations.
+
+"A fine trick, indeed, and unworthy of a king, 'Si dicere fas est,'" he
+wrote to Secretary of State Praets.  "But the force of truth is such that
+he who spreads the snare always tumbles into the ditch himself."
+
+Henry concluded the subject of Conde at this interview by saying that he
+could have his pardon on the conditions already named, and not otherwise.
+
+He also made some complaints about Archduke Leopold, who, he said,
+notwithstanding his demonstrations of wishing a treaty of compromise,
+was taking towns by surprise which he could not hold, and was getting his
+troops massacred on credit.
+
+Pecquius expressed the opinion that it would be better to leave the
+Germans to make their own arrangements among themselves, adding that
+neither his masters nor the King of Spain meant to mix themselves up in
+the matter.
+
+"Let them mix themselves in it or keep out of it, as they like," said
+Henry, "I shall not fail to mix myself up in it."
+
+The King was marvellously out of humour.
+
+Before finishing the interview, he asked Pecquius whether Marquis Spinola
+was going to Spain very soon, as he had permission from his Majesty to do
+so, and as he had information that he would be on the road early in Lent.
+The Minister replied that this would depend on the will of the Archduke,
+and upon various circumstances.  The answer seemed to displease the King,
+and Pecquius was puzzled to know why.  He was not aware, of course, of
+Henry's project to kidnap the Marquis on the road, and keep him as a
+surety for Conde.
+
+The Envoy saw Villeroy after the audience, who told him not to mind the
+King's ill-temper, but to bear it as patiently as he could.  His Majesty
+could not digest, he said, his infinite displeasure at the obstinacy of
+the Prince; but they must nevertheless strive for a reconciliation.  The
+King was quick in words, but slow in deeds, as the Ambassador might have
+observed before, and they must all try to maintain peace, to which he
+would himself lend his best efforts.
+
+As the Secretary of State was thoroughly aware that the King was making
+vast preparations for war, and had given in his own adhesion to the
+project, it is refreshing to observe the candour with which he assured
+the representative of the adverse party of his determination that
+friendliest relations should be preserved.
+
+It is still more refreshing to find Villeroy, the same afternoon, warmly
+uniting with Sully, Lesdiguieres, and the Chancellor, in the decision
+that war should begin forthwith.
+
+For the King held a council at the Arsenal immediately after this
+interview with Pecquius, in which he had become convinced that Conde
+would never return.  He took the Queen with him, and there was not a
+dissentient voice as to the necessity of beginning hostilities at once.
+
+Sully, however, was alone in urging that the main force of the attack
+should be in the north, upon the Rhine and Meuse.  Villeroy and those who
+were secretly in the Spanish interest were for beginning it with the
+southern combination and against Milan.  Sully believed the Duke of Savoy
+to be variable and attached in his heart to Spain, and he thought it
+contrary to the interests of France to permit an Italian prince to grow
+so great on her frontier.  He therefore thoroughly disapproved the plan,
+and explained to the Dutch ambassador that all this urgency to carry on
+the war in the south came from hatred to the United Provinces, jealousy
+of their aggrandizement, detestation of the Reformed religion, and hope
+to engage Henry in a campaign which he could not carry on successfully.
+But he assured Aerssens that he had the means of counteracting these
+designs and of bringing on an invasion for obtaining possession of the
+Meuse.  If the possessory princes found Henry making war in the Milanese
+only, they would feel themselves ruined, and might throw up the game.
+He begged that Barneveld would come on to Paris at once, as now or never
+was the moment to assure the Republic for all time.
+
+The King had acted with malicious adroitness in turning the tables upon
+the Prince and treating him as a rebel and a traitor because, to save his
+own and his wife's honour, he had fled from a kingdom where he had but
+too good reason to suppose that neither was safe.  The Prince, with
+infinite want of tact, had played into the King's hands.  He had bragged
+of his connection with Spain and of his deep designs, and had shown to
+all the world that he was thenceforth but an instrument in the hands of
+the Spanish cabinet, while all the world knew the single reason for which
+he had fled.
+
+The King, hopeless now of compelling the return of Conde, had become most
+anxious to separate him from his wife.  Already the subject of divorce
+between the two had been broached, and it being obvious that the Prince
+would immediately betake himself into the Spanish dominions, the King was
+determined that the Princess should not follow him thither.
+
+He had the incredible effrontery and folly to request the Queen to
+address a letter to her at Brussels, urging her to return to France.
+But Mary de' Medici assured her husband that she had no intention of
+becoming his assistant, using, to express her thought, the plainest and
+most vigorous word that the Italian language could supply.  Henry had
+then recourse once more to the father and aunt.
+
+That venerable couple being about to wait upon the Archduke's envoy, in
+compliance with the royal request, Pecquius, out of respect to their
+advanced age, went to the Constable's residence.  Here both the Duchess
+and Constable, with tears in their eyes, besought that diplomatist to do
+his utmost to prevent the Princess from the sad fate of any longer
+sharing her husband's fortunes.
+
+The father protested that he would never have consented to her marriage,
+preferring infinitely that she should have espoused any honest gentleman
+with 2000 crowns a year than this first prince of the blood, with a
+character such as it had proved to be; but that he had not dared to
+disobey the King.
+
+He spoke of the indignities and cruelties to which she was subjected,
+said that Rochefort, whom Conde had employed to assist him in their
+flight from France, and on the crupper of whose horse the Princess had
+performed the journey, was constantly guilty of acts of rudeness and
+incivility towards her; that but a few days past he had fired off pistols
+in her apartment where she was sitting alone with the Princess of Orange,
+exclaiming that this was the way he would treat anyone who interfered
+with the commands of his master, Conde; that the Prince was incessantly
+railing at her for refusing to caress the Marquis of Spinola; and that,
+in short, he would rather she were safe in the palace of the Archduchess
+Isabella, even in the humblest position among her gentlewomen, than to
+know her vagabondizing miserably about the world with her husband.
+
+This, he said, was the greatest fear he had, and he would rather see her
+dead than condemned to such a fate.
+
+He trusted that the Archdukes were incapable of believing the stories
+that he and the Duchess of Angouleme were influenced in the appeals they
+made for the separation of the Prince and Princess by a desire to serve
+the purposes of the King.  Those were fables put about by Conde.  All
+that the Constable and his sister desired was that the Archduchess would
+receive the Princess kindly when she should throw herself at her feet,
+and not allow her to be torn away against her will.  The Constable spoke
+with great gravity and simplicity, and with all the signs of genuine
+emotion, and Peter Pecquius was much moved.  He assured the aged pair
+that he would do his best to comply with their wishes, and should
+immediately apprise the Archdukes of the interview which had just taken
+place.  Most certainly they were entirely disposed to gratify the
+Constable and the Duchess as well as the Princess herself, whose virtues,
+qualities, and graces had inspired them with affection, but it must be
+remembered that the law both human and divine required wives to submit
+themselves to the commands of their husbands and to be the companions of
+their good and evil fortunes.  Nevertheless, he hoped that the Lord would
+so conduct the affairs of the Prince of Conde that the Most Christian
+King and the Archdukes would all be satisfied.
+
+These pious and consolatory commonplaces on the part of Peter Pecquius
+deeply affected the Constable.  He fell upon the Envoy's neck, embraced
+him repeatedly, and again wept plentifully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     Strange Scene at the Archduke's Palace--Henry's Plot frustrated--
+     His Triumph changed to Despair--Conversation of the Dutch Ambassador
+     with the King--The War determined upon.
+
+It was in the latter part of the Carnival, the Saturday night preceding
+Shrove Tuesday, 1610.  The winter had been a rigorous one in Brussels,
+and the snow lay in drifts three feet deep in the streets.  Within and
+about the splendid palace of Nassau there was much commotion.  Lights and
+flambeaux were glancing, loud voices, martial music, discharge of pistols
+and even of artillery were heard together with the trampling of many
+feet, but there was nothing much resembling the wild revelry or cheerful
+mummery of that holiday season.  A throng of the great nobles of Belgium
+with drawn swords and menacing aspect were assembled in the chief
+apartments, a detachment of the Archduke's mounted body-guard was
+stationed in the courtyard, and five hundred halberdiers of the burgher
+guilds kept watch and ward about the palace.
+
+The Prince of Conde, a square-built, athletic young man of middle
+stature, with regular features, but a sulky expression, deepened at
+this moment into ferocity, was seen chasing the secretary of the French
+resident minister out of the courtyard, thwacking him lustily about the
+shoulders with his drawn sword, and threatening to kill him or any other
+Frenchman on the spot, should he show himself in that palace.  He was
+heard shouting rather than speaking, in furious language against the
+King, against Coeuvres, against Berny, and bitterly bewailing his
+misfortunes, as if his wife were already in Paris instead of Brussels.
+
+Upstairs in her own apartment which she had kept for some days on pretext
+of illness sat the Princess Margaret, in company' of Madame de Berny,
+wife of the French minister, and of the Marquis de Coeuvres, Henry's
+special envoy, and a few other Frenchmen.  She was passionately fond of
+dancing.  The adoring cardinal described her as marvellously graceful and
+perfect in that accomplishment.  She had begged her other adorer, the
+Marquis Spinola, "with sweetest words," that she might remain a few days
+longer in the Nassau Palace before removing to the Archduke's residence,
+and that the great general, according to the custom in France and
+Flanders, would be the one to present her with the violins.  But Spinola,
+knowing the artifice concealed beneath these "sweetest words," had
+summoned up valour enough to resist her blandishments, and had refused a
+second entertainment.
+
+It was not, therefore, the disappointment at losing her ball that now
+made the Princess sad.  She and her companions saw that there had been
+a catastrophe; a plot discovered.  There was bitter disappointment and
+deep dismay upon their faces.  The plot had been an excellent one.  De
+Coeuvres had arranged it all, especially instigated thereto by the father
+of the Princess acting in concurrence with the King.  That night when all
+was expected to be in accustomed quiet, the Princess, wrapped in her
+mantilla, was to have stolen down into the garden, accompanied only by
+her maid the adventurous and faithful Philipotte, to have gone through a
+breach which led through a garden wall to the city ramparts, thence
+across the foss to the counterscarp, where a number of horsemen under
+trustworthy commanders were waiting.  Mounting on the crupper behind one
+of the officers of the escort, she was then to fly to the frontier,
+relays of horses having been provided at every stage until she should
+reach Rocroy, the first pausing place within French territory; a perilous
+adventure for the young and delicate Princess in a winter of almost
+unexampled severity.
+
+On the very morning of the day assigned for the adventure, despatches
+brought by special couriers from the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador
+at Paris gave notice of the plot to the Archdukes and to Conde, although
+up to that moment none knew of it in Brussels.  Albert, having been
+apprised that many Frenchmen had been arriving during the past few days,
+and swarming about the hostelries of the city and suburbs, was at once
+disposed to believe in the story.  When Conde came to him, therefore,
+with confirmation from his own letters, and demanding a detachment of the
+body-guard in addition to the burgher militiamen already granted by the
+magistrates, he made no difficulty granting the request.  It was as if
+there had been a threatened assault of the city, rather than the
+attempted elopement of a young lady escorted by a handful of cavaliers.
+
+The courtyard of the Nassau Palace was filled with cavalry sent by the
+Archduke, while five hundred burgher guards sent by the magistrates were
+drawn up around the gate.  The noise and uproar, gaining at every moment
+more mysterious meaning by the darkness of night, soon spread through the
+city.  The whole population was awake, and swarming through the streets.
+Such a tumult had not for years been witnessed in Brussels, and the
+rumour flew about and was generally believed that the King of France at
+the head of an army was at the gates of the city determined to carry off
+the Princess by force.  But although the superfluous and very scandalous
+explosion might have been prevented, there could be no doubt that the
+stratagem had been defeated.
+
+Nevertheless, the effrontery and ingenuity of de Coeuvres became now
+sublime.  Accompanied by his colleague, the resident minister, de Berny,
+who was sure not to betray the secret because he had never known it--his
+wife alone having been in the confidence of the Princess--he proceeded
+straightway to the Archduke's palace, and, late in the night as it was,
+insisted on an audience.
+
+Here putting on his boldest face when admitted to the presence, he
+complained loudly of the plot, of which he had just become aware,
+contrived by the Prince of Conde to carry off his wife to Spain against
+her will, by main force, and by assistance of Flemish nobles, archiducal
+body-guard, and burgher militia.
+
+It was all a plot of Conde, he said, to palliate still more his flight
+from France.  Every one knew that the Princess could not fly back to
+Paris through the air.  To take her out of a house filled with people,
+to pierce or scale the walls of the city, to arrange her journey by
+ordinary means, and to protect the whole route by stations of cavalry,
+reaching from Brussels to the frontier, and to do all this in profound
+secrecy, was equally impossible.  Such a scheme had never been arranged
+nor even imagined, he said.  The true plotter was Conde, aided by
+ministers in Flanders hostile to France, and as the honour of the King
+and the reputation of the Princess had been injured by this scandal, the
+Ambassador loudly demanded a thorough investigation of the affair in
+order that vengeance might fall where it was due.
+
+The prudent Albert was equal to the occasion.  Not wishing to state the
+full knowledge which he possessed of de Coeuvres' agency and the King's
+complicity in the scheme of abduction to France, he reasoned calmly with
+the excited marquis, while his colleague looked and listened in dumb
+amazement, having previously been more vociferous and infinitely more
+sincere than his colleague in expressions of indignation.
+
+The Archduke said that he had not thought the plot imputed to the King
+and his ambassador very probable.  Nevertheless, the assertions of the
+Prince had been so positive as to make it impossible to refuse the guards
+requested by him.  He trusted, however, that the truth would soon be
+known, and that it would leave no stain on the Princess, nor give any
+offence to the King.
+
+Surprised and indignant at the turn given to the adventure by the French
+envoys, he nevertheless took care to conceal these sentiments, to abstain
+from accusation, and calmly to inform them that the Princess next morning
+would be established under his own roof; and enjoy the protection of the
+Archduchess.
+
+For it had been arranged several days before that Margaret should leave
+the palace of Nassau for that of Albert and Isabella on the 14th, and the
+abduction had been fixed for the night of the 13th precisely because the
+conspirators wished to profit by the confusion incident on a change of
+domicile.
+
+The irrepressible de Coeuvres, even then hardly willing to give up the
+whole stratagem as lost, was at least determined to discover how and by
+whom the plot had been revealed.  In a cemetery piled three feet deep
+with snow on the evening following that mid-winter's night which had been
+fixed for the Princess's flight, the unfortunate ambassador waited until
+a certain Vallobre, a gentleman of Spinola's, who was the go-between of
+the enamoured Genoese and the Princess, but whom de Coeuvres had gained
+over, came at last to meet him by appointment.  When he arrived, it was
+only to inform him of the manner in which he had been baffled, to
+convince him that the game was up, and that nothing was left him but to
+retreat utterly foiled in his attempt, and to be stigmatized as a
+blockhead by his enraged sovereign.
+
+Next day the Princess removed her residence to the palace of the
+Archdukes, where she was treated with distinguished honour by Isabella,
+and installed ceremoniously in the most stately, the most virtuous, and
+the most dismal of courts.  Her father and aunt professed themselves as
+highly pleased with the result, and Pecquius wrote that "they were glad
+to know her safe from the importunities of the old fop who seemed as mad
+as if he had been stung by a tarantula."
+
+And how had the plot been revealed?  Simply through the incorrigible
+garrulity of the King himself.  Apprised of the arrangement in all its
+details by the Constable, who had first received the special couriers of
+de Coeuvres, he could not keep the secret to himself for a moment, and
+the person of all others in the world to whom he thought good to confide
+it was the Queen herself.  She received the information with a smile, but
+straightway sent for the Nuncius Ubaldini, who at her desire instantly
+despatched a special courier to Spinola with full particulars of the time
+and mode of the proposed abduction.
+
+Nevertheless the ingenuous Henry, confiding in the capacity of his deeply
+offended queen to keep the secret which he had himself divulged, could
+scarcely contain himself for joy.
+
+Off he went to Saint-Germain with a train of coaches, impatient to get
+the first news from de Coeuvres after the scheme should have been carried
+into effect, and intending to travel post towards Flanders to meet and
+welcome the Princess.
+
+"Pleasant farce for Shrove Tuesday," wrote the secretary of Pecquius, "is
+that which the Frenchmen have been arranging down there! He in whose
+favour the abduction is to be made was seen going out the same day
+spangled and smart, contrary to his usual fashion, making a gambado
+towards Saint-Germain-en-Laye with four carriages and four to meet the
+nymph."
+
+Great was the King's wrath and mortification at this ridiculous exposure
+of his detestable scheme.  Vociferous were Villeroy's expressions of
+Henry's indignation at being supposed to have had any knowledge of or
+complicity in the affair.  "His Majesty cannot approve of the means one
+has taken to guard against a pretended plot for carrying off the
+Princess," said the Secretary of State; "a fear which was simulated by
+the Prince in order to defame the King."  He added that there was no
+reason to suspect the King, as he had never attempted anything of the
+sort in his life, and that the Archduke might have removed the Princess
+to his palace without sending an army to the hotel of the Prince of
+Orange, and causing such an alarm in the city, firing artillery on the
+rampart as if the town had been full of Frenchmen in arms, whereas one
+was ashamed next morning to find that there had been but fifteen in all.
+"But it was all Marquis Spinola's fault," he said, "who wished to show
+himself off as a warrior."
+
+The King, having thus through the mouth of his secretary of state warmly
+protested against his supposed implication in the attempted abduction,
+began as furiously to rail at de Coeuvres for its failure; telling the
+Duc de Vendome that his uncle was an idiot, and writing that unlucky
+envoy most abusive letters for blundering in the scheme which had been so
+well concerted between them.  Then he sent for Malherbe, who straightway
+perpetrated more poems to express the King's despair, in which Henry was
+made to liken himself to a skeleton with a dried skin, and likewise to a
+violet turned up by the ploughshare and left to wither.
+
+He kept up through Madame de Berny a correspondence with "his beautiful
+angel," as he called the Princess, whom he chose to consider a prisoner
+and a victim; while she, wearied to death with the frigid monotony and
+sepulchral gaieties of the archiducal court, which she openly called her
+"dungeon" diverted herself with the freaks and fantasies of her royal
+adorer, called him in very ill-spelled letters "her chevalier, her heart,
+her all the world," and frequently wrote to beg him, at the suggestion of
+the intriguing Chateau Vert, to devise some means of rescuing her from
+prison.
+
+The Constable and Duchess meanwhile affected to be sufficiently satisfied
+with the state of things.  Conde, however, received a letter from the
+King, formally summoning him to return to France, and, in case of
+refusal, declaring him guilty of high-treason for leaving the kingdom
+without the leave and against the express commands of the King.  To this
+letter, brought to him by de Coeuvres, the Prince replied by a paper,
+drawn up and served by a notary of Brussels, to the effect that he had
+left France to save his life and honour; that he was ready to return when
+guarantees were given him for the security of both.  He would live and
+die, he said, faithful to the King.  But when the King, departing from
+the paths of justice, proceeded through those of violence against him, he
+maintained that every such act against his person was null and invalid.
+Henry had even the incredible meanness and folly to request the Queen to
+write to the Archdukes, begging that the Princess might be restored to
+assist at her coronation.  Mary de' Medici vigorously replied once more
+that, although obliged to wink at the King's amours, she declined to be
+his procuress.  Conde then went off to Milan very soon after the scene
+at the Nassau Palace and the removal of the Princess to the care of the
+Archdukes.  He was very angry with his wife, from whom he expressed a
+determination to be divorced, and furious with the King, the validity of
+whose second marriage and the legitimacy of whose children he proposed
+with Spanish help to dispute.
+
+The Constable was in favour of the divorce, or pretended to be so, and
+caused importunate letters to be written, which he signed, to both Albert
+and Isabella, begging that his daughter might be restored to him to be
+the staff of his old age, and likewise to be present at the Queen's
+coronation.  The Archdukes, however, resolutely refused to permit her to
+leave their protection without Conde's consent, or until after a divorce
+had been effected, notwithstanding that the father and aunt demanded it.
+The Constable and Duchess however, acquiesced in the decision, and
+expressed immense gratitude to Isabella.
+
+"The father and aunt have been talking to Pecquius," said Henry very
+dismally; "but they give me much pain.  They are even colder than the
+season, but my fire thaws them as soon as I approach."
+
+"P. S.--I am so pining away in my anguish that I am nothing but skin and
+bones.  Nothing gives me pleasure.  I fly from company, and if in order
+to comply with the law of nations I go into some assembly or other,
+instead of enlivening, it nearly kills me."--[Lettres missives de Henri
+vii. 834].
+
+And the King took to his bed.  Whether from gout, fever, or the pangs of
+disappointed love, he became seriously ill.  Furious with every one, with
+Conde, the Constable, de Coeuvres, the Queen, Spinola, with the Prince of
+Orange, whose councillor Keeremans had been encouraging Conde in his
+rebellion and in going to Spain with Spinola, he was now resolved that
+tho war should go on.  Aerssens, cautious of saying too much on paper of
+this very delicate affair, always intimated to Barneveld that, if the
+Princess could be restored, peace was still possible, and that by moving
+an inch ahead of the King in the Cleve matter the States at the last
+moment might be left in the lurch.  He distinctly told the Advocate, on
+his expressing a hope that Henry might consent to the Prince's residence
+in some neutral place until a reconciliation could be effected, that the
+pinch of the matter was not there, and that van der Myle, who knew all
+about it, could easily explain it.
+
+Alluding to the project of reviving the process against the Dowager, and
+of divorcing the Prince and Princess, he said these steps would do much
+harm, as they would too much justify the true cause of the retreat of the
+Prince, who was not believed when he merely talked of his right of
+primogeniture: "The matter weighs upon us very heavily," he said, "but
+the trouble is that we don't search for the true remedies.  The matter is
+so delicate that I don't dare to discuss it to the very bottom."
+
+The Ambassador had a long interview with the King as he lay in his bed
+feverish and excited.  He was more impatient than ever for the arrival
+of the States' special embassy, reluctantly acquiesced in the reasons
+assigned for the delay, but trusted that it would arrive soon with
+Barneveld at the head, and with Count Lewis William as a member for
+"the sword part of it."
+
+He railed at the Prince of Orange, not believing that Keeremans would
+have dared to do what he had done but with the orders of his master.
+He said that the King of Spain would supply Conde with money and with
+everything he wanted, knowing that he could make use of him to trouble
+his kingdom.  It was strange, he thought, that Philip should venture to
+these extremities with his affairs in such condition, and when he had so
+much need of repose.  He recalled all his ancient grievances against
+Spain, his rights to the Kingdom of Navarre and the County of St. Pol
+violated; the conspiracy of Biron, the intrigues of Bouillon, the plots
+of the Count of Auvergne and the Marchioness of Verneuil, the treason of
+Meragne, the corruption of L'Hoste, and an infinity of other plots of the
+King and his ministers; of deep injuries to him and to the public repose,
+not to be tolerated by a mighty king like himself, with a grey beard.  He
+would be revenged, he said, for this last blow, and so for all the rest.
+He would not leave a troublesome war on the hands of his young son.  The
+occasion was favourable.  It was just to defend the oppressed princes
+with the promptly accorded assistance of the States-General.  The King of
+Great Britain was favourable.  The Duke of Savoy was pledged.  It was
+better to begin the war in his green old age than to wait the pleasure
+and opportunity of the King of Spain.
+
+All this he said while racked with fever, and dismissed the Envoy at
+last, after a long interview, with these words:  "Mr. Ambassador--I have
+always spoken roundly and frankly to you, and you will one day be my
+witness that I have done all that I could to draw the Prince out of the
+plight into which he has put himself.  But he is struggling for the
+succession to this crown under instructions from the Spaniards, to whom
+he has entirely pledged himself.  He has already received 6000 crowns for
+his equipment.  I know that you and my other friends will work for the
+conservation of this monarchy, and will never abandon me in my designs to
+weaken the power of Spain.  Pray God for my health."
+
+The King kept his bed a few days afterwards, but soon recovered.
+Villeroy sent word to Barneveld in answer to his suggestions of
+reconciliation that it was too late, that Conde was entirely desperate
+and Spanish.  The crown of France was at stake, he said, and the Prince
+was promising himself miracles and mountains with the aid of Spain,
+loudly declaring the marriage of Mary de' Medici illegal, and himself
+heir to the throne.  The Secretary of State professed himself as
+impatient as his master for the arrival of the embassy; the States being
+the best friends France ever had and the only allies to make the war
+succeed.
+
+Jeannin, who was now never called to the council, said that the war was
+not for Germany but for Conde, and that Henry could carry it on for eight
+years.  He too was most anxious for Barneveld's arrival, and was of his
+opinion that it would have been better for Conde to be persuaded to
+remain at Breda and be supported by his brother-in-law, the Prince of
+Orange.  The impetuosity of the King had however swept everything before
+it, and Conde had been driven to declare himself Spanish and a pretender
+to the crown.  There was no issue now but war.
+
+Boderie, the King's envoy in Great Britain, wrote that James would be
+willing to make a defensive league for the affairs of Cleve and Julich
+only, which was the slenderest amount of assistance; but Henry always
+suspected Master Jacques of intentions to baulk him if possible and
+traverse his designs.  But the die was cast.  Spinola had carried off
+Conde in triumph; the Princess was pining in her gilt cage in Brussels,
+and demanding a divorce for desertion and cruel treatment; the King
+considered himself as having done as much as honour allowed him to effect
+a reconciliation, and it was obvious that, as the States' ambassador
+said, he could no longer retire from the war without shame, which would
+be the greatest danger of all.
+
+"The tragedy is ready to begin," said Aerssens.  "They are only waiting
+now for the arrival of our ambassadors."
+
+On the 9th March the King before going to Fontainebleau for a few days
+summoned that envoy to the Louvre.  Impatient at a slight delay in his
+arrival, Henry came down into the courtyard as he was arriving and asked
+eagerly if Barneveld was coming to Paris.  Aerssens replied, that the
+Advocate had been hastening as much as possible the departure of the
+special embassy, but that the condition of affairs at home was such as
+not to permit him to leave the country at that moment.  Van der Myle, who
+would be one of the ambassadors, would more fully explain this by word of
+mouth.
+
+The King manifested infinite annoyance and disappointment that Barneveld
+was not to make part of the embassy.  "He says that he reposes such
+singular confidence in your authority in the state, experience in
+affairs, and affection for himself," wrote Aerssens, "that he might treat
+with you in detail and with open heart of all his designs.  He fears now
+that the ambassadors will be limited in their powers and instructions,
+and unable to reply at once on the articles which at different times have
+been proposed to me for our enterprise.  Thus much valuable time will be
+wasted in sending backwards and forwards."
+
+The King also expressed great anxiety to consult with Count Lewis William
+in regard to military details, but his chief sorrow was in regard to the
+Advocate.  "He acquiesced only with deep displeasure and regret in your
+reasons," said the Ambassador, "and says that he can hope for nothing
+firm now that you refuse to come."
+
+Villeroy intimated that Barneveld did not come for fear of exciting the
+jealousy of the English.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+He who spreads the snare always tumbles into the ditch himself
+Most detestable verses that even he had ever composed
+She declined to be his procuress
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v2, Motley #87
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v3, 1610
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Difficult Position of Barneveld--Insurrection at Utrecht subdued by
+     the States' Army--Special Embassies to England and France--Anger of
+     the King with Spain and the Archdukes--Arrangements of Henry for the
+     coming War--Position of Spain--Anxiety of the King for the Presence
+     of Barneveld in Paris--Arrival of the Dutch Commissioners in France
+     and their brilliant Reception--Their Interview with the King and his
+     Ministers--Negotiations--Delicate Position of the Dutch Government--
+     India Trade--Simon Danzer, the Corsair--Conversations of Henry with
+     the Dutch Commissioners--Letter of the King to Archduke Albert--
+     Preparations for the Queen's Coronation, and of Henry to open the
+     Campaign in person--Perplexities of Henry--Forebodings and Warnings
+     --The Murder accomplished--Terrible Change in France--Triumph of
+     Concini and of Spain--Downfall of Sully--Disputes of the Grandees
+     among themselves--Special Mission of Condelence from the Republic--
+     Conference on the great Enterprise--Departure of van der Myle from
+     Paris.
+
+There were reasons enough why the Advocate could not go to Paris at this
+juncture.  It was absurd in Henry to suppose it possible.  Everything
+rested on Barneveld's shoulders.  During the year which had just passed
+he had drawn almost every paper, every instruction in regard to the peace
+negotiations, with his own hand, had assisted at every conference,
+guided and mastered the whole course of a most difficult and intricate
+negotiation, in which he had not only been obliged to make allowance
+for the humbled pride and baffled ambition of the ancient foe of the
+Netherlands, but to steer clear of the innumerable jealousies,
+susceptibilities, cavillings, and insolences of their patronizing
+friends.
+
+It was his brain that worked, his tongue that spoke, his restless pen
+that never paused.  His was not one of those easy posts, not unknown in
+the modern administration of great affairs, where the subordinate
+furnishes the intellect, the industry, the experience, while the bland
+superior, gratifying the world with his sign-manual, appropriates the
+applause.  So long as he lived and worked, the States-General and the
+States of Holland were like a cunningly contrived machine, which seemed
+to be alive because one invisible but mighty mind vitalized the whole.
+
+And there had been enough to do.  It was not until midsummer of 1609 that
+the ratifications of the Treaty of Truce, one of the great triumphs in
+the history of diplomacy, had been exchanged, and scarcely had this
+period been put to the eternal clang of arms when the death of a lunatic
+threw the world once more into confusion.  It was obvious to Barneveld
+that the issue of the Cleve-Julich affair, and of the tremendous
+religious fermentation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, must sooner or
+later lead to an immense war.  It was inevitable that it would devolve
+upon the States to sustain their great though vacillating, their generous
+though encroaching, their sincere though most irritating, ally.  And
+yet, thoroughly as Barneveld had mastered all the complications and
+perplexities of the religious and political question, carefully as he
+had calculated the value of the opposing forces which were shaking
+Christendom, deeply as he had studied the characters of Matthias and
+Rudolph, of Charles of Denmark and Ferdinand of Graz, of Anhalt and
+Maximilian, of Brandenburg and Neuburg, of James and Philip, of Paul V.
+and Charles Emmanuel, of Sully and Yilleroy, of Salisbury and Bacon, of
+Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all
+these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the
+attention of Europe--there was one factor with which it was difficult for
+this austere republican, this cold, unsuseeptible statesman, to deal: the
+intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman of sixteen.
+
+For out of the cauldron where the miscellaneous elements of universal
+war were bubbling rose perpetually the fantastic image of Margaret
+Montmorency: the fatal beauty at whose caprice the heroic sword of Ivry
+and Cahors was now uplifted and now sheathed.
+
+Aerssens was baffled, and reported the humours of the court where he
+resided as changing from hour to hour.  To the last he reported that all
+the mighty preparations then nearly completed "might evaporate in smoke"
+if the Princess of Conde should come back.  Every ambassador in Paris was
+baffled.  Peter Pecquius was as much in the dark as Don Inigo de
+Cardenas, as Ubaldini or Edmonds.  No one save Sully, Aerssens,
+Barneveld, and the King knew the extensive arrangements and profound
+combinations which had been made for the war.  Yet not Sully, Aerssens,
+Barneveld, or the King, knew whether or not the war would really be made.
+
+Barneveld had to deal with this perplexing question day by day.  His
+correspondence with his ambassador at Henry's court was enormous, and we
+have seen that the Ambassador was with the King almost daily; sleeping or
+waking; at dinner or the chase; in the cabinet or the courtyard.
+
+But the Advocate was also obliged to carry in his arms, as it were, the
+brood of snarling, bickering, cross-grained German princes, to supply
+them with money, with arms, with counsel, with brains; to keep them awake
+when they went to sleep, to steady them in their track, to teach them to
+go alone.  He had the congress at Hall in Suabia to supervise and direct;
+he had to see that the ambassadors of the new republic, upon which they
+in reality were already half dependent and chafing at their dependence,
+were treated with the consideration due to the proud position which the
+Commonwealth had gained.  Questions of etiquette were at that moment
+questions of vitality.  He instructed his ambassadors to leave the
+congress on the spot if they were ranked after the envoys of princes who
+were only feudatories of the Emperor.  The Dutch ambassadors,
+"recognising and relying upon no superiors but God and their sword,"
+placed themselves according to seniority with the representatives of
+proudest kings.
+
+He had to extemporize a system of free international communication with
+all the powers of the earth--with the Turk at Constantinople, with the
+Czar of Muscovy; with the potentates of the Baltic, with both the Indies.
+The routine of a long established and well organized foreign office in a
+time-honoured state running in grooves; with well-balanced springs and
+well oiled wheels, may be a luxury of civilization; but it was a more
+arduous task to transact the greatest affairs of a state springing
+suddenly into recognized existence and mainly dependent for its primary
+construction and practical working on the hand of one man.
+
+Worse than all, he had to deal on the most dangerous and delicate topics
+of state with a prince who trembled at danger and was incapable of
+delicacy; to show respect for a character that was despicable, to lean on
+a royal word falser than water, to inhale almost daily the effluvia from
+a court compared to which the harem of Henry was a temple of vestals.
+The spectacle of the slobbering James among his Kars and Hays and
+Villiers's and other minions is one at which history covers her eyes and
+is dumb; but the republican envoys, with instructions from a Barneveld,
+were obliged to face him daily, concealing their disgust, and bowing
+reverentially before him as one of the arbiters of their destinies and
+the Solomon of his epoch.
+
+A special embassy was sent early in the year to England to convey the
+solemn thanks of the Republic to the King for his assistance in the truce
+negotiations, and to treat of the important matters then pressing on the
+attention of both powers.  Contemporaneously was to be despatched the
+embassy for which Henry was waiting so impatiently at Paris.
+
+Certainly the Advocate had enough with this and other, important business
+already mentioned to detain him at his post.  Moreover the first year of
+peace had opened disastrously in the Netherlands.  Tremendous tempests
+such as had rarely been recorded even in that land of storms had raged
+all the winter.  The waters everywhere had burst their dykes and
+inundations, which threatened to engulph the whole country, and which had
+caused enormous loss of property and even of life, were alarming the most
+courageous.  It was difficult in many district to collect the taxes for
+the every-day expenses of the community, and yet the Advocate knew that
+the Republic would soon be forced to renew the war on a prodigious scale.
+
+Still more to embarrass the action of the government and perplex its
+statesmen, an alarming and dangerous insurrection broke out in Utrecht.
+
+In that ancient seat of the hard-fighting, imperious, and opulent
+sovereign archbishops of the ancient church an important portion of the
+population had remained Catholic.  Another portion complained of the
+abolition of various privileges which they had formerly enjoyed; among
+others that of a monopoly of beer-brewing for the province.  All the
+population, as is the case with all populations in all countries and all
+epochs, complained of excessive taxation.
+
+A clever politician, Dirk Kanter by name, a gentleman by birth, a scholar
+and philosopher by pursuit and education, and a demagogue by profession,
+saw an opportunity of taking an advantage of this state of things.  More
+than twenty years before he had been burgomaster of the city, and had
+much enjoyed himself in that position.  He was tired of the learned
+leisure to which the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens had condemned
+him.  He seems to have been of easy virtue in the matter of religion, a
+Catholic, an Arminian, an ultra orthodox Contra-Remonstrant by turns.  He
+now persuaded a number of determined partisans that the time had come for
+securing a church for the public worship of the ancient faith, and at the
+same time for restoring the beer brewery, reducing the taxes, recovering
+lost privileges, and many other good things.  Beneath the whole scheme
+lay a deep design to effect the secession of the city and with it of the
+opulent and important province of Utrecht from the Union.  Kanter had
+been heard openly to avow that after all the Netherlands had flourished
+under the benign sway of the House of Burgundy, and that the time would
+soon come for returning to that enviable condition.
+
+By a concerted assault the city hall was taken possession of by main
+force, the magistracy was overpowered, and a new board of senators and
+common council-men appointed, Kanter and a devoted friend of his,
+Heldingen by name, being elected burgomasters.
+
+The States-Provincial of Utrecht, alarmed at these proceedings in the
+city, appealed for protection against violence to the States-General
+under the 3rd Article of the Union, the fundamental pact which bore the
+name of Utrecht itself.  Prince Maurice proceeded to the city at the head
+of a detachment of troops to quell the tumults.  Kanter and his friends
+were plausible enough to persuade him of the legality and propriety of
+the revolution which they had effected, and to procure his formal
+confirmation of the new magistracy.  Intending to turn his military
+genius and the splendour of his name to account, they contrived to keep
+him for a time at least in an amiable enthralment, and induced him to
+contemplate in their interest the possibility of renouncing the oath
+which subjected him to the authority of the States of Utrecht.  But the
+far-seeing eye of Barneveld could not be blind to the danger which at
+this crisis beset the Stadholder and the whole republic.  The Prince was
+induced to return to the Hague, but the city continued by armed revolt to
+maintain the new magistracy.  They proceeded to reduce the taxes, and in
+other respects to carry out the measures on the promise of which they had
+come into power.  Especially the Catholic party sustained Kanter and his
+friends, and promised themselves from him and from his influence over
+Prince Maurice to obtain a power of which they had long been deprived.
+
+The States-General now held an assembly at Woerden, and summoned the
+malcontents of Utrecht to bring before that body a statement of their
+grievances.  This was done, but there was no satisfactory arrangement
+possible, and the deputation returned to Utrecht, the States-General to
+the Hague. The States-Provincial of Utrecht urged more strongly than ever
+upon the assembly of the Union to save the city from the hands of a
+reckless and revolutionary government.  The States-General resolved
+accordingly to interfere by force.  A considerable body of troops was
+ordered to march at once upon Utrecht and besiege the city.  Maurice, in
+his capacity of captain-general and stadholder of the province, was
+summoned to take charge of the army.  He was indisposed to do so, and
+pleaded sickness.  The States, determined that the name of Nassau should
+not be used as an encouragement to disobedience, and rebellion, then
+directed the brother of Maurice, Frederic Henry, youngest son of William
+the Silent, to assume the command.  Maurice insisted that his brother was
+too young, and that it was unjust to allow so grave a responsibility to
+fall upon his shoulders.  The States, not particularly pleased with the
+Prince's attitude at this alarming juncture, and made anxious by the
+glamour which seemed to possess him since his conferences with the
+revolutionary party at Utrecht, determined not to yield.
+
+The army marched forth and laid siege to the city, Prince Frederic Henry
+at its head.  He was sternly instructed by the States-General, under
+whose orders he acted, to take possession of the city at all hazards.
+He was to insist on placing there a garrison of 2000 foot and 300 horse,
+and to permit not another armed man within the walls.  The members of the
+council of state and of the States of Utrecht accompanied the army.  For
+a moment the party in power was disposed to resist the forces of the
+Union.  Dick Kanter and his friends were resolute enough; the Catholic
+priests turned out among the rest with their spades and worked on the
+entrenchments.  The impossibility of holding the city against the
+overwhelming power of the States was soon obvious, and the next day the
+gates were opened, and easy terms were granted.  The new magistracy was
+set aside, the old board that had been deposed by the rebels reinstated.
+The revolution and the counterrevolution were alike bloodless, and it was
+determined that the various grievances of which the discontented party
+had complained should be referred to the States-General, to Prince
+Maurice, to the council of state, and to the ambassadors of France and
+England.  Amnesty was likewise decreed on submission.
+
+The restored government was Arminian in its inclinations, the
+revolutionary one was singularly compounded both of Catholic and of
+ultra-orthodox elements.  Quiet was on the whole restored, but the
+resources of the city were crippled.  The event occurring exactly at the
+crisis of the Clove and Julich expedition angered the King of France.
+
+"The trouble of Utrecht," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld, "has been turned
+to account here marvellously, the Archdukes and Spaniards boasting that
+many more revolts like this may be at once expected.  I have explained to
+his Majesty, who has been very much alarmed about it, both its source and
+the hopes that it will be appeased by the prudence of his Excellency
+Prince Maurice and the deputies of the States.  The King desires that
+everything should be pacified as soon as possible, so that there may be
+no embarrassment to the course of public affairs.  But he fears, he tells
+me, that this may create some new jealousy between Prince Maurice and
+yourself.  I don't comprehend what he means, although he held this
+language to me very expressly and without reserve.  I could only answer
+that you were living on the best of terms together in perfect amity and
+intelligence.  If you know if this talk of his has any other root, please
+to enlighten me, that I may put a stop to false reports, for I know
+nothing of affairs except what you tell me."
+
+King James, on the other hand, thoroughly approved the promptness of the
+States-General in suppressing the tumult.
+
+Nothing very serious of alike nature occurred in Utrecht until the end of
+the year, when a determined and secret conspiracy was discovered, having
+for its object to overpower the garrison and get bodily possession of
+Colonel John Ogle, the military commander of the town.  At the bottom of
+the movement were the indefatigable Dirk Kanter and his friend Heldingen.
+The attempt was easily suppressed, and the two were banished from the
+town.  Kanter died subsequently in North Holland, in the odour of ultra-
+orthodoxy.  Four of the conspirators--a post-master, two shoemakers, and
+a sexton, who had bound themselves by oath to take the lives of two
+eminent Arminian preachers, besides other desperate deeds--were condemned
+to death, but pardoned on the scaffold.  Thus ended the first revolution
+at Utrecht.
+
+Its effect did not cease, however, with the tumults which were its
+original manifestations.  This earliest insurrection in organized shape
+against the central authority of the States-General; this violent though
+abortive effort to dissolve the Union and to nullify its laws; this
+painful necessity for the first time imposed upon the federal government
+to take up arms against misguided citizens of the Republic, in order to
+save itself from disintegration and national death, were destined to be
+followed by far graver convulsions on the self-same spot.  Religious
+differences and religious hatreds were to mingle their poison with
+antagonistic political theories and personal ambitions, and to develop on
+a wide scale the danger ever lurking in a constitution whose fundamental
+law was unstable, ill defined, and liable to contradictory
+interpretations.  For the present it need only be noticed that the
+States-General, guided by Barneveld, most vigorously suppressed the local
+revolt and the incipient secession, while Prince Maurice, the right arm
+of the executive, the stadholder of the province, and the representative
+of the military power of the Commonwealth, was languid in the exertion of
+that power, inclined to listen to the specious arguments of the Utrecht
+rebels, and accused at least of tampering with the fell spirit which the
+Advocate was resolute to destroy.  Yet there was no suspicion of treason,
+no taint of rebellion, no accusation of unpatriotic motives uttered
+against the Stadholder.
+
+There was a doubt as to the true maxims by which the Confederacy was to
+be governed, and at this moment, certainly, the Prince and the Advocate
+represented opposite ideas.  There was a possibility, at a future day,
+when the religious and political parties might develop themselves on a
+wider scale and the struggles grow fiercer, that the two great champions
+in the conflict might exchange swords and inflict mutual and poisoned
+wounds.  At present the party of the Union had triumphed, with Barneveld
+at its head.  At a later but not far distant day, similar scenes might be
+enacted in the ancient city of Utrecht, but with a strange difference and
+change in the cast of parts and with far more tragical results.
+
+For the moment the moderate party in the Church, those more inclined to
+Arminianism and the supremacy of the civil authority in religious
+matters, had asserted their ascendency in the States-General, and had
+prevented the threatened rupture.
+
+Meantime it was doubly necessary to hasten the special embassies to
+France and to England, in both which countries much anxiety as to the
+political health and strength of the new republic had been excited by
+these troubles in Utrecht.  It was important for the States-General to
+show that they were not crippled, and would not shrink from the coming
+conflict, but would justify the reliance placed on them by their allies.
+
+Thus there were reasons enough why Barneveld could not himself leave the
+country in the eventful spring of 1610.  It must be admitted, however,
+that he was not backward in placing his nearest relatives in places of
+honour, trust, and profit.
+
+His eldest son Reinier, Seignior of Groeneveld, had been knighted by
+Henry IV.; his youngest, William, afterwards called Seignior of
+Stoutenburg, but at this moment bearing the not very mellifluous title of
+Craimgepolder, was a gentleman-in-waiting at that king's court, with a
+salary of 3000 crowns a year.  He was rather a favourite with the easy-
+going monarch, but he gave infinite trouble to the Dutch ambassador
+Aerssens, who, feeling himself under immense obligations to the Advocate
+and professing for him boundless gratitude, did his best to keep the
+idle, turbulent, extravagant, and pleasure-loving youth up to the strict
+line of his duties.
+
+"Your son is in debt again," wrote Aerssens, on one occasion, "and
+troubled for money.  He is in danger of going to the usurers.  He says he
+cannot keep himself for less than 200 crowns a month.  This is a large
+allowance, but he has spent much more than that.  His life is not
+irregular nor his dress remarkably extravagant.  His difficulty is that
+he will not dine regularly with me nor at court.  He will keep his own
+table and have company to dinner.  That is what is ruining him.  He comes
+sometimes to me, not for the dinner nor the company, but for tennis,
+which he finds better in my faubourg than in town.  His trouble comes
+from the table, and I tell you frankly that you must regulate his
+expenses or they will become very onerous to you.  I am ashamed of them
+and have told him so a hundred times, more than if he had been my own
+brother.  It is all for love of you .  .  .  .  I have been all to him
+that could be expected of a man who is under such vast obligations to
+you; and I so much esteem the honour of your friendship that I should
+always neglect my private affairs in order to do everything for your
+service and meet your desires .  .  .  .  .  If M. de Craimgepolder comes
+back from his visit home, you must restrict him in two things, the table
+and tennis, and you can do this if you require him to follow the King
+assiduously as his service requires."
+
+Something at a future day was to be heard of William of Barneveld, as
+well as of his elder brother Reinier, and it is good, therefore, to have
+these occasional glimpses of him while in the service of the King and
+under the supervision of one who was then his father's devoted friend,
+Francis Aerssens.  There were to be extraordinary and tragical changes in
+the relations of parties and of individuals ere many years should go by.
+
+Besides the sons of the Advocate, his two sons-in-law, Brederode,
+Seignior of Veenhuizep, and Cornelis van der Myle, were constantly
+employed?  in important embassies.  Van der Myle had been the first
+ambassador to the great Venetian republic, and was now placed at the
+head of the embassy to France, an office which it was impossible at that
+moment for the Advocate to discharge.  At the same critical moment
+Barneveld's brother Elias, Pensionary of Rotterdam, was appointed
+one of the special high commissioners to the King of Great Britain.
+
+It is necessary to give an account of this embassy.
+
+They were provided with luminous and minute instructions from the hand of
+the Advocate.
+
+They were, in the first place, and ostensibly, to thank the King for his
+services in bringing about the truce, which, truly, had been of the
+slightest, as was very well known.  They were to explain, on the part of
+the States, their delay in sending this solemn commission, caused by the
+tardiness of the King of Spain in sending his ratification to the treaty,
+and by the many disputations caused by the irresolutions of the Archdukes
+and the obstinacy of their commissioners in regard to their many
+contraventions of the treaty.  After those commissioners had gone,
+further hindrances had been found in the "extraordinary tempests, high
+floods, rising of the waters, both of the ocean and the rivers, and the
+very disastrous inundations throughout nearly all the United Provinces,
+with the immense and exorbitant damage thus inflicted, both on the public
+and on many individuals; in addition to all which were to be mentioned
+the troubles in the city of Utrecht."
+
+They were, in almost hyperbolical language, directed to express the
+eternal gratitude of the States for the constant favours received by
+them from the crown of England, and their readiness to stand forth at
+any moment with sincere affection and to the utmost of their power,
+at all times and seasons, in resistance of any attempts against his
+Majesty's person or crown, or against the Prince of Wales or the royal
+family.  They were to thank him for his "prudent, heroic, and courageous
+resolve to suffer nothing to be done under colour of justice, authority,
+or any other pretext, to the hindrance of the Elector of Brandenburg and
+Palatine of Neuburg, in the maintenance of their lawful rights and
+possession of the principalities of Julich, Cleve, and Berg, and other
+provinces."
+
+By this course his Majesty, so the commissioners were to state, would put
+an end to the imaginations of those who thought they could give the law
+to everybody according to their pleasure.
+
+They were to assure the King that the States-General would exert
+themselves to the utmost to second his heroic resolution, notwithstanding
+the enormous burthens of their everlasting war, the very exorbitant
+damage caused by the inundations, and the sensible diminution in the
+contributions and other embarrassments then existing in the country.
+
+They were to offer 2000 foot and 500 horse for the general purpose under
+Prince Henry of Nassau, besides the succours furnished by the King of
+France and the electors and princes of Germany.  Further assistance in
+men, artillery, and supplies were promised under certain contingencies,
+and the plan of the campaign on the Meuse in conjunction with the King of
+France was duly mapped.
+
+They were to request a corresponding promise of men and money from the
+King of Great Britain, and they were to propose for his approval a closer
+convention for mutual assistance between his Majesty, the United
+Netherlands, the King of France, the electors and princes and other
+powers of Germany; as such close union would be very beneficial to all
+Christendom.  It would put a stop to all unjust occupations, attempts,
+and intrigues, and if the King was thereto inclined, he was requested to
+indicate time and place for making such a convention.
+
+The commissioners were further to point out the various contraventions
+on the part of the Archdukes of the Treaty of Truce, and were to give
+an exposition of the manner in which the States-General had quelled the
+tumults at Utrecht, and reasons why such a course had of necessity been
+adopted.
+
+They were instructed to state that, "over and above the great expenses of
+the late war and the necessary maintenance of military forces to protect
+their frontiers against their suspected new friends or old enemies, the
+Provinces were burthened with the cost of the succour to the Elector of
+Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg, and would be therefore incapable of
+furnishing the payments coming due to his Majesty.  They were accordingly
+to sound his Majesty as to whether a good part of the debt might not be
+remitted or at least an arrangement made by which the terms should begin
+to run only after a certain number of years."
+
+They were also directed to open the subject of the fisheries on the
+coasts of Great Britain, and to remonstrate against the order lately
+published by the King forbidding all foreigners from fishing on those
+coasts.  This was to be set forth as an infringement both of natural law
+and of ancient treaties, and as a source of infinite danger to the
+inhabitants of the United Provinces.
+
+The Seignior of Warmond, chief of the commission, died on the 15th April.
+His colleagues met at Brielle on the 16th, ready to take passage to
+England in the ship of war, the Hound.  They were, however, detained
+there six days by head winds and great storms, and it was not until the
+22nd that they were able to put to sea.  The following evening their ship
+cast anchor in Gravesend.  Half an hour before, the Duke of Wurtemberg
+had arrived from Flushing in a ship of war brought from France by the
+Prince of Anhalt.
+
+Sir Lewis Lewkener, master of ceremonies, had been waiting for the
+ambassadors at Gravesend, and informed them that the royal barges were to
+come next morning from London to take them to town.  They remained that
+night on board the Hound, and next morning, the wind blowing up the
+river, they proceeded in their ship as far as Blackwall, where they were
+formally received and bade welcome in the name of the King by Sir Thomas
+Cornwallis and Sir George Carew, late ambassador in France.  Escorted by
+them and Sir Lewis, they were brought in the court barges to Tower Wharf.
+Here the royal coaches were waiting, in which they were taken to lodgings
+provided for them in the city at the house of a Dutch merchant.  Noel de
+Caron, Seignior of Schonewal, resident ambassador of the States in
+London, was likewise there to greet them.  This was Saturday night: On
+the following Tuesday they went by appointment to the Palace of Whitehall
+in royal carriages for their first audience.  Manifestations of as entire
+respect and courtesy had thus been made to the Republican envoys as could
+be shown to the ambassadors of the greatest sovereigns.  They found the
+King seated on his throne in the audience chamber, accompanied by the
+Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Lord High Treasurer and Lord High
+Admiral, the Duke of Lenox, the Earls of Arundel and Northampton, and
+many other great nobles and dignitaries.  James rose from his seat, took
+off his hat, and advanced several paces to meet the ambassadors, and bade
+them courteously and respectfully welcome.  He then expressed his regret
+at the death of the Seignior of Warmond, and after the exchange of a few
+commonplaces listened, still with uncovered head, to the opening address.
+
+The spokesman, after thanking the King for his condolences on the death
+of the chief commissioner, whom, as was stated with whimsical simplicity,
+"the good God had called to Himself after all his luggage had been put on
+board ship," proceeded in the French language to give a somewhat
+abbreviated paraphrase of Barneveld's instructions.
+
+When this was done and intimation made that they would confer more fully
+with his Majesty's council on the subjects committed to their charge,
+the ambassadors were conducted home with the same ceremonies as had
+accompanied their arrival.  They received the same day the first visit
+from the ambassadors of France and Venice, Boderie and Carrero, and had a
+long conference a few days afterwards with the High Treasurer, Lord
+Salisbury.
+
+On the 3rd May they were invited to attend the pompous celebration of the
+festival of St. George in the palace at Westminster, where they were
+placed together with the French ambassador in the King's oratorium; the
+Dukes of Wurtemberg and Brunswick being in that of the Queen.
+
+These details are especially to be noted, and were at the moment of
+considerable importance, for this was the first solemn and extraordinary
+embassy sent by the rebel Netherlanders, since their independent national
+existence had been formally vindicated, to Great Britain, a power which a
+quarter of a century before had refused the proffered sovereignty over
+them.  Placed now on exactly the same level with the representatives of
+emperors and kings, the Republican envoys found themselves looked upon
+by the world with different eyes from those which had regarded their
+predecessors askance, and almost with derision, only seven years before.
+At that epoch the States' commissioners, Barneveld himself at the head of
+them, had gone solemnly to congratulate King James on his accession, had
+scarcely been admitted to audience by king or minister, and had found
+themselves on great festivals unsprinkled with the holy water of the
+court, and of no more account than the crowd of citizens and spectators
+who thronged the streets, gazing with awe at the distant radiance of the
+throne.
+
+But although the ambassadors were treated with every external
+consideration befitting their official rank, they were not likely to
+find themselves in the most genial atmosphere when they should come to
+business details.  If there was one thing in the world that James did not
+intend to do, it was to get himself entangled in war with Spain, the
+power of all others which he most revered and loved.  His "heroic and
+courageous resolve" to defend the princes, on which the commissioners by
+instructions of the Advocate had so highly complimented him, was not
+strong enough to carry him much beyond a vigorous phraseology.  He had
+not awoke from the delusive dream of the Spanish marriage which had
+dexterously been made to flit before him, and he was not inclined, for
+the sake of the Republic which he hated the more because obliged to be
+one of its sponsors, to risk the animosity of a great power which
+entertained the most profound contempt for him.  He was destined to find
+himself involved more closely than he liked, and through family ties,
+with the great Protestant movement in Germany, and the unfortunate
+"Winter King" might one day find his father-in-law as unstable a reed to
+lean upon as the States had found their godfather, or the Brandenburgs
+and Neuburgs at the present juncture their great ally.  Meantime, as the
+Bohemian troubles had not yet reached the period of actual explosion, and
+as Henry's wide-reaching plan against the House of Austria had been
+strangely enough kept an inviolable secret by the few statesmen, like
+Sully and Barneveld, to whom they had been confided, it was necessary for
+the King and his ministers to deal cautiously and plausibly with the
+Dutch ambassadors.  Their conferences were mere dancing among eggs, and
+if no actual mischief were done, it was the best result that could be
+expected.
+
+On the 8th of May, the commissioners met in the council chamber at
+Westminster, and discussed all the matters contained in their
+instructions with the members of the council; the Lord Treasurer
+Salisbury, Earl of Northampton, Privy Seal and Warden of the Cinque
+Ports, Lord Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, Earl of
+Suffolk, Earls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and several others being
+present.
+
+The result was not entirely satisfactory.  In regard to the succour
+demanded for the possessory princes, the commissioners were told that
+they seemed to come with a long narrative of their great burthens during
+the war, damage from inundations, and the like, to excuse themselves from
+doing their share in the succour, and thus the more to overload his
+Majesty, who was not much interested in the matter, and was likewise
+greatly encumbered by various expenses.  The King had already frankly
+declared his intention to assist the princes with the payment of 4000
+men, and to send proportionate artillery and powder from England.  As the
+States had supplies in their magazines enough to move 12,000 men, he
+proposed to draw upon those, reimbursing the States for what was thus
+consumed by his contingent.
+
+With regard to the treaty of close alliance between France, Great
+Britain, the princes, and the Republic, which the ambassadors had
+proposed, the--Lord Treasurer and his colleagues gave a reply far from
+gratifying.  His Majesty had not yet decided on this point, they said.
+The King of France had already proposed to treat for such an alliance,
+but it did not at present seem worth while for all to negotiate together.
+
+This was a not over-courteous hint that the Republic was after all not
+expected to place herself at the council-board of kings on even terms of
+intimacy and fraternal alliance.
+
+What followed was even less flattering.  If his Majesty, it was
+intimated, should decide to treat with the King of France, he would not
+shut the door on their High Mightinesses; but his Majesty was not yet
+exactly informed whether his Majesty had not certain rights over the
+provinces 'in petitorio.'
+
+This was a scarcely veiled insinuation against the sovereignty of the
+States, a sufficiently broad hint that they were to be considered in a
+certain degree as British provinces.  To a soldier like Maurice, to a
+statesman like Barneveld, whose sympathies already were on the side of
+France, such rebuffs and taunts were likely to prove unpalatable.  The
+restiveness of the States at the continual possession by Great Britain of
+those important sea-ports the cautionary towns, a fact which gave colour
+to these innuendoes, was sure to be increased by arrogant language on the
+part of the English ministers.  The determination to be rid of their debt
+to so overbearing an ally, and to shake off the shackles imposed by the
+costly mortgages, grew in strength from that hour.
+
+In regard to the fisheries, the Lord Treasurer and his colleagues
+expressed amazement that the ambassadors should consider the subjects
+of their High Mightinesses to be so much beloved by his Majesty.  Why
+should they of all other people be made an exception of, and be exempt
+from, the action of a general edict?  The reasons for these orders in
+council ought to be closely examined.  It would be very difficult to
+bring the opinions of the English jurists into harmony with those of the
+States.  Meantime it would be well to look up such treaties as might be
+in existence, and have a special joint commission to confer together on
+the subject.  It was very plain, from the course of the conversation,
+that the Netherland fishermen were not to be allowed, without paying
+roundly for a license, to catch herrings on the British coasts as they
+had heretofore done.
+
+Not much more of importance was transacted at this first interview
+between the ambassadors and the Ding's ministers.  Certainly they had
+not yet succeeded in attaining their great object, the formation of an
+alliance offensive and defensive between Great Britain and the Republic
+in accordance with the plan concerted between Henry and Barneveld.  They
+could find but slender encouragement for the warlike plans to which
+France and the States were secretly committed; nor could they obtain
+satisfactory adjustment of affairs more pacific and commercial in their
+tendencies.  The English ministers rather petulantly remarked that, while
+last year everybody was talking of a general peace, and in the present
+conjuncture all seemed to think, or at least to speak, of nothing but a
+general war, they thought best to defer consideration of the various
+subjects connected with duties on the manufactures and products of the
+respective countries, the navigation laws, the "entrecours," and other
+matters of ancient agreement and controversy, until a more convenient
+season.
+
+After the termination of the verbal conference, the ambassadors delivered
+to the King's government, in writing, to be pondered by the council and
+recorded in the archives, a summary of the statements which had been thus
+orally treated.  The document was in French, and in the main a paraphrase
+of the Advocate's instructions, the substance of which has been already
+indicated.  In regard, however, to the far-reaching designs of Spain, and
+the corresponding attitude which it would seem fitting for Great Britain
+to assume, and especially the necessity of that alliance the proposal for
+which had in the conference been received so haughtily, their language
+was far plainer, bolder, and more vehement than that of the instructions.
+
+"Considering that the effects show," they said, "that those who claim
+the monarchy of Christendom, and indeed of the whole world, let slip no
+opportunity which could in any way serve their designs, it is suitable to
+the grandeur of his Majesty the King, and to the station in which by the
+grace of the good God he is placed, to oppose himself thereto for the
+sake of the common liberty of Christendom, to which end, and in order the
+better to prevent all unjust usurpatiops, there could be no better means
+devised than a closer alliance between his Majesty and the Most Christian
+King, My Lords the States-General, and the electors, princes, and states
+of Germany.  Their High Mightinesses would therefore be most glad to
+learn that his Majesty was inclined to such a course, and would be glad
+to discuss the subject when and wherever his Majesty should appoint, or
+would readily enter into such an alliance on reasonable conditions."
+
+This language and the position taken up by the ambassadors were highly
+approved by their government, but it was fated that no very great result
+was to be achieved by this embassy.  Very elaborate documents, exhaustive
+in legal lore, on the subject of the herring fisheries, and of the right
+to fish in the ocean and on foreign coasts, fortified by copious
+citations from the 'Pandects' and 'Institutes' of Justinian, were
+presented for the consideration of the British government, and were
+answered as learnedly, exhaustively, and ponderously.  The English
+ministers were also reminded that the curing of herrings had been
+invented in the fifteenth century by a citizen of Biervliet, the
+inscription on whose tombstone recording that faces might still be
+read in the church of that town.
+
+All this did not prevent, however, the Dutch herring fishermen from being
+excluded from the British waters unless they chose to pay for licenses.
+
+The conferences were however for a season interrupted, and a new aspect
+was given to affairs by an unforeseen and terrible event.
+
+Meanwhile it is necessary to glance for a moment at the doings of the
+special embassy to France, the instructions for which were prepared by
+Barneveld almost at the same moment at which he furnished those for the
+commission to England.
+
+The ambassadors were Walraven, Seignior of Brederode, Cornelis van der
+Myle, son-in-law of the Advocate, and Jacob van Maldere.  Remembering how
+impatient the King of France had long been for their coming, and that all
+the preparations and decisions for a great war were kept in suspense
+until the final secret conferences could be held with the representatives
+of the States-General, it seems strange enough to us to observe the
+extreme deliberation with which great affairs of state were then
+conducted and the vast amount of time consumed in movements and
+communications which modern science has either annihilated or abridged
+from days to hours.  While Henry was chafing with anxiety in Paris, the
+ambassadors, having received Barneveld's instructions dated 31st March,
+set forth on the 8th April from the Hague, reached Rotterdam at noon, and
+slept at Dordrecht.  Newt day they went to Breda, where the Prince of
+Orange insisted upon their passing a couple of days with him in his
+castle, Easter-day being 11th April.  He then provided them with a couple
+of coaches and pair in which they set forth on their journey, going by
+way of Antwerp, Ghent, Courtray, Ryssel, to Arras, making easy stages,
+stopping in the middle of the day to bait, and sleeping at each of the
+cities thus mentioned, where they duly received the congratulatory visit
+and hospitalities of their respective magistracies.
+
+While all this time had been leisurely employed in the Netherlands in
+preparing, instructing, and despatching the commissioners, affairs were
+reaching a feverish crisis in France.
+
+The States' ambassador resident thought that it would have been better
+not to take such public offence at the retreat of the Prince of Conde.
+The King had enough of life and vigour in him; he could afford to leave
+the Dauphin to grow up, and when he should one day be established on the
+throne, he would be able to maintain his heritage.  "But," said Aerssens,
+"I fear that our trouble is not where we say it is, and we don't dare to
+say where it is."  Writing to Carew, former English ambassador in Paris,
+whom we have just seen in attendance on the States' commissioners in
+London, he said: "People think that the Princess is wearying herself much
+under the protection of the Infanta, and very impatient at not obtaining
+the dissolution of her marriage, which the Duchess of Angouleme is to go
+to Brussels to facilitate.  This is not our business, but I mention it
+only as the continuation of the Tragedy which you saw begin. Nevertheless
+I don't know if the greater part of our deliberations is not founded on
+this matter."
+
+It had been decided to cause the Queen to be solemnly crowned after
+Easter.  She had set her heart with singular persistency upon the
+ceremony, and it was thought that so public a sacrament would annihilate
+all the wild projects attributed to Spain through the instrumentality of
+Conde to cast doubts on the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy
+of the Dauphin.  The King from the first felt and expressed a singular
+repugnance, a boding apprehension in regard to the coronation, but had
+almost yielded to the Queen's importunity.  He told her he would give his
+consent provided she sent Concini to Brussels to invite in her own name
+the Princess of Conde to be present on the occasion.  Otherwise he
+declared that at least the festival should be postponed till September.
+
+The Marquis de Coeuvres remained in disgrace after the failure of his
+mission, Henry believing that like all the world he had fallen in love
+with the Princess, and had only sought to recommend himself, not to
+further the suit of his sovereign.
+
+Meanwhile Henry had instructed his ambassador in Spain, M. de Vaucelas,
+to tell the King that his reception of Conde within his dominions would
+be considered an infraction of the treaty of Vervins and a direct act of
+hostility.  The Duke of Lerma answered with a sneer that the Most
+Christian King had too greatly obliged his Most Catholic Majesty by
+sustaining his subjects in their rebellion and by aiding them to make
+their truce to hope now that Conde would be sent back.  France had ever
+been the receptacle of Spanish traitors and rebels from Antonio Perez
+down, and the King of Spain would always protect wronged and oppressed
+princes like Conde.  France had just been breaking up the friendly
+relations between Savoy and Spain and goading the Duke into hostilities.
+
+On the other hand the King had more than one stormy interview with Don
+Inigo de Cardenas in Paris.  That ambassador declared that his master
+would never abandon his only sister the most serene Infanta, such was the
+affection he born her, whose dominions were obviously threatened by these
+French armies about to move to the frontiers.  Henry replied that the
+friends for whom he was arming had great need of his assistance; that his
+Catholic Majesty was quite right to love his sister, whom he also loved;
+but that he did not choose that his own relatives should be so much
+beloved in Spain as they were.  "What relatives?" asked Don Inigo.
+"The Prince of Conde," replied the King, in a rage, "who has been
+debauched by the Spaniards just as Marshal Biron was, and the Marchioness
+Verneuil, and so many others.  There are none left for them to debauch
+now but the Dauphin and his brothers."  The Ambassador replied that, if
+the King had consulted him about the affair of Conde, he could have
+devised a happy issue from it.  Henry rejoined that he had sent messages
+on the subject to his Catholic Majesty, who had not deigned a response,
+but that the Duke of Lerma had given a very indiscreet one to his
+ambassador.  Don Inigo professed ignorance of any such reply.  The King
+said it was a mockery to affect ignorance of such matters.  Thereupon
+both grew excited and very violent in their discourses; the more so as
+Henry knowing but little Spanish and the Envoy less French they could
+only understand from tone and gesture that each was using exceedingly
+unpleasant language.  At last Don Inigo asked what he should write to his
+sovereign.  "Whatever you like," replied the King, and so the audience
+terminated, each remaining in a towering passion.
+
+Subsequently Villeroy assured the Archduke's ambassador that the King
+considered the reception given to the Prince in the Spanish dominions as
+one of the greatest insults and injuries that could be done to him.
+Nothing could excuse it, said the Secretary of State, and for this reason
+it was very difficult for the two kings to remain at peace with each
+other, and that it would be wiser to prevent at once the evil designs of
+his Catholic Majesty than to leave leisure for the plans to be put into
+execution, and the claims of the Dauphin to his father's crown to be
+disputed at a convenient season.
+
+He added that war would not be made for the Princess, but for the Prince,
+and that even the war in Germany, although Spain took the Emperor's side
+and France that of the possessory princes, would not necessarily produce
+a rupture between the two kings if it were not for this affair of the
+Prince--true cause of the disaster now hanging over Christianity.
+Pecquius replied by smooth commonplaces in favour of peace with which
+Villeroy warmly concurred; both sadly expressing the conviction however
+that the wrath divine had descended on them all on account of their sins.
+
+A few days later, however, the Secretary changed his tone.
+
+"I will speak to you frankly and clearly," he said to Pecquius, "and tell
+you as from myself that there is passion, and if one is willing to
+arrange the affair of the Princess, everything else can be accommodated
+and appeased.  Put if the Princess remain where she is, we are on the eve
+of a rupture which may set fire to the four corners of Christendom."
+Pecquius said he liked to talk roundly, and was glad to find that he had
+not been mistaken in his opinion, that all these commotions were only
+made for the Princess, and if all the world was going to war, she would
+be the principal subject of it.  He could not marvel sufficiently, he
+said, at this vehement passion which brought in its train so great and
+horrible a conflagration; adding many arguments to show that it was no
+fault of the Archdukes, but that he who was the cause of all might one
+day have reason to repent.
+
+Villeroy replied that "the King believed the Princess to be suffering and
+miserable for love of him, and that therefore he felt obliged to have her
+sent back to her father."  Pecquius asked whether in his conscience the
+Secretary of State believed it right or reasonable to make war for such a
+cause.  Villeroy replied by asking "whether even admitting the negative,
+the Ambassador thought it were wisely done for such a trifle, for a
+formality, to plunge into extremities and to turn all Christendom upside
+down."  Pecquius, not considering honour a trifle or a formality, said
+that "for nothing in the world would his Highness the Archduke descend to
+a cowardly action or to anything that would sully his honour."  Villeroy
+said that the Prince had compelled his wife, pistol in hand, to follow
+him to the Netherlands, and that she was no longer bound to obey a
+husband who forsook country and king.  Her father demanded her, and she
+said "she would rather be strangled than ever to return to the company of
+her husband."  The Archdukes were not justified in keeping her against
+her will in perpetual banishment.  He implored the Ambassador in most
+pathetic terms to devise some means of sending back the Princess, saying
+that he who should find such expedient would do the greatest good that
+was ever done to Christianity, and that otherwise there was no guarantee
+against a universal war.  The first design of the King had been merely to
+send a moderate succour to the Princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg, which
+could have given no umbrage to the Archdukes, but now the bitterness
+growing out of the affairs of the Prince and Princess had caused him to
+set on foot a powerful army to do worse.  He again implored Pecquius to
+invent some means of sending back the Princess, and the Ambassador
+besought him ardently to divert the King from his designs.  Of this the
+Secretary of State left little hope and they parted, both very low and.
+dismal in mind.  Subsequent conversations with the leading councillors of
+state convinced Pecquius that these violent menaces were only used to
+shake the constancy of the Archduke, but that they almost all highly
+disapproved the policy of the King.  "If this war goes on, we are all
+ruined," said the Duke d'Epernon to the Nuncius.
+
+Thus there had almost ceased to be any grimacing between the two kings,
+although it was still a profound mystery where or when hostilities would
+begin, and whether they would break out at all.  Henry frequently
+remarked that the common opinion all over Europe was working in his
+favour.  Few people in or out of France believed that he meant a rupture,
+or that his preparations were serious.  Thus should he take his enemies
+unawares and unprepared.  Even Aerssens, who saw him almost daily, was
+sometimes mystified, in spite of Henry's vehement assertions that he was
+resolved to make war at all hazards and on all sides, provided My Lords
+the States would second him as they ought, their own existence being at
+stake.
+
+"For God's sake," cried the King, "let us take the bit into our mouths.
+Tell your masters that I am quite resolved, and that I am shrieking
+loudly at their delays."  He asked if he could depend on the States, if
+Barneveld especially would consent to a league with him.  The Ambassador
+replied that for the affair of Cleve and Julich he had instructions to
+promise entire concurrence, that Barneveld was most resolute in the
+matter, and had always urged the enterprise and wished information as
+to the levies making in France and other military preparations.
+
+"Tell him," said Henry, "that they are going on exactly as often before
+stated, but that we are holding everything in suspense until I have
+talked with your ambassadors, from whom I wish counsel, safety, and
+encouragement for doing much more than the Julich business.  That alone
+does not require so great a league and such excessive and unnecessary
+expense."
+
+The King observed however that the question of the duchies would serve as
+just cause and excellent pretext to remove those troublesome fellows for
+ever from his borders and those of the States.  Thus the princes would be
+established safely in their possession and the Republic as well as
+himself freed from the perpetual suspicions which the Spaniards excited
+by their vile intrigues, and it was on this general subject that he
+wished to confer with the special commissioners.  It would not be
+possible for him to throw succour into Julich without passing through
+Luxemburg in arms.  The Archdukes would resist this, and thus a cause of
+war would arise.  His campaign on the Meuse would help the princes more
+than if he should only aid them by the contingent he had promised.  Nor
+could the jealousy of King James be excited since the war would spring
+out of the Archdukes' opposition to his passage towards the duchies, as
+he obviously could not cut himself off from his supplies, leaving a
+hostile province between himself and his kingdom.  Nevertheless he could
+not stir, he said, without the consent and active support of the States,
+on whom he relied as his principal buttress and foundation.
+
+The levies for the Milanese expedition were waiting until Marshal de
+Lesdiguieres could confer personally with the Duke of Savoy.  The reports
+as to the fidelity of that potentate were not to be believed.  He was
+trifling with the Spanish ambassadors, so Henry was convinced, who were
+offering him 300,000 crowns a year besides Piombino, Monaco, and two
+places in the Milanese, if he would break his treaty with France.  But he
+was thought to be only waiting until they should be gone before making
+his arrangements with Lesdiguieres.  "He knows that he can put no trust
+in Spain, and that he can confide in me," said the King.  "I have made a
+great stroke by thus entangling the King of Spain by the use of a few
+troops in Italy.  But I assure you that there is none but me and My Lords
+the States that can do anything solid.  Whether the Duke breaks or holds
+fast will make no difference in our first and great designs.  For the
+honour of God I beg them to lose no more time, but to trust in me.  I
+will never deceive them, never abandon them."
+
+At last 25,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry were already in marching order,
+and indeed had begun to move towards the Luxemburg frontier, ready to co-
+operate with the States' army and that of the possessory princes for the
+campaign of the Meuse and Rhine.
+
+Twelve thousand more French troops under Lesdiguieres were to act with
+the Duke of Savoy, and an army as large was to assemble in the Pyrenees
+and to operate on the Spanish frontier, in hope of exciting and fomenting
+an insurrection caused by the expulsion of the Moors.  That gigantic act
+of madness by which Spain thought good at this juncture to tear herself
+to pieces, driving hundreds of thousands of the most industrious, most
+intelligent, and most opulent of her population into hopeless exile, had
+now been accomplished, and was to stand prominent for ever on the records
+of human fatuity.
+
+Twenty-five thousand Moorish families had arrived at Bayonne, and the
+Viceroy of Canada had been consulted as to the possibility and expediency
+of establishing them in that province, although emigration thither
+seemed less tempting to them than to Virginia.  Certainly it was not
+unreasonable for Henry to suppose that a kingdom thus torn by internal
+convulsions might be more open to a well organized attack, than capable
+of carrying out at that moment fresh projects of universal dominion.
+
+As before observed, Sully was by no means in favour of this combined
+series of movements, although at a later day, when dictating his famous
+memoirs to his secretaries, he seems to describe himself as
+enthusiastically applauding and almost originating them.  But there is no
+doubt at all that throughout this eventful spring he did his best to
+concentrate the whole attack on Luxemburg and the Meuse districts, and
+wished that the movements in the Milanese and in Provence should be
+considered merely a slight accessory, as not much more than a diversion
+to the chief design, while Villeroy and his friends chose to consider the
+Duke of Savoy as the chief element in the war.  Sully thoroughly
+distrusted the Duke, whom he deemed to be always put up at auction
+between Spain and France and incapable of a sincere or generous policy.
+He was entirely convinced that Villeroy and Epernon and Jeannin and other
+earnest Papists in France were secretly inclined to the cause of Spain,
+that the whole faction of the Queen, in short, were urging this
+scattering of the very considerable forces now at Henry's command in
+the hope of bringing him into a false position, in which defeat or an
+ignominious peace would be the alternative.  To concentrate an immense
+attack upon the Archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands and the debateable
+duchies would have for its immediate effect the expulsion of the
+Spaniards out of all those provinces and the establishment of the Dutch
+commonwealth on an impregnable basis.  That this would be to strengthen
+infinitely the Huguenots in France and the cause of Protestantism in
+Bohemia, Moravia and Austria, was unquestionable.  It was natural,
+therefore, that the stern and ardent Huguenot should suspect the plans
+of the Catholics with whom he was in daily council.  One day he asked the
+King plumply in the presence of Villeroy if his Majesty meant anything
+serious by all these warlike preparations.  Henry was wroth, and
+complained bitterly that one who knew him to the bottom of his soul
+should doubt him.  But Sully could not persuade himself that a great
+and serious war would be carried on both in the Netherlands and in Italy.
+
+As much as his sovereign he longed for the personal presence of
+Barneveld, and was constantly urging the States' ambassador to induce
+his coming to Paris.  "You know," said Aerssens, writing to the French
+ambassador at the Hague, de Russy, "that it is the Advocate alone that
+has the universal knowledge of the outside and the inside of our
+commonwealth."
+
+Sully knew his master as well as any man knew him, but it was difficult
+to fix the chameleon hues of Henry at this momentous epoch.  To the
+Ambassador expressing doubts as to the King's sincerity the Duke asserted
+that Henry was now seriously piqued with the Spaniard on account of the
+Conde business.  Otherwise Anhalt and the possessory princes and the
+affair of Cleve might have had as little effect in driving him into war
+as did the interests of the Netherlands in times past.  But the bold
+demonstration projected would make the "whole Spanish party bleed at the
+nose; a good result for the public peace."
+
+Therefore Sully sent word to Barneveld, although he wished his name
+concealed, that he ought to come himself, with full powers to do
+everything, without referring to any superiors or allowing any secrets to
+be divulged.  The King was too far committed to withdraw, unless coldness
+on part of the States should give him cause.  The Advocate must come
+prepared to answer all questions; to say how much in men and money the
+States would contribute, and whether they would go into the war with the
+King as their only ally.  He must come with the bridle on his neck.  All
+that Henry feared was being left in the lurch by the States; otherwise he
+was not afraid of Rome.  Sully was urgent that the Provinces should now
+go vigorously into the war without stumbling at any consideration.  Thus
+they would confirm their national power for all time, but if the
+opportunity were now lost, it would be their ruin, and posterity would
+most justly blame them.  The King of Spain was so stripped of troops and
+resources, so embarrassed by the Moors, that in ten months he would not
+be able to send one man to the Netherlands.
+
+Meantime the Nuncius in Paris was moving heaven and earth; storming,
+intriguing, and denouncing the course of the King in protecting heresy,
+when it would have been so easy to extirpate it, encouraging rebellion
+and disorder throughout Christendom, and embarking in an action against
+the Church and against his conscience.  A new legate was expected daily
+with the Pope's signature to the new league, and a demand upon the King
+to sign it likewise, and to pause in a career of which something was
+suspected, but very little accurately known.  The preachers in Paris and
+throughout the kingdom delivered most vehement sermons against the King,
+the government, and the Protestants, and seemed to the King to be such
+"trumpeters of sedition" that he ordered the seneschals and other
+officers to put a stop to these turbulent discourses, censure their
+authors, and compel them to stick to their texts.
+
+But the preparations were now so far advanced and going on so warmly that
+nothing more was wanting than, in the words of Aerssens, "to uncouple the
+dogs and let them run."  Recruits were pouring steadily to their places
+of rendezvous; their pay having begun to run from the 25th March at the
+rate of eight sous a day for the private foot soldier and ten sous for a
+corporal.  They were moved in small parties of ten, lodged in the wayside
+inns, and ordered, on pain of death, to pay for everything they consumed.
+
+It was growing difficult to wait much longer for the arrival of the
+special ambassadors, when at last they were known to be on their way.
+Aerssens obtained for their use the Hotel Gondy, formerly the residence
+of Don Pedro de Toledo, the most splendid private palace in Paris, and
+recently purchased by the Queen.  It was considered expedient that the
+embassy should make as stately an appearance as that of royal or imperial
+envoys.  He engaged an upholsterer by the King's command to furnish, at
+his Majesty's expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said,
+had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture.  He likewise laid in
+six pieces of wine and as many of beer, "tavern drinks" being in the
+opinion of the thrifty ambassador "both dear and bad."
+
+He bought a carriage lined with velvet for the commissioners, and another
+lined with broadcloth for the principal persons of their suite, and with
+his own coach as a third he proposed to go to Amiens to meet them.  They
+could not get on with fewer than these, he said, and the new carriages
+would serve their purpose in Paris.  He had paid 500 crowns for the two,
+and they could be sold, when done with, at a slight loss.  He bought
+likewise four dapple-grey horses, which would be enough, as nobody had
+more than two horses to a carriage in town, and for which he paid 312
+crowns--a very low price, he thought, at a season when every one was
+purchasing.  He engaged good and experienced coachmen at two crowns a
+month, and; in short, made all necessary arrangements for their comfort
+and the honour of the state.
+
+The King had been growing more and more displeased at the tardiness of
+the commission, petulantly ascribing it to a design on the part of the
+States to "excuse themselves from sharing in his bold conceptions," but
+said that "he could resolve on nothing without My Lords the States, who
+were the only power with which he could contract confidently, as mighty
+enough and experienced enough to execute the designs to be proposed to
+them; so that his army was lying useless on his hands until the
+commissioners arrived," and lamented more loudly than ever that Barneveld
+was not coming with them.  He was now rejoiced, however, to hear that
+they would soon arrive, and went in person to the Hotel Gondy to see that
+everything was prepared in a manner befitting their dignity and comfort.
+
+His anxiety had moreover been increased, as already stated, by the
+alarming reports from Utrecht and by his other private accounts from the
+Netherlands.
+
+De Russy expressed in his despatches grave doubts whether the States
+would join the king in a war against the King of Spain, because they
+feared the disapprobation of the King of Great Britain, "who had already
+manifested but too much jealousy of the power and grandeur of the
+Republic."  Pecquius asserted that the Archdukes had received assurances
+from the States that they would do nothing to violate the truce.  The
+Prince of Anhalt, who, as chief of the army of the confederated princes,
+was warm in his demonstrations for a general war by taking advantage of
+the Cleve expedition, was entirely at cross purposes with the States'
+ambassador in Paris, Aerssens maintaining that the forty-three years'
+experience in their war justified the States in placing no dependence on
+German princes except with express conventions.  They had no such
+conventions now, and if they should be attacked by Spain in consequence
+of their assistance in the Cleve business, what guarantee of aid had they
+from those whom Anhalt represented?  Anhalt was loud in expressions of
+sympathy with Henry's designs against Spain, but said that he and the
+States meant a war of thirty or forty years, while the princes would
+finish what they meant to do in one.
+
+A more erroneous expression of opinion, when viewed in the light of
+subsequent events, could hardly have been hazarded.  Villeroy made as
+good use as he could of these conversations to excite jealousy between
+the princes and the States for the furtherance of his own ends, while
+affecting warm interest in the success of the King's projects.
+
+Meantime Archduke Albert had replied manfully and distinctly to the
+menaces of the King and to the pathetic suggestions made by Villeroy to
+Pecquius as to a device for sending back the Princess.  Her stay at
+Brussels being the chief cause of the impending war, it would be better,
+he said, to procure a divorce or to induce the Constable to obtain the
+consent of the Prince to the return of his wife to her father's house.
+To further either of these expedients, the Archduke would do his best.
+"But if one expects by bravados and threats," he added, "to force us to
+do a thing against our promise, and therefore against reason, our
+reputation, and honour, resolutely we will do nothing of the kind.  And
+if the said Lord King decided on account of this misunderstanding for a
+rupture and to make war upon us, we will do our best to wage war on him.
+In such case, however, we shall be obliged to keep the Princess closer in
+our own house, and probably to send her to such parts as may be most
+convenient in order to remove from us an instrument of the infinite evils
+which this war will produce."
+
+Meantime the special commissioners whom we left at Arras had now entered
+the French kingdom.
+
+On the 17th April, Aerssens with his three coaches met them on their
+entrance into Amiens, having been waiting there for them eight days.  As
+they passed through the gate, they found a guard of soldiers drawn up to
+receive them with military honours, and an official functionary to
+apologize for the necessary absence of the governor, who had gone with
+most of the troops stationed in the town to the rendezvous in Champagne.
+He expressed regret, therefore, that the King's orders for their solemn
+reception could not be literally carried out.  The whole board of
+magistrates, however, in their costumes of ceremony, with sergeants
+bearing silver maces marching before them, came forth to bid the
+ambassadors welcome.  An advocate made a speech in the name of the city
+authorities, saying that they were expressly charged by the King to
+receive them as coming from his very best friends, and to do them all
+honour.  He extolled the sage government of their High Mightinesses and
+the valour of the Republic, which had become known to the whole world
+by the successful conduct of their long and mighty war.
+
+The commissioners replied in words of compliment, and the magistrates
+then offered them, according to ancient usage, several bottles of
+hippocras.
+
+Next day, sending back the carriages of the Prince of Orange, in which
+they had thus far performed the journey, they set forth towards Paris,
+reaching Saint-Denis at noon of the third day.  Here they were met by de
+Bonoeil, introducer of ambassadors, sent thither by the King to give them
+welcome, and to say that they would be received on the road by the Duke
+of Vendome, eldest of the legitimatized children of the King.
+Accordingly before reaching the Saint-Denis gate of Paris, a splendid
+cavalcade of nearly five hundred noblemen met them, the Duke at their
+head, accompanied by two marshals of France, de Brissac and Boisdaulphin.
+The three instantly dismounted, and the ambassadors alighted from their
+coach.  The Duke then gave them solemn and cordial welcome, saying that
+he had been sent by his father the King to receive them as befitted
+envoys of the best and most faithful friends he possessed in the world.
+
+The ambassadors expressed their thanks for the great and extraordinary
+honour thus conferred on them, and they were then requested to get into a
+royal carriage which had been sent out for that purpose.  After much
+ceremonious refusal they at last consented and, together with the Duke of
+Vendome, drove through Paris in that vehicle into the Faubourg Saint
+Germain.  Arriving at the Hotel Gondy, they were, notwithstanding all
+their protestations, escorted up the staircase into the apartments by the
+Duke.
+
+"This honour is notable," said the commissioners in their report to the
+States, "and never shown to anyone before, so that our ill-wishers are
+filled with spite."
+
+And Peter Pecquius was of the same opinion.  "Everyone is grumbling
+here," about the reception of the States' ambassadors, "because such
+honours were never paid to any ambassador whatever, whether from Spain,
+England, or any other country."
+
+And there were many men living and employed in great affairs of State,
+both in France and in the Republic--the King and Villeroy, Barneveld and
+Maurice--who could remember how twenty-six years before a solemn embassy
+from the States had proceeded from the Hague to France to offer the
+sovereignty of their country to Henry's predecessor, had been kept
+ignominiously and almost like prisoners four weeks long in Rouen, and
+had been thrust back into the Netherlands without being admitted even to
+one audience by the monarch.  Truly time, in the course of less than one
+generation of mankind, had worked marvellous changes in the fortunes of
+the Dutch Republic.
+
+President Jeannin came to visit them next day, with friendly proffers of
+service, and likewise the ambassador of Venice and the charge d'affaires
+of Great Britain.
+
+On the 22nd the royal carriages came by appointment to the Hotel Gondy,
+and took them for their first audience to the Louvre.  They were received
+at the gate by a guard of honour, drums beating and arms presented, and
+conducted with the greatest ceremony to an apartment in the palace.  Soon
+afterwards they were ushered into a gallery where the King stood,
+surrounded by a number of princes and distinguished officers of the
+crown.  These withdrew on the approach of the Netherlanders, leaving the
+King standing alone.  They made their reverence, and Henry saluted them
+all with respectful cordiality.  Begging them to put on their hats again,
+he listened attentively to their address.
+
+The language of the discourse now pronounced was similar in tenour to
+that almost contemporaneously held by the States' special envoys in
+London.  Both documents, when offered afterwards in writing, bore the
+unmistakable imprint of the one hand that guided the whole political
+machine.  In various passages the phraseology was identical, and, indeed,
+the Advocate had prepared and signed the instructions for both embassies
+on the same day.
+
+The commissioners acknowledged in the strongest possible terms the great
+and constant affection, quite without example, that Henry had manifested
+to the Netherlands during the whole course of their war.  They were at a
+loss to find language adequately to express their gratitude for that
+friendship, and the assistance subsequently afforded them in the
+negotiations for truce.  They apologized for the tardiness of the States
+in sending this solemn embassy of thanksgiving, partly on the ground of
+the delay in receiving the ratifications from Spain, partly by the
+protracted contraventions by the Archdukes of certain articles in the
+treaty, but principally by the terrible disasters occasioned throughout
+their country by the great inundations, and by the commotions in the city
+of Utrecht, which had now been "so prudently and happily pacified."
+
+They stated that the chief cause of their embassy was to express their
+respectful gratitude, and to say that never had prince or state treasured
+more deeply in memory benefits received than did their republic the
+favours of his Majesty, or could be more disposed to do their utmost to
+defend his Majesty's person, crown, or royal family against all attack.
+They expressed their joy that the King had with prudence, and heroic
+courage undertaken tha defence of the just rights of Brandenburg and
+Neuburg to the duchies of Cleve, Julich, and the other dependent
+provinces.  Thus had he put an end to the presumption of those who
+thought they could give the law to all the world.  They promised the co-
+operation of the States in this most important enterprise of their ally,
+notwithstanding their great losses in the war just concluded, and the
+diminution of revenue occasioned by the inundations by which they had
+been afflicted; for they were willing neither to tolerate so unjust an
+usurpation as that attempted by the Emperor nor to fail to second his
+Majesty in his generous designs.  They observed also that they had been
+instructed to enquire whether his Majesty would not approve the
+contracting of a strict league of mutual assistance between France,
+England, the United Provinces, and the princes of Germany.
+
+The King, having listened with close attention, thanked the envoys in
+words of earnest and vigorous cordiality for their expressions of
+affection to himself.  He begged them to remember that he had always been
+their good friend, and that he never would forsake them; that he had
+always hated the Spaniards, and should ever hate them; and that the
+affairs of Julich must be arranged not only for the present but for the
+future.  He requested them to deliver their propositions in writing to
+him, and to be ready to put themselves into communication with the
+members of his council, in order that they might treat with each
+other roundly and without reserve.  He should always deal with the
+Netherlanders as with his own people, keeping no back-door open, but
+pouring out everything as into the lap of his best and most trusty
+friends.
+
+After this interview conferences followed daily between the ambassadors
+and Villeroy, Sully, Jeannin, the Chancellor, and Puysieug.
+
+The King's counsellors, after having read the written paraphrase of
+Barneveld's instructions, the communication of which followed their oral
+statements, and which, among other specifications, contained a respectful
+remonstrance against the projected French East India Company, as likely
+to benefit the Spaniards only, while seriously injuring the States,
+complained that "the representations were too general, and that the paper
+seemed to contain nothing but compliments."
+
+The ambassadors, dilating on the various points and articles, maintained
+warmly that there was much more than compliments in their instructions.
+The ministers wished to know what the States practically were prepared to
+do in the affair of Cleve, which they so warmly and encouragingly
+recommended to the King.  They asked whether the States' army would march
+at once to Dusseldorf to protect the princes at the moment when the King
+moved from Mezieres, and they made many enquiries as to what amount of
+supplies and munitions they could depend upon from the States' magazines.
+
+The envoys said that they had no specific instructions on these points,
+and could give therefore no conclusive replies.  More than ever did Henry
+regret the absence of the great Advocate at this juncture.  If he could
+have come, with the bridle on his neck, as Henry had so repeatedly urged
+upon the resident ambassador, affairs might have marched more rapidly.
+The despotic king could never remember that Barneveld was not the
+unlimited sovereign of the United States, but only the seal-keeper of one
+of the seven provinces and the deputy of Holland to the General Assembly.
+His indirect power, however vast, was only great because it was so
+carefully veiled.
+
+It was then proposed by Villeroy and Sully, and agreed to by the
+commissioners, that M. de Bethune, a relative of the great financier,
+should be sent forthwith to the Hague, to confer privately with Prince
+Maurice and Barneveld especially, as to military details of the coming
+campaign.
+
+It was also arranged that the envoys should delay their departure until
+de Bethune's return.  Meantime Henry and the Nuncius had been exchanging
+plain and passionate language.  Ubaldini reproached the King with
+disregarding all the admonitions of his Holiness, and being about to
+plunge Christendom into misery and war for the love of the Princess of
+Conde.  He held up to him the enormity of thus converting the King of
+Spain and the Archdukes into his deadly enemies, and warned him that he
+would by such desperate measures make even the States-General and the
+King of Britain his foes, who certainly would never favour such schemes.
+The King replied that "he trusted to his own forces, not to those of his
+neighbours, and even if the Hollanders should not declare for him still
+he would execute his designs.  On the 15th of May most certainly he would
+put himself at the head of his army, even if he was obliged to put off
+the Queen's coronation till October, and he could not consider the King
+of Spain nor the Archdukes his friends unless they at once made him
+some demonstration of friendship.  Being asked by the Nuncius what
+demonstration he wished, he answered flatly that he wished the Princess
+to be sent back to the Constable her father, in which case the affair of
+Julich could be arranged amicably, and, at all events, if the war
+continued there, he need not send more than 4000 men."
+
+Thus, in spite of his mighty preparations, vehement demands for
+Barneveld, and profound combinations revealed to that statesman, to
+Aerssens, and to the Duke of Sully only, this wonderful monarch was ready
+to drop his sword on the spot, to leave his friends in the lurch, to
+embrace his enemies, the Archduke first of all, instead of bombarding
+Brussels the very next week, as he had been threatening to do, provided
+the beautiful Margaret could be restored to his arms through those of her
+venerable father.
+
+He suggested to the Nuncius his hope that the Archduke would yet be
+willing to wink at her escape, which he was now trying to arrange through
+de Preaux at Brussels, while Ubaldini, knowing the Archduke incapable of
+anything so dishonourable, felt that the war was inevitable.
+
+At the very same time too, Father Cotton, who was only too ready to
+betray the secrets of the confessional when there was an object to gain,
+had a long conversation with the Archduke's ambassador, in which the holy
+man said that the King had confessed to him that he made the war
+expressly to cause the Princess to be sent back to France, so that as
+there could be no more doubt on the subject the father-confessor begged
+Pecquius, in order to prevent so great an evil, to devise "some prompt
+and sudden means to induce his Highness the Archduke to order the
+Princess to retire secretly to her own country."  The Jesuit had
+different notions of honour, reputation, and duty from those which
+influenced the Archduke.  He added that "at Easter the King had been so
+well disposed to seek his salvation that he could easily have forgotten
+his affection for the Princess, had she not rekindled the fire by her
+letters, in which she caressed him with amorous epithets, calling him 'my
+heart,' 'my chevalier,' and similar terms of endearment."  Father Cotton
+also drew up a paper, which he secretly conveyed to Pecquius, "to prove
+that the Archduke, in terms of conscience and honour, might decide to
+permit this escape, but he most urgently implored the Ambassador that for
+the love of God and the public good he would influence his Serene
+Highness to prevent this from ever coming to the knowledge of the world,
+but to keep the secret inviolably."
+
+Thus, while Henry was holding high council with his own most trusted
+advisers, and with the most profound statesmen of Europe, as to the
+opening campaign within a fortnight of a vast and general war, he was
+secretly plotting with his father-confessor to effect what he avowed to
+be the only purpose of that war, by Jesuitical bird-lime to be applied to
+the chief of his antagonists.  Certainly Barneveld and his colleagues
+were justified in their distrust.  To move one step in advance of their
+potent but slippery ally might be a step off a precipice.
+
+On the 1st of May, Sully made a long visit to the commissioners.  He
+earnestly urged upon them the necessity of making the most of the present
+opportunity.  There were people in plenty, he said, who would gladly see
+the King take another course, for many influential persons about him were
+altogether Spanish in their inclinations.
+
+The King had been scandalized to hear from the Prince of Anhalt, without
+going into details, that on his recent passage through the Netherlands he
+had noticed some change of feeling, some coolness in their High
+Mightinesses.  The Duke advised that they should be very heedful, that
+they should remember how much more closely these matters regarded them
+than anyone else, that they should not deceive themselves, but be firmly
+convinced that unless they were willing to go head foremost into the
+business the French would likewise not commit themselves.  Sully spoke
+with much earnestness and feeling, for it was obvious that both he and
+his master had been disappointed at the cautious and limited nature of
+the instructions given to the ambassadors.
+
+An opinion had indeed prevailed, and, as we have seen, was to a certain
+extent shared in by Aerssens, and even by Sully himself, that the King's
+military preparations were after all but a feint, and that if the Prince
+of Conde, and with him the Princess, could be restored to France, the
+whole war cloud would evaporate in smoke.
+
+It was even asserted that Henry had made a secret treaty with the enemy,
+according to which, while apparently ready to burst upon the House of
+Austria with overwhelming force, he was in reality about to shake hands
+cordially with that power, on condition of being allowed to incorporate
+into his own kingdom the very duchies in dispute, and of receiving the
+Prince of Conde and his wife from Spain.  He was thus suspected of being
+about to betray his friends and allies in the most ignoble manner and for
+the vilest of motives.  The circulation of these infamous reports no
+doubt paralysed for a time the energy of the enemy who had made no
+requisite preparations against the threatened invasion, but it sickened
+his friends with vague apprehensions, while it cut the King himself to
+the heart and infuriated him to madness.
+
+He asked the Nuncius one day what people thought in Rome and Italy of the
+war about to be undertaken.  Ubaldini replied that those best informed
+considered the Princess of Conde as the principal subject of hostilities;
+they thought that he meant to have her back.  "I do mean to have her
+back," cried Henry, with a mighty oath, and foaming with rage, "and I
+shall have her back.  No one shall prevent it, not even the Lieutenant of
+God on earth."
+
+But the imputation of this terrible treason weighed upon his mind and
+embittered every hour.
+
+The commissioners assured Sully that they had no knowledge of any
+coolness or change such as Anhalt had reported on the part of their
+principals, and the Duke took his leave.
+
+It will be remembered that Villeroy had, it was thought, been making
+mischief between Anhalt and the States by reporting and misreporting
+private conversations between that Prince and the Dutch ambassador.
+
+As soon as Sully had gone, van der Myle waited upon Villeroy to ask, in
+name of himself and colleagues, for audience of leave-taking, the object
+of their mission having been accomplished.  The Secretary of State, too,
+like Sully, urged the importance of making the most of the occasion.  The
+affair of Cleve, he said, did not very much concern the King, but his
+Majesty had taken it to heart chiefly on account of the States and for
+their security.  They were bound, therefore, to exert themselves to the
+utmost, but more would not be required of them than it would be possible
+to fulfil.
+
+Van der Myle replied that nothing would be left undone by their High
+Mightinesses to support the King faithfully and according to their
+promise.
+
+On the 5th, Villeroy came to the ambassadors, bringing with him a letter
+from the King for the States-General, and likewise a written reply to the
+declarations made orally and in writing by the ambassadors to his
+Majesty.
+
+The letter of Henry to "his very dear and good friends, allies, and
+confederates," was chiefly a complimentary acknowledgment of the
+expressions of gratitude made to him on part of the States-General, and
+warm approbation of their sage resolve to support the cause of
+Brandenburg and Neuburg.  He referred them for particulars to the
+confidential conferences held between the commissioners and himself.
+They would state how important he thought it that this matter should be
+settled now so thoroughly as to require no second effort at any future
+time when circumstances might not be so propitious; and that he intended
+to risk his person, at the head of his army, to accomplish this result.
+
+To the ambassadors he expressed his high satisfaction at their assurances
+of affection, devotion, and gratitude on the part of the States.  He
+approved and commended their resolution to assist the Elector and the
+Palatine in the affair of the duchies.  He considered this a proof of
+their prudence and good judgment, as showing their conviction that they
+were more interested and bound to render this assistance than any other
+potentates or states, as much from the convenience and security to be
+derived from the neighbourhood of princes who were their friends as from
+dangers to be apprehended from other princes who were seeking to
+appropriate those provinces.  The King therefore begged the States to
+move forward as soon as possible the forces which they offered for this
+enterprise according to his Majesty's suggestion sent through de Bethune.
+The King on his part would do the same with extreme care and diligence,
+from the anxiety he felt to prevent My Lords the States from receiving
+detriment in places so vital to their preservation.
+
+He begged the States likewise to consider that it was meet not only to
+make a first effort to put the princes into entire possession of the
+duchies, but to provide also for the durable success of the enterprise;
+to guard against any invasions that might be made in the future to eject
+those princes.  Otherwise all their present efforts would be useless; and
+his Majesty therefore consented on this occasion to enter into the new
+league proposed by the States with all the princes and states mentioned
+in the memoir of the ambassadors for mutual assistance against all unjust
+occupations, attempts, and baneful intrigues.
+
+Having no special information as to the infractions by the Archdukes of
+the recent treaty of truce, the King declined to discuss that subject for
+the moment, although holding himself bound to all required of him as one
+of the guarantees of that treaty.
+
+In regard to the remonstrance made by the ambassadors concerning the
+trade of the East Indies, his Majesty disclaimed any intention of doing
+injury to the States in permitting his subjects to establish a company in
+his kingdom for that commerce.  He had deferred hitherto taking action in
+the matter only out of respect to the States, but he could no longer
+refuse the just claims of his subjects if they should persist in them as
+urgently as they had thus far been doing.  The right and liberty which
+they demanded was common to all, said the King, and he was certainly
+bound to have as great care for the interests of his subjects as for
+those of his friends and allies.
+
+Here, certainly, was an immense difference in tone and in terms towards
+the Republic adopted respectively by their great and good friends and
+allies the Kings of France and Great Britain.  It was natural enough that
+Henry, having secretly expressed his most earnest hope that the States
+would move at his side in his broad and general assault upon the House of
+Austria, should impress upon them his conviction, which was a just one,
+that no power in the world was more interested in keeping a Spanish and
+Catholic prince out of the duchies than they were themselves.  But while
+thus taking a bond of them as it were for the entire fulfilment of the
+primary enterprise, he accepted with cordiality, and almost with
+gratitude, their proposition of a close alliance of the Republic with
+himself and with the Protestant powers which James had so superciliously
+rejected.
+
+It would have been difficult to inflict a more petty and, more studied
+insult upon the Republic than did the King of Great Britain at that
+supreme moment by his preposterous claim of sovereign rights over the
+Netherlands.  He would make no treaty with them, he said, but should he
+find it worth while to treat with his royal brother of France, he should
+probably not shut the door in their faces.
+
+Certainly Henry's reply to the remonstrances of the ambassadors in regard
+to the India trade was as moderate as that of James had been haughty and
+peremptory in regard to the herring fishery.  It is however sufficiently
+amusing to see those excellent Hollanders nobly claiming that "the sea
+was as free as air" when the right to take Scotch pilchards was in
+question, while at the very same moment they were earnest for excluding
+their best allies and all the world besides from their East India
+monopoly.  But Isaac Le Maire and Jacques Le Roy had not lain so long
+disguised in Zamet's house in Paris for nothing, nor had Aerssens so
+completely "broke the neck of the French East India Company" as he
+supposed.  A certain Dutch freebooter, however, Simon Danzer by name, a
+native of Dordrecht, who had been alternately in the service of Spain,
+France, and the States, but a general marauder upon all powers, was
+exercising at that moment perhaps more influence on the East India trade
+than any potentate or commonwealth.
+
+He kept the seas just then with four swift-sailing and well-armed
+vessels, that potent skimmer of the ocean, and levied tribute upon
+Protestant and Catholic, Turk or Christian, with great impartiality.
+The King of Spain had sent him letters of amnesty and safe-conduct,
+with large pecuniary offers, if he would enter his service.  The King of
+France had outbid his royal brother and enemy, and implored him to sweep
+the seas under the white flag.
+
+The States' ambassador begged his masters to reflect whether this
+"puissant and experienced corsair" should be permitted to serve Spaniard
+or Frenchman, and whether they could devise no expedient for turning him
+into another track.  "He is now with his fine ships at Marseilles," said
+Aerssens.  "He is sought for in all quarters by the Spaniard and by the
+directors of the new French East India Company, private persons who equip
+vessels of war.  If he is not satisfied with this king's offers, he is
+likely to close with the King of Spain, who offers him 1000 crowns a
+month.  Avarice tickles him, but he is neither Spaniard nor Papist, and I
+fear will be induced to serve with his ships the East India Company, and
+so will return to his piracy, the evil of which will always fall on our
+heads.  If My Lords the States will send me letters of abolition for him,
+in imitation of the French king, on condition of his returning to his
+home in Zealand and quitting the sea altogether, something might be done.
+Otherwise he will be off to Marseilles again, and do more harm to us than
+ever.  Isaac Le Maire is doing as much evil as he can, and one holds
+daily council with him here."
+
+Thus the slippery Simon skimmed the seas from Marseilles to the Moluccas,
+from Java to Mexico, never to be held firmly by Philip, or Henry, or
+Barneveld.  A dissolute but very daring ship's captain, born in Zealand,
+and formerly in the service of the States, out of which he had been
+expelled for many evil deeds, Simon Danzer had now become a professional
+pirate, having his head-quarters chiefly at Algiers.  His English
+colleague Warde stationed himself mainly at Tunis, and both acted
+together in connivance with the pachas of the Turkish government.  They
+with their considerable fleet, one vessel of which mounted sixty guns,
+were the terror of the Mediterranean, extorted tribute from the commerce
+of all nations indifferently, and sold licenses to the greatest
+governments of Europe.  After growing rich with his accumulated booty,
+Simon was inclined to become respectable, a recourse which was always
+open to him--France, England, Spain, the United Provinces, vieing with
+each other to secure him by high rank and pay as an honoured member of
+their national marine.  He appears however to have failed in his plan of
+retiring upon his laurels, having been stabbed in Paris by a man whom he
+had formerly robbed and ruined.
+
+Villeroy, having delivered the letters with his own hands to the
+ambassadors, was asked by them when and where it would be convenient for
+the King to arrange the convention of close alliance.  The Secretary of
+State--in his secret heart anything but kindly disposed for this loving
+union with a republic he detested and with heretics whom he would have
+burned--answered briefly that his Majesty was ready at any time, and that
+it might take place then if they were provided with the necessary powers.
+He said in parting that the States should "have an eye to everything, for
+occasions like the present were irrecoverable."  He then departed, saying
+that the King would receive them in final audience on the following day.
+
+Next morning accordingly Marshal de Boisdaulphin and de Bonoeil came
+with royal coaches to the Hotel Gondy and escorted the ambassadors to the
+Louvre.  On the way they met de Bethune, who had returned solo from the
+Hague bringing despatches for the King and for themselves.  While in the
+antechamber, they had opportunity to read their letters from the States-
+General, his Majesty sending word that he was expecting them with
+impatience, but preferred that they should read the despatches before
+the audience.
+
+They found the King somewhat out of humour.  He expressed himself as
+tolerably well satisfied with the general tenour of the despatches
+brought by de Bethune, but complained loudly of the request now made by
+the States, that the maintenance and other expenses of 4000 French in the
+States' service should be paid in the coming campaign out of the royal
+exchequer.  He declared that this proposition was "a small manifestation
+of ingratitude," that my Lords the, States were "little misers," and that
+such proceedings were "little avaricious tricks" such as he had not
+expected of them.
+
+So far as England was concerned, he said there was a great difference.
+The English took away what he was giving.  He did cheerfully a great deal
+for his friends, he said, and was always ready doubly to repay what they
+did for him.  If, however, the States persisted in this course, he should
+call his troops home again.
+
+The King, as he went on, became more and more excited, and showed decided
+dissatisfaction in his language and manner.  It was not to be wondered
+at, for we have seen how persistently he had been urging that the
+Advocate should come in person with "the bridle on his neck," and now he
+had sent his son-in-law and two colleagues tightly tied up by stringent
+instructions.  And over an above all this, while he was contemplating a
+general war with intention to draw upon the States for unlimited
+supplies, behold, they were haggling for the support of a couple of
+regiments which were virtually their own troops.
+
+There were reasons, however, for this cautiousness besides those
+unfounded, although not entirely chimerical, suspicions as to the King's
+good faith, to which we have alluded.  It should not be forgotten that,
+although Henry had conversed secretly with the States' ambassador at full
+length on his far-reaching plans, with instructions that he should
+confidentially inform the Advocate and demand his co-operation, not a
+word of it had been officially propounded to the States-General, nor to
+the special embassy with whom he was now negotiating.  No treaty of
+alliance offensive or defensive existed between the Kingdom and the
+Republic or between the Republic and any power whatever.  It would have
+been culpable carelessness therefore at this moment for the prime
+minister of the States to have committed his government in writing to
+a full participation in a general assault upon the House of Austria; the
+first step in which would have been a breach of the treaty just concluded
+and instant hostilities with the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.
+
+That these things were in the immediate future was as plain as that night
+would follow day, but the hour had not yet struck for the States to throw
+down the gauntlet.
+
+Hardly two months before, the King, in his treaty with the princes at
+Hall, had excluded both the King of Great Britain and the States-General
+from participation in those arrangements, and it was grave matter for
+consideration, therefore, for the States whether they should allow such
+succour as they might choose to grant the princes to be included in the
+French contingent.  The opportunity for treating as a sovereign power
+with the princes and making friends with them was tempting, but it did
+not seem reasonable to the States that France should make use of them
+in this war without a treaty, and should derive great advantage from
+the alliance, but leave the expense to them.
+
+Henry, on the other hand, forgetting, when it was convenient to him, all
+about the Princess of Conde, his hatred of Spain, and his resolution to
+crush the House of Austria, chose to consider the war as made simply for
+the love of the States-General and to secure them for ever from danger.
+
+The ambassadors replied to the King's invectives with great respect,
+and endeavoured to appease his anger.  They had sent a special despatch
+to their government, they said, in regard to all those matters, setting
+forth all the difficulties that had been raised, but had not wished to
+trouble his Majesty with premature discussions of them.  They did not
+doubt, however, that their High Mightinesses would so conduct this great
+affair as to leave the King no ground of complaint.
+
+Henry then began to talk of the intelligence brought by de Bethune from
+the Hague, especially in regard to the sending of States' troops to
+Dusseldorf and the supply of food for the French army.  He did not
+believe, he said, that the Archdukes would refuse him the passage with
+his forces through their territory, inasmuch as the States' army would be
+on the way to meet him.  In case of any resistance, however, he declared
+his resolution to strike his blow and to cause people to talk of him.
+He had sent his quartermaster-general to examine the passes, who had
+reported that it would be impossible to prevent his Majesty's advance.
+He was also distinctly informed that Marquis Spinola, keeping his places
+garrisoned, could not bring more than 8000 men into the field.  The Duke
+of Bouillon, however, was sending advices that his communications were
+liable to be cut off, and that for this purpose Spinola could set on foot
+about 16,000 infantry and 4000 horse.
+
+If the passage should be allowed by the Archdukes, the King stated his
+intention of establishing magazines for his troops along the whole line
+of march through the Spanish Netherlands and neighbouring districts, and
+to establish and fortify himself everywhere in order to protect his
+supplies and cover his possible retreat.  He was still in doubt, he said,
+whether to demand the passage at once or to wait until he had began to
+move his army.  He was rather inclined to make the request instantly in
+order to gain time, being persuaded that he should receive no answer
+either of consent or refusal.
+
+Leaving all these details, the King then frankly observed that the affair
+of Cleve had a much wider outlook than people thought.  Therefore the
+States must consider well what was to be done to secure the whole work as
+soon as the Cleve business had been successfully accomplished.  Upon this
+subject it was indispensable that he should consult especially with his
+Excellency (Prince Maurice) and some members of the General Assembly,
+whom he wished that My Lords the States-General should depute to the
+army.
+
+"For how much good will it do," said the King, "if we drive off Archduke
+Leopold without establishing the princes in security for the future?
+Nothing is easier than to put the princes in possession.  Every one will
+yield or run away before our forces, but two months after we have
+withdrawn the enemy will return and drive the princes out again.  I
+cannot always be ready to spring out of my kingdom, nor to assemble such
+great armies.  I am getting old, and my army moreover costs me 400,000
+crowns a month, which is enough to exhaust all the treasures of France,
+Spain, Venice, and the States-General together."
+
+He added that, if the present occasion were neglected, the States would
+afterwards bitterly lament and never recover it.  The Pope was very much
+excited, and was sending out his ambassadors everywhere.  Only the
+previous Saturday the new nuncius destined for France had left Rome.
+If My Lords the States would send deputies to the camp with full powers,
+he stood there firm and unchangeable, but if they remained cool in the
+business, he warned them that they would enrage him.
+
+The States must seize the occasion, he repeated.  It was bald behind, and
+must be grasped by the forelock.  It was not enough to have begun well.
+One must end well.  "Finis coronat opus."  It was very easy to speak of a
+league, but a league was not to be made in order to sit with arms tied,
+but to do good work.  The States ought not to suffer that the Germans
+should prove themselves more energetic, more courageous, than themselves.
+
+And again the King vehemently urged the necessity of his Excellency and
+some deputies of the States coming to him "with absolute power" to treat.
+He could not doubt in that event of something solid being accomplished.
+
+"There are three things," he continued, "which cause me to speak freely.
+I am talking with my friends whom I hold dear--yes, dearer, perhaps, than
+they hold themselves.  I am a great king, and say what I choose to say.
+I am old, and know by experience the ways of this world's affairs.  I
+tell you, then, that it is most important that you should come to me
+resolved and firm on all points."
+
+He then requested the ambassadors to make full report of all that he had
+said to their masters, to make the journey as rapidly as possible, in
+order to encourage the States to the great enterprise and to meet his
+wishes.  He required from them, he said, not only activity of the body,
+but labour of the intellect.
+
+He was silent for a few moments, and then spoke again.  "I shall not
+always be here," he said, "nor will you always have Prince Maurice, and a
+few others whose knowledge of your commonwealth is perfect.  My Lords the
+States must be up and doing while they still possess them.  Nest Tuesday
+I shall cause the Queen to be crowned at Saint-Denis; the following
+Thursday she will make her entry into Paris.  Next day, Friday, I shall
+take my departure.  At the end of this month I shall cross the Meuse at
+Mezieres or in that neighbourhood."
+
+He added that he should write immediately to Holland, to urge upon his
+Excellency and the States to be ready to make the junction of their army
+with his forces without delay.  He charged the ambassadors to assure
+their High Mightinesses that he was and should remain their truest
+friend, their dearest neighbour.  He then said a few gracious and cordial
+words to each of them, warmly embraced each, and bade them all farewell.
+
+The next day was passed by the ambassadors in paying and receiving
+farewell visits, and on Saturday, the 8th, they departed from Paris,
+being escorted out of the gate by the Marshal de Boisdaulphin, with a
+cavalcade of noblemen.  They slept that night at Saint Denis, and then
+returned to Holland by the way of  Calais and Rotterdam, reaching the
+Hague on the 16th of May.
+
+I make no apology for the minute details thus given of the proceedings of
+this embassy, and especially of the conversations of Henry.
+
+The very words of those conversations were taken down on the spot by the
+commissioners who heard them, and were carefully embodied in their report
+made to the States-General on their return, from which I have transcribed
+them.
+
+It was a memorable occasion.  The great king--for great he was, despite
+his numerous vices and follies--stood there upon the threshold of a vast
+undertaking, at which the world, still half incredulous, stood gazing,
+half sick with anxiety.  He relied on his own genius and valour chiefly,
+and after these on the brain of Barneveld and the sword of Maurice.  Nor
+was his confidence misplaced.
+
+But let the reader observe the date of the day when those striking
+utterances were made, and which have never before been made public.  It
+was Thursday, the 6th May.  "I shall not always be here," said the King
+.  .  .  .  .  "I cannot be ready at any moment to spring out of my
+kingdom."  .  .  .  "Friday of next week I take my departure."
+
+How much of heroic pathos in Henry's attitude at this supreme moment!
+How mournfully ring those closing words of his address to the
+ambassadors!
+
+The die was cast.  A letter drawn up by the Duc de Sully was sent to
+Archduke Albert by the King.
+
+"My brother," he said; "Not being able to refuse my best allies and
+confederates the help which they have asked of me against those who wish
+to trouble them in the succession to the duchies and counties of Cleve,
+Julich, Mark, Berg, Ravensberg, and Ravenstein, I am advancing towards
+them with my army.  As my road leads me through your country, I desire to
+notify you thereof, and to know whether or not I am to enter as a friend
+or enemy."
+
+Such was the draft as delivered to the Secretary of State; "and as such
+it was sent," said Sully, "unless Villeroy changed it, as he had a great
+desire to do."
+
+Henry was mistaken in supposing that the Archduke would leave the letter
+without an answer.  A reply was sent in due time, and the permission
+demanded was not refused.  For although France was now full of military
+movement, and the regiments everywhere were hurrying hourly to the places
+of rendezvous, though the great storm at last was ready to burst, the
+Archdukes made no preparations for resistance, and lapped themselves in
+fatal security that nothing was intended but an empty demonstration.
+
+Six thousand Swiss newly levied, with 20,000 French infantry and 6000
+horse, were waiting for Henry to place himself at their head at Mezieres.
+Twelve thousand foot and 2000 cavalry, including the French and English
+contingents--a splendid army, led by Prince Maurice--were ready to march
+from Holland to Dusseldorf.  The army of the princes under Prince
+Christian of Anhalt numbered 10,000 men.  The last scruples of the
+usually unscrupulous Charles Emmanuel had been overcome, and the Duke was
+quite ready to act, 25,000 strong, with Marshal de Lesdiguieres, in the
+Milanese; while Marshal de la Force was already at the head of his forces
+in the Pyrenees, amounting to 12,000 foot and 2000 horse.
+
+Sully had already despatched his splendid trains of artillery to the
+frontier.  "Never was seen in France, and perhaps never will be seen
+there again, artillery more complete and better furnished,"  said the
+Duke, thinking probably that artillery had reached the climax of perfect
+destructiveness in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
+
+His son, the Marquis de Rosny, had received the post of grand master of
+artillery, and placed himself at its head.  His father was to follow as
+its chief, carrying with him as superintendent of finance a cash-box of
+eight millions.
+
+The King had appointed his wife, Mary de' Medici, regent, with an eminent
+council.
+
+The new nuncius had been requested to present himself with his letters
+of credence in the camp.  Henry was unwilling that he should enter Paris,
+being convinced that he came to do his best, by declamation, persuasion,
+and intrigue, to paralyse the enterprise.  Sully's promises to Ubaldini,
+the former nuncius, that his Holiness should be made king, however
+flattering to Paul V., had not prevented his representatives from
+vigorously denouncing Henry's monstrous scheme to foment heresy and
+encourage rebellion.
+
+The King's chagrin at the cautious limitations imposed upon the States'
+special embassy was, so he hoped, to be removed by full conferences in
+the camp.  Certainly he had shown in the most striking manner the respect
+he felt for the States, and the confidence he reposed in them.
+
+"In the reception of your embassy," wrote Aerssens to the Advocate,
+"certainly the King has so loosened the strap of his affection that he
+has reserved nothing by which he could put the greatest king in the world
+above your level."
+
+He warned the States, however, that Henry had not found as much in their
+propositions as the common interest had caused him to promise himself.
+"Nevertheless he informs me in confidence," said Aerssens, "that he will
+engage himself in nothing without you; nay, more, he has expressly told
+me that he could hardly accomplish his task without your assistance, and
+it was for our sakes alone that he has put himself into this position and
+incurred this great expense."
+
+Some days later he informed Barneveld that he would leave to van der Myle
+and his colleagues the task of describing the great dissatisfaction of
+the King at the letters brought by de Bethune.  He told him in confidence
+that the States must equip the French regiments and put them in marching
+order if they wished to preserve Henry's friendship.  He added that since
+the departure of the special embassy the King had been vehemently and
+seriously urging that Prince Maurice, Count Lewis William, Barneveld, and
+three or four of the most qualified deputies of the States-General,
+entirely authorized to treat for the common safety, should meet with him
+in the territory of Julich on a fixed day.
+
+The crisis was reached.  The King stood fully armed, thoroughly prepared,
+with trustworthy allies at his side, disposing of overwhelming forces
+ready to sweep down with irresistible strength upon the House of Austria,
+which, as he said and the States said, aspired to give the law to the
+whole world.  Nothing was left to do save, as the Ambassador said, to
+"uncouple the dogs of war and let them run."
+
+What preparations had Spain and the Empire, the Pope and the League,
+set on foot to beat back even for a moment the overwhelming onset?
+None whatever.  Spinola in the Netherlands, Fuentes in Milan, Bucquoy and
+Lobkowitz and Lichtenstein in Prague, had hardly the forces of a moderate
+peace establishment at their disposal, and all the powers save France and
+the States were on the verge of bankruptcy.
+
+Even James of Great Britain--shuddering at the vast thundercloud which
+had stretched itself over Christendom growing blacker and blacker,
+precisely at this moment, in which he had proved to his own satisfaction
+that the peace just made would perpetually endure--even James did not
+dare to traverse the designs of the king whom he feared, and the republic
+which he hated, in favour of his dearly loved Spain.  Sweden, Denmark,
+the Hanse Towns, were in harmony with France, Holland, Savoy, and the
+whole Protestant force of Germany--a majority both in population and
+resources of the whole empire.  What army, what combination, what device,
+what talisman, could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy, from
+the impending ruin?
+
+A sudden, rapid, conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+a result as anything could be in the future of human affairs.
+
+On the 14th or 15th day of May, as he had just been informing the States'
+ambassadors, Henry meant to place himself at the head of his army.  That
+was the moment fixed by himself for "taking his departure."
+
+And now the ides of May had come--but not gone.
+
+In the midst of all the military preparations with which Paris had been
+resounding, the arrangements for the Queen's coronation had been
+simultaneously going forward.  Partly to give check in advance to the
+intrigues which would probably at a later date be made by Conde,
+supported by the power of Spain, to invalidate the legitimacy of the
+Dauphin, but more especially perhaps to further and to conceal what the
+faithful Sully called the "damnable artifices" of the Queen's intimate
+councillors--sinister designs too dark to be even whispered at that
+epoch, and of which history, during the lapse of more than two centuries
+and a half, has scarcely dared to speak above its breath--it was deemed
+all important that the coronation should take place.
+
+A certain astrologer, Thomassin by name, was said to have bidden the King
+to beware the middle of the next month of May.  Henry had tweaked the
+soothsayer by the beard and made him dance twice or thrice about the
+room.  To the Duc de Vendome expressing great anxiety in regard to
+Thomassin, Henry replied, "The astrologer is an old fool, and you are a
+young fool."  A certain prophetess called Pasithea had informed the Queen
+that the King could not survive his fifty-seventh year.  She was much in
+the confidence of Mary de' Medici, who had insisted this year on her
+returning to Paris.  Henry, who was ever chafing and struggling to escape
+the invisible and dangerous net which he felt closing about him, and who
+connected the sorceress with all whom he most loathed among the intimate
+associates of the Queen, swore a mighty oath that she should not show her
+face again at court.  "My heart presages that some signal disaster will
+befall me on this coronation.  Concini and his wife are urging the Queen
+obstinately to send for this fanatic.  If she should come, there is no
+doubt that my wife and I shall squabble well about her.  If I discover
+more about these private plots of hers with Spain, I shall be in a mighty
+passion."  And the King then assured the faithful minister of his
+conviction that all the jealousy affected by the Queen in regard to the
+Princess of Conde was but a veil to cover dark designs.  It was necessary
+in the opinion of those who governed her, the vile Concini and his wife,
+that there should be some apparent and flagrant cause of quarrel.  The
+public were to receive payment in these pretexts for want of better coin.
+Henry complained that even Sully and all the world besides attributed to
+jealousy that which was really the effect of a most refined malice.
+
+And the minister sometimes pauses in the midst of these revelations made
+in his old age, and with self-imposed and shuddering silence intimates
+that there are things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful to
+be breathed.
+
+Henry had an invincible repugnance to that coronation on which the Queen
+had set her heart.  Nothing could be more pathetic than the isolated
+position in which he found himself, standing thus as he did on the
+threshold of a mighty undertaking in which he was the central figure,
+an object for the world to gaze upon with palpitating interest.  At his
+hearth in the Louvre were no household gods.  Danger lurked behind every
+tapestry in that magnificent old palace.  A nameless dread dogged his
+footsteps through those resounding corridors.
+
+And by an exquisite refinement in torture the possible father of several
+of his children not only dictated to the Queen perpetual outbreaks of
+frantic jealousy against her husband, but moved her to refuse with
+suspicion any food and drink offered her by his hands.  The Concini's
+would even with unparalleled and ingenious effrontery induce her to make
+use of the kitchen arrangements in their apartments for the preparation
+of her daily meals?
+
+Driven from house and home, Henry almost lived at the Arsenal.  There he
+would walk for hours in the long alleys of the garden, discussing with
+the great financier and soldier his vast, dreamy, impracticable plans.
+Strange combination of the hero, the warrior, the voluptuary, the sage,
+and the schoolboy--it would be difficult to find in the whole range of
+history a more human, a more attractive, a more provoking, a less
+venerable character.
+
+Haunted by omens, dire presentiments, dark suspicions with and without
+cause, he was especially averse from the coronation to which in a moment
+of weakness he had given his consent.
+
+Sitting in Sully's cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly
+provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or
+starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul
+hours long to his one confidential minister.  "Ah, my friend, how this
+sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart
+tells me that some misfortune is to befall me.  By God I shall die in
+this city, I shall never go out of it; I see very well that they are
+finding their last resource in my death.  Ah, accursed coronation!  thou
+wilt be the, cause of my death."
+
+So many times did he give utterance to these sinister forebodings that
+Sully implored him at last for leave to countermand the whole ceremony
+notwithstanding the great preparations which had been made for the
+splendid festival.  "Yes, yes," replied the King, "break up this
+coronation at once.  Let me hear no more of it.  Then I shall have my
+mind cured of all these impressions.  I shall leave the town and fear
+nothing."
+
+He then informed his friend that he had received intimations that he
+should lose his life at the first magnificent festival he should give,
+and that he should die in a carriage.  Sully admitted that he had often,
+when in a carriage with him, been amazed at his starting and crying out
+at the slightest shock, having so often seen him intrepid among guns and
+cannon, pikes and naked swords.
+
+The Duke went to the Queen three days in succession, and with passionate
+solicitations and arguments and almost upon his knees implored her to
+yield to the King's earnest desire, and renounce for the time at least
+the coronation.  In vain.  Mary de' Medici was obdurate as marble to his
+prayers.
+
+The coronation was fixed for Thursday, the 13th May, two days later than
+the time originally appointed when the King conversed with the States'
+ambassadors.  On the following Sunday was to be the splendid and solemn
+entrance of the crowned Queen.  On the Monday, Henry, postponing likewise
+for two days his original plan of departure, would leave for the army.
+
+Meantime there were petty annoyances connected with the details of the
+coronation.  Henry had set his heart on having his legitimatized
+children, the offspring of the fair Gabrielle, take their part in the
+ceremony on an equal footing with the princes of the blood.  They were
+not entitled to wear the lilies of France upon their garments, and the
+King was solicitous that "the Count"--as Soissons, brother of Prince
+Conti and uncle of Conde, was always called--should dispense with those
+ensigns for his wife upon this solemn occasion, and that the other
+princesses of the blood should do the same.  Thus there would be no
+appearance of inferiority on the part of the Duchess of Vendome.
+
+The Count protested that he would have his eyes torn out of his head
+rather than submit to an arrangement which would do him so much shame.
+He went to the Queen and urged upon her that to do this would likewise be
+an injury to her children, the Dukes of Orleans and of Anjou.  He refused
+flatly to appear or allow his wife to appear except in the costume
+befitting their station.  The King on his part was determined not to
+abandon his purpose.  He tried to gain over the Count by the most
+splendid proposals, offering him the command of the advance-guard of the
+army, or the lieutenancy-general of France in the absence of the King,
+30,000 crowns for his equipment and an increase of his pension if he
+would cause his wife to give up the fleurs-de-lys on this occasion.
+The alternative was to be that, if she insisted upon wearing them,
+his Majesty would never look upon him again with favourable eyes.
+
+The Count never hesitated, but left Paris, refusing to appear at the
+ceremony.  The King was in a towering passion, for to lose the presence
+of this great prince of the blood at a solemnity expressly intended as a
+demonstration against the designs hatching by the first of all the
+princes of the blood under patronage of Spain was a severe blow to his
+pride and a check to his policy.'
+
+Yet it was inconceivable that he could at such a moment commit so
+superfluous and unmeaning a blunder.  He had forced Conde into exile,
+intrigue with the enemy, and rebellion, by open and audacious efforts to
+destroy his domestic peace, and now he was willing to alienate one of his
+most powerful subjects in order to place his bastards on a level with
+royalty.  While it is sufficiently amusing to contemplate this proposed
+barter of a chief command in a great army or the lieutenancy-general of a
+mighty kingdom at the outbreak of a general European war against a bit of
+embroidery on the court dress of a lady, yet it is impossible not to
+recognize something ideal and chivalrous from his own point of view in
+the refusal of Soissons to renounce those emblems of pure and high
+descent, those haughty lilies of St. Louis, against any bribes of place
+and pelf however dazzling.
+
+The coronation took place on Thursday, 13th May, with the pomp and
+glitter becoming great court festivals; the more pompous and glittering
+the more the monarch's heart was wrapped in gloom.  The representatives
+of the great powers were conspicuous in the procession; Aerssens, the
+Dutch ambassador, holding a foremost place.  The ambassadors of Spain and
+Venice as usual squabbled about precedence and many other things, and
+actually came to fisticuffs, the fight lasting a long time and ending
+somewhat to the advantage of the Venetian.  But the sacrament was over,
+and Mary de' Medici was crowned Queen of France and Regent of the Kingdom
+during the absence of the sovereign with his army.
+
+Meantime there had been mysterious warnings darker and more distinct than
+the babble of the soothsayer Thomassin or the ravings of the lunatic
+Pasithea.  Count Schomberg, dining at the Arsenal with Sully, had been
+called out to converse with Mademoiselle de Gournay, who implored that a
+certain Madame d'Escomans might be admitted to audience of the King.
+That person, once in direct relations with the Marchioness of Verneuil,
+the one of Henry's mistresses who most hated him, affirmed that a man
+from the Duke of Epernon's country was in Paris, agent of a conspiracy
+seeking the King's life.
+
+The woman not enjoying a very reputable character found it impossible to
+obtain a hearing, although almost frantic with her desire to save her
+sovereign's life.  The Queen observed that it was a wicked woman, who was
+accusing all the world, and perhaps would accuse her too.
+
+The fatal Friday came.  Henry drove out, in his carriage to see the
+preparations making for the triumphal entrance of the Queen into Paris on
+the following Sunday.  What need to repeat the tragic, familiar tale?
+The coach was stopped by apparent accident in the narrow street de la
+Feronniere, and Francis Ravaillac, standing on the wheel, drove his knife
+through the monarch's heart.  The Duke of Epernon, sitting at his side,
+threw his cloak over the body and ordered the carriage back to the
+Louvre.
+
+"They have killed him, 'e ammazato,'" cried Concini (so says tradition),
+thrusting his head into the Queen's bedchamber.
+
+     [Michelet, 197.  It is not probable that the documents concerning
+     the trial, having been so carefully suppressed from the beginning,
+     especially the confession dictated to Voisin--who wrote it kneeling
+     on the ground, and was perhaps so appalled at its purport that he
+     was afraid to write it legibly--will ever see the light.  I add in
+     the Appendix some contemporary letters of persons, as likely as any
+     one to know what could be known, which show how dreadful were the
+     suspicions which men entertained, and which they hardly ventured to
+     whisper to each other].
+
+That blow had accomplished more than a great army could have done, and
+Spain now reigned in Paris.  The House of Austria, without making any
+military preparations, had conquered, and the great war of religion and
+politics was postponed for half a dozen years.
+
+This history has no immediate concern with solving the mysteries of that
+stupendous crime.  The woman who had sought to save the King's life now
+denounced Epernon as the chief murderer, and was arrested, examined,
+accused of lunacy, proved to be perfectly sane, and, persisting in her
+statements with perfect coherency, was imprisoned for life for her pains;
+the Duke furiously demanding her instant execution.
+
+The documents connected with the process were carefully suppressed.  The
+assassin, tortured and torn by four horses, was supposed to have revealed
+nothing and to have denied the existence of accomplices.
+
+The great accused were too omnipotent to be dealt with by humble accusers
+or by convinced but powerless tribunals.  The trial was all mystery,
+hugger-mugger, horror.  Yet the murderer is known to have dictated to the
+Greflier Voisin, just before expiring on the Greve, a declaration which
+that functionary took down in a handwriting perhaps purposely illegible.
+
+Two centuries and a half have passed away, yet the illegible original
+record is said to exist, to have been plainly read, and to contain the
+names of the Queen and the Duke of Epernon.
+
+Twenty-six years before, the pistol of Balthasar Gerard had destroyed the
+foremost man in Europe and the chief of a commonwealth just struggling
+into existence.  Yet Spain and Rome, the instigators and perpetrators of
+the crime, had not reaped the victory which they had the right to expect.
+The young republic, guided by Barneveld and loyal to the son of the
+murdered stadholder, was equal to the burthen suddenly descending upon
+its shoulders.  Instead of despair there had been constancy.  Instead of
+distracted counsels there had been heroic union of heart and hand.
+Rather than bend to Rome and grovel to Philip, it had taken its
+sovereignty in its hands, offered it successively, without a thought of
+self-aggrandizement on the part of its children, to the crowns of France
+and Great Britain, and, having been repulsed by both, had learned after
+fiery trials and incredible exertions to assert its own high and foremost
+place among the independent powers of the world.
+
+And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic, the wretched but
+unflinching instrument of a great conspiracy, had at a blow decapitated
+France.  No political revolution could be much more thorough than that
+which had been accomplished in a moment of time by Francis Ravaillac.
+
+On the 14th of May, France, while in spiritual matters obedient to the
+Pope, stood at the head of the forces of Protestantism throughout Europe,
+banded together to effect the downfall of the proud house of Austria,
+whose fortunes and fate were synonymous with Catholicism.  The Baltic
+powers, the majority of the Teutonic races, the Kingdom of Britain, the
+great Republic of the Netherlands, the northernmost and most warlike
+governments of Italy, all stood at the disposition of the warrior-king.
+Venice, who had hitherto, in the words of a veteran diplomatist, "shunned
+to look a league or a confederation in the face, if there was any
+Protestant element in it, as if it had been the head of Medusa," had
+formally forbidden the passage of troops northwards to the relief of the
+assailed power.  Savoy, after direful hesitations, had committed herself
+body and soul to the great enterprise.  Even the Pope, who feared the
+overshadowing personality of Henry, and was beginning to believe his
+house's private interests more likely to flourish under the protection of
+the French than the Spanish king, was wavering in his fidelity to Spain
+and tempted by French promises: If he should prove himself incapable of
+effecting a pause in the great crusade, it was doubtful on which side he
+would ultimately range himself; for it was at least certain that the new
+Catholic League, under the chieftainship of Maximilian of Bavaria, was
+resolved not to entangle its fortunes inextricably with those of the
+Austrian house.
+
+The great enterprise, first unfolding itself with the episode of Cleve
+and Berg and whimsically surrounding itself with the fantastic idyl of
+the Princess of Conde, had attained vast and misty proportions in the
+brain of its originator.  Few political visions are better known in
+history than the "grand design" of Henry for rearranging the map of the
+world at the moment when, in the middle of May, he was about to draw his
+sword.  Spain reduced to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, but
+presented with both the Indies, with all America and the whole Orient in
+fee; the Empire taken from Austria and given to Bavaria; a constellation
+of States in Italy, with the Pope for president-king; throughout the rest
+of Christendom a certain number of republics, of kingdoms, of religions--
+a great confederation of the world, in short--with the most Christian
+king for its dictator and protector, and a great Amphictyonic council to
+regulate all disputes by solemn arbitration, and to make war in the
+future impossible, such in little was his great design.
+
+Nothing could be more humane, more majestic, more elaborate, more
+utterly preposterous.  And all this gigantic fabric had passed away
+in an instant--at one stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a
+carriage wheel.
+
+Most pitiful was the condition of France on the day after, and for years
+after, the murder of the King.  Not only was the kingdom for the, time
+being effaced from the roll of nations, so far as external relations were
+concerned, but it almost ceased to be a kingdom.  The ancient monarchy
+of Hugh Capet, of Saint-Louis, of Henry of France and Navarre, was
+transformed into a turbulent, self-seeking, quarrelsome, pillaging,
+pilfering democracy of grandees.  The Queen-Regent was tossed hither and
+thither at the sport of the winds and waves which shifted every hour in
+that tempestuous court.
+
+No man pretended to think of the State.  Every man thought only of
+himself.  The royal exchequer was plundered with a celerity and cynical
+recklessness such as have been rarely seen in any age or country.  The
+millions so carefully hoarded by Sully, and exhibited so dramatically
+by that great minister to the enraptured eyes of his sovereign; that
+treasure in the Bastille on which Henry relied for payment of the armies
+with which he was to transform the world, all disappeared in a few weeks
+to feed the voracious maw of courtiers, paramours, and partisans!
+
+The Queen showered gold like water upon her beloved Concini that he might
+purchase his Marquisate of Ancre, and the charge of first gentleman of
+the court from Bouillon; that he might fit himself for the government of
+Picardy; that he might elevate his marquisate into a dukedom.  Conde,
+having no further reason to remain in exile, received as a gift from the
+trembling Mary de' Medici the magnificent Hotel Gondy, where the Dutch
+ambassadors had so recently been lodged, for which she paid 65,000
+crowns, together with 25,000 crowns to furnish it, 50,000 crowns to pay
+his debts, 50,000 more as yearly pension.
+
+He claimed double, and was soon at sword's point with the Queen in spite
+of her lavish bounty.
+
+Epernon, the true murderer of Henry, trampled on courts of justice and
+councils of ministers, frightened the court by threatening to convert
+his possession of Metz into an independent sovereignty, as Balagny had
+formerly seized upon Cambray, smothered for ever the process of
+Ravaillac, caused those to be put to death or immured for life in
+dungeons who dared to testify to his complicity in the great crime,
+and strode triumphantly over friends and enemies throughout France,
+although so crippled by the gout that he could scarcely walk up stairs.
+
+There was an end to the triumvirate.  Sully's influence was gone for
+ever.  The other two dropped the mask.  The Chancellor and Villeroy
+revealed themselves to be what they secretly had always been--humble
+servants and stipendiaries of Spain.  The formal meetings of the council
+were of little importance, and were solemn, tearful, and stately; draped
+in woe for the great national loss.  In the private cabinet meetings in
+the entresol of the Louvre, where the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador
+held counsel with Epernon and Villeroy and Jeannin and Sillery, the tone
+was merry and loud; the double Spanish marriage and confusion to the
+Dutch being the chief topics of consultation.
+
+But the anarchy grew day by day into almost hopeless chaos.  There was no
+satisfying the princes of the blood nor the other grandees.  Conde, whose
+reconciliation with the Princess followed not long after the death of
+Henry and his own return to France, was insatiable in his demands for
+money, power, and citadels of security.  Soissons, who might formerly
+have received the lieutenancy-general of the kingdom by sacrificing the
+lilies on his wife's gown, now disputed for that office with his elder
+brother Conti, the Prince claiming it by right of seniority, the Count
+denouncing Conti as deaf, dumb, and imbecile, till they drew poniards on
+each other in the very presence of the Queen;  while Conde on one
+occasion, having been refused the citadels which he claimed, Blaye and
+Chateau Trompette, threw his cloak over his nose and put on his hat while
+the Queen was speaking, and left the council in a fury, declaring that
+Villeroy and the chancellor were traitors, and that he would have them
+both soundly cudgelled.  Guise, Lorraine, Epernon, Bouillon, and other
+great lords always appeared in the streets of Paris at the head of three,
+four, or five hundred mounted and armed retainers; while the Queen in her
+distraction gave orders to arm the Paris mob to the number of fifty
+thousand, and to throw chains across the streets to protect herself and
+her son against the turbulent nobles.
+
+Sully, hardly knowing to what saint to burn his candle, being forced to
+resign his great posts, was found for a time in strange political
+combination with the most ancient foes of his party and himself.  The
+kaleidoscope whirling with exasperating quickness showed ancient Leaguers
+and Lorrainers banded with and protecting Huguenots against the Crown,
+while princes of the blood, hereditary patrons and chiefs of the
+Huguenots, became partisans and stipendiaries of Spain.
+
+It is easy to see that circumstances like these rendered the position of
+the Dutch commonwealth delicate and perilous.
+
+Sully informed Aerssens and van der Myle, who had been sent back to Paris
+on special mission very soon after the death of the King, that it took a
+hundred hours now to accomplish a single affair, whereas under Henry a
+hundred affairs were transacted in a single hour.  But Sully's sun had
+set, and he had few business conferences now with the ambassadors.
+
+Villeroy and the Chancellor had fed fat their ancient grudge to the once
+omnipotent minister, and had sworn his political ruin.  The old secretary
+of state had held now complete control of the foreign alliances and
+combinations of France, and the Dutch ambassadors could be under no
+delusion as to the completeness of the revolution.
+
+"You will find a passion among the advisers of the Queen," said Villeroy
+to Aerssens and van der Myle, "to move in diametrical opposition to the
+plans of the late king."  And well might the ancient Leaguer and present
+pensionary of Spain reveal this foremost fact in a policy of which he was
+in secret the soul.  He wept profusely when he first received Francis
+Aerssens, but after these "useless tears," as the Envoy called them, he
+soon made it manifest that there was no more to be expected of France, in
+the great project which its government had so elaborately set on foot.
+
+Villeroy was now sixty-six years of age, and had been secretary of state
+during forty-two years and under four kings.  A man of delicate health,
+frail body, methodical habits, capacity for routine, experience in
+political intrigue, he was not personally as greedy of money as many of
+his contemporaries, and was not without generosity; but he loved power,
+the Pope, and the House of Austria.  He was singularly reserved in
+public, practised successfully the talent of silence, and had at last
+arrived at the position he most coveted, the virtual presidency of the
+council, and saw the men he most hated beneath his feet.
+
+At the first interview of Aerssens with the Queen-Regent she was drowned
+in tears, and could scarcely articulate an intelligible sentence.  So far
+as could be understood she expressed her intention of carrying out the
+King's plans, of maintaining the old alliances, of protecting both
+religions.  Nothing, however, could be more preposterous than such
+phrases.  Villeroy, who now entirely directed the foreign affairs of the
+kingdom, assured the Ambassador that France was much more likely to apply
+to the States for assistance than render them aid in any enterprise
+whatever.  "There is no doubt," said Aerssens, "that the Queen is
+entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests."  Villeroy, whom Henry
+was wont to call the pedagogue of the council, went about sighing
+dismally, wishing himself dead, and perpetually ejaculating, "Ho! poor
+France, how much hast thou still to suffer!"  In public he spoke of
+nothing but of union, and of the necessity of carrying out the designs of
+the King, instructing the docile Queen to hold the same language.  In
+private he was quite determined to crush those designs for ever, and
+calmly advised the Dutch government to make an amicable agreement with
+the Emperor in regard to the Cleve affair as soon as possible; a treaty
+which would have been shameful for France and the possessory princes, and
+dangerous, if not disastrous, for the States-General.  "Nothing but
+feverish and sick counsels," he said, "could be expected from France,
+which had now lost its vigour and could do nothing but groan."
+
+Not only did the French council distinctly repudiate the idea of doing
+anything more for the princes than had been stipulated by the treaty of
+Hall--that is to say, a contingent of 8000 foot and 2000 horse--but many
+of them vehemently maintained that the treaty, being a personal one of
+the late king, was dead with him?  The duty of France was now in their
+opinion to withdraw from these mad schemes as soon as possible, to make
+peace with the House of Austria without delay, and to cement the
+friendship by the double marriages.
+
+Bouillon, who at that moment hated Sully as much as the most vehement
+Catholic could do, assured the Dutch envoy that the government was, under
+specious appearances, attempting to deceive the States; a proposition
+which it needed not the evidence of that most intriguing duke to make
+manifest to so astute a politician; particularly as there was none more
+bent on playing the most deceptive game than Bouillon.  There would be no
+troops to send, he said, and even if there were, there would be no
+possibility of agreeing on a chief.  The question of religion would at
+once arise.  As for himself, the Duke protested that he would not accept
+the command if offered him.  He would not agree to serve under the Prince
+of Anhalt, nor would he for any consideration in the world leave the
+court at that moment.  At the same time Aerssens was well aware that
+Bouillon, in his quality of first marshal of France, a Protestant and a
+prince having great possessions on the frontier, and the brother-in-law
+of Prince Maurice, considered himself entitled to the command of the
+troops should they really be sent, and was very indignant at the idea of
+its being offered to any one else.
+
+     [Aerssens worked assiduously, two hours long on one occasion, to
+     effect a reconciliation between the two great Protestant chiefs, but
+     found Bouillon's demands "so shameful and unreasonable" that he
+     felt obliged to renounce all further attempts.  In losing Sully from
+     the royal councils, the States' envoy acknowledged that the Republic
+     had lost everything that could be depended on at the French court.
+     "All the others are time-serving friends," he said, "or saints
+     without miracles."--Aerssens to Barneveld, 11 June, 1610. ]
+
+He advised earnestly therefore that the States should make a firm demand
+for money instead of men, specifying the amount that might be considered
+the equivalent of the number of troops originally stipulated.
+
+It is one of the most singular spectacles in history; France sinking into
+the background of total obscurity in an instant of time, at one blow of a
+knife, while the Republic, which she had been patronizing, protecting,
+but keeping always in a subordinate position while relying implicitly
+upon its potent aid, now came to the front, and held up on its strong
+shoulders an almost desperate cause.  Henry had been wont to call the
+States-General "his courage and his right arm," but he had always
+strictly forbidden them to move an inch in advance of him, but ever to
+follow his lead, and to take their directions from himself.  They were
+a part, and an essential one, in his vast designs; but France, or he
+who embodied France, was the great providence, the destiny, the all-
+directing, all-absorbing spirit, that was to remodel and control the
+whole world.  He was dead, and France and her policy were already in a
+state of rapid decomposition.
+
+Barneveld wrote to encourage and sustain the sinking state.  "Our courage
+is rising in spite and in consequence of the great misfortune," he said.
+He exhorted the Queen to keep her kingdom united, and assured her that My
+Lords the States would maintain themselves against all who dared to
+assail them.  He offered in their name the whole force of the Republic to
+take vengeance on those who had procured the assassination, and to defend
+the young king and the Queen-Mother against all who might make any
+attempt against their authority.  He further declared, in language not to
+be mistaken, that the States would never abandon the princes and their
+cause.
+
+This was the earliest indication on the part of the Advocate of the
+intention of the Republic--so long as it should be directed by his
+counsels--to support the cause of the young king, helpless and incapable
+as he was, and directed for the time being by a weak and wicked mother,
+against the reckless and depraved grandees, who were doing their best to
+destroy the unity and the independence of France, Cornelis van der Myle
+was sent back to Paris on special mission of condolence and comfort from
+the States-General to the sorely afflicted kingdom.
+
+On the 7th of June, accompanied by Aerssens, he had a long interview with
+Villeroy.  That minister, as usual, wept profusely, and said that in
+regard to Cleve it was impossible for France to carry out the designs of
+the late king.  He then listened to what the ambassadors had to urge, and
+continued to express his melancholy by weeping.  Drying his tears for a
+time, he sought by a long discourse to prove that France during this
+tender minority of the King would be incapable of pursuing the policy of
+his father.  It would be even too burthensome to fulfil the Treaty of
+Hall.  The friends of the crown, he said, had no occasion to further it,
+and it would be much better to listen to propositions for a treaty.
+Archduke Albert was content not to interfere in the quarrel if the Queen
+would likewise abstain; Leopold's forces were altogether too weak to make
+head against the army of the princes, backed by the power of My Lords the
+States, and Julich was neither strong nor well garrisoned.  He concluded
+by calmly proposing that the States should take the matter in hand by
+themselves alone, in order to lighten the burthen of France, whose vigour
+had been cut in two by that accursed knife.
+
+A more sneaking and shameful policy was never announced by the minister
+of a great kingdom.  Surely it might seem that Ravaillac had cut in twain
+not the vigour only but the honour and the conscience of France.  But the
+envoys, knowing in their hearts that they were talking not with a French
+but a Spanish secretary of state, were not disposed to be the dupes of
+his tears or his blandishments.
+
+They reminded him that the Queen-Regent and her ministers since the
+murder of the King had assured the States-General and the princes of
+their firm intention to carry out the Treaty of Hall, and they observed
+that they had no authority to talk of any negotiation.  The affair of the
+duchies was not especially the business of the States, and the Secretary
+was well aware that they had promised their succour on the express
+condition that his Majesty and his army should lead the way, and that
+they should follow.  This was very far from the plan now suggested, that
+they should do it all, which would be quite out of the question.  France
+had a strong army, they said, and it would be better to use it than to
+efface herself so pitiably.  The proposition of abstention on the part of
+the Archduke was a delusion intended only to keep France out of the
+field.
+
+Villeroy replied by referring to English affairs.  King James, he said,
+was treating them perfidiously.  His first letters after the murder had
+been good, but by the following ones England seemed to wish to put her
+foot on France's throat, in order to compel her to sue for an alliance.
+The British ministers had declared their resolve not to carry out that
+convention of alliance, although it had been nearly concluded in the
+lifetime of the late king, unless the Queen would bind herself to make
+good to the King of Great Britain that third part of the subsidies
+advanced by France to the States which had been furnished on English
+account!
+
+This was the first announcement of a grievance devised by the politicians
+now governing France to make trouble for the States with that kingdom and
+with Great Britain likewise.  According to a treaty made at Hampton Court
+by Sully during his mission to England at the accession of James, it had
+been agreed that one-third of the moneys advanced by France in aid of the
+United Provinces should be credited to the account of Great Britain, in
+diminution of the debt for similar assistance rendered by Elizabeth to
+Henry.  In regard to this treaty the States had not been at all
+consulted, nor did they acknowledge the slightest obligation in regard to
+it.  The subsidies in men and in money provided for them both by France
+and by England in their struggle for national existence had always been
+most gratefully acknowledged by the Republic, but it had always been
+perfectly understood that these expenses had been incurred by each
+kingdom out of an intelligent and thrifty regard for its own interest.
+Nothing could be more ridiculous than to suppose France and England
+actuated by disinterested sympathy and benevolence when assisting the
+Netherland people in its life-and-death struggle against the dire and
+deadly enemy of both crowns.  Henry protested that, while adhering to
+Rome in spiritual matters, his true alliances and strength had been found
+in the United Provinces, in Germany, and in Great Britain.  As for the
+States, he had spent sixteen millions of livres, he said, in acquiring a
+perfect benevolence on the part of the States to his person.  It was the
+best bargain he had ever made, and he should take care to preserve it at
+any cost whatever, for he considered himself able, when closely united
+with them, to bid defiance to all the kings in Europe together.
+
+Yet it was now the settled policy of the Queen-Regent's council,
+so far as the knot of politicians guided by the Nuncius and the Spanish
+ambassador in the entresols of the Louvre could be called a council, to
+force the States to refund that third, estimated at something between
+three and four million livres, which France had advanced them on account
+of Great Britain.
+
+Villeroy told the two ambassadors at this interview that, if Great
+Britain continued to treat the Queen-Regent in such fashion, she would be
+obliged to look about for other allies.  There could hardly be doubt as
+to the quarter in which Mary de' Medici was likely to look.  Meantime,
+the Secretary of State urged the envoys "to intervene at once to-mediate
+the difference."  There could be as little doubt that to mediate the
+difference was simply to settle an account which they did not owe.
+
+The whole object of the Minister at this first interview was to induce
+the States to take the whole Cleve enterprise upon their own shoulders,
+and to let France off altogether.  The Queen-Regent as then advised meant
+to wash her hands of the possessory princes once and for ever.  The
+envoys cut the matter short by assuring Villeroy that they would do
+nothing of the kind.  He begged them piteously not to leave the princes
+in the lurch, and at the same time not to add to the burthens of France
+at so disastrous a moment.
+
+So they parted.  Next day, however, they visited the Secretary again, and
+found him more dismal and flaccid than ever.
+
+He spoke feebly and drearily about the succour for the great enterprise,
+recounted all the difficulties in the way, and, having thrown down
+everything that the day before had been left standing, he tried to
+excuse an entire change of policy by the one miserable crime.
+
+He painted a forlorn picture of the council and of France.  "I can
+myself do nothing as I wish," added the undisputed controller of that
+government's policy, and then with a few more tears he concluded by
+requesting the envoys to address their demands to the Queen in writing.
+
+This was done with the customary formalities and fine speeches on both
+sides; a dull comedy by which no one was amused.
+
+Then Bouillon came again, and assured them that there had been a chance
+that the engagements of Henry, followed up by the promise of the Queen-
+Regent, would be carried out, but now the fact was not to be concealed
+that the continued battery of the Nuncius, of the ambassadors of Spain
+and of the Archdukes, had been so effective that nothing sure or solid
+was thenceforth to be expected; the council being resolved to accept the
+overtures of the Archduke for mutual engagement to abstain from the
+Julich enterprise.
+
+Nothing in truth could be more pitiable than the helpless drifting of the
+once mighty kingdom, whenever the men who governed it withdrew their
+attention for an instant from their private schemes of advancement and
+plunder to cast a glance at affairs of State.  In their secret heart they
+could not doubt that France was rushing on its ruin, and that in the
+alliance of the Dutch commonwealth, Britain, and the German Protestants,
+was its only safety.  But they trembled before the Pope, grown bold and
+formidable since the death of the dreaded Henry.  To offend his Holiness,
+the King of Spain, the Emperor, and the great Catholics of France, was to
+make a crusade against the Church.  Garnier, the Jesuit, preached from
+his pulpit that "to strike a blow in the Cleve enterprise was no less a
+sin than to inflict a stab in the body of our Lord."  The Parliament of
+Paris having ordered the famous treatise of the Jesuit Mariana--
+justifying the killing of excommunicated kings by their subjects--to be
+publicly burned before Notre Dame, the Bishop opposed the execution of
+the decree.  The Parliament of Paris, although crushed by Epernon in its
+attempts to fix the murder of the King upon himself as the true culprit,
+was at least strong enough to carry out this sentence upon a printed,
+volume recommending the deed, and the Queen's council could only do its
+best to mitigate the awakened wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of
+legal authority.--At the same time, it found on the whole so many more
+difficulties in a cynical and shameless withdrawal from the Treaty of
+Hall than in a nominal and tardy fulfilment of its conditions that it
+resolved at last to furnish the 8000 foot and 2000 horse promised to the
+possessory princes.  The next best thing to abandoning entirely even this
+little shred, this pitiful remnant, of the splendid designs of Henry was
+to so arrange matters that the contingent should be feebly commanded, and
+set on foot in so dilatory a manner that the petty enterprise should on
+the part of France be purely perfunctory.  The grandees of the kingdom
+had something more important to do than to go crusading in Germany, with
+the help of a heretic republic, to set up the possessory princes.  They
+were fighting over the prostrate dying form of their common mother for
+their share of the spoils, stripping France before she was dead, and
+casting lots for her vesture.
+
+Soissons was on the whole in favour of the Cleve expedition.  Epernon was
+desperately opposed to it, and maltreated Villeroy in full council when
+he affected to say a word, insincere as the Duke knew it to be, in favour
+of executing agreements signed by the monarch, and sealed with the great
+seal of France.  The Duke of Guise, finding himself abandoned by the
+Queen, and bitterly opposed and hated by Soissons, took sides with his
+deaf and dumb and imbecile brother, and for a brief interval the Duke of
+Sully joined this strange combination of the House of Lorraine and chiefs
+of ancient Leaguers, who welcomed him with transport, and promised him
+security.
+
+Then Bouillon, potent by his rank, his possessions, and his authority
+among the Protestants, publicly swore that he would ruin Sully and change
+the whole order of the government.  What more lamentable spectacle, what
+more desolate future for the cause of religious equality, which for a
+moment had been achieved in France, than this furious alienation of the
+trusted leaders of the Huguenots, while their adversaries were carrying
+everything before them?  At the council board Bouillon quarrelled
+ostentatiously with Sully, shook his fist in his face, and but for the
+Queen's presence would have struck him.  Next day he found that the Queen
+was intriguing against himself as well as against Sully, was making a
+cat's-paw of him, and was holding secret councils daily from which he as
+well as Sully was excluded.  At once he made overtures of friendship to
+Sully, and went about proclaiming to the world that all Huguenots were to
+be removed from participation in affairs of state.  His vows of vengeance
+were for a moment hushed by the unanimous resolution of the council that,
+as first marshal of France, having his principality on the frontier, and
+being of the Reformed religion, he was the fittest of all to command the
+expedition.  Surely it might be said that the winds and tides were not
+more changeful than the politics of the Queen's government.  The Dutch
+ambassador was secretly requested by Villeroy to negotiate with Bouillon
+and offer him the command of the Julich expedition.  The Duke affected
+to make difficulties, although burning to obtain the post, but at last
+consented.  All was settled.  Aerssens communicated at once with
+Villeroy, and notice of Bouillon's acceptance was given to the Queen,
+when, behold, the very next day Marshal de la Chatre was appointed to
+the command expressly because he was a Catholic.  Of course the Duke
+of Bouillon, furious with Soissons and Epernon and the rest of the
+government, was more enraged than ever against the Queen.  His only hope
+was now in Conde, but Conde at the outset, on arriving at the Louvre,
+offered his heart to the Queen as a sheet of white paper.  Epernon and
+Soissons received him with delight, and exchanged vows of an eternal
+friendship of several weeks' duration.  And thus all the princes of the
+blood, all the cousins of Henry of Navarre, except the imbecile Conti,
+were ranged on the side of Spain, Rome, Mary de' Medici, and Concino
+Concini, while the son of the Balafre, the Duke of Mayenne, and all their
+adherents were making common cause with the Huguenots.  What better
+example had been seen before, even in that country of pantomimic changes,
+of the effrontery with which Religion was made the strumpet of Political
+Ambition?
+
+All that day and the next Paris was rife with rumours that there was to
+be a general massacre of the Huguenots to seal the new-born friendship of
+a Conde with a Medici.  France was to renounce all her old alliances and
+publicly to enter into treaties offensive and defensive with Spain.  A
+league like that of Bayonne made by the former Medicean Queen-Regent of
+France was now, at Villeroy's instigation, to be signed by Mary de'
+Medici.  Meantime, Marshal de la Chatre, an honest soldier and fervent
+Papist, seventy-three years of age, ignorant of the language, the
+geography, the politics of the country to which he was sent, and knowing
+the road thither about as well, according to Aerssens, who was requested
+to give him a little preliminary instruction, as he did the road to
+India, was to co-operate with Barneveld and Maurice of Nassau in the
+enterprise against the duchies.
+
+These were the cheerful circumstances amid which the first step in the
+dead Henry's grand design against the House of Austria and in support of
+Protestantism in half Europe and of religious equality throughout
+Christendom, was now to be ventured.
+
+Cornelis van der Myle took leave of the Queen on terminating his brief
+special embassy, and was fain to content himself with languid assurances
+from that corpulent Tuscan dame of her cordial friendship for the United
+Provinces.  Villeroy repeated that the contingent to be sent was
+furnished out of pure love to the Netherlands, the present government
+being in no wise bound by the late king's promises.  He evaded the
+proposition of the States for renewing the treaty of close alliance by
+saying that he was then negotiating with the British government on the
+subject, who insisted as a preliminary step on the repayment of the third
+part of the sums advanced to the States by the late king.
+
+He exchanged affectionate farewell greetings and good wishes with Jeannin
+and with the dropsical Duke of Mayenne, who was brought in his chair to
+his old fellow Leaguer's apartments at the moment of the Ambassador's
+parting interview.
+
+There was abundant supply of smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any
+substantial nutriment, from the representatives of each busy faction into
+which the Medicean court was divided.  Even Epernon tried to say a
+gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as
+much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could
+do.  He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully
+he had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black
+as he was painted.  It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own
+house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and all prudent
+persons would do the same thing.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
+As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
+At a blow decapitated France
+Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
+Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
+Great war of religion and politics was postponed
+Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
+No man pretended to think of the State
+Practised successfully the talent of silence
+Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests
+Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition
+Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial
+Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel
+The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses
+They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini
+Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful
+Uncouple the dogs and let them run
+Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration
+What could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy
+Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal authority
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v3, Motley #88
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v4, 1610-12
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Interviews between the Dutch Commissioners and King James--Prince
+     Maurice takes command of the Troops--Surrender of Julich--Matthias
+     crowned King of Bohemia--Death of Rudolph--James's Dream of a
+     Spanish Marriage--Appointment of Vorstius in place of Arminius at
+     Leyden--Interview between Maurice and Winwood--Increased Bitterness
+     between Barneveld and Maurice--Projects of Spanish Marriages in
+     France.
+
+It is refreshing to escape from the atmosphere of self-seeking faction,
+feverish intrigue, and murderous stratagem in which unhappy France was
+stifling into the colder and calmer regions of Netherland policy.
+
+No sooner had the tidings of Henry's murder reached the States than
+they felt that an immense responsibility had fallen on their shoulders.
+It is to the eternal honour of the Republic, of Barneveld, who directed
+her councils, and of Prince Maurice, who wielded her sword, that she was
+equal to the task imposed upon her.
+
+There were open bets on the Exchange in Antwerp, after the death of
+Henry, that Maurice would likewise be killed within the month.  Nothing
+seemed more probable, and the States implored the Stadholder to take
+special heed to himself.  But this was a kind of caution which the Prince
+was not wont to regard.  Nor was there faltering, distraction, cowardice,
+or parsimony in Republican councils.
+
+We have heard the strong words of encouragement and sympathy addressed by
+the Advocate's instructions to the Queen-Regent and the leading statesmen
+of France.  We have seen their effects in that lingering sentiment of
+shame which prevented the Spanish stipendiaries who governed the kingdom
+from throwing down the mask as cynically as they were at first inclined
+to do.
+
+Not less manful and statesmanlike was the language held to the King of
+Great Britain and his ministers by the Advocate's directions.  The news
+of the assassination reached the special ambassadors in London at three
+o'clock of Monday, the 17th May.  James returned to Whitehall from a
+hunting expedition on the 21st, and immediately signified his intention
+of celebrating the occasion by inviting the high commissioners of the
+States to a banquet and festival at the palace.
+
+Meantime they were instructed by Barneveld to communicate the results of
+the special embassy of the States to the late king according to the
+report just delivered to the Assembly.  Thus James was to be informed of
+the common resolution and engagement then taken to support the cause of
+the princes.  He was now seriously and explicitly to be summoned to
+assist the princes not only with the stipulated 4000 men, but with a much
+greater force, proportionate to the demands for the security and welfare
+of Christendom, endangered by this extraordinary event.  He was assured
+that the States would exert themselves to the full measure of their
+ability to fortify and maintain the high interests of France, of the
+possessory princes, and of Christendom, so that the hopes of the
+perpetrators of the foul deed would be confounded.
+
+"They hold this to be the occasion," said the envoys, "to show to all the
+world that it is within your power to rescue the affairs of France,
+Germany, and of the United Provinces from the claws of those who imagine
+for themselves universal monarchy."
+
+They concluded by requesting the King to come to "a resolution on this
+affair royally, liberally, and promptly, in order to take advantage of
+the time, and not to allow the adversary to fortify himself in his
+position"; and they pledged the States-General to stand by and second
+him with all their power.
+
+The commissioners, having read this letter to Lord Salisbury before
+communicating it to the King, did not find the Lord Treasurer very prompt
+or sympathetic in his reply.  There had evidently been much jealousy at
+the English court of the confidential and intimate relations recently
+established with Henry, to which allusions were made in the documents
+read at the present conference.  Cecil, while expressing satisfaction in
+formal terms at the friendly language of the States, and confidence in
+the sincerity of their friendship for his sovereign, intimated very
+plainly that more had passed between the late king and the authorities of
+the Republic than had been revealed by either party to the King of Great
+Britain, or than could be understood from the letters and papers now
+communicated.  He desired further information from the commissioners,
+especially in regard to those articles of their instructions which
+referred to a general rupture.  They professed inability to give more
+explanations than were contained in the documents themselves.  If
+suspicion was felt, they said, that the French King had been proposing
+anything in regard to a general rupture, either on account of the retreat
+of Conde, the affair of Savoy, or anything else, they would reply that
+the ambassadors in France had been instructed to decline committing the
+States until after full communication and advice and ripe deliberation
+with his British Majesty and council, as well as the Assembly of the
+States-General; and it had been the intention of the late king to have
+conferred once more and very confidentially with Prince Maurice and Count
+Lewis William before coming to a decisive resolution.
+
+It was very obvious however to the commissioners that their statement
+gave no thorough satisfaction, and that grave suspicions remained of
+something important kept back by them.  Cecil's manner was constrained
+and cold, and certainly there were no evidences of profound sorrow at the
+English court for the death of Henry.
+
+"The King of France," said the High Treasurer, "meant to make a master-
+stroke--a coup de maistre--but he who would have all may easily lose all.
+Such projects as these should not have been formed or taken in hand
+without previous communication with his Majesty of Great Britain."
+
+All arguments on the part of the ambassadors to induce the Lord Treasurer
+or other members of the government to enlarge the succour intended for
+the Cleve affair were fruitless.  The English troops regularly employed
+in the States' service might be made use of with the forces sent by the
+Republic itself.  More assistance than this it was idle to expect, unless
+after a satisfactory arrangement with the present regency of France.  The
+proposition, too, of the States for a close and general alliance was
+coldly repulsed.  "No resolution can be taken as to that," said Cecil;
+"the death of the French king has very much altered such matters."
+
+At a little later hour on the same day the commissioners, according to
+previous invitation, dined with the King.
+
+No one sat at the table but his Majesty and themselves, and they all kept
+their hats on their heads.  The King was hospitable, gracious,
+discursive, loquacious, very theological.
+
+He expressed regret for the death of the King of France, and said
+that the pernicious doctrine out of which such vile crimes grew must be
+uprooted.  He asked many questions in regard to the United Netherlands,
+enquiring especially as to the late commotions at Utrecht, and the
+conduct of Prince Maurice on that occasion.  He praised the resolute
+conduct of the States-General in suppressing those tumults with force,
+adding, however, that they should have proceeded with greater rigour
+against the ringleaders of the riot.  He warmly recommended the Union of
+the Provinces.
+
+He then led the conversation to the religious controversies in the
+Netherlands, and in reply to his enquiries was informed that the points
+in dispute related to predestination and its consequences.
+
+"I have studied that subject," said James, "as well as anybody, and have
+come to the conclusion that nothing certain can be laid down in regard to
+it.  I have myself not always been of one mind about it, but I will bet
+that my opinion is the best of any, although I would not hang my
+salvation upon it.  My Lords the States would do well to order their
+doctors and teachers to be silent on this topic.  I have hardly ventured,
+moreover, to touch upon the matter of justification in my own writings,
+because that also seemed to hang upon predestination."
+
+Thus having spoken with the air of a man who had left nothing further to
+be said on predestination or justification, the King rose, took off his
+hat, and drank a bumper to the health of the States-General and his
+Excellency Prince Maurice, and success to the affair of Cleve.
+
+After dinner there was a parting interview in the gallery.  The King,
+attended by many privy councillors and high functionaries of state,
+bade the commissioners a cordial farewell, and, in order to show his
+consideration for their government, performed the ceremony of knighthood
+upon them, as was his custom in regard to the ambassadors of Venice.  The
+sword being presented to him by the Lord Chamberlain, James touched each
+of the envoys on the shoulder as he dismissed him.  "Out of respect to My
+Lords the States," said they in their report, "we felt compelled to allow
+ourselves to be burthened with this honour."
+
+Thus it became obvious to the States-General that there was but little to
+hope for from Great Britain or France.  France, governed by Concini and
+by Spain, was sure to do her best to traverse the designs of the
+Republic, and, while perfunctorily and grudgingly complying with the
+letter of the Hall treaty, was secretly neutralizing by intrigue the
+slender military aid which de la Chatre was to bring to Prince Maurice.
+The close alliance of France and Protestantism had melted into air.  On
+the other hand the new Catholic League sprang into full luxuriance out
+of the grave of Henry, and both Spain and the Pope gave their hearty
+adhesion to the combinations of Maximilian of Bavaria, now that the
+mighty designs of the French king were buried with him.  The Duke of
+Savoy, caught in the trap of his own devising, was fain to send his son
+to sue to Spain for pardon for the family upon his knees, and expiated
+by draining a deep cup of humiliation his ambitious designs upon the
+Milanese and the matrimonial alliance with France.  Venice recoiled in
+horror from the position she found herself in as soon as the glamour of
+Henry's seductive policy was dispelled, while James of Great Britain,
+rubbing his hands with great delight at the disappearance from the world
+of the man he so admired, bewailed, and hated, had no comfort to impart
+to the States-General thus left in virtual isolation.  The barren burthen
+of knighthood and a sermon on predestination were all he could bestow
+upon the high commissioners in place of the alliance which he eluded,
+and the military assistance which he point-blank refused.  The possessory
+princes, in whose cause the sword was drawn, were too quarrelsome and too
+fainthearted to serve for much else than an incumbrance either in the
+cabinet or the field.
+
+And the States-General were equal to the immense responsibility.
+Steadily, promptly, and sagaciously they confronted the wrath, the
+policy, and the power of the Empire, of Spain, and of the Pope.  Had the
+Republic not existed, nothing could have prevented that debateable and
+most important territory from becoming provinces of Spain, whose power
+thus dilated to gigantic proportions in the very face of England would
+have been more menacing than in the days of the Armada.  Had the Republic
+faltered, she would have soon ceased to exist.  But the Republic did not
+falter.
+
+On the 13th July, Prince Maurice took command of the States' forces,
+13,000 foot and 3000 horse, with thirty pieces of cannon, assembled at
+Schenkenschans.  The July English and French regiments in the regular
+service of the United Provinces were included in these armies, but there
+were no additions to them: "The States did seven times as much,"
+Barneveld justly averred, "as they had stipulated to do."  Maurice,
+moving with the precision and promptness which always marked his military
+operations, marched straight upon Julich, and laid siege to that
+important fortress.  The Archdukes at Brussels, determined to keep out
+of the fray as long as possible, offered no opposition to the passage of
+his supplies up the Rhine, which might have been seriously impeded by
+them at Rheinberg.  The details of the siege, as of all the Prince's
+sieges, possess no more interest to the general reader than the working
+out of a geometrical problem.  He was incapable of a flaw in his
+calculations, but it was impossible for him quite to complete the
+demonstration before the arrival of de la Chatre.  Maurice received with
+courtesy the Marshal, who arrived on the 18th August, at the head of his
+contingent of 8000 foot and a few squadrons of cavalry, and there was
+great show of harmony between them.  For any practical purposes, de la
+Chatre might as well have remained in France.  For political ends his
+absence would have been preferable to his presence.
+
+Maurice would have rejoiced, had the Marshal blundered longer along the
+road to the debateable land than he had done.  He had almost brought
+Julich to reduction.  A fortnight later the place surrendered.  The terms
+granted by the conqueror were equitable.  No change was to be made in the
+liberty of Roman Catholic worship, nor in the city magistracy.  The
+citadel and its contents were to be handed over to the Princes of
+Brandenburg and Neuburg.  Archduke Leopold and his adherents departed to
+Prague, to carry out as he best could his farther designs upon the crown
+of Bohemia, this first portion of them having so lamentably failed, and
+Sergeant-Major Frederick Pithan, of the regiment of Count Ernest Casimir
+of Nassau, was appointed governor of Julich in the interest of the
+possessory princes.
+
+Thus without the loss of a single life, the Republic, guided by her
+consummate statesman and unrivalled general, had gained an immense
+victory, had installed the Protestant princes in the full possession of
+those splendid and important provinces, and had dictated her decrees on
+German soil to the Emperor of Germany, and had towed, as it were, Great
+Britain and France along in her wake, instead of humbly following those
+powers, and had accomplished all that she had ever proposed to do, even
+in alliance with them both.
+
+The King of England considered that quite enough had been done, and was
+in great haste to patch up a reconciliation.  He thought his ambassador
+would soon "have as good occasion to employ his tongue and his pen as
+General Cecil and his soldiers have done their swords and their
+mattocks."
+
+He had no sympathy with the cause of Protestantism, and steadily refused
+to comprehend the meaning of the great movements in the duchies.  "I only
+wish that I may handsomely wind myself out of this quarrel, where the
+principal parties do so little for themselves," he said.
+
+De la Chatre returned with his troops to France within a fortnight after
+his arrival on the scene.  A mild proposition made by the French
+government through the Marshal, that the provinces should be held in
+seguestration by France until a decision as to the true sovereignty could
+be reached, was promptly declined.  Maurice of Nassau had hardly gained
+so signal a triumph for the Republic and for the Protestant cause only to
+hand it over to Concini and Villeroy for the benefit of Spain.  Julich
+was thought safer in the keeping of Sergeant Pithan.
+
+By the end of September the States' troops had returned to their own
+country.
+
+Thus the Republic, with eminent success, had accomplished a brief and
+brilliant campaign, but no statesman could suppose that the result was
+more than a temporary one.  These coveted provinces, most valuable in
+themselves and from their important position, would probably not be
+suffered peacefully to remain very long under the protection of the
+heretic States-General and in the 'Condominium' of two Protestant
+princes.  There was fear among the Imperialists, Catholics, and
+Spaniards, lest the baleful constellation of the Seven Provinces might be
+increased by an eighth star.  And this was a project not to be tolerated.
+It was much already that the upstart confederacy had defied Pope,
+Emperor, and King, as it were, on their own domains, had dictated
+arrangements in Germany directly in the teeth of its emperor, using
+France as her subordinate, and compelling the British king to acquiesce
+in what he most hated.
+
+But it was not merely to surprise Julich, and to get a foothold in the
+duchies, that Leopold had gone forth on his adventure.  His campaign, as
+already intimated, was part of a wide scheme in which he had persuaded
+his emperor-cousin to acquiesce.  Poor Rudolph had been at last goaded
+into a feeble attempt at revolt against his three brothers and his cousin
+Ferdinand.  Peace-loving, inert, fond of his dinner, fonder of his
+magnificent collections of gems and intagli, liking to look out of window
+at his splendid collection of horses, he was willing to pass a quiet
+life, afar from the din of battles and the turmoil of affairs.  As he
+happened to be emperor of half Europe, these harmless tastes could not
+well be indulged.  Moon-faced and fat, silent and slow, he was not
+imperial of aspect on canvas or coin, even when his brows were decorated
+with the conventional laurel wreath.  He had been stripped of his
+authority and all but discrowned by his more bustling brothers Matthias
+and Max, while the sombre figure of Styrian Ferdinand, pupil of the
+Jesuits, and passionate admirer of Philip II., stood ever in the
+background, casting a prophetic shadow over the throne and over Germany.
+
+The brothers were endeavouring to persuade Rudolph that he would find
+more comfort in Innsbruck than in Prague; that he required repose after
+the strenuous labours of government.  They told him, too, that it would
+be wise to confer the royal crown of Bohemia upon Matthias, lest, being
+elective and also an electorate, the crown and vote of that country might
+pass out of the family, and so both Bohemia and the Empire be lost to the
+Habsburgs.  The kingdom being thus secured to Matthias and his heirs, the
+next step, of course, was to proclaim him King of the Romans.  Otherwise
+there would be great danger and detriment to Hungary, and other
+hereditary states of that conglomerate and anonymous monarchy which owned
+the sway of the great Habsburg family.
+
+The unhappy emperor was much piqued.  He had been deprived by his brother
+of Hungary, Moravia, and Austria, while Matthias was now at Prague with
+an army, ostensibly to obtain ratification of the peace with Turkey, but
+in reality to force the solemn transfer of those realms and extort the
+promise of Bohemia.  Could there be a better illustration of the
+absurdities of such a system of Imperialism?
+
+And now poor Rudolph was to be turned out of the Hradschin, and sent
+packing with or without his collections to the Tyrol.
+
+The bellicose bishop of Strassburg and Passau, brother of Ferdinand, had
+little difficulty in persuading the downtrodden man to rise to vengeance.
+It had been secretly agreed between the two that Leopold, at the head of
+a considerable army of mercenaries which he had contrived to levy, should
+dart into Julich as the Emperor's representative, seize the debateable
+duchies, and hold them in sequestration until the Emperor should decide
+to whom they belonged, and, then, rushing back to Bohemia, should
+annihilate Matthias, seize Prague, and deliver Rudolph from bondage.  It
+was further agreed that Leopold, in requital of these services, should
+receive the crown of Bohemia, be elected King of the Romans, and declared
+heir to the Emperor, so far as Rudolph could make him his heir.
+
+The first point in the program he had only in part accomplished.  He had
+taken Julich, proclaimed the intentions of the Emperor, and then been
+driven out of his strong position by the wise policy of the States under
+the guidance of Barneveld and by the consummate strategy of Maurice.  It
+will be seen therefore that the Republic was playing a world's game at
+this moment, and doing it with skill and courage.  On the issue of the
+conflict which had been begun and was to be long protracted in the
+duchies, and to spread over nearly all Christendom besides, would depend
+the existence of the United Netherlands and the fate of Protestantism.
+
+The discomfited Leopold swept back at the head of his mercenaries, 9000
+foot and 3000 horse, through Alsace and along the Danube to Linz and so
+to Prague, marauding, harrying, and black-mailing the country as he went.
+He entered the city on the 15th of February 1611, fighting his way
+through crowds of exasperated burghers.  Sitting in full harness on
+horseback in the great square before the cathedral, the warlike bishop
+compelled the population to make oath to him as the Emperor's commissary.
+The street fighting went on however day by day, poor Rudolph meantime
+cowering in the Hradschin.  On the third day, Leopold, driven out of the
+town, took up a position on the heights, from which he commanded it with
+his artillery.  Then came a feeble voice from the Hradschin, telling all
+men that these Passau marauders and their episcopal chief were there by
+the Emperor's orders.  The triune city--the old, the new, and the Jew--
+was bidden to send deputies to the palace and accept the Imperial
+decrees.  No deputies came at the bidding.  The Bohemians, especially the
+Praguers, being in great majority Protestants knew very well that Leopold
+was fighting the cause of the Papacy and Spain in Bohemia as well as in
+the duchies.
+
+And now Matthias appeared upon the scene.  The Estates had already been
+in communication with him, better hopes, for the time at least, being
+entertained from him than from the flaccid Rudolph.  Moreover a kind of
+compromise had been made in the autumn between Matthias and the Emperor
+after the defeat of Leopold in the duchies.  The real king had fallen at
+the feet of the nominal one by proxy of his brother Maximilian.  Seven
+thousand men of the army of Matthias now came before Prague under command
+of Colonitz.  The Passauers, receiving three months pay from the Emperor,
+marched quietly off.  Leopold disappeared for the time.  His chancellor
+and counsellor in the duchies, Francis Teynagel, a Geldrian noble, taken
+prisoner and put to the torture, revealed the little plot of the Emperor
+in favour of the Bishop, and it was believed that the Pope, the King of
+Spain, and Maximilian of Bavaria were friendly to the scheme.  This was
+probable, for Leopold at last made no mystery of his resolve to fight
+Protestantism to the death, and to hold the duchies, if he could, for the
+cause of Rome and Austria.
+
+Both Rudolph and Matthias had committed themselves to the toleration of
+the Reformed religion.  The famous "Majesty-Letter," freshly granted by
+the Emperor (1609), and the Compromise between the Catholic and
+Protestant Estates had become the law of the land.  Those of the Bohemian
+confession, a creed commingled of Hussism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism,
+had obtained toleration.  In a country where nine-tenths of the
+population were Protestants it was permitted to Protestants to build
+churches and to worship God in them unmolested.  But these privileges
+had been extorted by force, and there was a sullen, dogged determination
+which might be easily guessed at to revoke them should it ever become
+possible.  The House of Austria, reigning in Spain, Italy, and Germany,
+was bound by the very law of their being to the Roman religion.
+Toleration of other worship signified in their eyes both a defeat and a
+crime.
+
+Thus the great conflict, to be afterwards known as the Thirty Years' War,
+had in reality begun already, and the Netherlands, in spite of the truce,
+were half unconsciously taking a leading part in it.  The odds at that
+moment in Germany seemed desperately against the House of Austria, so
+deep and wide was the abyss between throne and subjects which religious
+difference had created.  But the reserved power in Spain, Italy, and
+Southern Germany was sure enough to make itself felt sooner or later on
+the Catholic side.
+
+Meantime the Estates of Bohemia knew well enough that the Imperial house
+was bent on destroying the elective principle of the Empire, and on
+keeping the crown of Bohemia in perpetuity.  They had also discovered
+that Bishop-Archduke Leopold had been selected by Rudolph as chief of the
+reactionary movement against Protestantism.  They could not know at that
+moment whether his plans were likely to prove fantastic or dangerous.
+
+So Matthias came to Prague at the invitation of the Estates, entering the
+city with all the airs of a conqueror.  Rudolph received his brother with
+enforced politeness, and invited him to reside in the Hradschin. This
+proposal was declined by Matthias, who sent a colonel however, with six
+pieces of artillery, to guard and occupy that palace.  The Passau
+prisoners were pardoned and released, and there was a general
+reconciliation.  A month later, Matthias went in pomp to the chapel
+of the holy Wenceslaus, that beautiful and barbarous piece of mediaeval,
+Sclavonic architecture, with its sombre arches, and its walls encrusted
+with huge precious stones.  The Estates of Bohemia, arrayed in splendid
+Zchech costume, and kneeling on the pavement, were asked whether they
+accepted Matthias, King of Hungary, as their lawful king.  Thrice they
+answered Aye.  Cardinal Dietrichstein then put the historic crown of St.
+Wenceslaus on the King's head, and Matthias swore to maintain the laws
+and privileges of Bohemia, including the recent charters granting liberty
+of religion to Protestants.  Thus there was temporary, if hollow, truce
+between the religious parties, and a sham reconciliation between the
+Emperor and his brethren.  The forlorn Rudolph moped away the few months
+of life left to him in the Hradschin, and died 1612 soon after the new
+year.  The House of Austria had not been divided, Matthias succeeded his
+brother, Leopold's visions melted into air, and it was for the future to
+reveal whether the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise had been written on
+very durable material.
+
+And while such was the condition of affairs in Germany immediately
+following the Cleve and Julich campaign, the relations of the Republic
+both to England and France were become rapidly more dangerous than they
+ever had been.  It was a severe task for Barneveld, and enough to overtax
+the energies of any statesman, to maintain his hold on two such slippery
+governments as both had become since the death of their great monarchs.
+It had been an easier task for William the Silent to steer his course,
+notwithstanding all the perversities, short-comings, brow-beatings, and
+inconsistencies that he had been obliged to endure from Elizabeth and
+Henry.  Genius, however capricious and erratic at times, has at least
+vision, and it needed no elaborate arguments to prove to both those
+sovereigns that the severance of their policy from that of the
+Netherlands was impossible without ruin to the Republic and
+incalculable danger themselves.
+
+But now France and England were both tending towards Spain through a
+stupidity on the part of their rulers such as the gods are said to
+contend against in vain.  Barneveld was not a god nor a hero, but a
+courageous and wide-seeing statesman, and he did his best.  Obliged by
+his position to affect admiration, or at least respect, where no emotion
+but contempt was possible, his daily bread was bitter enough.  It was
+absolutely necessary to humour those whom knew to be traversing his
+policy and desiring his ruin, for there was no other way to serve his
+country and save it from impending danger.  So long as he was faithfully
+served by his subordinates, and not betrayed by those to whom he gave his
+heart, he could confront external enemies and mould the policy of
+wavering allies.
+
+Few things in history are more pitiable than the position of James in
+regard to Spain.  For seven long years he was as one entranced, the slave
+to one idea, a Spanish marriage for his son.  It was in vain that his
+counsellors argued, Parliament protested, allies implored.  Parliament
+was told that a royal family matter regarded himself alone, and that
+interference on their part was an impertinence.  Parliament's duty was a
+simple one, to give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
+it, without asking for reasons.  It was already a great concession that
+he should ask for it in person.  They had nothing to do with his affairs
+nor with general politics.  The mystery of government was a science
+beyond their reach, and with which they were not to meddle.  "Ne sutor
+ultra crepidam," said the pedant.
+
+Upon that one point his policy was made to turn.  Spain held him in the
+hollow of her hand.  The Infanta, with two million crowns in dowry, was
+promised, withheld, brought forward again like a puppet to please or
+irritate a froward child.  Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, held him
+spellbound.  Did he falter in his opposition to the States--did he cease
+to goad them for their policy in the duchies--did he express sympathy
+with Bohemian Protestantism, or, as time went on, did he dare to lift a
+finger or touch his pocket in behalf of his daughter and the unlucky
+Elector-Palatine; did he, in short, move a step in the road which England
+had ever trod and was bound to tread--the road of determined resistance
+to Spanish ambition--instantaneously the Infanta withheld, and James was
+on his knees again.  A few years later, when the great Raleigh returned
+from his trans-Alantic expedition, Gondemar fiercely denounced him to the
+King as the worst enemy of Spain.  The usual threat was made, the wand
+was waved, and the noblest head in England fell upon the block, in
+pursuance of an obsolete sentence fourteen years old.
+
+It is necessary to hold fast this single clue to the crooked and amazing
+entanglements of the policy of James.  The insolence, the meanness, and
+the prevarications of this royal toad-eater are only thus explained.
+
+Yet Philip III.  declared on his death-bed that he had never had a
+serious intention of bestowing his daughter on the Prince.
+
+The vanity and the hatreds of theology furnished the chief additional
+material in the policy of James towards the Provinces.  The diplomacy of
+his reign so far as the Republic was concerned is often a mere mass of
+controversial divinity, and gloomy enough of its kind.  Exactly at this
+moment Conrad Vorstius had been called by the University of Leyden to the
+professorship vacant by the death of Arminius, and the wrath of Peter
+Plancius and the whole orthodox party knew no bounds.  Born in Cologne,
+Vorstius had been a lecturer in Geneva, and beloved by Beza.  He had
+written a book against the Jesuit Belarmino, which he had dedicated to
+the States-General.  But he was now accused of Arminianism, Socianism,
+Pelagianism, Atheism--one knew not what.  He defended himself in writing
+against these various charges, and declared himself a believer in the
+Trinity, in the Divinity of Christ, in the Atonement.  But he had written
+a book on the Nature of God, and the wrath of Gomarus and Plancius and
+Bogerman was as nothing to the ire of James when that treatise was one
+day handed to him on returning from hunting.  He had scarcely looked into
+it before he was horror-struck, and instantly wrote to Sir Ralph Winwood,
+his ambassador at the Hague, ordering him to insist that this blasphemous
+monster should at once be removed from the country.  Who but James knew
+anything of the Nature of God, for had he not written a work in Latin
+explaining it all, so that humbler beings might read and be instructed.
+
+Sir Ralph accordingly delivered a long sermon to the States on the brief
+supplied by his Majesty, told them that to have Vorstius as successor to
+Arminius was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, and handed them
+a "catalogue" prepared by the King of the blasphemies, heresies, and
+atheisms of the Professor.  "Notwithstanding that the man in full
+assembly of the States of Holland," said the Ambassador with headlong and
+confused rhetoric, "had found the means to palliate and plaster the dung
+of his heresies, and thus to dazzle the eyes of good people," yet it was
+necessary to protest most vigorously against such an appointment, and to
+advise that "his works should be publicly burned in the open places of
+all the cities."
+
+The Professor never was admitted to perform his functions of theology,
+but he remained at Leyden, so Winwood complained, "honoured, recognized
+as a singularity and ornament to the Academy in place of the late Joseph
+Scaliger."--"The friendship of the King and the heresy of Vorstius arc
+quite incompatible," said the Envoy.
+
+Meantime the Advocate, much distressed at the animosity of England
+bursting forth so violently on occasion of the appointment of a divinity
+professor at Leyden, and at the very instant too when all the acuteness
+of his intellect was taxed to keep on good or even safe terms with
+France, did his best to stem these opposing currents.  His private
+letters to his old and confidential friend, Noel de Carom, States'
+ambassador in London, reveal the perplexities of his soul and the upright
+patriotism by which he was guided in these gathering storms.  And this
+correspondence, as well as that maintained by him at a little later
+period with the successor of Aerssens at Paris, will be seen subsequently
+to have had a direct and most important bearing upon the policy of the
+Republic and upon his own fate.  It is necessary therefore that the
+reader, interested in these complicated affairs which were soon to bring
+on a sanguinary war on a scale even vaster than the one which had been
+temporarily suspended, should give close attention to papers never before
+exhumed from the musty sepulchre of national archives, although
+constantly alluded to in the records of important state trials.  It is
+strange enough to observe the apparent triviality of the circumstances
+out of which gravest events seem to follow.  But the circumstances were
+in reality threads of iron which led down to the very foundations of the
+earth.
+
+"I wish to know," wrote the Advocate to Caron, "from whom the Archbishop
+of Canterbury received the advices concerning Vorstius in order to find
+out what is meant by all this."
+
+It will be remembered that Whitgift was of opinion that James was
+directly inspired by the Holy Ghost, and that as he affected to deem him
+the anointed High-priest of England, it was natural that he should
+encourage the King in his claims to be 'Pontifex maximus' for the
+Netherlands likewise.
+
+"We are busy here," continued Barneveld, "in examining all things for the
+best interests of the country and the churches.  I find the nobles and
+cities here well resolved in this regard, although there be some
+disagreements 'in modo.'  Vorstius, having been for many years professor
+and minister of theology at Steinfurt, having manifested his learning in
+many books written against the Jesuits, and proved himself pure and
+moderate in doctrine, has been called to the vacant professorship at
+Leyden.  This appointment is now countermined by various means.
+We are doing our best to arrange everything for the highest good of the
+Provinces and the churches.  Believe this and believe nothing else.  Pay
+heed to no other information.  Remember what took place in Flanders,
+events so well known to you.  It is not for me to pass judgment in these
+matters.  Do you, too, suspend your judgment."
+
+The Advocate's allusion was to the memorable course of affairs in
+Flanders at an epoch when many of the most inflammatory preachers and
+politicians of the Reformed religion, men who refused to employ a footman
+or a housemaid not certified to be thoroughly orthodox, subsequently
+after much sedition and disturbance went over to Spain and the Catholic
+religion.
+
+A few weeks later Barneveld sent copies to Caron of the latest harangues
+of Winwood in the Assembly and the reply of My Lords on the Vorstian
+business; that is to say, the freshest dialogue on predestination between
+the King and the Advocate.  For as James always dictated word for word
+the orations of his envoy, so had their Mightinesses at this period no
+head and no mouthpiece save Barneveld alone.  Nothing could be drearier
+than these controversies, and the reader shall be spared as much, as
+possible the infliction of reading them.  It will be necessary, however,
+for the proper understanding of subsequent events that he should be
+familiar with portions of the Advocate's confidential letters.
+
+"Sound well the gentleman you wot of," said Barneveld, "and other
+personages as to the conclusive opinions over there.  The course of the
+propositions does not harmonize with what I have myself heard out of the
+King's mouth at other times, nor with the reports of former ambassadors.
+I cannot well understand that the King should, with such preciseness,
+condemn all other opinions save those of Calvin and Beza.  It is
+important to the service of this country that one should know the
+final intention of his Majesty."
+
+And this was the misery of the position.  For it was soon to appear that
+the King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day.  It was
+almost humorous to find him at that moment condemning all opinions but
+those of Calvin and Beza in Holland, while his course to the strictest
+confessors of that creed in England was so ferocious.
+
+But Vorstius was a rival author to his Majesty on subjects treated of by
+both, so that literary spite of the most venomous kind, stirred into
+theological hatred, was making a dangerous mixture.  Had a man with the
+soul and sense of the Advocate sat on the throne which James was
+regarding at that moment as a professor's chair, the world's history
+would have been changed.
+
+"I fear," continued Barneveld, "that some of our own precisians have been
+spinning this coil for us over there, and if the civil authority can be
+thus countermined, things will go as in Flanders in your time.  Pray
+continue to be observant, discreet, and moderate."
+
+The Advocate continued to use his best efforts to smooth the rising
+waves.  He humoured and even flattered the King, although perpetually
+denounced by Winwood in his letters to his sovereign as tyrannical,
+over-bearing, malignant, and treacherous.  He did his best to counsel
+moderation and mutual toleration, for he felt that these needless
+theological disputes about an abstract and insoluble problem of casuistry
+were digging an abyss in which the Republic might be swallowed up for
+ever.  If ever man worked steadily with the best lights of experience
+and inborn sagacity for the good of his country and in defence of a
+constitutional government, horribly defective certainly, but the only
+legal one, and on the whole a more liberal polity than any then existing,
+it was Barneveld.  Courageously, steadily, but most patiently, he stood
+upon that position so vital and daily so madly assailed; the defence of
+the civil authority against the priesthood.  He felt instinctively and
+keenly that where any portion of the subjects or citizens of a country
+can escape from the control of government and obey other head than the
+lawful sovereignty, whether monarchical or republican, social disorder
+and anarchy must be ever impending.
+
+"We are still tortured by ecclesiastical disputes," he wrote a few weeks
+later to Caron.  "Besides many libels which have appeared in print, the
+letters of his Majesty and the harangues of Winwood have been published;
+to what end you who know these things by experience can judge.  The truth
+of the matter of Vorstius is that he was legally called in July 1610,
+that he was heard last May before My Lords the States with six preachers
+to oppose him, and in the same month duly accepted and placed in office.
+He has given no public lectures as yet.  You will cause this to be known
+on fitting opportunity.  Believe and cause to be believed that his
+Majesty's letters and Sir R. Winwood's propositions have been and shall
+be well considered, and that I am working with all my strength to that
+end.  You know the constitution of our country, and can explain
+everything for the best.  Many pious and intelligent people in this State
+hold themselves assured that his Majesty according to his royal exceeding
+great wisdom, foresight, and affection for the welfare of this land will
+not approve that his letters and Winwood's propositions should be
+scattered by the press among the common people.  Believe and cause to
+be believed, to your best ability, that My Lords the States of Holland
+desire to maintain the true Christian, Reformed religion as well in the
+University of Leyden as in all their cities and villages.  The only
+dispute is on the high points of predestination and its adjuncts,
+concerning which moderation and a more temperate teaching is furthered
+by some amongst us.  Many think that such is the edifying practice in
+England.  Pray have the kindness to send me the English Confession of
+the year 1572, with the corrections and alterations up to this year."
+
+But the fires were growing hotter, fanned especially by Flemish
+ministers, a brotherhood of whom Barneveld had an especial distrust, and
+who certainly felt great animosity to him.  His moderate counsels were
+but oil to the flames.  He was already depicted by zealots and
+calumniators as false to the Reformed creed.
+
+"Be assured and assure others," he wrote again to Caron, "that in the
+matter of religion I am, and by God's grace shall remain, what I ever
+have been.  Make the same assurances as to my son-in-law and brother.
+We are not a little amazed that a few extraordinary Puritans, mostly
+Flemings and Frisians, who but a short time ago had neither property nor
+kindred in the country, and have now very little of either, and who have
+given but slender proofs of constancy or service to the fatherland, could
+through pretended zeal gain credit over there against men well proved in
+all respects.  We wonder the more because they are endeavouring, in
+ecclesiastical matters at least, to usurp an extraordinary authority,
+against which his Majesty, with very weighty reasons, has so many times
+declared his opinion founded upon God's Word and upon all laws and
+principles of justice."
+
+It was Barneveld's practice on this as on subsequent occasions very
+courteously to confute the King out of his own writings and speeches,
+and by so doing to be unconsciously accumulating an undying hatred
+against himself in the royal breast.  Certainly nothing could be easier
+than to show that James, while encouraging in so reckless a manner the
+emancipation of the ministers of an advanced sect in the Reformed Church
+from control of government, and their usurpation of supreme authority
+which had been destroyed in England, was outdoing himself in dogmatism
+and inconsistency.  A king-highpriest, who dictated his supreme will to
+bishops and ministers as well as to courts and parliaments, was
+ludicrously employed in a foreign country in enforcing the superiority
+of the Church to the State.
+
+"You will give good assurances," said the Advocate, "upon my word, that
+the conservation of the true Reformed religion is as warmly cherished
+here, especially by me, as at any time during the war."
+
+He next alluded to the charges then considered very grave against certain
+writings of Vorstius, and with equal fairness to his accusers as he had
+been to the Professor gave a pledge that the subject should be examined.
+
+"If the man in question," he said, "be the author, as perhaps falsely
+imputed, of the work 'De Filiatione Christi' or things of that sort, you
+may be sure that he shall have no furtherance here."  He complained,
+however, that before proof the cause was much prejudiced by the
+circulation through the press of letters on the subject from important
+personages in England.  His own efforts to do justice in the matter were
+traversed by such machinations.  If the Professor proved to be guilty of
+publications fairly to be deemed atheistical and blasphemous, he should
+be debarred from his functions, but the outcry from England was doing
+more harm than good.
+
+"The published extract from the letter of the Archbishop," he wrote,
+"to the effect that the King will declare My Lords the States to be his
+enemies if they are not willing to send the man away is doing much harm."
+
+Truly, if it had come to this--that a King of England was to go to war
+with a neighbouring and friendly republic because an obnoxious professor
+of theology was not instantly hurled from a university of which his
+Majesty was not one of the overseers--it was time to look a little
+closely into the functions of governments and the nature of public and
+international law.  Not that the sword of James was in reality very
+likely to be unsheathed, but his shriekings and his scribblings, pacific
+as he was himself, were likely to arouse passions which torrents of blood
+alone could satiate.
+
+"The publishing and spreading among the community," continued Barneveld,
+"of M. Winwood's protestations and of many indecent libels are also doing
+much mischief, for the nature of this people does not tolerate such
+things.  I hope, however, to obtain the removal according to his
+Majesty's desire.  Keep me well informed, and send me word what is
+thought in England by the four divines of the book of Vorstius, 'De Deo,'
+and of his declarations on the points sent here by his Majesty.  Let me
+know, too, if there has been any later confession published in England
+than that of the year 1562, and whether the nine points pressed in the
+year 1595 were accepted and published in 1603.  If so, pray send them,
+as they maybe made use of in settling our differences here."
+
+Thus it will be seen that the spirit of conciliation, of a calm but
+earnest desire to obtain a firm grasp of the most reasonable relations
+between Church and State through patient study of the phenomena exhibited
+in other countries, were the leading motives of the man.  Yet he was
+perpetually denounced in private as an unbeliever, an atheist, a tyrant,
+because he resisted dictation from the clergy within the Provinces and
+from kings outside them.
+
+"It was always held here to be one of the chief infractions of the laws
+and privileges of this country," he said, "that former princes had placed
+themselves in matter of religion in the tutelage of the Pope and the
+Spanish Inquisition, and that they therefore on complaint of their good
+subjects could take no orders on that subject.  Therefore it cannot be
+considered strange that we are not willing here to fall into the same
+obloquy.  That one should now choose to turn the magistrates, who were
+once so seriously summoned on their conscience and their office to adopt
+the Reformation and to take the matter of religion to heart, into
+ignorants, to deprive them of knowledge, and to cause them to see with
+other eyes than their own, cannot by many be considered right and
+reasonable.  'Intelligenti pauca.'"
+
+     [The interesting letter from which I have given these copious
+     extracts was ordered by its writer to be burned.  "Lecta vulcano"
+     was noted at the end of it, as was not unfrequently the case with
+     the Advocate.  It never was burned; but, innocent and reasonable as
+     it seems, was made use of by Barneveld's enemies with deadly effect.
+     J.L.M.]
+
+Meantime M. de Refuge, as before stated, was on his way to the Hague,
+to communicate the news of the double marriage.  He had fallen sick at
+Rotterdam, and the nature of his instructions and of the message he
+brought remained unknown, save from the previous despatches of Aerssens.
+But reports were rife that he was about to propose new terms of alliance
+to the States, founded on large concessions to the Roman Catholic
+religion.  Of course intense jealousy was excited at the English court,
+and calumny plumed her wings for a fresh attack upon the Advocate.  Of
+course he was sold to Spain, the Reformed religion was to be trampled out
+in the Provinces, and the Papacy and Holy Inquisition established on its
+ruins.  Nothing could be more diametrically the reverse of the fact than
+such hysterical suspicions as to the instructions of the ambassador
+extraordinary from France, and this has already appeared.  The Vorstian
+affair too was still in the same phase, the Advocate professing a
+willingness that justice should be done in the matter, while courteously
+but firmly resisting the arrogant pretensions of James to take the matter
+out of the jurisdiction of the States.
+
+"I stand amazed," he said, "at the partisanship and the calumnious
+representations which you tell me of, and cannot imagine what is thought
+nor what is proposed.  Should M. de Refuge make any such propositions as
+are feared, believe, and cause his Majesty and his counsellors to
+believe, that they would be of no effect.  Make assurances upon my word,
+notwithstanding all advices to the contrary, that such things would be
+flatly refused.  If anything is published or proven to the discredit of
+Vorstius, send it to me.  Believe that we shall not defend heretics nor
+schismatics against the pure Evangelical doctrine, but one cannot
+conceive here that the knowledge and judicature of the matter belongs
+anywhere else than to My Lords the States of Holland, in whose service he
+has legally been during four months before his Majesty made the least
+difficulty about it.  Called hither legally a year before, with the
+knowledge and by the order of his Excellency and the councillors of state
+of Holland, he has been countermined by five or six Flemings and
+Frisians, who, without recognizing the lawful authority of the
+magistrates, have sought assistance in foreign countries--in Germany
+and afterwards in England.  Yes, they have been so presumptuous as to
+designate one of their own men for the place.  If such a proceeding
+should be attempted in England, I leave it to those whose business it
+would be to deal with it to say what would be done.  I hope therefore
+that one will leave the examination and judgment of this matter freely to
+us, without attempting to make us--against the principles of the
+Reformation and the liberties and laws of the land--executors of the
+decrees of others, as the man here wishes to obtrude it upon us."
+
+He alluded to the difficulty in raising the ways and means; saying that
+the quota of Holland, as usual, which was more than half the whole, was
+ready, while other provinces were in arrears.  Yet they were protected,
+while Holland was attacked.
+
+"Methinks I am living in a strange world," he said, "when those who have
+received great honour from Holland, and who in their conscience know that
+they alone have conserved the Commonwealth, are now traduced with such
+great calumnies.  But God the Lord Almighty is just, and will in His own
+time do chastisement."
+
+The affair of Vorstius dragged its slow length along, and few things are
+more astounding at this epoch than to see such a matter, interesting
+enough certainly to theologians, to the University, and to the rising
+generation of students, made the topic of unceasing and embittered
+diplomatic controversy between two great nations, who had most pressing
+and momentous business on their hands.  But it was necessary to humour
+the King, while going to the verge of imprudence in protecting the
+Professor.  In March he was heard, three or four hours long, before the
+Assembly of Holland, in answer to various charges made against him, being
+warned that "he stood before the Lord God and before the sovereign
+authority of the States."  Although thought by many to have made a
+powerful defence, he was ordered to set it forth in writing, both in
+Latin and in the vernacular.  Furthermore it was ordained that he should
+make a complete refutation of all the charges already made or that might
+be made during the ensuing three months against him in speech, book, or
+letter in England, Germany, the Netherlands, or anywhere else.  He was
+allowed one year and a half to accomplish this work, and meantime was to
+reside not in Leyden, nor the Hague, but in some other town of Holland,
+not delivering lectures or practising his profession in any way.  It
+might be supposed that sufficient work had been thus laid out for the
+unfortunate doctor of divinity without lecturing or preaching.  The
+question of jurisdiction was saved.  The independence of the civil
+authority over the extreme pretensions of the clergy had been vindicated
+by the firmness of the Advocate.  James bad been treated with overflowing
+demonstrations of respect, but his claim to expel a Dutch professor from
+his chair and country by a royal fiat had been signally rebuked.
+Certainly if the Provinces were dependent upon the British king in
+regard to such a matter, it was the merest imbecility for them to affect
+independence.  Barneveld had carried his point and served his country
+strenuously and well in this apparently small matter which human folly
+had dilated into a great one.  But deep was the wrath treasured against
+him in consequence in clerical and royal minds.
+
+Returning from Wesel after the negotiations, Sir Ralph Winwood had
+an important interview at Arnheim with Prince Maurice, in which they
+confidentially exchanged their opinions in regard to the Advocate,
+and mutually confirmed their suspicions and their jealousies in
+regard to that statesman.
+
+The Ambassador earnestly thanked the Prince in the King's name for his
+"careful and industrious endeavours for the maintenance of the truth of
+religion, lively expressed in prosecuting the cause against Vorstius and
+his adherents."
+
+He then said:
+
+"I am expressly commanded that his Majesty conferring the present
+condition of affairs of this quarter of the world with those
+advertisements he daily receives from his ministers abroad, together
+with the nature and disposition of those men who have in their hands
+the managing of all business in these foreign parts, can make no other
+judgment than this.
+
+"There is a general ligue and confederation complotted far the subversion
+and ruin of religion upon the subsistence whereof his Majesty doth judge
+the main welfare of your realms and of these Provinces solely to consist.
+
+"Therefore his Majesty has given me charge out of the knowledge he
+has of your great worth and sufficiency," continued Winwood," and the
+confidence he reposes in your faith and affection, freely to treat with
+you on these points, and withal to pray you to deliver your opinion what
+way would be the most compendious and the most assured to contrequarr
+these complots, and to frustrate the malice of these mischievous
+designs."
+
+The Prince replied by acknowledging the honour the King had vouchsafed to
+do him in holding so gracious an opinion of him, wherein his Majesty
+should never be deceived.
+
+"I concur in judgment with his Majesty," continued the Prince, "that the
+main scope at which these plots and practices do aim, for instance, the
+alliance between France and Spain, is this, to root out religion, and by
+consequence to bring under their yoke all those countries in which
+religion is professed.
+
+"The first attempt," continued the Prince, "is doubtless intended against
+these Provinces.  The means to countermine and defeat these projected
+designs I take to be these: the continuance of his Majesty's constant
+resolution for the protection of religion, and then that the King would
+be pleased to procure a general confederation between the kings, princes,
+and commonwealths professing religion, namely, Denmark, Sweden, the
+German princes, the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, and our United
+Provinces.
+
+"Of this confederation, his Majesty must be not only the director, but
+the head and protector.
+
+"Lastly, the Protestants of France should be, if not supported, at least
+relieved from that oppression which the alliance of Spain doth threaten
+upon them.  This, I insist," repeated Maurice with great fervour, "is
+the only coupegorge of all plots whatever between France and Spain."
+
+He enlarged at great length on these points, which he considered so
+vital.
+
+"And what appearance can there be," asked Winwood insidiously and
+maliciously, "of this general confederation now that these Provinces,
+which heretofore have been accounted a principal member of the Reformed
+Church, begin to falter in the truth of religion?
+
+"He who solely governs the metropolitan province of Holland," continued
+the Ambassador, with a direct stab in the back at Barneveld, "is reputed
+generally, as your Excellency best knows, to be the only patron of
+Vorstius, and the protector of the schisms of Arminius.  And likewise,
+what possibility is there that the Protestants of France can expect
+favour from these Provinces when the same man is known to depend at the
+devotion of France?"
+
+The international, theological, and personal jealousy of the King against
+Holland's Advocate having been thus plainly developed, the Ambassador
+proceeded to pour into the Prince's ear the venom of suspicion, and to
+inflame his jealousy against his great rival.  The secret conversation
+showed how deeply laid was the foundation of the political hatred, both
+of James and of Maurice, against the Advocate, and certainly nothing
+could be more preposterous than to imagine the King as the director and
+head of the great Protestant League.  We have but lately seen him
+confidentially assuring his minister that his only aim was "to wind
+himself handsomely out of the whole business."  Maurice must have found
+it difficult to preserve his gravity when assigning such a part to
+"Master Jacques."
+
+"Although Monsieur Barneveld has cast off all care of religion," said
+Maurice, "and although some towns in Holland, wherein his power doth
+reign, are infected with the like neglect, yet so long as so many good
+towns in Holland stand sound, and all the other provinces of this
+confederacy, the proposition would at the first motion be cheerfully
+accepted.
+
+"I confess I find difficulty in satisfying your second question,"
+continued the Prince, "for I acknowledge that Barneveld is wholly devoted
+to the service of France.  During the truce negotiations, when some
+difference arose between him and myself, President Jeannin came to me,
+requiring me in the French king's name to treat Monsieur Barneveld well,
+whom the King had received into his protection.  The letters which the
+States' ambassador in France wrote to Barneveld (and to him all
+ambassadors address their despatches of importance), the very autographs
+themselves, he sent back into the hands of Villeroy."
+
+Here the Prince did not scruple to accuse the Advocate of doing the base
+and treacherous trick against Aerssens which he had expressly denied
+doing, and which had been done during his illness, as he solemnly avowed,
+by a subordinate probably for the sake of making mischief.
+
+Maurice then discoursed largely and vehemently of the suspicious
+proceedings of Barneveld, and denounced him as dangerous to the State.
+"When one man who has the conduct of all affairs in his sole power," he
+said, "shall hold underhand intelligence with the ministers of Spain and
+the Archduke, and that without warrant, thereby he may have the means so
+to carry the course of affairs that, do what they will, these Provinces
+must fall or stand at the mercy and discretion of Spain.  Therefore some
+good resolutions must be taken in time to hold up this State from a
+sudden downfall, but in this much moderation and discretion must be
+used."
+
+The Prince added that he had invited his cousin Lewis William to appear
+at the Hague at May day, in order to consult as to the proper means to
+preserve the Provinces from confusion under his Majesty's safeguard, and
+with the aid of the Englishmen in the States' service whom Maurice
+pronounced to be "the strength and flower of his army."
+
+Thus the Prince developed his ideas at great length, and accused the
+Advocate behind his back, and without the faintest shadow of proof, of
+base treachery to his friends and of high-treason.  Surely Barneveld was
+in danger, and was walking among pitfalls.  Most powerful and deadly
+enemies were silently banding themselves together against him.  Could he
+long maintain his hold on the slippery heights of power, where he was so
+consciously serving his country, but where he became day by day a mere
+shining mark for calumny and hatred?
+
+The Ambassador then signified to the Prince that he had been instructed
+to carry to him the King's purpose to confer on him the Order of the
+Garter.
+
+"If his Majesty holds me worthy of so great honour," said the Prince, "I
+and my family shall ever remain bound to his service and that of his
+royal posterity.
+
+"That the States should be offended I see no cause, but holding the
+charge I do in their service, I could not accept the honour without first
+acquainting them and receiving their approbation."
+
+Winwood replied that, as the King knew the terms on which the Prince
+lived with the States, he doubted not his Majesty would first notify them
+and say that he honoured the mutual amity between his realms and these
+Provinces by honouring the virtues of their general, whose services, as
+they had been most faithful and affectionate, so had they been
+accompanied with the blessings of happiness and prosperous success.
+
+Thus said Winwood to the King: "Your Majesty may plaster two walls with
+one trowel ('una fidelia duos dealbare parietes'), reverse the designs of
+them who to facilitate their own practices do endeavour to alienate your
+affections from the good of these Provinces, and oblige to your service
+the well-affected people, who know that there is no surety for
+themselves, their wives and children, but under the protection of your
+Majesty's favour.  Perhaps, however, the favourers of Vorstius and
+Arminius will buzz into the ears of their associates that your Majesty
+would make a party in these Provinces by maintaining the truth of
+religion and also by gaining unto you the affections of their chief
+commander.  But your Majesty will be pleased to pass forth whose worthy
+ends will take their place, which is to honour virtue where you find it,
+and the suspicious surmises of malice and envy in one instant will vanish
+into smoke."
+
+Winwood made no scruple in directly stating to the English government
+that Barneveld's purpose was to "cause a divorce between the King's
+realms and the Provinces, the more easily to precipitate them into the
+arms of Spain."  He added that the negotiation with Count Maurice then on
+foot was to be followed, but with much secrecy, on account of the place
+he held in the State.
+
+Soon after the Ambassador's secret conversation with Maurice he had an
+interview with Barneveld.  He assured the Advocate that no contentment
+could be given to his Majesty but by the banishment of Vorstius.  "If the
+town of Leyden should understand so much," replied Barneveld, "I fear the
+magistrates would retain him still in their town."
+
+"If the town of Leyden should retain Vorstius," answered Winwood, "to
+brave or despight his Majesty, the King has the means, if it pleases him
+to use them, and that without drawing sword, to range them to reason, and
+to make the magistrates on their knees demand his pardon, and I say as
+much of Rotterdam."
+
+Such insolence on the part of an ambassador to the first minister of a
+great republic was hard to bear.  Barneveld was not the man to brook it.
+He replied with great indignation.  "I was born in liberty," he said with
+rising choler, "I cannot digest this kind of language.  The King of Spain
+himself never dared to speak in so high a style."
+
+"I well understand that logic," returned the Ambassador with continued
+insolence.  "You hold your argument to be drawn 'a majori ad minus;' but
+I pray you to believe that the King of Great Britain is peer and
+companion to the King of Spain, and that his motto is, 'Nemo me impune
+lacessit.'"
+
+And so they parted in a mutual rage; Winwood adding on going out of the
+room, "Whatsoever I propose to you in his Majesty's name can find with
+you neither goust nor grace."
+
+He then informed Lord Rochester that "the man was extremely distempered
+and extremely distasted with his Majesty.
+
+"Some say," he added, "that on being in England when his Majesty first
+came to the throne he conceived some offence, which ever since hath
+rankled in his heart, and now doth burst forth with more violent malice."
+
+Nor was the matter so small as it superficially appeared.  Dependence of
+one nation upon the dictation of another can never be considered
+otherwise than grave.  The subjection of all citizens, clerical or lay,
+to the laws of the land, the supremacy of the State over the Church,
+were equally grave subjects.  And the question of sovereignty now raised
+for the first time, not academically merely, but practically, was the
+gravest one of all.  It was soon to be mooted vigorously and passionately
+whether the United Provinces were a confederacy or a union; a league of
+sovereign and independent states bound together by treaty for certain
+specified purposes or an incorporated whole.  The Advocate and all the
+principal lawyers in the country had scarcely a doubt on the subject.
+Whether it were a reasonable system or an absurd one, a vigorous or an
+imbecile form of government, they were confident that the Union of
+Utrecht, made about a generation of mankind before, and the only tie by
+which the Provinces were bound together at all, was a compact between
+sovereigns.
+
+Barneveld styled himself always the servant and officer of the States of
+Holland.  To them was his allegiance, for them he spoke, wrought, and
+thought, by them his meagre salary was paid.  At the congress of the
+States-General, the scene of his most important functions, he was the
+ambassador of Holland, acting nominally according to their instructions,
+and exercising the powers of minister of foreign affairs and, as it were,
+prime minister for the other confederates by their common consent.  The
+system would have been intolerable, the great affairs of war and peace
+could never have been carried on so triumphantly, had not the
+preponderance of the one province Holland, richer, more powerful,
+more important in every way than the other six provinces combined,
+given to the confederacy illegally, but virtually, many of the attributes
+of union.  Rather by usucaption than usurpation Holland had in many
+regards come to consider herself and be considered as the Republic
+itself.  And Barneveld, acting always in the name of Holland and with the
+most modest of titles and appointments, was for a long time in all civil
+matters the chief of the whole country.  This had been convenient during
+the war, still more convenient during negotiations for peace, but it was
+inevitable that there should be murmurs now that the cessation from
+military operations on a large scale had given men time to look more
+deeply into the nature of a constitution partly inherited and partly
+improvised, and having many of the defects usually incident to both
+sources of government.
+
+The military interest, the ecclesiastical power, and the influence of
+foreign nations exerted through diplomatic intrigue, were rapidly
+arraying themselves in determined hostility to Barneveld and to what was
+deemed his tyrannous usurpation.  A little later the national spirit, as
+opposed to provincial and municipal patriotism, was to be aroused against
+him, and was likely to prove the most formidable of all the elements of
+antagonism.
+
+It is not necessary to anticipate here what must be developed on a
+subsequent page.  This much, however, it is well to indicate for the
+correct understanding of passing events.  Barneveld did not consider
+himself the officer or servant of their High Mightinesses the States-
+General, while in reality often acting as their master, but the vassal
+and obedient functionary of their Great Mightinesses the States of
+Holland, whom he almost absolutely controlled.
+
+His present most pressing business was to resist the encroachments of the
+sacerdotal power and to defend the magistracy.  The casuistical questions
+which were fast maddening the public mind seemed of importance to him
+only as enclosing within them a more vital and practical question of
+civil government.
+
+But the anger of his opponents, secret and open, was rapidly increasing.
+Envy, jealousy, political and clerical hate, above all, that deadliest
+and basest of malignant spirits which in partisan warfare is bred out of
+subserviency to rising and rival power, were swarming about him and
+stinging him at every step.  No parasite of Maurice could more
+effectively pay his court and more confidently hope for promotion or
+reward than by vilipending Barneveld.  It would be difficult to
+comprehend the infinite extent and power of slander without a study of
+the career of the Advocate of Holland.
+
+"I thank you for your advices," he wrote to Carom' "and I wish from my
+heart that his Majesty, according to his royal wisdom and clemency
+towards the condition of this country, would listen only to My Lords the
+States or their ministers, and not to his own or other passionate persons
+who, through misunderstanding or malice, furnish him with information and
+so frequently flatter him.  I have tried these twenty years to deserve
+his Majesty's confidence, and have many letters from him reaching through
+twelve or fifteen years, in which he does me honour and promises his
+royal favour.  I am the more chagrined that through false and passionate
+reports and information--because I am resolved to remain good and true to
+My Lords the States, to the fatherland, and to the true Christian
+religion--I and mine should now be so traduced.  I hope that God Almighty
+will second my upright conscience, and cause his Majesty soon to see the
+injustice done to me and mine.  To defend the resolutions of My Lords the
+States of Holland is my office, duty, and oath, and I assure you that
+those resolutions are taken with wider vision and scope than his Majesty
+can believe.  Let this serve for My Lords' defence and my own against
+indecent calumny, for my duty allows me to pursue no other course."
+
+He again alluded to the dreary affair of Vorstius, and told the Envoy
+that the venation caused by it was incredible.  "That men unjustly defame
+our cities and their regents is nothing new," he said; "but I assure you
+that it is far more damaging to the common weal than the defamers
+imagine."
+
+Some of the private admirers of Arminius who were deeply grieved at
+so often hearing him "publicly decried as the enemy of God" had been
+defending the great heretic to James, and by so doing had excited the
+royal wrath not only against the deceased doctor and themselves, but
+against the States of Holland who had given them no commission.
+
+On the other hand the advanced orthodox party, most bitter haters of
+Barneveld, and whom in his correspondence with England he uniformly and
+perhaps designedly called the Puritans, knowing that the very word was a
+scarlet rag to James, were growing louder and louder in their demands.
+"Some thirty of these Puritans," said he, "of whom at least twenty are
+Flemings or other foreigners equally violent, proclaim that they and the
+like of them mean alone to govern the Church.  Let his Majesty compare
+this proposal with his Royal Present, with his salutary declaration at
+London in the year 1603 to Doctor Reynolds and his associates, and with
+his admonition delivered to the Emperor, kings, sovereigns, and
+republics, and he will best understand the mischievous principles of
+these people, who are now gaining credit with him to the detriment of the
+freedom and laws of these Provinces."
+
+A less enlightened statesman than Barneveld would have found it easy
+enough to demonstrate the inconsistency of the King in thus preaching
+subserviency of government to church and favouring the rule of Puritans
+over both.  It needed but slender logic to reduce such a policy on his
+part to absurdity, but neither kings nor governments are apt to value
+themselves on their logic.  So long as James could play the pedagogue to
+emperors, kings, and republics, it mattered little to him that the
+doctrines which he preached in one place he had pronounced flat
+blasphemy in another.
+
+That he would cheerfully hang in England the man whom he would elevate to
+power in Holland might be inconsistency in lesser mortals; but what was
+the use of his infallibility if he was expected to be consistent?
+
+But one thing was certain.  The Advocate saw through him as if he had
+been made of glass, and James knew that he did.  This fatal fact
+outweighed all the decorous and respectful phraseology under which
+Barneveld veiled his remorseless refutations.  It was a dangerous thing
+to incur the wrath of this despot-theologian.
+
+Prince Maurice, who had originally joined in the invitation given by the
+overseers of Leyden to Vorstius, and had directed one of the deputies and
+his own "court trumpeter," Uytenbogaert, to press him earnestly to grant
+his services to the University, now finding the coldness of Barneveld to
+the fiery remonstrances of the King, withdrew his protection of the
+Professor.
+
+"The Count Maurice, who is a wise and understanding prince," said
+Winwood, "and withal most affectionate to his Majesty's service, doth
+foresee the miseries into which these countries are likely to fall, and
+with grief doth pine away."
+
+It is probable that the great stadholder had never been more robust, or
+indeed inclining to obesity, than precisely at this epoch; but Sir Ralph
+was of an imaginative turn.  He had discovered, too, that the Advocate's
+design was "of no other nature than so to stem the course of the State
+that insensibly the Provinces shall fall by relapse into the hands of
+Spain."
+
+A more despicable idea never entered a human brain.  Every action, word,
+and thought, of Barneveld's life was a refutation of it.  But he was
+unwilling, at the bidding of a king, to treat a professor with contumely
+who had just been solemnly and unanimously invited by the great
+university, by the States of Holland, and by the Stadholder to an
+important chair; and that was enough for the diplomatist and courtier.
+"He, and only he," said Winwood passionately, "hath opposed his Majesty's
+purposes with might and main."  Formerly the Ambassador had been full of
+complaints of "the craving humour of Count Maurice," and had censured him
+bitterly in his correspondence for having almost by his inordinate
+pretensions for money and other property brought the Treaty of Truce to a
+standstill.  And in these charges he was as unjust and as reckless as he
+was now in regard to Barneveld.
+
+The course of James and his agents seemed cunningly devised to sow
+discord in the Provinces, to inflame the growing animosity of the
+Stadholder to the Advocate, and to paralyse the action of the Republic in
+the duchies.  If the King had received direct instructions from the
+Spanish cabinet how to play the Spanish game, he could hardly have done
+it with more docility.  But was not Gondemar ever at his elbow, and the
+Infanta always in the perspective?
+
+And it is strange enough that, at the same moment, Spanish marriages were
+in France as well as England the turning-point of policy.
+
+Henry had been willing enough that the Dauphin should espouse a Spanish
+infanta, and that one of the Spanish princes should be affianced to one
+of his daughters.  But the proposition from Spain had been coupled with a
+condition that the friendship between France and the Netherlands should
+be at once broken off, and the rebellious heretics left to their fate.
+And this condition had been placed before him with such arrogance that
+he had rejected the whole scheme.  Henry was not the man to do anything
+dishonourable at the dictation of another sovereign.  He was also not the
+man to be ignorant that the friendship of the Provinces was necessary to
+him, that cordial friendship between France and Spain was impossible, and
+that to allow Spain to reoccupy that splendid possession between his own
+realms and Germany, from which she had been driven by the Hollanders in
+close alliance with himself, would be unworthy of the veriest schoolboy
+in politics.  But Henry was dead, and a Medici reigned in his place,
+whose whole thought was to make herself agreeable to Spain.
+
+Aerssens, adroit, prying, experienced, unscrupulous, knew very well
+that these double Spanish marriages were resolved upon, and that the
+inevitable condition refused by the King would be imposed upon his widow.
+He so informed the States-General, and it was known to the French
+government that he had informed them.  His position soon became almost
+untenable, not because he had given this information, but because the
+information and the inference made from it were correct.
+
+It will be observed that the policy of the Advocate was to preserve
+friendly relations between France and England, and between both and the
+United Provinces.  It was for this reason that he submitted to the
+exhortations and denunciations of the English ambassadors.  It was for
+this that he kept steadily in view the necessity of dealing with and
+supporting corporate France, the French government, when there were many
+reasons for feeling sympathy with the internal rebellion against that
+government.  Maurice felt differently.  He was connected by blood or
+alliance with more than one of the princes now perpetually in revolt.
+Bouillon was his brother-in-law, the sister of Conde was his brother's
+wife.  Another cousin, the Elector-Palatine, was already encouraging
+distant and extravagant hopes of the Imperial crown.  It was not
+unnatural that he should feel promptings of ambition and sympathy
+difficult to avow even to himself, and that he should feel resentment
+against the man by whom this secret policy was traversed in the well-
+considered interest of the Republican government.
+
+Aerssens, who, with the keen instinct of self-advancement was already
+attaching himself to Maurice as to the wheels of the chariot going
+steadily up the hill, was not indisposed to loosen his hold upon the man
+through whose friendship he had first risen, and whose power was now
+perhaps on the decline.  Moreover, events had now caused him to hate the
+French government with much fervour.  With Henry IV. he had been all-
+powerful.  His position had been altogether exceptional, and he had
+wielded an influence at Paris more than that exerted by any foreign
+ambassador.  The change naturally did not please him, although he well
+knew the reasons.  It was impossible for the Dutch ambassador to be
+popular at a court where Spain ruled supreme.  Had he been willing to eat
+humiliation as with a spoon, it would not have sufficed.  They knew him,
+they feared him, and they could not doubt that his sympathies would ever
+be with the malcontent princes.  At the same time he did not like to lose
+his hold upon the place, nor to have it known, as yet, to the world that
+his power was diminished.
+
+"The Queen commands me to tell you," said the French ambassador de Russy
+to the States-General, "that the language of the Sieur Aerssens has not
+only astonished her, but scandalized her to that degree that she could
+not refrain from demanding if it came from My Lords the States or from
+himself.  He having, however, affirmed to her Majesty that he had express
+charge to justify it by reasons so remote from the hope and the belief
+that she had conceived of your gratitude to the Most Christian King and
+herself, she is constrained to complain of it, and with great frankness."
+
+Some months later than this Aerssens communicated to the States-General
+the project of the Spanish marriage, "which," said he, "they have
+declared to me with so many oaths to be false."  He informed them that
+M. de Refuge was to go on special mission to the Hague, "having been
+designated to that duty before Aerssens' discovery of the marriage
+project."  He was to persuade their Mightinesses that the marriages were
+by no means concluded, and that, even if they were, their Mightinesses
+were not interested therein, their Majesties intending to remain by the
+old maxims and alliances of the late king.  Marriages, he would be
+instructed to say, were mere personal conventions, which remained
+of no consideration when the interests of the crown were touched.
+"Nevertheless, I know very well," said Aerssens, "that in England
+these negotiations are otherwise understood, and that the King has
+uttered great complaints about them, saying that such a negotiation as
+this ought not to have been concealed from him.  He is pressing more than
+ever for reimbursement of the debt to him, and especially for the moneys
+pretended to have been furnished to your Mightinesses in his Majesty's
+name."
+
+Thus it will be seen how closely the Spanish marriages were connected
+with the immediate financial arrangements of France, England, and the
+States, without reference to the wider political consequences
+anticipated.
+
+"The princes and most gentlemen," here continued the Ambassador, "believe
+that these reciprocal and double marriages will bring about great changes
+in Christendom if they take the course which the authors of them intend,
+however much they may affect to believe that no novelties are impending.
+The marriages were proposed to the late king, and approved by him, during
+the negotiations for the truce, and had Don Pedro do Toledo been able to
+govern himself, as Jeannin has just been telling me, the United Provinces
+would have drawn from it their assured security.  What he means by that,
+I certainly cannot conceive, for Don Pedro proposed the marriage of the
+Dauphin (now Louis XIII.) with the Infanta on the condition that Henry
+should renounce all friendship with your Mightinesses, and neither openly
+nor secretly give you any assistance.  You were to be entirely abandoned,
+as an example for all who throw off the authority of their lawful prince.
+But his Majesty answered very generously that he would take no
+conditions; that he considered your Mightinesses as his best friends,
+whom he could not and would not forsake.  Upon this Don Pedro broke off
+the negotiation.  What should now induce the King of Spain to resume the
+marriage negotiations but to give up the conditions, I am sure I don't
+know, unless, through the truce, his designs and his ambition have grown
+flaccid.  This I don't dare to hope, but fear, on the contrary, that he
+will so manage the irresolution, weakness, and faintheartedness of this
+kingdom as through the aid of his pensioned friends here to arrive at all
+his former aims."
+
+Certainly the Ambassador painted the condition of France in striking and
+veracious colours, and he was quite right in sending the information
+which he was first to discover, and which it was so important for the
+States to know.  It was none the less certain in Barneveld's mind that
+the best, not the worst, must be made of the state of affairs, and that
+France should not be assisted in throwing herself irrecoverably into the
+arms of Spain.
+
+"Refuge will tell you," said Aerssens, a little later, "that these
+marriages will not interfere with the friendship of France for you nor
+with her subsidies, and that no advantage will be given to Spain in the
+treaty to your detriment or that of her other allies.  But whatever fine
+declarations they may make, it is sure to be detrimental.  And all the
+princes, gentlemen, and officers here have the same conviction.  Those of
+the Reformed religion believe that the transaction is directed solely
+against the religion which your Mightinesses profess, and that the next
+step will be to effect a total separation between the two religions and
+the two countries."
+
+Refuge arrived soon afterwards, and made the communication to the States-
+General of the approaching nuptials between the King of France and the
+Infanta of Spain; and of the Prince of Spain with Madame, eldest daughter
+of France, exactly as Aerssens had predicted four months before.  There
+was a great flourish of compliments, much friendly phrase-making, and
+their Mightinesses were informed that the communication of the marriages
+was made to them before any other power had been notified, in proof of
+the extraordinary affection entertained for them by France.  "You are
+so much interested in the happiness of France," said Refuge, "that this
+treaty by which it is secured will be for your happiness also.  He did
+not indicate, however, the precise nature of the bliss beyond the
+indulgence of a sentimental sympathy, not very refreshing in the
+circumstances, which was to result to the Confederacy from this close
+alliance between their firmest friend and their ancient and deadly enemy.
+He would have found it difficult to do so.
+
+"Don Rodrigo de Calderon, secretary of state, is daily expected from
+Spain," wrote, Aerssens once more.  "He brings probably the articles of
+the marriages, which have hitherto been kept secret, so they say.  'Tis a
+shrewd negotiator; and in this alliance the King's chief design is to
+injure your Mightinesses, as M. de Villeroy now confesses, although he
+says that this will not be consented to on this side.  It behoves your
+Mightinesses to use all your ears and eyes.  It is certain these are much
+more than private conventions.  Yes, there is nothing private about them,
+save the conjunction of the persons whom they concern.  In short, all
+the conditions regard directly the state, and directly likewise, or by
+necessary consequence, the state of your Mightinesses' Provinces.
+I reserve explanations until it shall please your Mightinesses to
+hear me by word of mouth."
+
+For it was now taken into consideration by the States' government whether
+Aerssens was to remain at his post or to return.  Whether it was his wish
+to be relieved of his embassy or not was a question.  But there was no
+question that the States at this juncture, and in spite of the dangers
+impending from the Spanish marriages, must have an ambassador ready to do
+his best to keep France from prematurely sliding into positive hostility
+to them.  Aerssens was enigmatical in his language, and Barneveld was
+somewhat puzzled.
+
+"I have according to your reiterated requests," wrote the Advocate to the
+Ambassador, "sounded the assembly of My Lords the States as to your
+recall; but I find among some gentlemen the opinion that if earnestly
+pressed to continue you would be willing to listen to the proposal.  This
+I cannot make out from your letters.  Please to advise me frankly as to
+your wishes, and assure yourself in everything of my friendship."
+
+Nothing could be more straightforward than this language, but the Envoy
+was less frank than Barneveld, as will subsequently appear.  The subject
+was a most important one, not only in its relation to the great affairs
+of state, but to momentous events touching the fate of illustrious
+personages.
+
+Meantime a resolution was passed by the States of Holland "in regard to
+the question whether Ambassador Aerssens should retain his office, yes
+or no?"  And it was decided by a majority of votes "to leave it to his
+candid opinion if in his free conscience he thinks he can serve the
+public cause there any longer.  If yes, he may keep his office one year
+more.  If no, he may take leave and come home.  In no case is his salary
+to be increased."
+
+Surely the States, under the guidance of the Advocate, had thus acted
+with consummate courtesy towards a diplomatist whose position from no
+apparent fault of his own but by the force of circumstances--and rather
+to his credit than otherwise--was gravely compromised.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Advanced orthodox party-Puritans
+Atheist, a tyrant, because he resisted dictation from the clergy
+Give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
+He was not imperial of aspect on canvas or coin
+He who would have all may easily lose all
+King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day
+Neither kings nor governments are apt to value logic
+Outdoing himself in dogmatism and inconsistency
+Small matter which human folly had dilated into a great one
+The defence of the civil authority against the priesthood
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v4, Motley #89
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+The Life of John of Barneveld, v5, 1609-14
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     Establishment of the Condominium in the Duchies--Dissensions between
+     the Neuburgers and Brandenburgers--Occupation of Julich by the
+     Brandenburgers assisted by the States-General--Indignation in Spain
+     and at the Court of the Archdukes--Subsidy despatched to Brussels
+     Spinola descends upon Aix-la-Chapelle and takes possession of Orsoy
+     and other places--Surrender of Wesel--Conference at Xanten--Treaty
+     permanently dividing the Territory between Brandenburg and Neuburg--
+     Prohibition from Spain--Delays and Disagreements.
+
+Thus the 'Condominium' had been peaceably established.
+
+Three or four years passed away in the course of which the evils of a
+joint and undivided sovereignty of two rival houses over the same
+territory could not fail to manifest themselves.  Brandenburg, Calvinist
+in religion, and for other reasons more intimately connected with and
+more favoured by the States' government than his rival, gained ground in
+the duchies.  The Palatine of Neuburg, originally of Lutheran faith like
+his father, soon manifested Catholic tendencies, which excited suspicion
+in the Netherlands.  These suspicions grew into certainties at the moment
+when he espoused the sister of Maximilian of Bavaria and of the Elector
+of Cologne.  That this close connection with the very heads of the
+Catholic League could bode no good to the cause of which the States-
+General were the great promoters was self-evident.  Very soon afterwards
+the Palatine, a man of mature age and of considerable talents, openly
+announced his conversion to the ancient church.  Obviously the sympathies
+of the States could not thenceforth fail to be on the side of
+Brandenburg.  The Elector's brother died and was succeeded in the
+governorship of the Condeminium by the Elector's brother, a youth of
+eighteen.  He took up his abode in Cleve, leaving Dusseldorf to be the
+sole residence of his co-stadholder.
+
+Rivalry growing warmer, on account of this difference of religion,
+between the respective partisans of Neuburg and Brandenburg, an attempt
+was made in Dusseldorf by a sudden entirely unsuspected rising of the
+Brandenburgers to drive their antagonist colleagues and their portion of
+the garrison out of the city.  It failed, but excited great anger.  A
+more successful effort was soon afterwards made in Julich; the Neuburgers
+were driven out, and the Brandenburgers remained in sole possession of
+the town and citadel, far the most important stronghold in the whole
+territory.  This was partly avenged by the Neuburgers, who gained
+absolute control of Dusseldorf.  Here were however no important
+fortifications, the place being merely an agreeable palatial residence
+and a thriving mart.  The States-General, not concealing their
+predilection for Brandenburg, but under pretext of guarding the peace
+which they had done so much to establish, placed a garrison of 1400
+infantry and a troop or two of horse in the citadel of Julich.
+
+Dire was the anger not unjustly excited in Spain when the news of this
+violation of neutrality reached that government.  Julich, placed midway
+between Liege and Cologne, and commanding those fertile plains which make
+up the opulent duchy, seemed virtually converted into a province of the
+detested heretical republic.  The German gate of the Spanish Netherlands
+was literally in the hands of its most formidable foe.
+
+The Spaniards about the court of the Archduke did not dissemble their
+rage.  The seizure of Julich was a stain upon his reputation, they cried.
+Was it not enough, they asked, for the United Provinces to have made a
+truce to the manifest detriment and discredit of Spain, and to have
+treated her during all the negotiation with such insolence?  Were they
+now to be permitted to invade neutral territory, to violate public faith,
+to act under no responsibility save to their own will?  What was left for
+them to do except to set up a tribunal in Holland for giving laws to the
+whole of Northern Europe?  Arrogating to themselves absolute power over
+the controverted states of Cleve, Julich, and the dependencies, they now
+pretended to dispose of them at their pleasure in order at the end
+insolently to take possession of them for themselves.
+
+These were the egregious fruits of the truce, they said tauntingly to the
+discomfited Archduke.  It had caused a loss of reputation, the very soul
+of empires, to the crown of Spain.  And now, to conclude her abasement,
+the troops in Flanders had been shaven down with such parsimony as to
+make the monarch seem a shopkeeper, not a king.  One would suppose the
+obedient Netherlands to be in the heart of Spain rather than outlying
+provinces surrounded by their deadliest enemies.  The heretics had gained
+possession of the government at Aix-la-Chapelle; they had converted the
+insignificant town of Mulheim into a thriving and fortified town in
+defiance of Cologne and to its manifest detriment, and in various other
+ways they had insulted the Catholics throughout those regions.  And who
+could wonder at such insolence, seeing that the army in Flanders,
+formerly the terror of heretics, had become since the truce so weak as to
+be the laughing-stock of the United Provinces?  If it was expensive to
+maintain these armies in the obedient Netherlands, let there be economy
+elsewhere, they urged.
+
+From India came gold and jewels.  From other kingdoms came ostentation
+and a long series of vain titles for the crown of Spain.  Flanders was
+its place of arms, its nursery of soldiers, its bulwark in Europe, and so
+it should be preserved.
+
+There was ground for these complaints.  The army at the disposition of
+the Archduke had been reduced to 8000 infantry and a handful of cavalry.
+The peace establishment of the Republic amounted to 20,000 foot, 3000
+horse, besides the French and English regiments.
+
+So soon as the news of the occupation of Julich was officially
+communicated to the Spanish cabinet, a subsidy of 400,000 crowns was at
+once despatched to Brussels.  Levies of Walloons and Germans were made
+without delay by order of Archduke Albert and under guidance of Spinola,
+so that by midsummer the army was swollen to 18,000 foot and 3000 horse.
+With these the great Genoese captain took the field in the middle of
+August.  On the 22nd of that month the army was encamped on some plains
+mid-way between Maestricht and Aachen.  There was profound mystery both
+at Brussels and at the Hague as to the objective point of these military
+movements.  Anticipating an attack upon Julich, the States had meantime
+strengthened the garrison of that important place with 3000 infantry and
+a regiment of horse.  It seemed scarcely probable therefore that Spinola
+would venture a foolhardy blow at a citadel so well fortified and
+defended.  Moreover, there was not only no declaration of war, but strict
+orders had been given by each of the apparent belligerents to their
+military commanders to abstain from all offensive movements against the
+adversary.  And now began one of the strangest series of warlike
+evolution's that were ever recorded.  Maurice at the head of an army of
+14,000 foot and 3000 horse manoeuvred in the neighbourhood of his great
+antagonist and professional rival without exchanging a blow.  It was a
+phantom campaign, the prophetic rehearsal of dreadful marches and tragic
+histories yet to be, and which were to be enacted on that very stage and
+on still wider ones during a whole generation of mankind.  That cynical
+commerce in human lives which was to become one of the chief branches of
+human industry in the century had already begun.
+
+Spinola, after hovering for a few days in the neighbourhood, descended
+upon the Imperial city of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle).  This had been one of
+the earliest towns in Germany to embrace the Reformed religion, and up to
+the close of the sixteenth century the control of the magistracy had been
+in the hands of the votaries of that creed.  Subsequently the Catholics
+had contrived to acquire and keep the municipal ascendency, secretly
+supported by Archduke Albert, and much oppressing the Protestants with
+imprisonments, fines, and banishment, until a new revolution which had
+occurred in the year 1610, and which aroused the wrath of Spinola.
+Certainly, according to the ideas of that day, it did not seem unnatural
+in a city where a very large majority of the population were Protestants
+that Protestants should have a majority in the town council.  It seemed,
+however, to those who surrounded the Archduke an outrage which could no
+longer be tolerated, especially as a garrison of 600 Germans, supposed to
+have formed part of the States' army, had recently been introduced into
+the town.  Aachen, lying mostly on an extended plain, had but very slight
+fortifications, and it was commanded by a neighbouring range of hills.
+It had no garrison but the 600 Germans.  Spinola placed a battery or
+two on the hills, and within three days the town surrendered.  The
+inhabitants expected a scene of carnage and pillage, but not a life was
+lost.  No injury whatever was inflicted on person or property, according
+to the strict injunctions of the Archduke.  The 600 Germans were driven
+out, and 1200 other Germans then serving under Catholic banners were put
+in their places to protect the Catholic minority, to whose keeping the
+municipal government was now confided.
+
+Spinola, then entering the territory of Cleve, took session of Orsoy, an
+important place on the Rhine, besides Duren, Duisburg, Kaster,
+Greevenbroek and Berchem.  Leaving garrisons in these places, he razed
+the fortifications of Mulheim, much to the joy of the Archbishop and his
+faithful subjects of Cologne, then crossed the Rhine at Rheinberg, and
+swooped down upon Wesel.  This flourishing and prosperous city had
+formerly belonged to the Duchy of Cleve.  Placed at the junction of the
+Rhine and Lippe and commanding both rivers, it had become both powerful
+and Protestant, and had set itself up as a free Imperial city,
+recognising its dukes no longer as sovereigns, but only as protectors.
+So fervent was it in the practice of the Reformed religion that it was
+called the Rhenish Geneva, the cradle of German Calvinism.  So important
+was its preservation considered to the cause of Protestantism that the
+States-General had urged its authorities to accept from them a garrison.
+They refused.  Had they complied, the city would have been saved, because
+it was the rule in this extraordinary campaign that the belligerents made
+war not upon each other, nor in each others territory, but against
+neutrals and upon neutral soil.  The Catholic forces under Spinola or his
+lieutenants, meeting occasionally and accidentally with the Protestants
+under Maurice or his generals, exchanged no cannon shots or buffets, but
+only acts of courtesy; falling away each before the other, and each
+ceding to the other with extreme politeness the possession of towns which
+one had preceded the other in besieging.
+
+The citizens of Wesel were amazed at being attacked, considering
+themselves as Imperial burghers.  They regretted too late that they had
+refused a garrison from Maurice, which would have prevented Spinola from
+assailing them.  They had now nothing for it but to surrender, which they
+did within three days.  The principal condition of the capitulation was
+that when Julich should be given up by the States Wesel should be
+restored to its former position.  Spinola then took and garrisoned the
+city of Xanten, but went no further.  Having weakened his army
+sufficiently by the garrisons taken from it for the cities captured by
+him, he declined to make any demonstration upon the neighbouring and
+important towns of Emmerich and Rees.  The Catholic commander falling
+back, the Protestant moved forward.  Maurice seized both Emmerich and
+Rees, and placed garrisons within them, besides occupying Goch,
+Kranenburg, Gennip, and various places in the County of Mark.  This
+closed the amicable campaign.
+
+Spinola established himself and his forces near Wesel.  The Prince
+encamped near Rees.  The two armies were within two hours' march of each
+other.  The Duke of Neuburg--for the Palatine had now succeeded on his
+father's death to the ancestral dukedom and to his share of the
+Condominium of the debateable provinces--now joined Spinola with an army
+of 4000 foot and 400 horse.  The young Prince of Brandenburg came to
+Maurice with 800 cavalry and an infantry regiment of the Elector-
+Palatine.
+
+Negotiations destined to be as spectral and fleeting as the campaign had
+been illusory now began.  The whole Protestant world was aflame with
+indignation at the loss of Wesel.  The States' government had already
+proposed to deposit Julich in the hands of a neutral power if the
+Archduke would abstain from military movements.  But Albert, proud of
+his achievements in Aachen, refused to pause in his career.  Let them
+make the deposit first, he said.
+
+Both belligerents, being now satiated with such military glory as could
+flow from the capture of defenceless cities belonging to neutrals, agreed
+to hold conferences at Xanten.  To this town, in the Duchy of Cleve, and
+midway between the rival camps, came Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Dudley
+Carleton, ambassadors of Great Britain; de Refuge and de Russy, the
+special and the resident ambassador of France at the Hague; Chancellor
+Peter Pecquius and Counsellor Visser, to represent the Archdukes; seven
+deputies from the United Provinces, three from the Elector of Cologne,
+three from Brandenburg, three from Neuburg, and two from the Elector-
+Palatine, as representative of the Protestant League.
+
+In the earlier conferences the envoys of the Archduke and of the Elector
+of Cologne were left out, but they were informed daily of each step in
+the negotiation.  The most important point at starting was thought to be
+to get rid of the 'Condominium.'  There could be no harmony nor peace in
+joint possession.  The whole territory should be cut provisionally in
+halves, and each possessory prince rule exclusively within the portion
+assigned to him.  There might also be an exchange of domain between the
+two every six months.  As for Wesel and Julich, they could remain
+respectively in the hands then holding them, or the fortifications of
+Julich might be dismantled and Wesel restored to the status quo.  The
+latter alternative would have best suited the States, who were growing
+daily more irritated at seeing Wesel, that Protestant stronghold, with an
+exclusively Calvinistic population, in the hands of Catholics.
+
+The Spanish ambassador at Brussels remonstrated, however, at the thought
+of restoring his precious conquest, obtained without loss of time, money,
+or blood, into the hands of heretics, at least before consultation with
+the government at Madrid and without full consent of the King.
+
+"How important to your Majesty's affairs in Flanders," wrote Guadaleste
+to Philip, "is the acquisition of Wesel may be seen by the manifest grief
+of your enemies.  They see with immense displeasure your royal ensigns
+planted on the most important place on the Rhine, and one which would
+become the chief military station for all the armies of Flanders to
+assemble in at any moment.
+
+"As no acquisition could therefore be greater, so your Majesty should
+never be deprived of it without thorough consideration of the case.  The
+Archduke fears, and so do his ministers, that if we refuse to restore
+Wesel, the United Provinces would break the truce.  For my part I
+believe, and there are many who agree with me, that they would on the
+contrary be more inclined to stand by the truce, hoping to obtain by
+negotiation that which it must be obvious to them they cannot hope to
+capture by force.  But let Wesel be at once restored.  Let that be done
+which is so much desired by the United Provinces and other great enemies
+and rivals of your Majesty, and what security will there be that the same
+Provinces will not again attempt the same invasion?  Is not the example
+of Julich fresh?  And how much more important is Wesel!  Julich was after
+all not situate on their frontiers, while Wesel lies at their principal
+gates.  Your Majesty now sees the good and upright intentions of those
+Provinces and their friends.  They have made a settlement between
+Brandenburg and Neuburg, not in order to breed concord but confusion
+between those two, not tranquillity for the country, but greater
+turbulence than ever before.  Nor have they done this with any other
+thought than that the United Provinces might find new opportunities to
+derive the same profit from fresh tumults as they have already done so
+shamelessly from those which are past.  After all I don't say that Wesel
+should never be restored, if circumstances require it, and if your
+Majesty, approving the Treaty of Xanten, should sanction the measure.
+But such a result should be reached only after full consultation with
+your Majesty, to whose glorious military exploits these splendid results
+are chiefly owing."
+
+The treaty finally decided upon rejected the principle of alternate
+possession, and established a permanent division of the territory in
+dispute between Brandenburg and Neuburg.
+
+The two portions were to be made as equal as possible, and lots were to
+be thrown or drawn by the two princes for the first choice.  To the one
+side were assigned the Duchy of Cleve, the County of Mark, and the
+Seigniories of Ravensberg and Ravenstein, with some other baronies and
+feuds in Brabant and Flanders; to the other the Duchies of Julich and
+Berg with their dependencies.  Each prince was to reside exclusively
+within the territory assigned to him by lot.  The troops introduced by
+either party were to be withdrawn, fortifications made since the
+preceding month of May to be razed, and all persons who had been
+expelled, or who had emigrated, to be restored to their offices,
+property, or benefices.  It was also stipulated that no place within the
+whole debateable territory should be put in the hands of a third power.
+
+These articles were signed by the ambassadors of France and England, by
+the deputies of the Elector-Palatine and of the United Provinces, all
+binding their superiors to the execution of the treaty.  The arrangement
+was supposed to refer to the previous conventions between those two
+crowns, with the Republic, and the Protestant princes and powers.  Count
+Zollern, whom we have seen bearing himself so arrogantly as envoy from
+the Emperor Rudolph to Henry IV., was now despatched by Matthias on as
+fruitless a mission to the congress at Xanten, and did his best to
+prevent the signature of the treaty, except with full concurrence of the
+Imperial government.  He likewise renewed the frivolous proposition that
+the Emperor should hold all the provinces in sequestration until the
+question of rightful sovereignty should be decided.  The "proud and
+haggard" ambassador was not more successful in this than in the
+diplomatic task previously entrusted to him, and he then went to
+Brussels, there to renew his remonstrances, menaces, and intrigues.
+
+For the treaty thus elaborately constructed, and in appearance a
+triumphant settlement of questions so complicated and so burning as to
+threaten to set Christendom at any moment in a blaze, was destined to an
+impotent and most unsatisfactory conclusion.
+
+The signatures were more easily obtained than the ratifications.
+Execution was surrounded with insurmountable difficulties which in
+negotiation had been lightly skipped over at the stroke of a pen.
+At the very first step, that of military evacuation, there was a stumble.
+Maurice and Spinola were expected to withdraw their forces, and to
+undertake to bring in no troops in the future, and to make no invasion of
+the disputed territory.
+
+But Spinola construed this undertaking as absolute; the Prince as only
+binding in consequence of, with reference to, and for the duration of;
+the Treaty of Xanten.  The ambassadors and other commissioners, disgusted
+with the long controversy which ensued, were making up their minds to
+depart when a courier arrived from Spain, bringing not a ratification but
+strict prohibition of the treaty.  The articles were not to be executed,
+no change whatever was to be made, and, above all, Wesel was not to be
+restored without fresh negotiations with Philip, followed by his explicit
+concurrence.
+
+Thus the whole great negotiation began to dissolve into a shadowy,
+unsatisfactory pageant.  The solid barriers which were to imprison the
+vast threatening elements of religious animosity and dynastic hatreds,
+and to secure a peaceful future for Christendom, melted into films of
+gossamer, and the great war of demons, no longer to be quelled by the
+commonplaces of diplomatic exorcism, revealed its close approach.  The
+prospects of Europe grew blacker than ever.
+
+The ambassadors, thoroughly disheartened and disgusted, all took their
+departure from Xanten, and the treaty remained rather a by-word than a
+solution or even a suggestion.
+
+"The accord could not be prevented," wrote Archduke Albert to Philip,
+"because it depended alone on the will of the signers.  Nor can the
+promise to restore Wesel be violated, should Julich be restored.  Who can
+doubt that such contravention would arouse great jealousies in France,
+England, the United Provinces, and all the members of the heretic League
+of Germany?  Who can dispute that those interested ought to procure the
+execution of the treaty?  Suspicions will not remain suspicions, but they
+light up the flames of public evil and disturbance.  Either your Majesty
+wishes to maintain the truce, in which case Wesel must be restored, or to
+break the truce, a result which is certain if Wesel be retained.  But the
+reasons which induced your Majesty to lay down your arms remain the same
+as ever.  Our affairs are not looking better, nor is the requisition of
+Wesel of so great importance as to justify our involving Flanders in a
+new and more atrocious war than that which has so lately been suspended.
+The restitution is due to the tribunal of public faith.  It is a great
+advantage when actions done for the sole end of justice are united to
+that of utility.  Consider the great successes we have had.  How well the
+affairs of Aachen and Mulbeim have been arranged; those of the Duke of
+Neuburg how completely re-established.  The Catholic cause, always
+identical with that of the House of Austria, remains in great superiority
+to the cause of the heretics.  We should use these advantages well, and
+to do so we should not immaturely pursue greater ones.  Fortune changes,
+flies when we most depend on her, and delights in making her chief sport
+of the highest quality of mortals."
+
+Thus wrote the Archduke sensibly, honourably from his point of view, and
+with an intelligent regard to the interests of Spain and the Catholic
+cause.  After months of delay came conditional consent from Madrid to the
+conventions, but with express condition that there should be absolute
+undertaking on the part of the United Provinces never to send or maintain
+troops in the duchies.  Tedious and futile correspondence followed
+between Brussels, the Hague, London, Paris.  But the difficulties grew
+every moment.  It was a Penelope's web of negotiation, said one of the
+envoys.  Amid pertinacious and wire-drawn subtleties, every trace of
+practical business vanished.  Neuburg departed to look after his
+patrimonial estates; leaving his interests in the duchies to be watched
+over by the Archduke.  Even Count Zollern, after six months of wrangling
+in Brussels, took his departure.  Prince Maurice distributed his army in
+various places within the debateable land, and Spinola did the same,
+leaving a garrison of 3000 foot and 300 horse in the important city of
+Wesel.  The town and citadel of Julich were as firmly held by Maurice for
+the Protestant cause.  Thus the duchies were jointly occupied by the
+forces of Catholicism and Protestantism, while nominally possessed and
+administered by the princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg.  And so they
+were destined to remain until that Thirty Years' War, now so near its
+outbreak, should sweep over the earth, and bring its fiery solution at
+last to all these great debates.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     Proud Position of the Republic--France obeys her--Hatred of Carleton
+     --Position and Character of Aerssens--Claim for the "Third"--Recall
+     of Aerssens--Rivalry between Maurice and Barneveld, who always
+     sustains the separate Sovereignties of the Provinces--Conflict
+     between Church and State added to other Elements of Discord in the
+     Commonwealth--Religion a necessary Element in the Life of all
+     Classes.
+
+Thus the Republic had placed itself in as proud a position as it was
+possible for commonwealth or kingdom to occupy.  It had dictated the
+policy and directed the combined military movements of Protestantism.
+It had gathered into a solid mass the various elements out of which
+the great Germanic mutiny against Rome, Spain, and Austria had been
+compounded.  A breathing space of uncertain duration had come to
+interrupt and postpone the general and inevitable conflict.
+Meantime the Republic was encamped upon the enemy's soil.
+
+France, which had hitherto commanded, now obeyed.  England, vacillating
+and discontented, now threatening and now cajoling, saw for the time at
+least its influence over the councils of the Netherlands neutralized by
+the genius of the great statesman who still governed the Provinces,
+supreme in all but name.  The hatred of the British government towards
+the Republic, while in reality more malignant than at any previous
+period, could now only find vent in tremendous, theological pamphlets,
+composed by the King in the form of diplomatic instructions, and hurled
+almost weekly at the heads of the States-General, by his ambassador,
+Dudley Carleton.
+
+Few men hated Barneveld more bitterly than did Carleton.  I wish to
+describe as rapidly, but as faithfully, as I can the outline at least of
+the events by which one of the saddest and most superfluous catastrophes
+in modern history was brought about.  The web was a complex one, wrought
+apparently of many materials; but the more completely it is unravelled
+the more clearly we shall detect the presence of the few simple but
+elemental fibres which make up the tissue of most human destinies,
+whether illustrious or obscure, and out of which the most moving
+pictures of human history are composed.
+
+The religious element, which seems at first view to be the all pervading
+and controlling one, is in reality rather the atmosphere which surrounds
+and colours than the essence which constitutes the tragedy to be
+delineated.
+
+Personal, sometimes even paltry, jealousy; love of power, of money, of
+place; rivalry between civil and military ambition for predominance in a
+free state; struggles between Church and State to control and oppress
+each other; conflict between the cautious and healthy, but provincial and
+centrifugal, spirit on the one side, and the ardent centralizing,
+imperial, but dangerous, instinct on the other, for ascendancy in a
+federation; mortal combat between aristocracy disguised in the plebeian
+form of trading and political corporations and democracy sheltering
+itself under a famous sword and an ancient and illustrious name;--all
+these principles and passions will be found hotly at work in the
+melancholy five years with which we are now to be occupied, as they have
+entered, and will always enter, into every political combination in the
+great tragi-comedy which we call human history.  As a study, a lesson,
+and a warning, perhaps the fate of Barneveld is as deserving of serious
+attention as most political tragedies of the last few centuries.
+
+Francis Aerssens, as we have seen, continued to be the Dutch ambassador
+after the murder of Henry IV.  Many of the preceding pages of this volume
+have been occupied with his opinions, his pictures, his conversations,
+and his political intrigues during a memorable epoch in the history of
+the Netherlands and of France.  He was beyond all doubt one of the ablest
+diplomatists in Europe.  Versed in many languages, a classical student,
+familiar with history and international law, a man of the world and
+familiar with its usages, accustomed to associate with dignity and tact
+on friendliest terms with sovereigns, eminent statesmen, and men of
+letters; endowed with a facile tongue, a fluent pen, and an eye and ear
+of singular acuteness and delicacy; distinguished for unflagging industry
+and singular aptitude for secret and intricate affairs;--he had by the
+exercise of these various qualities during a period of nearly twenty
+years at the court of Henry the Great been able to render inestimable
+services to the Republic which he represented.  Of respectable but not
+distinguished lineage, not a Hollander, but a Belgian by birth, son of
+Cornelis Aerssens, Grefter of the States-General, long employed in that
+important post, he had been brought forward from a youth by Barneveld and
+early placed by him in the diplomatic career, of which through his favour
+and his own eminent talents he had now achieved the highest honours.
+
+He had enjoyed the intimacy and even the confidence of Henry IV., so far
+as any man could be said to possess that monarch's confidence, and his
+friendly relations and familiar access to the King gave him political
+advantages superior to those of any of his colleagues at the same court.
+
+Acting entirely and faithfully according to the instructions of the
+Advocate of Holland, he always gratefully and copiously acknowledged the
+privilege of being guided and sustained in the difficult paths he had to
+traverse by so powerful and active an intellect.  I have seldom alluded
+in terms to the instructions and despatches of the chief, but every
+position, negotiation, and opinion of the envoy--and the reader has seen
+many of them--is pervaded by their spirit.  Certainly the correspondence
+of Aerssens is full to overflowing of gratitude, respect, fervent
+attachment to the person and exalted appreciation of the intellect and
+high character of the Advocate.
+
+There can be no question of Aerssen's consummate abilities.  Whether his
+heart were as sound as his head, whether his protestations of devotion
+had the ring of true gold or not, time would show.  Hitherto Barneveld
+had not doubted him, nor had he found cause to murmur at Barneveld.
+
+But the France of Henry IV., where the Dutch envoy was so all-powerful,
+had ceased to exist.  A duller eye than that of Aerssens could have seen
+at a glance that the potent kingdom and firm ally of the Republic had
+been converted, for a long time to come at least, into a Spanish
+province.  The double Spanish marriages (that of the young Louis XIII.
+with the Infanta Anna, and of his sister with the Infante, one day to be
+Philip IV.), were now certain, for it was to make them certain that the
+knife of Ravaillac had been employed.  The condition precedent to those
+marriages had long been known.  It was the renunciation of the alliance
+between France and Holland.  It was the condemnation to death, so far as
+France had the power to condemn her to death, of the young Republic.  Had
+not Don Pedro de Toledo pompously announced this condition a year and a
+half before?  Had not Henry spurned the bribe with scorn?  And now had
+not Francis Aerssens been the first to communicate to his masters the
+fruit which had already ripened upon Henry's grave?  As we have seen,
+he had revealed these intrigues long before they were known to the world,
+and the French court knew that he had revealed them.  His position had
+become untenable.  His friendship for Henry could not be of use to him
+with the delicate-featured, double-chinned, smooth and sluggish
+Florentine, who had passively authorized and actively profited by her
+husband's murder.
+
+It was time for the Envoy to be gone.  The Queen-Regent and Concini
+thought so.  And so did Villeroy and Sillery and the rest of the old
+servants of the King, now become pensionaries of Spain.  But Aerssens did
+not think so.  He liked his position, changed as it was.  He was deep in
+the plottings of Bouillon and Conde and the other malcontents against the
+Queen-Regent.  These schemes, being entirely personal, the rank growth of
+the corruption and apparent disintegration of France, were perpetually
+changing, and could be reduced to no principle.  It was a mere struggle
+of the great lords of France to wrest places, money, governments,
+military commands from the Queen-Regent, and frantic attempts on her part
+to save as much as possible of the general wreck for her lord and master
+Concini.
+
+It was ridiculous to ascribe any intense desire on the part of the Duc de
+Bouillon to aid the Protestant cause against Spain at that moment, acting
+as he was in combination with Conde, whom we have just seen employed by
+Spain as the chief instrument to effect the destruction of France and the
+bastardy of the Queen's children.  Nor did the sincere and devout
+Protestants who had clung to the cause through good and bad report, men
+like Duplessis-Mornay, for example, and those who usually acted with him,
+believe in any of these schemes for partitioning France on pretence of
+saving Protestantism.  But Bouillon, greatest of all French fishermen in
+troubled waters, was brother-in-law of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and
+Aerssens instinctively felt that the time had come when he should anchor
+himself to firm holding ground at home.
+
+The Ambassador had also a personal grievance.  Many of his most secret
+despatches to the States-General in which he expressed himself very
+freely, forcibly, and accurately on the general situation in France,
+especially in regard to the Spanish marriages and the Treaty of Hampton
+Court, had been transcribed at the Hague and copies of them sent to the
+French government.  No baser act of treachery to an envoy could be
+imagined.  It was not surprising that Aerssens complained bitterly of the
+deed.  He secretly suspected Barneveld, but with injustice, of having
+played him this evil turn, and the incident first planted the seeds of
+the deadly hatred which was to bear such fatal fruit.
+
+"A notable treason has been played upon me," he wrote to Jacques de
+Maldere, "which has outraged my heart.  All the despatches which I have
+been sending for several months to M. de Barneveld have been communicated
+by copy in whole or in extracts to this court.  Villeroy quoted from them
+at our interview to-day, and I was left as it were without power of
+reply.  The despatches were long, solid, omitting no particularity for
+giving means to form the best judgment of the designs and intrigues of
+this court.  No greater damage could be done to me and my usefulness.
+All those from whom I have hitherto derived information, princes and
+great personages, will shut themselves up from me .  .  .  .  What can be
+more ticklish than to pass judgment on the tricks of those who are
+governing this state?  This single blow has knocked me down completely.
+For I was moving about among all of them, making my profit of all,
+without any reserve.  M. de Barneveld knew by this means the condition of
+this kingdom as well as I do.  Certainly in a well-ordered republic it
+would cost the life of a man who had thus trifled with the reputation of
+an ambassador.  I believe M. de Barneveld will be sorry, but this will
+never restore to me the confidence which I have lost.  If one was jealous
+of my position at this court, certainly I deserved rather pity from those
+who should contemplate it closely.  If one wished to procure my downfall
+in order to raise oneself above me, there was no need of these tricks.
+I have been offering to resign my embassy this long time, which will now
+produce nothing but thorns for me.  How can I negotiate after my private
+despatches have been read?  L'Hoste, the clerk of Villeroy, was not so
+great a criminal as the man who revealed my despatches; and L'Hoste was
+torn by four horses after his death.  Four months long I have been
+complaining of this to M. de Barneveld.  .  .  .  Patience!  I am
+groaning without being able to hope for justice.  I console myself, for
+my term of office will soon arrive.  Would that my embassy could have
+finished under the agreeable and friendly circumstances with which it
+began.  The man who may succeed me will not find that this vile trick
+will help him much .  .  .  .  Pray find out whence and from whom this
+intrigue has come."
+
+Certainly an envoy's position could hardly be more utterly compromised.
+Most unquestionably Aerssens had reason to be indignant, believing as he
+did that his conscientious efforts in the service of his government had
+been made use of by his chief to undermine his credit and blast his
+character.  There was an intrigue between the newly appointed French
+minister, de Russy, at the Hague and the enemies of Aerssens to represent
+him to his own government as mischievous, passionate, unreasonably
+vehement in supporting the claims and dignity of his own country at the
+court to which he was accredited.  Not often in diplomatic history has
+an ambassador of a free state been censured or removed for believing and
+maintaining in controversy that his own government is in the right.  It
+was natural that the French government should be disturbed by the vivid
+light which he had flashed upon their pernicious intrigues with Spain to
+the detriment of the Republic, and at the pertinacity with which he
+resisted their preposterous claim to be reimbursed for one-third of the
+money which the late king had advanced as a free subsidy towards the war
+of the Netherlands for independence.  But no injustice could be more
+outrageous than for the Envoy's own government to unite with the foreign
+State in damaging the character of its own agent for the crime of
+fidelity to itself.
+
+Of such cruel perfidy Aerssens had been the victim, and he most
+wrongfully suspected his chief as its real perpetrator.
+
+The claim for what was called the "Third" had been invented after the
+death of Henry.  As already explained, the "Third" was not a gift from
+England to the Netherlands.  It was a loan from England to France, or
+more properly a consent to abstain from pressing for payment for this
+proportion of an old debt.  James, who was always needy, had often
+desired, but never obtained, the payment of this sum from Henry.  Now
+that the King was dead, he applied to the Regent's government, and the
+Regent's government called upon the Netherlands, to pay the money.
+
+Aerssens, as the agent of the Republic, protested firmly against such
+claim.  The money had been advanced by the King as a free gift, as his
+contribution to a war in which he was deeply interested, although he was
+nominally at peace with Spain.  As to the private arrangements between
+France and England, the Republic, said the Dutch envoy, was in no sense
+bound by them.  He was no party to the Treaty of Hampton Court, and knew
+nothing of its stipulations.
+
+Courtiers and politicians in plenty at the French court, now that Henry
+was dead, were quite sure that they had heard him say over and over again
+that the Netherlands had bound themselves to pay the Third.  They
+persuaded Mary de' Medici that she likewise had often heard him say so,
+and induced her to take high ground on the subject in her interviews with
+Aerssens.  The luckless queen, who was always in want of money to satisfy
+the insatiable greed of her favourites, and to buy off the enmity of the
+great princes, was very vehement--although she knew as much of those
+transactions as of the finances of Prester John or the Lama of Thibet
+--in maintaining this claim of her government upon the States.
+
+"After talking with the ministers," said Aerssens, "I had an interview
+with the Queen.  I knew that she had been taught her lesson, to insist on
+the payment of the Third.  So I did not speak at all of the matter, but
+talked exclusively and at length of the French regiments in the States'
+service.  She was embarrassed, and did not know exactly what to say.
+At last, without replying a single word to what I had been saying, she
+became very red in the face, and asked me if I were not instructed to
+speak of the money due to England.  Whereupon I spoke in the sense
+already indicated.  She interrupted me by saying she had a perfect
+recollection that the late king intended and understood that we were to
+pay the Third to England, and had talked with her very seriously on the
+subject.  If he were living, he would think it very strange, she said,
+that we refused; and so on.
+
+"Soissons, too, pretends to remember perfectly that such were the King's
+intentions.  'Tis a very strange thing, Sir.  Every one knows now the
+secrets of the late king, if you are willing to listen.  Yet he was not
+in the habit of taking all the world into his confidence.  The Queen
+takes her opinions as they give them to her.  'Tis a very good princess,
+but I am sorry she is so ignorant of affairs.  As she says she remembers,
+one is obliged to say one believes her.  But I, who knew the King so
+intimately, and saw him so constantly, know that he could only have said
+that the Third was paid in acquittal of his debts to and for account of
+the King of England, and not that we were to make restitution thereof.
+The Chancellor tells me my refusal has been taken as an affront by the
+Queen, and Puysieux says it is a contempt which she can't swallow."
+
+Aerssens on his part remained firm; his pertinacity being the greater
+as he thoroughly understood the subject which he was talking about, an
+advantage which was rarely shared in by those with whom he conversed.
+The Queen, highly scandalized by his demeanour, became from that time
+forth his bitter enemy, and, as already stated, was resolved to be rid
+of him.
+
+Nor was the Envoy at first desirous of remaining.  He had felt after
+Henry's death and Sully's disgrace, and the complete transformation of
+the France which he had known, that his power of usefulness was gone.
+"Our enemies," he said, "have got the advantage which I used to have in
+times past, and I recognize a great coldness towards us, which is
+increasing every day."  Nevertheless, he yielded reluctantly to
+Barneveld's request that he should for the time at least remain at his
+post.  Later on, as the intrigues against him began to unfold themselves,
+and his faithful services were made use of at home to blacken his
+character and procure his removal, he refused to resign, as to do so
+would be to play into the hands of his enemies, and by inference at
+least to accuse himself of infidelity to his trust.
+
+But his concealed rage and his rancor grew more deadly every day.  He was
+fully aware of the plots against him, although he found it difficult to
+trace them to their source.
+
+"I doubt not," he wrote to Jacques de Maldere, the distinguished
+diplomatist and senator, who had recently returned from his embassy to
+England, "that this beautiful proposition of de Russy has been sent to
+your Province of Zealand.  Does it not seem to you a plot well woven as
+well in Holland as at this court to remove me from my post with
+disreputation?  What have I done that should cause the Queen to
+disapprove my proceedings?  Since the death of the late king I have
+always opposed the Third, which they have been trying to fix upon the
+treasury, on the ground that Henry never spoke to me of restitution, that
+the receipts given were simple ones, and that the money given was spent
+for the common benefit of France and the States under direction of the
+King's government.  But I am expected here to obey M. de Villeroy, who
+says that it was the intention of the late king to oblige us to make the
+payment.  I am not accustomed to obey authority if it be not supported by
+reason.  It is for my masters to reply and to defend me.  The Queen has
+no reason to complain.  I have maintained the interests of my superiors.
+But this is not the cause of the complaints.  My misfortune is that all
+my despatches have been sent from Holland in copy to this court.  Most of
+them contained free pictures of the condition and dealings of those who
+govern here.  M. de Villeroy has found himself depicted often, and now
+under pretext of a public negotiation he has found an opportunity of
+revenging himself .  .  .  .  Besides this cause which Villeroy has found
+for combing my head, Russy has given notice here that I have kept my
+masters in the hopes of being honourably exempted from the claims of this
+government.  The long letter which I wrote to M. de Barneveld justifies
+my proceedings."
+
+It is no wonder that the Ambassador was galled to the quick by the
+outrage which those concerned in the government were seeking to put
+upon him.  How could an honest man fail to be overwhelmed with rage
+and anguish at being dishonoured before the world by his masters for
+scrupulously doing his duty, and for maintaining the rights and dignity
+of his own country?  He knew that the charges were but pretexts, that the
+motives of his enemies were as base as the intrigues themselves, but he
+also knew that the world usually sides with the government against the
+individual, and that a man's reputation is rarely strong enough to
+maintain itself unsullied in a foreign land when his own government
+stretches forth its hand not to, shield, but to stab him.
+
+     [See the similarity of Aerssens position to that of Motley 250 years
+     later, in the biographical sketch of Motley by Oliver Wendell
+     Holmes. D.W.]
+
+"I know," he said, "that this plot has been woven partly in Holland and
+partly here by good correspondence, in order to drive me from my post
+with disreputation.  To this has tended the communication of my
+despatches to make me lose my best friends.  This too was the object of
+the particular imparting to de Russy of all my propositions, in order to
+draw a complaint against me from this court.
+
+"But as I have discovered this accurately, I have resolved to offer to my
+masters the continuance of my very humble service for such time and under
+such conditions as they may think good to prescribe.  I prefer forcing my
+natural and private inclinations to giving an opportunity for the
+ministers of this kingdom to discredit us, and to my enemies to succeed
+in injuring me, and by fraud and malice to force me from my post .  .  .
+I am truly sorry, being ready to retire, wishing to have an honourable
+testimony in recompense of my labours, that one is in such hurry to take
+advantage of my fall.  I cannot believe that my masters wish to suffer
+this.  They are too prudent, and cannot be ignorant of the treachery
+which has been practised on me.  I have maintained their cause.  If they
+have chosen to throw down the fruits of my industry, the blame should be
+imputed to those who consider their own ambition more than the interests
+of the public .  .  .  .  What envoy will ever dare to speak with vigour
+if he is not sustained by the government at home?  .  .  .  .  .  .
+My enemies have misrepresented my actions, and my language as passionate,
+exaggerated, mischievous, but I have no passion except for the service of
+my superiors.  They say that I have a dark and distrustful disposition,
+but I have been alarmed at the alliance now forming here with the King of
+Spain, through the policy of M. de Villeroy.  I was the first to discover
+this intrigue, which they thought buried in the bosom of the Triumvirate.
+I gave notice of it to My Lords the States as in duty bound.  It all came
+back to the government in the copies furnished of my secret despatches.
+This is the real source of the complaints against me.  The rest of the
+charges, relating to the Third and other matters, are but pretexts.
+To parry the blow, they pretend that all that is said and done with the
+Spaniard is but feigning.  Who is going to believe that?  Has not the
+Pope intervened in the affair?  .  .  .  I tell you they are furious here
+because I have my eyes open.  I see too far into their affairs to suit
+their purposes.  A new man would suit them better."
+
+His position was hopelessly compromised.  He remained in Paris, however,
+month after month, and even year after year, defying his enemies both at
+the Queen's court and in Holland, feeding fat the grudge he bore to
+Barneveld as the supposed author of the intrigue against him, and drawing
+closer the personal bands which united him to Bouillon and through him to
+Prince Maurice.
+
+The wrath of the Ambassador flamed forth without disguise against
+Barneveld and all his adherents when his removal, as will be related on
+a subsequent page, was at last effected.  And his hatred was likely to
+be deadly.  A man with a shrewd, vivid face, cleanly cut features and a
+restless eye; wearing a close-fitting skull cap, which gave him something
+the lock of a monk, but with the thoroughbred and facile demeanour of
+one familiar with the world; stealthy, smooth, and cruel, a man coldly
+intellectual, who feared no one, loved but few, and never forgot or
+forgave; Francis d'Aerssens, devoured by ambition and burning with
+revenge, was a dangerous enemy.
+
+Time was soon to show whether it was safe to injure him.  Barneveld, from
+well-considered motives of public policy, was favouring his honourable
+recall.  But he allowed a decorous interval of more than three years to
+elapse in which to terminate his affairs, and to take a deliberate
+departure from that French embassy to which the Advocate had originally
+promoted him, and in which there had been so many years of mutual benefit
+and confidence between the two statesmen.  He used no underhand means.
+He did not abuse the power of the States-General which he wielded to cast
+him suddenly and brutally from the distinguished post which he occupied,
+and so to attempt to dishonour him before the world.  Nothing could be
+more respectful and conciliatory than the attitude of the government from
+first to last towards this distinguished functionary.  The Republic
+respected itself too much to deal with honourable agents whose services
+it felt obliged to dispense with as with vulgar malefactors who had been
+detected in crime.  But Aerssens believed that it was the Advocate who
+had caused copies of his despatches to be sent to the French court, and
+that he had deliberately and for a fixed purpose been undermining his
+influence at home and abroad and blackening his character.  All his
+ancient feelings of devotion, if they had ever genuinely existed towards
+his former friend and patron, turned to gall.  He was almost ready to
+deny that he had ever respected Barneveld, appreciated his public
+services, admired his intellect, or felt gratitude for his guidance.
+
+A fierce controversy--to which at a later period it will be necessary to
+call the reader's attention, because it is intimately connected with dark
+scenes afterwards to be enacted--took place between the late ambassador
+and Cornelis van der Myle.  Meantime Barneveld pursued the policy which
+he had marked out for the States-General in regard to France.
+
+Certainly it was a difficult problem.  There could be no doubt that
+metamorphosed France could only be a dangerous ally for the Republic.
+It was in reality impossible that she should be her ally at all.
+And this Barneveld knew.  Still it was better, so he thought, for the
+Netherlands that France should exist than that it should fall into utter
+decomposition.  France, though under the influence of Spain, and doubly
+allied by marriage contracts to Spain, was better than Spain itself in
+the place of France.  This seemed to be the only choice between two
+evils.  Should the whole weight of the States-General be thrown into the
+scale of the malcontent and mutinous princes against the established but
+tottering government of France, it was difficult to say how soon Spain
+might literally, as well as inferentially, reign in Paris.
+
+Between the rebellion and the legitimate government, therefore, Barneveld
+did not hesitate.  France, corporate France, with which the Republic had
+bean so long in close and mutually advantageous alliance, and from whose
+late monarch she had received such constant and valuable benefits, was in
+the Advocate's opinion the only power to be recognised, Papal and Spanish
+though it was.  The advantage of an alliance with the fickle, self-
+seeking, and ever changing mutiny, that was seeking to make use of
+Protestantism to effect its own ends, was in his eyes rather specious
+than real.
+
+By this policy, while making the breach irreparable with Aerssens and as
+many leading politicians as Aerssens could influence, he first brought on
+himself the stupid accusation of swerving towards Spain.  Dull murmurs
+like these, which were now but faintly making themselves heard against
+the reputation of the Advocate, were destined ere long to swell into a
+mighty roar; but he hardly listened now to insinuations which seemed
+infinitely below his contempt.  He still effectually ruled the nation
+through his influence in the States of Holland, where he reigned supreme.
+Thus far Barneveld and My Lords the States-General were one personage.
+
+But there was another great man in the State who had at last grown
+impatient of the Advocate's power, and was secretly resolved to brook it
+no longer.  Maurice of Nassau had felt himself too long rebuked by the
+genius of the Advocate.  The Prince had perhaps never forgiven him for
+the political guardianship which he had exercised over him ever since the
+death of William the Silent.  He resented the leading strings by which
+his youthful footstep had been sustained, and which he seemed always to
+feel about his limbs so long as Barneveld existed.  He had never
+forgotten the unpalatable advice given to him by the Advocate through the
+Princess-Dowager.
+
+The brief campaign in Cleve and Julich was the last great political
+operation in which the two were likely to act in even apparent harmony.
+But the rivalry between the two had already pronounced itself
+emphatically during the negotiations for the truce.  The Advocate had
+felt it absolutely necessary for the Republic to suspend the war at the
+first moment when she could treat with her ancient sovereign on a footing
+of equality.  Spain, exhausted with the conflict, had at last consented
+to what she considered the humiliation of treating with her rebellious
+provinces as with free states over which she claimed no authority.  The
+peace party, led by Barneveld, had triumphed, notwithstanding the steady
+opposition of Prince Maurice and his adherents.
+
+Why had Maurice opposed the treaty?  Because his vocation was over,
+because he was the greatest captain of the age, because his emoluments,
+his consideration, his dignity before the world, his personal power, were
+all vastly greater in war than in his opinion they could possibly be in
+peace.  It was easy for him to persuade himself that what was manifestly
+for his individual interest was likewise essential to the prosperity of
+the country.
+
+The diminution in his revenues consequent on the return to peace was made
+good to him, his brother, and his cousin, by most munificent endowments
+and pensions.  And it was owing to the strenuous exertions of the
+Advocate that these large sums were voted.  A hollow friendship was
+kept up between the two during the first few years of the truce,
+but resentment and jealousy lay deep in Maurice's heart.
+
+At about the period of the return of Aerssens from his French embassy,
+the suppressed fire was ready to flame forth at the first fanning by that
+artful hand.  It was impossible, so Aerssens thought and whispered, that
+two heads could remain on one body politic.  There was no room in the
+Netherlands for both the Advocate and the Prince.  Barneveld was in all
+civil affairs dictator, chief magistrate, supreme judge; but he occupied
+this high station by the force of intellect, will, and experience, not
+through any constitutional provision.  In time of war the Prince was
+generalissimo, commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Republic.
+Yet constitutionally he was not captain-general at all.  He was only
+stadholder of five out of seven provinces.
+
+Barneveld suspected him of still wishing to make himself sovereign of the
+country.  Perhaps his suspicions were incorrect.  Yet there was every
+reason why Maurice should be ambitious of that position.  It would have
+been in accordance with the openly expressed desire of Henry IV. and
+other powerful allies of the Netherlands.  His father's assassination had
+alone prevented his elevation to the rank of sovereign Count of Holland.
+The federal policy of the Provinces had drifted into a republican form
+after their renunciation of their Spanish sovereign, not because the
+people, or the States as representing the people, had deliberately chosen
+a republican system, but because they could get no powerful monarch to
+accept the sovereignty.  They had offered to become subjects of
+Protestant England and of Catholic France.  Both powers had refused the
+offer, and refused it with something like contumely.  However deep the
+subsequent regret on the part of both, there was no doubt of the fact.
+But the internal policy in all the provinces, and in all the towns, was
+republican.  Local self-government existed everywhere.  Each city
+magistracy was a little republic in itself.  The death of William the
+Silent, before he had been invested with the sovereign power of all seven
+provinces, again left that sovereignty in abeyance.  Was the supreme
+power of the Union, created at Utrecht in 1579, vested in the States-
+General?
+
+They were beginning theoretically to claim it, but Barneveld denied the
+existence of any such power either in law or fact.  It was a league of
+sovereignties, he maintained; a confederacy of seven independent states,
+united for certain purposes by a treaty made some thirty years before.
+Nothing could be more imbecile, judging by the light of subsequent events
+and the experience of centuries, than such an organization.  The
+independent and sovereign republic of Zealand or of Groningen, for
+example, would have made a poor figure campaigning, or negotiating, or
+exhibiting itself on its own account before the world.  Yet it was
+difficult to show any charter, precedent, or prescription for the
+sovereignty of the States-General.  Necessary as such an incorporation
+was for the very existence of the Union, no constitutional union had ever
+been enacted.  Practically the Province of Holland, representing more
+than half the population, wealth, strength, and intellect of the whole
+confederation, had achieved an irregular supremacy in the States-General.
+But its undeniable superiority was now causing a rank growth of envy,
+hatred, and jealousy throughout the country, and the great Advocate of
+Holland, who was identified with the province, and had so long wielded
+its power, was beginning to reap the full harvest of that malice.
+
+Thus while there was so much of vagueness in theory and practice as to
+the sovereignty, there was nothing criminal on the part of Maurice if he
+was ambitious of obtaining the sovereignty himself.  He was not seeking
+to compass it by base artifice or by intrigue of any kind.  It was very
+natural that he should be restive under the dictatorship of the Advocate.
+If a single burgher and lawyer could make himself despot of the
+Netherlands, how much more reasonable that he--with the noblest blood of
+Europe in his veins, whose direct ancestor three centuries before had
+been emperor not only of those provinces, but of all Germany and half
+Christendom besides, whose immortal father had under God been the creator
+and saviour of the new commonwealth, had made sacrifices such as man
+never made for a people, and had at last laid down his life in its
+defence; who had himself fought daily from boyhood upwards in the great
+cause, who had led national armies from victory to victory till he had
+placed his country as a military school and a belligerent power foremost
+among the nations, and had at last so exhausted and humbled the great
+adversary and former tyrant that he had been glad of a truce while the
+rebel chief would have preferred to continue the war--should aspire to
+rule by hereditary right a land with which his name and his race were
+indelibly associated by countless sacrifices and heroic achievements.
+
+It was no crime in Maurice to desire the sovereignty.  It was still less
+a crime in Barneveld to believe that he desired it.  There was no special
+reason why the Prince should love the republican form of government
+provided that an hereditary one could be legally substituted for it.
+He had sworn allegiance to the statutes, customs, and privileges of each
+of the provinces of which he had been elected stadholder, but there would
+have been no treason on his part if the name and dignity of stadholder
+should be changed by the States themselves for those of King or sovereign
+Prince.
+
+Yet it was a chief grievance against the Advocate on the part of the
+Prince that Barneveld believed him capable of this ambition.
+
+The Republic existed as a fact, but it had not long existed, nor had it
+ever received a formal baptism.  So undefined was its constitution, and
+so conflicting were the various opinions in regard to it of eminent men,
+that it would be difficult to say how high-treason could be committed
+against it.  Great lawyers of highest intellect and learning believed the
+sovereign power to reside in the separate states, others found that
+sovereignty in the city magistracies, while during a feverish period of
+war and tumult the supreme function had without any written constitution,
+any organic law, practically devolved upon the States-General, who had
+now begun to claim it as a right.  The Republic was neither venerable by
+age nor impregnable in law.  It was an improvised aristocracy of lawyers,
+manufacturers, bankers, and corporations which had done immense work and
+exhibited astonishing sagacity and courage, but which might never have
+achieved the independence of the Provinces unaided by the sword of
+Orange-Nassau and the magic spell which belonged to that name.
+
+Thus a bitter conflict was rapidly developing itself in the heart of the
+Commonwealth.  There was the civil element struggling with the military
+for predominance; sword against gown; states' rights against central
+authority; peace against war; above all the rivalry of one prominent
+personage against another, whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed
+by partisans.
+
+And now another element of discord had come, more potent than all the
+rest: the terrible, never ending, struggle of Church against State.
+Theological hatred which forty years long had found vent in the exchange
+of acrimony between the ancient and the Reformed churches was now
+assuming other shapes.  Religion in that age and country was more than
+has often been the case in history the atmosphere of men's daily lives.
+But during the great war for independence, although the hostility between
+the two religious forces was always intense, it was modified especially
+towards the close of the struggle by other controlling influences.  The
+love of independence and the passion for nationality, the devotion to
+ancient political privileges, was often as fervid and genuine in Catholic
+bosoms as in those of Protestants, and sincere adherents of the ancient
+church had fought to the death against Spain in defence of chartered
+rights.
+
+At that very moment it is probable that half the population of the United
+Provinces was Catholic.  Yet it would be ridiculous to deny that the
+aggressive, uncompromising; self-sacrificing, intensely believing,
+perfectly fearless spirit of Calvinism had been the animating soul, the
+motive power of the great revolt.  For the Provinces to have encountered
+Spain and Rome without Calvinism, and relying upon municipal enthusiasm
+only, would have been to throw away the sword and fight with the
+scabbard.
+
+But it is equally certain that those hot gospellers who had suffered so
+much martyrdom and achieved so many miracles were fully aware of their
+power and despotic in its exercise.  Against the oligarchy of commercial
+and juridical corporations they stood there the most terrible aristocracy
+of all: the aristocracy of God's elect, predestined from all time and to
+all eternity to take precedence of and to look down upon their inferior
+and lost fellow creatures.  It was inevitable that this aristocracy,
+which had done so much, which had breathed into a new-born commonwealth
+the breath of its life, should be intolerant, haughty, dogmatic.
+
+The Church of Rome, which had been dethroned after inflicting such
+exquisite tortures during its period of power, was not to raise its head.
+Although so large a proportion of the inhabitants of the country were
+secretly or openly attached to that faith, it was a penal offence to
+participate openly in its rites and ceremonies.  Religious equality,
+except in the minds of a few individuals, was an unimaginable idea.
+There was still one Church which arrogated to itself the sole possession
+of truth, the Church of Geneva.  Those who admitted the possibility of
+other forms and creeds were either Atheists or, what was deemed worse
+than Atheists, Papists, because Papists were assumed to be traitors also,
+and desirous of selling the country to Spain.  An undevout man in that
+land and at that epoch was an almost unknown phenomenon.  Religion was
+as much a recognized necessity of existence as food or drink.  It were
+as easy to find people about without clothes as without religious
+convictions.
+
+The Advocate, who had always adhered to the humble spirit of his
+ancestral device, "Nil scire tutissima fedes," and almost alone among
+his fellow citizens (save those immediate apostles and pupils of his who
+became involved in his fate) in favour of religious toleration, began to
+be suspected of treason and Papacy because, had he been able to give the
+law, it was thought he would have permitted such horrors as the public
+exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.
+
+The hissings and screamings of the vulgar against him as he moved forward
+on his stedfast course he heeded less than those of geese on a common.
+But there was coming a time when this proud and scornful statesman,
+conscious of the superiority conferred by great talents and unparalleled
+experience, would find it less easy to treat the voice of slanderers,
+whether idiots or powerful and intellectual enemies, with contempt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Schism in the Church a Public Fact--Struggle for Power between the
+     Sacerdotal and Political Orders--Dispute between Arminius and
+     Gomarus--Rage of James I. at the Appointment of Voratius--Arminians
+     called Remonstrants--Hague Conference--Contra-Remonstrance by
+     Gomarites of Seven Points to the Remonstrants' Five--Fierce
+     Theological Disputes throughout the Country--Ryswyk Secession--
+     Maurice wishes to remain neutral, but finds himself the Chieftain of
+     the Contra-Remonstrant Party--The States of Holland Remonstrant by a
+     large Majority--The States-General Contra-Remonstrant--Sir Ralph
+     Winwood leaves the Hague--Three Armies to take the Field against
+     Protestantism.
+
+Schism in the Church had become a public fact, and theological hatred was
+in full blaze throughout the country.
+
+The great practical question in the Church had been as to the appointment
+of preachers, wardens, schoolmasters, and other officers.  By the
+ecclesiastical arrangements of 1591 great power was conceded to the civil
+authority in church matters, especially in regard to such appointments,
+which were made by a commission consisting of four members named by the
+churches and four by the magistrates in each district.
+
+Barneveld, who above all things desired peace in the Church, had wished
+to revive this ordinance, and in 1612 it had been resolved by the States
+of Holland that each city or village should, if the magistracy approved,
+provisionally conform to it.  The States of Utrecht made at the same time
+a similar arrangement.
+
+It was the controversy which has been going on since the beginning of
+history and is likely to be prolonged to the end of time--the struggle
+for power between the sacerdotal and political orders; the controversy
+whether priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests.
+
+This was the practical question involved in the fierce dispute as to
+dogma.  The famous duel between Arminius and Gomarus; the splendid
+theological tournaments which succeeded; six champions on a side armed in
+full theological panoply and swinging the sharpest curtal axes which
+learning, passion, and acute intellect could devise, had as yet produced
+no beneficent result.  Nobody had been convinced by the shock of
+argument, by the exchange of those desperate blows.  The High Council
+of the Hague had declared that no difference of opinion in the Church
+existed sufficient to prevent fraternal harmony and happiness.  But
+Gomarus loudly declared that, if there were no means of putting down the
+heresy of Arminius, there would before long be a struggle such as would
+set province against province, village against village, family against
+family, throughout the land.  He should be afraid to die in such
+doctrine.  He shuddered that any one should dare to come before God's
+tribunal with such blasphemies.  Meantime his great adversary, the
+learned and eloquent, the musical, frolicsome, hospitable heresiarch was
+no more.  Worn out with controversy, but peaceful and happy in the
+convictions which were so bitterly denounced by Gomarus and a large
+proportion of both preachers and laymen in the Netherlands, and convinced
+that the schism which in his view had been created by those who called
+themselves the orthodox would weaken the cause of Protestantism
+throughout Europe, Arminius died at the age of forty-nine.
+
+The magistrates throughout Holland, with the exception of a few cities,
+were Arminian, the preachers Gomarian; for Arminius ascribed to the
+civil authority the right to decide upon church matters, while Gomarus
+maintained that ecclesiastical affairs should be regulated in
+ecclesiastical assemblies.  The overseers of Leyden University appointed
+Conrad Vorstius to be professor of theology in place of Arminius.  The
+selection filled to the brim the cup of bitterness, for no man was more
+audaciously latitudinarian than he.  He was even suspected of
+Socinianism.  There came a shriek from King James, fierce and shrill
+enough to rouse Arminius from his grave.  James foamed to the mouth at
+the insolence of the overseers in appointing such a monster of infidelity
+to the professorship.  He ordered his books to be publicly burned in St.
+Paul's Churchyard and at both Universities, and would have burned the
+Professor himself with as much delight as Torquemada or Peter Titelman
+ever felt in roasting their victims, had not the day for such festivities
+gone by.  He ordered the States of Holland on pain of for ever forfeiting
+his friendship to exclude Vorstius at once from the theological chair and
+to forbid him from "nestling anywhere in the country."
+
+He declared his amazement that they should tolerate such a pest as Conrad
+Vorstius.  Had they not had enough of the seed sown by that foe of God,
+Arminius?  He ordered the States-General to chase the blasphemous monster
+from the land, or else he would cut off all connection with their false
+and heretic churches and make the other Reformed churches of Europe do
+the same, nor should the youth of England ever be allowed to frequent the
+University of Leyden.
+
+In point of fact the Professor was never allowed to qualify, to preach,
+or to teach; so tremendous was the outcry of Peter Plancius and many
+orthodox preachers, echoing the wrath of the King.  He lived at Gouda
+in a private capacity for several years, until the Synod of Dordrecht
+at last publicly condemned his opinions and deprived him of his
+professorship.
+
+Meantime, the preachers who were disciples of Arminius had in a private
+assembly drawn up what was called a Remonstrance, addressed to the States
+of Holland, and defending themselves from the reproach that they were
+seeking change in the Divine service and desirous of creating tumult and
+schism.
+
+This Remonstrance, set forth by the pen of the famous Uytenbogaert, whom
+Gomarus called the Court Trumpeter, because for a long time he had been
+Prince Maurice's favourite preacher, was placed in the hands of
+Barneveld, for delivery to the States of Holland.  Thenceforth the
+Arminians were called Remonstrants.
+
+The Hague Conference followed, six preachers on a side, and the States of
+Holland exhorted to fraternal compromise.  Until further notice, they
+decreed that no man should be required to believe more than had been laid
+down in the Five Points:
+
+I.  God has from eternity resolved to choose to eternal life those who
+through his grace believe in Jesus Christ, and in faith and obedience so
+continue to the end, and to condemn the unbelieving and unconverted to
+eternal damnation.
+
+II.  Jesus Christ died for all; so, nevertheless, that no one actually
+except believers is redeemed by His death.
+
+III.  Man has not the saving belief from himself, nor out of his free
+will, but he needs thereto God's grace in Christ.
+
+IV.  This grace is the beginning, continuation, and completion of man's
+salvation; all good deeds must be ascribed to it, but it does not work
+irresistibly.
+
+V.  God's grace gives sufficient strength to the true believers to
+overcome evil; but whether they cannot lose grace should be more closely
+examined before it should be taught in full security.
+
+Afterwards they expressed themselves more distinctly on this point, and
+declared that a true believer, through his own fault, can fall away from
+God and lose faith.
+
+
+Before the conference, however, the Gomarite preachers had drawn up a
+Contra-Remonstrance of Seven Points in opposition to the Remonstrants'
+five.
+
+They demanded the holding of a National Synod to settle the difference
+between these Five and Seven Points, or the sending of them to foreign
+universities for arbitration, a mutual promise being given by the
+contending parties to abide by the decision.
+
+Thus much it has been necessary to state concerning what in the
+seventeenth century was called the platform of the two great parties:
+a term which has been perpetuated in our own country, and is familiar
+to all the world in the nineteenth.
+
+These were the Seven Points:
+
+I.  God has chosen from eternity certain persons out of the human race,
+which in and with Adam fell into sin and has no more power to believe and
+Convert itself than a dead man to restore himself to life, in order to
+make them blessed through Christ; while He passes by the rest through His
+righteous judgment, and leaves them lying in their sins.
+
+II.  Children of believing parents, as well as full-grown believers, are
+to be considered as elect so long as they with action do not prove the
+contrary.
+
+III.  God in His election has not looked at the belief and the repentance
+of the elect; but, on the contrary, in His eternal and unchangeable
+design, has resolved to give to the elect faith and stedfastness, and
+thus to make them blessed.
+
+IV.  He, to this end, in the first place, presented to them His only
+begotten Son, whose sufferings, although sufficient for the expiation of
+all men's sins, nevertheless, according to God's decree, serves alone to
+the reconciliation of the elect.
+
+V.  God causest he Gospel to be preached to them, making the same through
+the Holy Ghost, of strength upon their minds; so that they not merely
+obtain power to repent and to believe, but also actually and voluntarily
+do repent and believe.
+
+VI.  Such elect, through the same power of the Holy Ghost through which
+they have once become repentant and believing, are kept in such wise that
+they indeed through weakness fall into heavy sins; but can never wholly
+and for always lose the true faith.
+
+VII.  True believers from this, however, draw no reason for fleshly
+quiet, it being impossible that they who through a true faith were
+planted in Christ should bring forth no fruits of thankfulness; the
+promises of God's help and the warnings of Scripture tending to make
+their salvation work in them in fear and trembling, and to cause them
+more earnestly to desire help from that spirit without which they can
+do nothing.
+
+
+There shall be no more setting forth of these subtle and finely wrought
+abstractions in our pages.  We aspire not to the lofty heights of
+theological and supernatural contemplation, where the atmosphere becomes
+too rarefied for ordinary constitutions.  Rather we attempt an objective
+and level survey of remarkable phenomena manifesting themselves on the
+earth; direct or secondary emanations from those distant spheres.
+
+For in those days, and in that land especially, theology and politics
+were one.  It may be questioned at least whether this practical fusion
+of elements, which may with more safety to the Commonwealth be kept
+separate, did not tend quite as much to lower and contaminate the
+religious sentiments as to elevate the political idea.  To mix habitually
+the solemn phraseology which men love to reserve for their highest and
+most sacred needs with the familiar slang of politics and trade seems
+to our generation not a very desirable proceeding.
+
+The aroma of doubly distilled and highly sublimated dogma is more
+difficult to catch than to comprehend the broader and more practical
+distinctions of every-day party strife.
+
+King James was furious at the thought that common men--the vulgar, the
+people in short--should dare to discuss deep problems of divinity which,
+as he confessed, had puzzled even his royal mind.  Barneveld modestly
+disclaimed the power of seeing with absolute clearness into things beyond
+the reach of the human intellect.  But the honest Netherlanders were not
+abashed by thunder from the royal pulpit, nor perplexed by hesitations
+which darkened the soul of the great Advocate.
+
+In burghers' mansions, peasants' cottages, mechanics' back-parlours, on
+board herring smacks, canal boats, and East Indiamen; in shops, counting-
+rooms, farmyards, guard-rooms, ale-houses; on the exchange, in the
+tennis-court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, christenings, or
+bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met each other, there
+was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of Remonstrant and Contra-
+Remonstrant, the hissing of red-hot theological rhetoric, the pelting of
+hostile texts.  The blacksmith's iron cooled on the anvil, the tinker
+dropped a kettle half mended, the broker left a bargain unclinched, the
+Scheveningen fisherman in his wooden shoes forgot the cracks in his
+pinkie, while each paused to hold high converse with friend or foe on
+fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge; losing himself in wandering
+mazes whence there was no issue.  Province against province, city against
+city, family against family; it was one vast scene of bickering,
+denunciation, heart-burnings, mutual excommunication and hatred.
+
+Alas! a generation of mankind before, men had stood banded together to
+resist, with all the might that comes from union, the fell spirit of the
+Holy Inquisition, which was dooming all who had wandered from the ancient
+fold or resisted foreign tyranny to the axe, the faggot, the living
+grave.  There had been small leisure then for men who fought for
+Fatherland, and for comparative liberty of conscience, to tear each
+others' characters in pieces, and to indulge in mutual hatreds and
+loathing on the question of predestination.
+
+As a rule the population, especially of the humbler classes, and a great
+majority of the preachers were Contra-Remonstrant; the magistrates, the
+burgher patricians, were Remonstrant.  In Holland the controlling
+influence was Remonstrant; but Amsterdam and four or five other cities of
+that province held to the opposite doctrine.  These cities formed
+therefore a small minority in the States Assembly of Holland sustained by
+a large majority in the States-General.  The Province of Utrecht was
+almost unanimously Remonstrant.  The five other provinces were decidedly
+Contra-Remonstrant.
+
+It is obvious therefore that the influence of Barneveld, hitherto so all-
+controlling in the States-General, and which rested on the complete
+submission of the States of Holland to his will, was tottering.  The
+battle-line between Church and State was now drawn up; and it was at the
+same time a battle between the union and the principles of state
+sovereignty.
+
+It had long since been declared through the mouth of the Advocate, but
+in a solemn state manifesto, that My Lords the States-General were the
+foster-fathers and the natural protectors of the Church, to whom supreme
+authority in church matters belonged.
+
+The Contra-Remonstrants, on the other hand, maintained that all the
+various churches made up one indivisible church, seated above the States,
+whether Provincial or General, and governed by the Holy Ghost acting
+directly upon the congregations.
+
+As the schism grew deeper and the States-General receded from the
+position which they had taken up under the lead of the Advocate, the
+scene was changed.  A majority of the Provinces being Contra-Remonstrant,
+and therefore in favour of a National Synod, the States-General as a body
+were of necessity for the Synod.
+
+It was felt by the clergy that, if many churches existed, they would all
+remain subject to the civil authority.  The power of the priesthood would
+thus sink before that of the burgher aristocracy.  There must be one
+church--the Church of Geneva and Heidelberg--if that theocracy which the
+Gomarites meant to establish was not to vanish as a dream.  It was
+founded on Divine Right, and knew no chief magistrate but the Holy Ghost.
+A few years before the States-General had agreed to a National Synod, but
+with a condition that there should be revision of the Netherland
+Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism.
+
+Against this the orthodox infallibilists had protested and thundered,
+because it was an admission that the vile Arminian heresy might perhaps
+be declared correct.  It was now however a matter of certainty that the
+States-General would cease to oppose the unconditional Synod, because the
+majority sided with the priesthood.
+
+The magistrates of Leyden had not long before opposed the demand for a
+Synod on the ground that the war against Spain was not undertaken to
+maintain one sect; that men of various sects and creeds had fought with
+equal valour against the common foe; that religious compulsion was
+hateful, and that no synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves.
+
+To thoughtful politicians like Barneveld, Hugo Grotius, and men who acted
+with them, fraught with danger to the state, that seemed a doctrine by
+which mankind were not regarded as saved or doomed according to belief
+or deeds, but as individuals divided from all eternity into two classes
+which could never be united, but must ever mutually regard each other as
+enemies.
+
+And like enemies Netherlanders were indeed beginning to regard each
+other.  The man who, banded like brothers, had so heroically fought for
+two generations long for liberty against an almost superhuman despotism,
+now howling and jeering against each other like demons, seemed determined
+to bring the very name of liberty into contempt.
+
+Where the Remonstrants were in the ascendant, they excited the hatred and
+disgust of the orthodox by their overbearing determination to carry their
+Five Points.  A broker in Rotterdam of the Contra-Remonstrant persuasion,
+being about to take a wife, swore he had rather be married by a pig than
+a parson.  For this sparkling epigram he was punished by the Remonstrant
+magistracy with loss of his citizenship for a year and the right to
+practise his trade for life.  A casuistical tinker, expressing himself
+violently in the same city against the Five Points, and disrespectfully
+towards the magistrates for tolerating them, was banished from the town.
+A printer in the neighbourhood, disgusted with these and similar efforts
+of tyranny on the part of the dominant party, thrust a couple of lines of
+doggrel into the lottery:
+
+    "In name of the Prince of Orange, I ask once and again,
+     What difference between the Inquisition of Rotterdam and Spain?"
+
+For this poetical effort the printer was sentenced to forfeit the prize
+that he had drawn in the lottery, and to be kept in prison on bread and
+water for a fortnight.
+
+Certainly such punishments were hardly as severe as being beheaded or
+burned or buried alive, as would have been the lot of tinkers and
+printers and brokers who opposed the established church in the days of
+Alva, but the demon of intolerance, although its fangs were drawn, still
+survived, and had taken possession of both parties in the Reformed
+Church.  For it was the Remonstrants who had possession of the churches
+at Rotterdam, and the printer's distich is valuable as pointing out that
+the name of Orange was beginning to identify itself with the Contra-
+Remonstrant faction.  At this time, on the other hand, the gabble that
+Barneveld had been bought by Spanish gold, and was about to sell his
+country to Spain, became louder than a whisper.  Men were not ashamed,
+from theological hatred, to utter such senseless calumnies against a
+venerable statesman whose long life had been devoted to the cause of his
+country's independence and to the death struggle with Spain.
+
+As if because a man admitted the possibility of all his fellow-creatures
+being saved from damnation through repentance and the grace of God, he
+must inevitably be a traitor to his country and a pensionary of her
+deadliest foe.
+
+And where the Contra-Remonstrants held possession of the churches and the
+city governments, acts of tyranny which did not then seem ridiculous were
+of everyday occurrence.  Clergymen, suspected of the Five Points, were
+driven out of the pulpits with bludgeons or assailed with brickbats at
+the church door.  At Amsterdam, Simon Goulart, for preaching the doctrine
+of universal salvation and for disputing the eternal damnation of young
+children, was forbidden thenceforth to preach at all.
+
+But it was at the Hague that the schism in religion and politics first
+fatally widened itself.  Henry Rosaeus, an eloquent divine, disgusted
+with his colleague Uytenbogaert, refused all communion with him, and was
+in consequence suspended.  Excluded from the Great Church, where he had
+formerly ministered, he preached every Sunday at Ryswyk, two or three
+miles distant.  Seven hundred Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague followed
+their beloved pastor, and, as the roads to Ryswyk were muddy and sloppy
+in winter, acquired the unsavoury nickname of the "Mud Beggars."  The
+vulgarity of heart which suggested the appellation does not inspire
+to-day great sympathy with the Remonstrant party, even if one were
+inclined to admit, what is not the fact, that they represented the cause
+of religious equality.  For even the illustrious Grotius was at that very
+moment repudiating the notion that there could be two religions in one
+state.  "Difference in public worship," he said, "was in kingdoms
+pernicious, but in free commonwealths in the highest degree destructive."
+
+It was the struggle between Church and State for supremacy over the whole
+body politic.  "The Reformation," said Grotius, "was not brought about by
+synods, but by kings, princes, and magistrates."  It was the same eternal
+story, the same terrible two-edged weapon, "Cujus reggio ejus religio,"
+found in the arsenal of the first Reformers, and in every politico-
+religious arsenal of history.
+
+"By an eternal decree of God," said Gomarus in accordance with Calvin,
+"it has been fixed who are to be saved and who damned.  By His decree
+some are drawn to faith and godliness, and, being drawn, can never fall
+away.  God leaves all the rest in the general corruption of human nature
+and their own misdeeds."
+
+"God has from eternity made this distinction in the fallen human race,"
+said Arminius, "that He pardons those who desist from their sins and put
+their faith in Christ, and will give them eternal life, but will punish
+those who remain impenitent.  Moreover, it is pleasanter to God that all
+men should repent, and, coming to knowledge of truth, remain therein, but
+He compels none."
+
+This was the vital difference of dogma.  And it was because they could
+hold no communion with those who believed in the efficacy of repentance
+that Rosaeus and his followers had seceded to Ryswyk, and the Reformed
+Church had been torn into two very unequal parts.  But it is difficult to
+believe that out of this arid field of controversy so plentiful a harvest
+of hatred and civil convulsion could have ripened.  More practical than
+the insoluble problems, whether repentance could effect salvation, and
+whether dead infants were hopelessly damned, was the question who should
+rule both Church and State.
+
+There could be but one church.  On that Remonstrants and Contra-
+Remonstrants were agreed.  But should the five Points or the Seven
+Points obtain the mastery?  Should that framework of hammered iron, the
+Confession and Catechism, be maintained in all its rigidity around the
+sheepfold, or should the disciples of the arch-heretic Arminius, the
+salvation-mongers, be permitted to prowl within it?
+
+Was Barneveld, who hated the Reformed religion (so men told each other),
+and who believed in nothing, to continue dictator of the whole Republic
+through his influence over one province, prescribing its religious dogmas
+and laying down its laws; or had not the time come for the States-General
+to vindicate the rights of the Church, and to crush for ever the
+pernicious principle of State sovereignty and burgher oligarchy?
+
+The abyss was wide and deep, and the wild waves were raging more madly
+every hour.  The Advocate, anxious and troubled, but undismayed, did his
+best in the terrible emergency.  He conferred with Prince Maurice on the
+subject of the Ryswyk secession, and men said that he sought to impress
+upon him, as chief of the military forces, the necessity of putting down
+religious schism with the armed hand.
+
+The Prince had not yet taken a decided position.  He was still under the
+influence of John Uytenbogaert, who with Arminius and the Advocate made
+up the fateful three from whom deadly disasters were deemed to have come
+upon the Commonwealth.  He wished to remain neutral.  But no man can be
+neutral in civil contentions threatening the life of the body politic any
+more than the heart can be indifferent if the human frame is sawn in two.
+
+"I am a soldier," said Maurice, "not a divine.  These are matters of
+theology which I don't understand, and about which I don't trouble
+myself."
+
+On another occasion he is reported to have said, "I know nothing of
+predestination, whether it is green or whether it is blue; but I do know
+that the Advocate's pipe and mine will never play the same tune."
+
+It was not long before he fully comprehended the part which he must
+necessarily play.  To say that he was indifferent to religious matters
+was as ridiculous as to make a like charge against Barneveld.  Both
+were religious men.  It would have been almost impossible to find an
+irreligious character in that country, certainly not among its highest-
+placed and leading minds.  Maurice had strong intellectual powers.  He
+was a regular attendant on divine worship, and was accustomed to hear
+daily religious discussions.  To avoid them indeed, he would have been
+obliged not only to fly his country, but to leave Europe.  He had a
+profound reverence for the memory of his father, Calbo y Calbanista, as
+William the Silent had called himself.  But the great prince had died
+before these fierce disputes had torn the bosom of the Reformed Church,
+and while Reformers still were brethren.  But if Maurice were a religious
+man, he was also a keen politician; a less capable politician, however,
+than a soldier, for he was confessedly the first captain of his age.
+He was not rapid in his conceptions, but he was sure in the end to
+comprehend his opportunity.
+
+The Church, the people, the Union--the sacerdotal, the democratic,
+and the national element--united under a name so potent to conjure
+with as the name of Orange-Nassau, was stronger than any other possible
+combination.  Instinctively and logically therefore the Stadholder found
+himself the chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrant party, and without the
+necessity of an apostasy such as had been required of his great
+contemporary to make himself master of France.
+
+The power of Barneveld and his partisans was now put to a severe strain.
+His efforts to bring back the Hague seceders were powerless.  The
+influence of Uytenbogaert over the Stadholder steadily diminished.  He
+prayed to be relieved from his post in the Great Church of the Hague,
+especially objecting to serve with a Contra-Remonstrant preacher whom
+Maurice wished to officiate there in place of the seceding Rosaeus.  But
+the Stadholder refused to let him go, fearing his influence in other
+places.  "There is stuff in him," said Maurice, "to outweigh half a dozen
+Contra-Remonstrant preachers."  Everywhere in Holland  the opponents of
+the Five Points refused to go to the churches, and set up tabernacles for
+themselves in barns, outhouses, canal-boats.  And the authorities in town
+and village nailed up the barn-doors, and dispersed the canal boat
+congregations, while the populace pelted them with stones.  The seceders
+appealed to the Stadholder, pleading that at least they ought to be
+allowed to hear the word of God as they understood it without being
+forced into churches where they were obliged to hear Arminian blasphemy.
+At least their barns might be left them.  "Barns," said Maurice, "barns
+and outhouses!  Are we to preach in barns?  The churches belong to us,
+and we mean to have them too."
+
+Not long afterwards the Stadholder, clapping his hand on his sword hilt,
+observed that these differences could only be settled by force of arms.
+An ominous remark and a dreary comment on the forty years' war against
+the Inquisition.
+
+And the same scenes that were enacting in Holland were going on in
+Overyssel and Friesland and Groningen; but with a difference.  Here it
+was the Five Points men who were driven into secession, whose barns were
+nailed up, and whose preachers were mobbed.  A lugubrious spectacle, but
+less painful certainly than the hangings and drownings and burnings alive
+in the previous century to prevent secession from the indivisible church.
+
+It is certain that stadholders and all other magistrates ever since the
+establishment of independence were sworn to maintain the Reformed
+religion and to prevent a public divine worship under any other form.  It
+is equally certain that by the 13th Article of the Act of Union--the
+organic law of the confederation made at Utrecht in 1579--each province
+reserved for itself full control of religious questions.  It would indeed
+seem almost unimaginable in a country where not only every province, but
+every city, every municipal board, was so jealous of its local privileges
+and traditional rights that the absolute disposition over the highest,
+gravest, and most difficult questions that can inspire and perplex
+humanity should be left to a general government, and one moreover which
+had scarcely come into existence.
+
+Yet into this entirely illogical position the Commonwealth was steadily
+drifting.  The cause was simple enough.  The States of Holland, as
+already observed, were Remonstrant by a large majority.  The States-
+General were Contra-Remonstrant by a still greater majority.  The Church,
+rigidly attached to the Confession and Catechism, and refusing all change
+except through decree of a synod to be called by the general government
+which it controlled, represented the national idea.  It thus identified
+itself with the Republic, and was in sympathy with a large majority of
+the population.
+
+Logic, law, historical tradition were on the side of the Advocate and
+the States' right party.  The instinct of national self-preservation,
+repudiating the narrow and destructive doctrine of provincial
+sovereignty, were on the side of the States-General and the Church.
+
+Meantime James of Great Britain had written letters both to the States of
+Holland and the States-General expressing his satisfaction with the Five
+Points, and deciding that there was nothing objectionable in the doctrine
+of predestination therein set forth.  He had recommended unity and peace
+in Church and Assembly, and urged especially that these controverted
+points should not be discussed in the pulpit to the irritation and
+perplexity of the common people.
+
+The King's letters had produced much satisfaction in the moderate party.
+Barneveld and his followers were then still in the ascendant, and it
+seemed possible that the Commonwealth might enjoy a few moments of
+tranquillity.  That James had given a new exhibition of his astounding
+inconsistency was a matter very indifferent to all but himself, and he
+was the last man to trouble himself for that reproach.
+
+It might happen, when be should come to realize how absolutely he had
+obeyed the tuition of the Advocate and favoured the party which he had
+been so vehemently opposing, that he might regret and prove willing to
+retract.  But for the time being the course of politics had seemed
+running smoother.  The acrimony of the relations between the English
+government and dominant party at the Hague was sensibly diminished.  The
+King seemed for an instant to have obtained a true insight into the
+nature of the struggle in the States.  That it was after all less a
+theological than a political question which divided parties had at last
+dawned upon him.
+
+"If you have occasion to write on the subject," said Barneveld, "it is
+above all necessary to make it clear that ecclesiastical persons and
+their affairs must stand under the direction of the sovereign authority,
+for our preachers understand that the disposal of ecclesiastical persons
+and affairs belongs to them, so that they alone are to appoint preachers,
+elders, deacons, and other clerical persons, and to regulate the whole
+ecclesiastical administration according to their pleasure or by a popular
+government which they call the community."
+
+"The Counts of Holland from all ancient times were never willing under
+the Papacy to surrender their right of presentation to the churches and
+control of all spiritual and ecclesiastical benefices.  The Emperor
+Charles and King Philip even, as Counts of Holland, kept these rights to
+themselves, save that they in enfeoffing more than a hundred gentlemen,
+of noble and ancient families with seigniorial manors, enfeoffed them
+also with the right of presentation to churches and benefices on their
+respective estates.  Our preachers pretend to have won this right against
+the Countship, the gentlemen, nobles, and others, and that it belongs to
+them."
+
+It is easy to see that this was a grave, constitutional, legal, and
+historical problem not to be solved offhand by vehement citations from
+Scripture, nor by pragmatical dissertations from the lips of foreign
+ambassadors.
+
+"I believe this point," continued Barneveld, "to be the most difficult
+question of all, importing far more than subtle searchings and
+conflicting sentiments as to passages of Holy Writ, or disputations
+concerning God's eternal predestination and other points thereupon
+depending.  Of these doctrines the Archbishop of Canterbury well observed
+in the Conference of 1604 that one ought to teach them ascendendo and not
+descendendo."
+
+The letters of the King had been very favourably received both in the
+States-General and in the Assembly of Holland.  "You will present the
+replies," wrote Barneveld to the ambassador in London, "at the best
+opportunity and with becoming compliments.  You may be assured and assure
+his Majesty that they have been very agreeable to both assemblies.  Our
+commissioners over there on the East Indian matter ought to know nothing
+of these letters."
+
+This statement is worthy of notice, as Grotius was one of those
+commissioners, and, as will subsequently appear, was accused of being
+the author of the letters.
+
+"I understand from others," continued the Advocate, "that the gentleman
+well known to you--[Obviously Francis Aerssens]--is not well pleased
+that through other agency than his these letters have been written and
+presented.  I think too that the other business is much against his
+grain, but on the whole since your departure he has accommodated himself
+to the situation."
+
+But if Aerssens for the moment seemed quiet, the orthodox clergy were
+restive.
+
+"I know," said Barneveld, "that some of our ministers are so audacious
+that of themselves, or through others, they mean to work by direct or
+indirect means against these letters.  They mean to show likewise that
+there are other and greater differences of doctrine than those already
+discussed.  You will keep a sharp eye on the sails and provide against
+the effect of counter-currents.  To maintain the authority of their Great
+Mightinesses over ecclesiastical matters is more than necessary for the
+conservation of the country's welfare and of the true Christian religion.
+As his Majesty would not allow this principle to be controverted in his
+own realms, as his books clearly prove, so we trust that he will not find
+it good that it should be controverted in our state as sure to lead to a
+very disastrous and inequitable sequel."
+
+And a few weeks later the Advocate and the whole party of toleration
+found themselves, as is so apt to be the case, between two fires.  The
+Catholics became as turbulent as the extreme Calvinists, and already
+hopes were entertained by Spanish emissaries and spies that this rapidly
+growing schism in the Reformed Church might be dexterously made use of to
+bring the Provinces, when they should become fairly distracted, back to
+the dominion of Spain.
+
+"Our precise zealots in the Reformed religion, on the one side," wrote
+Barneveld, "and the Jesuits on the other, are vigorously kindling the
+fire of discord.  Keep a good lookout for the countermine which is now
+working against the good advice of his Majesty for mutual toleration.
+The publication of the letters was done without order, but I believe with
+good intent, in the hope that the vehemence and exorbitance of some
+precise Puritans in our State should thereby be checked.  That which is
+now doing against us in printed libels is the work of the aforesaid
+Puritans and a few Jesuits.  The pretence in those libels, that there are
+other differences in the matter of doctrine, is mere fiction designed to
+make trouble and confusion."
+
+In the course of the autumn, Sir Ralph Winwood departed from the Hague,
+to assume soon afterwards in England the position of secretary of state
+for foreign affairs.  He did not take personal farewell of Barneveld, the
+Advocate being absent in North Holland at the moment, and detained there
+by indisposition.  The leave-taking was therefore by letter.  He had done
+much to injure the cause which the Dutch statesman held vital to the
+Republic, and in so doing he had faithfully carried out the instructions
+of his master.  Now that James had written these conciliatory letters to
+the States, recommending toleration, letters destined to be famous,
+Barneveld was anxious that the retiring ambassador should foster the
+spirit of moderation, which for a moment prevailed at the British court.
+But he was not very hopeful in the matter.
+
+"Mr. Winwood is doubtless over there now," he wrote to Caron.  "He has
+promised in public and private to do all good offices.  The States-
+General made him a present on his departure of the value of L4000.  I
+fear nevertheless that he, especially in religious matters, will not do
+the best offices.  For besides that he is himself very hard and precise,
+those who in this country are hard and precise have made a dead set at
+him, and tried to make him devoted to their cause, through many
+fictitious and untruthful means."
+
+The Advocate, as so often before, sent assurances to the King that "the
+States-General, and especially the States of Holland, were resolved to
+maintain the genuine Reformed religion, and oppose all novelties and
+impurities conflicting with it," and the Ambassador was instructed to see
+that the countermine, worked so industriously against his Majesty's
+service and the honour and reputation of the Provinces, did not prove
+successful.
+
+"To let the good mob play the master," he said, "and to permit hypocrites
+and traitors in the Flemish manner to get possession of the government of
+the provinces and cities, and to cause upright patriots whose faith and
+truth has so long been proved, to be abandoned, by the blessing of God,
+shall never be accomplished.  Be of good heart, and cause these Flemish
+tricks to be understood on every occasion, and let men know that we mean
+to maintain, with unchanging constancy, the authority of the government,
+the privileges and laws of the country, as well as the true Reformed
+religion."
+
+The statesman was more than ever anxious for moderate counsels in the
+religious questions, for it was now more important than ever that there
+should be concord in the Provinces, for the cause of Protestantism, and
+with it the existence of the Republic, seemed in greater danger than at
+any moment since the truce.  It appeared certain that the alliance
+between France and Spain had been arranged, and that the Pope, Spain, the
+Grand-duke of Tuscany, and their various adherents had organized a strong
+combination, and were enrolling large armies to take the field in the
+spring, against the Protestant League of the princes and electors in
+Germany.  The great king was dead.  The Queen-Regent was in the hand of
+Spain, or dreamed at least of an impossible neutrality, while the priest
+who was one day to resume the part of Henry, and to hang upon the sword
+of France the scales in which the opposing weights of Protestantism and
+Catholicism in Europe were through so many awful years to be balanced,
+was still an obscure bishop.
+
+The premonitory signs of the great religious war in Germany were not to
+be mistaken.  In truth, the great conflict had already opened in the
+duchies, although few men as yet comprehended the full extent of that
+movement.  The superficial imagined that questions of hereditary
+succession, like those involved in the dispute, were easily to be settled
+by statutes of descent, expounded by doctors of law, and sustained, if
+needful, by a couple of comparatively bloodless campaigns.  Those who
+looked more deeply into causes felt that the limitations of Imperial
+authority, the ambition of a great republic, suddenly starting into
+existence out of nothing, and the great issues of the religious
+reformation, were matters not so easily arranged.  When the scene
+shifted, as it was so soon to do, to the heart of Bohemia, when
+Protestantism had taken the Holy Roman Empire by the beard in its
+ancient palace, and thrown Imperial stadholders out of window, it would
+be evident to the blindest that something serious was taking place.
+
+Meantime Barneveld, ever watchful of passing events, knew that great
+forces of Catholicism were marshalling in the south.  Three armies were
+to take the field against Protestantism at the orders of Spain and the
+Pope.  One at the door of the Republic, and directed especially against
+the Netherlands, was to resume the campaign in the duchies, and to
+prevent any aid going to Protestant Germany from Great Britain or from
+Holland.  Another in the Upper Palatinate was to make the chief movement
+against the Evangelical hosts.  A third in Austria was to keep down the
+Protestant party in Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, Moravia, and Silesia.  To
+sustain this movement, it was understood that all the troops then in
+Italy were to be kept all the winter on a war footing.'
+
+Was this a time for the great Protestant party in the Netherlands to tear
+itself in pieces for a theological subtlety, about which good Christians
+might differ without taking each other by the throat?
+
+"I do not lightly believe or fear," said the Advocate, in communicating a
+survey of European affairs at that moment to Carom "but present advices
+from abroad make me apprehend dangers."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Aristocracy of God's elect
+Determined to bring the very name of liberty into contempt
+Disputing the eternal damnation of young children
+Fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge
+Louis XIII.
+No man can be neutral in civil contentions
+No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves
+Philip IV.
+Priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests
+Schism in the Church had become a public fact
+That cynical commerce in human lives
+The voice of slanderers
+Theological hatred was in full blaze throughout the country
+Theology and politics were one
+To look down upon their inferior and lost fellow creatures
+Whether dead infants were hopelessly damned
+Whether repentance could effect salvation
+Whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed by partisans
+Work of the aforesaid Puritans and a few Jesuits
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v5, Motley #90
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
+
+WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+Life of John of Barneveld, 1613-15
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     Aerssens remains Two Years longer in France--Derives many Personal
+     Advantages from his Post--He visits the States-General--Aubery du
+     Maurier appointed French Ambassador--He demands the Recall of
+     Aerssens--Peace of Sainte-Menehould--Asperen de Langerac appointed
+     in Aerssens' Place.
+
+Francis Aerssens had remained longer at his post than had been intended
+by the resolution of the States of Holland, passed in May 1611.
+
+It is an exemplification of the very loose constitutional framework of
+the United Provinces that the nomination of the ambassador to France
+belonged to the States of Holland, by whom his salary was paid, although,
+of course, he was the servant of the States-General, to whom his public
+and official correspondence was addressed.  His most important despatches
+were however written directly to Barneveld so long as he remained in
+power, who had also the charge of the whole correspondence, public or
+private, with all the envoys of the States.
+
+Aerssens had, it will be remembered, been authorized to stay one year
+longer in France if he thought he could be useful there.  He stayed two
+years, and on the whole was not useful.  He had too many eyes and too
+many ears.  He had become mischievous by the very activity of his
+intelligence.  He was too zealous.  There were occasions in France at
+that moment in which it was as well to be blind and deaf.  It was
+impossible for the Republic, unless driven to it by dire necessity, to
+quarrel with its great ally.  It had been calculated by Duplessis-Mornay
+that France had paid subsidies to the Provinces amounting from first to
+last to 200 millions of livres.  This was an enormous exaggeration.  It
+was Barneveld's estimate that before the truce the States had received
+from France eleven millions of florins in cash, and during the truce up
+to the year 1613, 3,600,000 in addition, besides a million still due,
+making a total of about fifteen millions.  During the truce France kept
+two regiments of foot amounting to 4200 soldiers and two companies of
+cavalry in Holland at the service of the States, for which she was bound
+to pay yearly 600,000 livres.  And the Queen-Regent had continued all the
+treaties by which these arrangements were secured, and professed sincere
+and continuous friendship for the States.  While the French-Spanish
+marriages gave cause for suspicion, uneasiness, and constant watchfulness
+in the States, still the neutrality of France was possible in the coming
+storm.  So long as that existed, particularly when the relations of
+England with Holland through the unfortunate character of King James were
+perpetually strained to a point of imminent rupture, it was necessary to
+hold as long as it vas possible to the slippery embrace of France.
+
+But Aerssens was almost aggressive in his attitude.  He rebuked the
+vacillations, the shortcomings, the imbecility, of the Queen's government
+in offensive terms.  He consorted openly with the princes who were on the
+point of making war upon the Queen-Regent.  He made a boast to the
+Secretary of State Villeroy that he had unravelled all his secret plots
+against the Netherlands.  He declared it to be understood in France,
+since the King's death, by the dominant and Jesuitical party that the
+crown depended temporally as well as spiritually on the good pleasure of
+the Pope.
+
+No doubt he was perfectly right in many of his opinions.  No ruler or
+statesman in France worthy of the name would hesitate, in the impending
+religious conflict throughout Europe and especially in Germany, to
+maintain for the kingdom that all controlling position which was its
+splendid privilege.  But to preach this to Mary de' Medici was waste of
+breath.  She was governed by the Concini's, and the Concini's were
+governed by Spain.  The woman who was believed to have known beforehand
+of the plot to murder her great husband, who had driven the one powerful
+statesman on whom the King relied, Maximilian de Bethune, into
+retirement, and whose foreign affairs were now completely in the hands
+of the ancient Leaguer Villeroy--who had served every government in the
+kingdom for forty years--was not likely to be accessible to high views
+of public policy.
+
+Two years had now elapsed since the first private complaints against the
+Ambassador, and the French government were becoming impatient at his
+presence.  Aerssens had been supported by Prince Maurice, to whom he had
+long paid his court.  He was likewise loyally protected by Barneveld,
+whom he publicly flattered and secretly maligned.  But it was now
+necessary that he should be gone if peaceful relations with France were
+to be preserved.
+
+After all, the Ambassador had not made a bad business of his embassy from
+his own point of view.  A stranger in the Republic, for his father the
+Greffier was a refugee from Brabant, he had achieved through his own
+industry and remarkable talents, sustained by the favour of Barneveld--
+to whom he owed all his diplomatic appointments--an eminent position in
+Europe.  Secretary to the legation to France in 1594, he had been
+successively advanced to the post of resident agent, and when the
+Republic had been acknowledged by the great powers, to that of
+ambassador.  The highest possible functions that representatives of
+emperors and kings could enjoy had been formally recognized in the person
+of the minister of a new-born republic.  And this was at a moment when,
+with exception of the brave but insignificant cantons of Switzerland, the
+Republic had long been an obsolete idea.
+
+In a pecuniary point of view, too, he had not fared badly during his
+twenty years of diplomatic office.  He had made much money in various
+ways.  The King not long before his death sent him one day 20,000 florins
+as a present, with a promise soon to do much more for him.
+
+Having been placed in so eminent a post, he considered it as due to
+himself to derive all possible advantage from it.  "Those who serve at
+the altar," he said a little while after his return, "must learn to live
+by it.  I served their High Mightinesses at the court of a great king,
+and his Majesty's liberal and gracious favours were showered upon me.  My
+upright conscience and steady obsequiousness greatly aided me.  I did not
+look upon opportunity with folded arms, but seized it and made my profit
+by it.  Had I not met with such fortunate accidents, my office would not
+have given me dry bread."
+
+Nothing could exceed the frankness and indeed the cynicism with which the
+Ambassador avowed his practice of converting his high and sacred office
+into merchandise.  And these statements of his should be scanned closely,
+because at this very moment a cry was distantly rising, which at a later
+day was to swell into a roar, that the great Advocate had been bribed and
+pensioned.  Nothing had occurred to justify such charges, save that at
+the period of the truce he had accepted from the King of France a fee of
+20,000 florins for extra official and legal services rendered him a dozen
+years before, and had permitted his younger son to hold the office of
+gentleman-in-waiting at the French court with the usual salary attached
+to it.  The post, certainly not dishonourable in itself, had been
+intended by the King as a kindly compliment to the leading statesman
+of his great and good ally the Republic.  It would be difficult to
+say why such a favour conferred on the young man should be held more
+discreditable to the receiver than the Order of the Garter recently
+bestowed upon the great soldier of the Republic by another friendly
+sovereign.  It is instructive however to note the language in which
+Francis Aerssens spoke of favours and money bestowed by a foreign monarch
+upon himself, for Aerssens had come back from his embassy full of gall
+and bitterness against Barneveld.  Thenceforth he was to be his evil
+demon.
+
+"I didn't inherit property," said this diplomatist.  "My father and
+mother, thank God, are yet living.  I have enjoyed the King's liberality.
+It was from an ally, not an enemy, of our country.  Were every man
+obliged to give a reckoning of everything he possesses over and above his
+hereditary estates, who in the government would pass muster?  Those who
+declare that they have served their country in her greatest trouble, and
+lived in splendid houses and in service of princes and great companies
+and the like on a yearly salary of 4000 florins, may not approve these
+maxims."
+
+It should be remembered that Barneveld, if this was a fling at the
+Advocate, had acquired a large fortune by marriage, and, although
+certainly not averse from gathering gear, had, as will be seen on a
+subsequent page, easily explained the manner in which his property had
+increased.  No proof was ever offered or attempted of the anonymous
+calumnies levelled at him in this regard.
+
+"I never had the management of finances," continued Aerssens.  "My
+profits I have gained in foreign parts.  My condition of life is without
+excess, and in my opinion every means are good so long as they are
+honourable and legal.  They say my post was given me by the Advocate.
+Ergo, all my fortune comes from the Advocate.  Strenuously to have
+striven to make myself agreeable to the King and his counsellors, while
+fulfilling my office with fidelity and honour, these are the arts by
+which I have prospered, so that my splendour dazzles the eyes of the
+envious.  The greediness of those who believe that the sun should shine
+for them alone was excited, and so I was obliged to resign the embassy."
+
+So long as Henry lived, the Dutch ambassador saw him daily, and at all
+hours, privately, publicly, when he would.  Rarely has a foreign envoy
+at any court, at any period of history, enjoyed such privileges of being
+useful to his government.  And there is no doubt that the services of
+Aerssens had been most valuable to his country, notwithstanding his
+constant care to increase his private fortune through his public
+opportunities.  He was always ready to be useful to Henry likewise.
+When that monarch same time before the truce, and occasionally during
+the preliminary negotiations for it, had formed a design to make himself
+sovereign of the Provinces, it was Aerssens who charged himself with the
+scheme, and would have furthered it with all his might, had the project
+not met with opposition both from the Advocate and the Stadholder.
+Subsequently it appeared probable that Maurice would not object to the
+sovereignty himself, and the Ambassador in Paris, with the King's
+consent, was not likely to prove himself hostile to the Prince's
+ambition.
+
+"There is but this means alone," wrote Jeannini to Villeroy, "that can
+content him, although hitherto he has done like the rowers, who never
+look toward the place whither they wish to go."  The attempt of the
+Prince to sound Barneveld on this subject through the Princess-Dowager
+has already been mentioned, and has much intrinsic probability.
+Thenceforward, the republican form of government, the municipal
+oligarchies, began to consolidate their power.  Yet although the people
+as such were not sovereigns, but subjects, and rarely spoken of by the
+aristocratic magistrates save with a gentle and patronizing disdain, they
+enjoyed a larger liberty than was known anywhere else in the world.
+Buzenval was astonished at the "infinite and almost unbridled freedom"
+which he witnessed there during his embassy, and which seemed to him
+however "without peril to the state."
+
+The extraordinary means possessed by Aerssens to be important and useful
+vanished with the King's death.  His secret despatches, painting in
+sombre and sarcastic colours the actual condition of affairs at the
+French court, were sent back in copy to the French court itself.  It was
+not known who had played the Ambassador this vilest of tricks, but it was
+done during an illness of Barneveld, and without his knowledge.  Early in
+the year 1613 Aerssens resolved, not to take his final departure, but to
+go home on leave of absence.  His private intention was to look for some
+substantial office of honour and profit at home.  Failing of this, he
+meant to return to Paris.  But with an eye to the main chance as usual,
+he ingeniously caused it to be understood at court, without making
+positive statements to that effect, that his departure was final.  On his
+leavetaking, accordingly, he received larger presents from the crown than
+had been often given to a retiring ambassador.  At least 20,000 florins
+were thus added to the frugal store of profits on which he prided
+himself.  Had he merely gone away on leave of absence, he would have
+received no presents whatever.  But he never went back.  The Queen-Regent
+and her ministers were so glad to get rid of him, and so little disposed,
+in the straits in which they found themselves, to quarrel with the
+powerful republic, as to be willing to write very complimentary public
+letters to the States, concerning the character and conduct of the man
+whom they so much detested.
+
+Pluming himself upon these, Aerssens made his appearance in the Assembly
+of the States-General, to give account by word of mouth of the condition
+of affairs, speaking as if he had only come by permission of their
+Mightinesses for temporary purposes.  Two months later he was summoned
+before the Assembly, and ordered to return to his post.
+
+Meantime a new French ambassador had arrived at the Hague, in the spring
+of 1613.  Aubery du Maurier, a son of an obscure country squire, a
+Protestant, of moderate opinions, of a sincere but rather obsequious
+character, painstaking, diligent, and honest, had been at an earlier day
+in the service of the turbulent and intriguing Due de Bouillon.  He had
+also been employed by Sully as an agent in financial affairs between
+Holland and France, and had long been known to Villeroy.  He was living
+on his estate, in great retirement from all public business, when
+Secretary Villeroy suddenly proposed him the embassy to the Hague.
+There was no more important diplomatic post at that time in Europe.
+Other countries were virtually at peace, but in Holland, notwithstanding
+the truce, there vas really not much more than an armistice, and great
+armies lay in the Netherlands, as after a battle, sleeping face to face
+with arms in their hands.  The politics of Christendom were at issue in
+the open, elegant, and picturesque village which was the social capital
+of the United Provinces.  The gentry from Spain, Italy, the south of
+Europe, Catholic Germany, had clustered about Spinola at Brussels, to
+learn the art of war in his constant campaigning against Maurice.
+English and Scotch officers, Frenchmen, Bohemians, Austrians, youths from
+the Palatinate and all Protestant countries in Germany, swarmed to the
+banners of the prince who had taught the world how Alexander Farnese
+could be baffled, and the great Spinola outmanoeuvred.  Especially there
+was a great number of Frenchmen of figure and quality who thronged to the
+Hague, besides the officers of the two French regiments which formed a
+regular portion of the States' army.  That army was the best appointed
+and most conspicuous standing force in Europe.  Besides the French
+contingent there were always nearly 30,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry on a
+war footing, splendidly disciplined, experienced, and admirably armed.
+The navy, consisting of thirty war ships, perfectly equipped and manned,
+was a match for the combined marine forces of all Europe, and almost as
+numerous.
+
+When the Ambassador went to solemn audience of the States-General, he was
+attended by a brilliant group of gentlemen and officers, often to the
+number of three hundred, who volunteered to march after him on foot to
+honour their sovereign in the person of his ambassador; the Envoy's
+carriage following empty behind.  Such were the splendid diplomatic
+processions often received by the stately Advocate in his plain civic
+garb, when grave international questions were to be publicly discussed.
+
+There was much murmuring in France when the appointment of a personage
+comparatively so humble to a position so important was known.  It was
+considered as a blow aimed directly at the malcontent princes of the
+blood, who were at that moment plotting their first levy of arms against
+the Queen.  Du Maurier had been ill-treated by the Due de Bouillon, who
+naturally therefore now denounced the man whom he had injured to the
+government to which he was accredited.  Being the agent of Mary de'
+Medici, he was, of course, described as a tool of the court and a secret
+pensioner of Spain.  He was to plot with the arch traitor Barneveld as to
+the best means for distracting the Provinces and bringing them back into
+Spanish subjection.  Du Maurier, being especially but secretly charged to
+prevent the return of Francis Aerssens to Paris, incurred of course the
+enmity of that personage and of the French grandees who ostentatiously
+protected him.  It was even pretended by Jeannin that the appointment of
+a man so slightly known to the world, so inexperienced in diplomacy, and
+of a parentage so little distinguished, would be considered an affront by
+the States-General.
+
+But on the whole, Villeroy had made an excellent choice.  No safer man
+could perhaps have been found in France for a post of such eminence, in
+circumstances so delicate, and at a crisis so grave.  The man who had
+been able to make himself agreeable and useful, while preserving his
+integrity, to characters so dissimilar as the refining, self-torturing,
+intellectual Duplessis-Mornay, the rude, aggressive, and straightforward
+Sully, the deep-revolving, restlessly plotting Bouillon, and the smooth,
+silent, and tortuous Villeroy--men between whom there was no friendship,
+but, on the contrary, constant rancour--had material in him to render
+valuable services at this particular epoch.  Everything depended on
+patience, tact, watchfulness in threading the distracting, almost
+inextricable, maze which had been created by personal rivalries,
+ambitions, and jealousies in the state he represented and the one to
+which he was accredited.  "I ascribe it all to God," he said, in his
+testament to his children, "the impenetrable workman who in His goodness
+has enabled me to make myself all my life obsequious, respectful, and
+serviceable to all, avoiding as much as possible, in contenting some, not
+to discontent others."  He recommended his children accordingly to
+endeavour "to succeed in life by making themselves as humble,
+intelligent, and capable as possible."
+
+This is certainly not a very high type of character, but a safer one for
+business than that of the arch intriguer Francis Aerssens.  And he had
+arrived at the Hague under trying circumstances.  Unknown to the foreign
+world he was now entering, save through the disparaging rumours
+concerning him, sent thither in advance by the powerful personages
+arrayed against his government, he might have sunk under such a storm at
+the outset, but for the incomparable kindness and friendly aid of the
+Princess-Dowager, Louise de Coligny.  "I had need of her protection and
+recommendation as much as of life," said du Maurier; "and she gave them
+in such excess as to annihilate an infinity of calumnies which envy had
+excited against me on every side."  He had also a most difficult and
+delicate matter to arrange at the very moment of his arrival.
+
+For Aerssens had done his best not only to produce a dangerous division
+in the politics of the Republic, but to force a rupture between the
+French government and the States.  He had carried matters before the
+assembly with so high a hand as to make it seem impossible to get rid of
+him without public scandal.  He made a parade of the official letters
+from the Queen-Regent and her ministers, in which he was spoken of in
+terms of conventional compliment.  He did not know, and Barneveld wished,
+if possible, to spare him the annoyance of knowing, that both Queen and
+ministers, so soon as informed that there was a chance of coming back
+to them, had written letters breathing great repugnance to him and
+intimating that he would not be received.  Other high personages of state
+had written to express their resentment at his duplicity, perpetual
+mischief-making, and machinations against the peace of the kingdom, and
+stating the impossibility of his resuming the embassy at Paris.  And at
+last the queen wrote to the States-General to say that, having heard
+their intention to send him back to a post "from which he had taken leave
+formally and officially," she wished to prevent such a step.  "We should
+see M. Aerssens less willingly than comports with our friendship for you
+and good neighbourhood.  Any other you could send would be most welcome,
+as M. du Maurier will explain to you more amply."
+
+And to du Maurier himself she wrote distinctly, "Rather than suffer the
+return of the said Aerssens, you will declare that for causes which
+regard the good of our affairs and our particular satisfaction we cannot
+and will not receive him in the functions which he has exercised here,
+and we rely too implicitly upon the good friendship of My Lords the
+States to do anything in this that would so much displease us."
+
+And on the same day Villeroy privately wrote to the Ambassador, "If, in
+spite of all this, Aerssens should endeavour to return, he will not be
+received, after the knowledge we have of his factious spirit, most
+dangerous in a public personage in a state such as ours and in the
+minority of the King."
+
+Meantime Aerssens had been going about flaunting letters in everybody's
+face from the Duc de Bouillon insisting on the necessity of his return!
+The fact in itself would have been sufficient to warrant his removal, for
+the Duke was just taking up arms against his sovereign.  Unless the
+States meant to interfere officially and directly in the civil war about
+to break out in France, they could hardly send a minister to the
+government on recommendation of the leader of the rebellion.
+
+It had, however, become impossible to remove him without an explosion.
+Barneveld, who, said du Maurier, "knew the man to his finger nails," had
+been reluctant to "break the ice," and wished for official notice in the
+matter from the Queen.  Maurice protected the troublesome diplomatist.
+"'Tis incredible," said the French ambassador "how covertly Prince
+Maurice is carrying himself, contrary to his wont, in this whole affair.
+I don't know whether it is from simple jealousy to Barneveld, or if there
+is some mystery concealed below the surface."
+
+Du Maurier had accordingly been obliged to ask his government for
+distinct and official instructions.  "He holds to his place," said he,
+"by so slight and fragile a root as not to require two hands to pluck him
+up, the little finger being enough.  There is no doubt that he has been
+in concert with those who are making use of him to re-establish their
+credit with the States, and to embark Prince Maurice contrary to his
+preceding custom in a cabal with them."
+
+Thus a question of removing an obnoxious diplomatist could hardly be
+graver, for it was believed that he was doing his best to involve the
+military chief of his own state in a game of treason and rebellion
+against the government to which he was accredited.  It was not the first
+nor likely to be the last of Bouillon's deadly intrigues.  But the man
+who had been privy to Biron's conspiracy against the crown and life of
+his sovereign was hardly a safe ally for his brother-in-law, the
+straightforward stadholder.
+
+The instructions desired by du Maurier and by Barneveld had, as we have
+seen, at last arrived.  The French ambassador thus fortified appeared
+before the Assembly of the States-General and officially demanded the
+recall of Aerssens.  In a letter addressed privately and confidentially
+to their Mightinesses, he said, "If in spite of us you throw him at our
+feet, we shall fling him back at your head."
+
+At last Maurice yielded to, the representations of the French envoy, and
+Aerssens felt obliged to resign his claims to the post.  The States-
+General passed a resolution that it would be proper to employ him in some
+other capacity in order to show that his services had been agreeable to
+them, he having now declared that he could no longer be useful in France.
+Maurice, seeing that it was impossible to save him, admitted to du
+Maurier his unsteadiness and duplicity, and said that, if possessed of
+the confidence of a great king, he would be capable of destroying the
+state in less than a year.
+
+But this had not always been the Prince's opinion, nor was it likely to
+remain unchanged.  As for Villeroy, he denied flatly that the cause of
+his displeasure had been that Aerssens had penetrated into his most
+secret affairs.  He protested, on the contrary, that his annoyance with
+him had partly proceeded from the slight acquaintance he had acquired of
+his policy, and that, while boasting to be better informed than any one,
+he was in the habit of inventing and imagining things in order to get
+credit for himself.
+
+It was highly essential that the secret of this affair should be made
+clear; for its influence on subsequent events was to be deep and wide.
+For the moment Aerssens remained without employment, and there was no
+open rupture with Barneveld.  The only difference of opinion between the
+Advocate and himself, he said, was whether he had or had not definitely
+resigned his post on leaving Paris.
+
+Meantime it was necessary to fix upon a successor for this most important
+post.  The war soon after the new year had broken out in France.  Conde,
+Bouillon, and the other malcontent princes with their followers had taken
+possession of the fortress of Mezieres, and issued a letter in the name
+of Conde to the Queen-Regent demanding an assembly of the States-General
+of the kingdom and rupture of the Spanish marriages.  Both parties, that
+of the government and that of the rebellion, sought the sympathy and
+active succour of the States.  Maurice, acting now in perfect accord
+with the Advocate, sustained the Queen and execrated the rebellion of
+his relatives with perfect frankness.  Conde, he said, had got his head
+stuffed full of almanacs whose predictions he wished to see realized.
+He vowed he would have shortened by a head the commander of the garrison
+who betrayed Mezieres, if he had been under his control.  He forbade on
+pain of death the departure of any officer or private of the French
+regiments from serving the rebels, and placed the whole French force at
+the disposal of the Queen, with as many Netherland regiments as could be
+spared.  One soldier was hanged and three others branded with the mark of
+a gibbet on the face for attempting desertion.  The legal government was
+loyally sustained by the authority of the States, notwithstanding all the
+intrigues of Aerssens with the agents of the princes to procure them
+assistance.  The mutiny for the time was brief, and was settled on the
+15th of May 1614, by the peace of Sainte-Menehould, as much a caricature
+of a treaty as the rising had been the parody of a war. Van der Myle,
+son-in-law of Barneveld, who had been charged with a special and
+temporary mission to France, brought back the terms, of the convention to
+the States-General.  On the other hand, Conde and his confederates sent a
+special agent to the Netherlands to give their account of the war and the
+negotiation, who refused to confer either with du Maurier or Barneveld,
+but who held much conference with Aerssens.
+
+It was obvious enough that the mutiny of the princes would become
+chronic.  In truth, what other condition was possible with two characters
+like Mary de' Medici and the Prince of Conde respectively at the head of
+the government and the revolt?  What had France to hope for but to remain
+the bloody playground for mischievous idiots, who threw about the
+firebrands and arrows of reckless civil war in pursuit of the paltriest
+of personal aims?
+
+Van der Myle had pretensions to the vacant place of Aerssens.  He had
+some experience in diplomacy.  He had conducted skilfully enough the
+first mission of the States to Venice, and had subsequently been employed
+in matters of moment.  But he was son-in-law to Barneveld, and although
+the Advocate was certainly not free from the charge of nepotism, he
+shrank from the reproach of having apparently removed Aerssens to make a
+place for one of his own family.
+
+Van der Myle remained to bear the brunt of the late ambassador's malice,
+and to engage at a little later period in hottest controversy with him,
+personal and political.  "Why should van der Myle strut about, with his
+arms akimbo like a peacock?" complained Aerssens one day in confused
+metaphor.  A question not easy to answer satisfactorily.
+
+The minister selected was a certain Baron Asperen de Langerac, wholly
+unversed in diplomacy or other public affairs, with abilities not above
+the average.  A series of questions addressed by him to the Advocate, the
+answers to which, scrawled on the margin of the paper, were to serve for
+his general instructions, showed an ingenuousness as amusing as the
+replies of Barneveld were experienced and substantial.
+
+In general he was directed to be friendly and respectful to every one, to
+the Queen-Regent and her counsellors especially, and, within the limits
+of becoming reverence for her, to cultivate the good graces of the Prince
+of Conde and the other great nobles still malcontent and rebellious, but
+whose present movement, as Barneveld foresaw, was drawing rapidly to a
+close.  Langerac arrived in Paris on the 5th of April 1614.
+
+Du Maurier thought the new ambassador likely to "fall a prey to the
+specious language and gentle attractions of the Due de Bouillon."  He
+also described him as very dependent upon Prince Maurice.  On the other
+hand Langerac professed unbounded and almost childlike reverence for
+Barneveld,  was devoted to his person, and breathed as it were only
+through his inspiration.  Time would show whether those sentiments would
+outlast every possible storm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Weakness of the Rulers of France and England--The Wisdom of
+     Barneveld inspires Jealousy--Sir Dudley Carleton succeeds Winwood--
+     Young Neuburg under the Guidance of Maximilian--Barneveld strives to
+     have the Treaty of Xanten enforced--Spain and the Emperor wish to
+     make the States abandon their Position with regard to the Duchies--
+     The French Government refuses to aid the States--Spain and the
+     Emperor resolve to hold Wesel--The great Religious War begun--The
+     Protestant Union and Catholic League both wish to secure the Border
+     Provinces--Troubles in Turkey--Spanish Fleet seizes La Roche--Spain
+     places large Armies on a War Footing.
+
+Few things are stranger in history than the apathy with which the wide
+designs of the Catholic party were at that moment regarded.  The
+preparations for the immense struggle which posterity learned to call the
+Thirty Years' War, and to shudder when speaking of it, were going forward
+on every side.  In truth the war had really begun, yet those most deeply
+menaced by it at the outset looked on with innocent calmness because
+their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze.  The passage of arms in
+the duchies, the outlines of which have just been indicated, and which
+was the natural sequel of the campaign carried out four years earlier on
+the same territory, had been ended by a mockery.  In France, reduced
+almost to imbecility by the absence of a guiding brain during a long
+minority, fallen under the distaff of a dowager both weak and wicked,
+distracted by the intrigues and quarrels of a swarm of self-seeking
+grandees, and with all its offices, from highest to lowest, of court,
+state, jurisprudence, and magistracy, sold as openly and as cynically as
+the commonest wares, there were few to comprehend or to grapple with the
+danger.  It should have seemed obvious to the meanest capacity in the
+kingdom that the great house of Austria, reigning supreme in Spain and in
+Germany, could not be allowed to crush the Duke of Savoy on the one side,
+and Bohemia, Moravia, and the Netherlands on the other without danger of
+subjection for France.  Yet the aim of the Queen-Regent was to cultivate
+an impossible alliance with her inevitable foe.
+
+And in England, ruled as it then was with no master mind to enforce
+against its sovereign the great lessons of policy, internal and external,
+on which its welfare and almost its imperial existence depended, the only
+ambition of those who could make their opinions felt was to pursue the
+same impossibility, intimate alliance with the universal foe.
+
+Any man with slightest pretensions to statesmanship knew that the liberty
+for Protestant worship in Imperial Germany, extorted by force, had been
+given reluctantly, and would be valid only as long as that force
+could still be exerted or should remain obviously in reserve.
+The "Majesty-Letter" and the "Convention" of the two religions would
+prove as flimsy as the parchment on which they were engrossed, the
+Protestant churches built under that sanction would be shattered like
+glass, if once the Catholic rulers could feel their hands as clear as
+their consciences would be for violating their sworn faith to heretics.
+Men knew, even if the easy-going and uxorious emperor, into which
+character the once busy and turbulent Archduke Matthias had subsided,
+might be willing to keep his pledges, that Ferdinand of Styria, who would
+soon succeed him, and Maximilian of Bavaria were men who knew their own
+minds, and had mentally never resigned one inch of the ground which
+Protestantism imagined itself to have conquered.
+
+These things seem plain as daylight to all who look back upon them
+through the long vista of the past; but the sovereign of England did not
+see them or did not choose to see them.  He saw only the Infanta and her
+two millions of dowry, and he knew that by calling Parliament together
+to ask subsidies for an anti-Catholic war he should ruin those golden
+matrimonial prospects for his son, while encouraging those "shoemakers,"
+his subjects, to go beyond their "last," by consulting the
+representatives of his people on matters pertaining to the mysteries of
+government.  He was slowly digging the grave of the monarchy and building
+the scaffold of his son; but he did his work with a laborious and
+pedantic trifling, when really engaged in state affairs, most amazing to
+contemplate.  He had no penny to give to the cause in which his nearest
+relatives mere so deeply involved and for which his only possible allies
+were pledged; but he was ready to give advice to all parties, and with
+ludicrous gravity imagined himself playing the umpire between great
+contending hosts, when in reality he was only playing the fool at the
+beck of masters before whom he quaked.
+
+"You are not to vilipend my counsel," said he one day to a foreign envoy.
+"I am neither a camel nor an ass to take up all this work on my
+shoulders.  Where would you find another king as willing to do
+it as I am?"
+
+The King had little time and no money to give to serve his own family and
+allies and the cause of Protestantism, but he could squander vast sums
+upon worthless favourites, and consume reams of paper on controverted
+points of divinity.  The appointment of Vorstius to the chair of theology
+in Leyden aroused more indignation in his bosom, and occupied more of his
+time, than the conquests of Spinola in the duchies, and the menaces of
+Spain against Savoy and Bohemia.  He perpetually preached moderation to
+the States in the matter of the debateable territory, although moderation
+at that moment meant submission to the House of Austria.  He chose to
+affect confidence in the good faith of those who were playing a comedy
+by which no statesman could be deceived, but which had secured the
+approbation of the Solomon of the age.
+
+But there was one man who was not deceived.  The warnings and the
+lamentations of Barneveld sound to us out of that far distant time like
+the voice of an inspired prophet.  It is possible that a portion of the
+wrath to come might have been averted had there been many men in high
+places to heed his voice.  I do not wish to exaggerate the power and
+wisdom of the man, nor to set him forth as one of the greatest heroes of
+history.  But posterity has done far less than justice to a statesman and
+sage who wielded a vast influence at a most critical period in the fate
+of Christendom, and uniformly wielded it to promote the cause of
+temperate human liberty, both political and religious.  Viewed by the
+light of two centuries and a half of additional experience, he may appear
+to have made mistakes, but none that were necessarily disastrous or even
+mischievous.  Compared with the prevailing idea of the age in which he
+lived, his schemes of polity seem to dilate into large dimensions, his
+sentiments of religious freedom, however limited to our modern ideas,
+mark an epoch in human progress, and in regard to the general
+commonwealth of Christendom, of which he was so leading a citizen, the
+part he played was a lofty one.  No man certainly understood the tendency
+of his age more exactly, took a broader and more comprehensive view than
+he did of the policy necessary to preserve the largest portion of the
+results of the past three-quarters of a century, or had pondered the
+relative value of great conflicting forces more skilfully.  Had his
+counsels been always followed, had illustrious birth placed him virtually
+upon a throne, as was the case with William the Silent, and thus allowed
+him occasionally to carry out the designs of a great mind with almost
+despotic authority, it might have been better for the world.  But in that
+age it was royal blood alone that could command unflinching obedience
+without exciting personal rivalry.  Men quailed before his majestic
+intellect, but hated him for the power which was its necessary result.
+They already felt a stupid delight in cavilling at his pedigree.  To
+dispute his claim to a place among the ancient nobility to which he was
+an honour was to revenge themselves for the rank he unquestionably
+possessed side by side in all but birth with the kings and rulers of the
+world.  Whether envy and jealousy be vices more incident to the
+republican form of government than to other political systems may be an
+open question.  But it is no question whatever that Barneveld's every
+footstep from this period forward was dogged by envy as patient as it was
+devouring.  Jealousy stuck to him like his shadow.  We have examined the
+relations which existed between Winwood and himself; we have seen that
+ambassador, now secretary of state for James, never weary in denouncing
+the Advocate's haughtiness and grim resolution to govern the country
+according to its laws rather than at the dictate of a foreign sovereign,
+and in flinging forth malicious insinuations in regard to his relations
+to Spain.  The man whose every hour was devoted in spite of a thousand
+obstacles strewn by stupidity, treachery, and apathy, as well as by envy,
+hatred, and bigotry--to the organizing of a grand and universal league of
+Protestantism against Spain, and to rolling up with strenuous and
+sometimes despairing arms a dead mountain weight, ever ready to fall back
+upon and crush him, was accused in dark and mysterious whispers, soon to
+grow louder and bolder, of a treacherous inclination for Spain.
+
+There is nothing less surprising nor more sickening for those who observe
+public life, and wish to retain faith in the human species, than the
+almost infinite power of the meanest of passions.
+
+The Advocate was obliged at the very outset of Langerac's mission to
+France to give him a warning on this subject.
+
+"Should her Majesty make kindly mention of me," he said, "you will say
+nothing of it in your despatches as you did in your last, although I am
+sure with the best intentions.  It profits me not, and many take umbrage
+at it; wherefore it is wise to forbear."
+
+But this was a trifle.  By and by there would be many to take umbrage at
+every whisper in his favour, whether from crowned heads or from the
+simplest in the social scale.  Meantime he instructed the Ambassador,
+without paying heed to personal compliments to his chief, to do his best
+to keep the French government out of the hands of Spain, and with that
+object in view to smooth over the differences between the two great
+parties in the kingdom, and to gain the confidence, if possible, of Conde
+and Nevers and Bouillon, while never failing in straightforward respect
+and loyal friendship to the Queen-Regent and her ministers, as the
+legitimate heads of the government.
+
+From England a new ambassador was soon to take the place of Winwood.
+Sir Dudley Carleton was a diplomatist of respectable abilities, and well
+trained to business and routine.  Perhaps on the whole there was none
+other, in that epoch of official mediocrity, more competent than he to
+fill what was then certainly the most important of foreign posts.  His
+course of life had in no wise familiarized him with the intricacies of
+the Dutch constitution, nor could the diplomatic profession, combined
+with a long residence at Venice, be deemed especially favourable for deep
+studies of the mysteries of predestination.  Yet he would be found ready
+at the bidding of his master to grapple with Grotius and Barneveld on the
+field of history and law, and thread with Uytenbogaert or Taurinus all
+the subtleties of Arminianism and Gomarism as if he had been half his
+life both a regular practitioner at the Supreme Court of the Hague and
+professor of theology at the University of Leyden.  Whether the triumphs
+achieved in such encounters were substantial and due entirely to his own
+genius might be doubtful.  At all events he had a sovereign behind him
+who was incapable of making a mistake on any subject.
+
+"You shall not forget," said James in his instructions to Sir Dudley,
+"that you are the minister of that master whom God hath made the sole
+protector of his religion .  .  .  .  .  and you may let fall how hateful
+the maintaining of erroneous opinions is to the majesty of God and how
+displeasing to us."
+
+The warlike operations of 1614 had been ended by the abortive peace
+of Xanten.  The two rival pretenders to the duchies were to halve the
+territory, drawing lots for the first choice, all foreign troops were
+to be withdrawn, and a pledge was to be given that no fortress should
+be placed in the hands of any power.  But Spain at the last moment had
+refused to sanction the treaty, and everything was remitted to what might
+be exactly described as a state of sixes and sevens.  Subsequently it was
+hoped that the States' troops might be induced to withdraw simultaneously
+with the Catholic forces on an undertaking by Spinola that there should
+be no re-occupation of the disputed territory either by the Republic or
+by Spain.  But Barneveld accurately pointed out that, although the
+Marquis was a splendid commander and, so long as he was at the head of
+the armies, a most powerful potentate, he might be superseded at any
+moment.  Count Bucquoy, for example, might suddenly appear in his place
+and refuse to be bound by any military arrangement of his predecessor.
+Then the Archduke proposed to give a guarantee that in case of a mutual
+withdrawal there should be no return of the troops, no recapture of
+garrisons.  But Barneveld, speaking for the States, liked not the
+security.  The Archduke was but the puppet of Spain, and Spain had no
+part in the guarantee.  She held the strings, and might cause him at any
+moment to play what pranks she chose.  It would be the easiest thing in
+the world for despotic Spain, so the Advocate thought, to reappear
+suddenly in force again at a moment's notice after the States' troops had
+been withdrawn and partially disbanded, and it would be difficult for the
+many-headed and many-tongued republic to act with similar promptness.
+To withdraw without a guarantee from Spain to the Treaty of Xanten, which
+had once been signed, sealed, and all but ratified, would be to give up
+fifty points in the game.  Nothing but disaster could ensue.  The
+Advocate as leader in all these negotiations and correspondence was
+ever actuated by the favourite quotation of William the Silent from
+Demosthenes, that the safest citadel against an invader and a tyrant is
+distrust.  And he always distrusted in these dealings, for he was sure
+the Spanish cabinet was trying to make fools of the States, and there
+were many ready to assist it in the task.  Now that one of the
+pretenders, temporary master of half the duchies, the Prince of Neuburg,
+had espoused both Catholicism and the sister of the Archbishop of Cologne
+and the Duke of Bavaria, it would be more safe than ever for Spain to
+make a temporary withdrawal.  Maximilian of Bavaria was beyond all
+question the ablest and most determined leader of the Catholic party in
+Germany, and the most straightforward and sincere.  No man before or
+since his epoch had, like him, been destined to refuse, and more than
+once refuse, the Imperial crown.
+
+Through his apostasy the Prince of Neuburg was in danger of losing his
+hereditary estates, his brothers endeavouring to dispossess him on the
+ground of the late duke's will, disinheriting any one of his heirs who
+should become a convert to Catholicism.  He had accordingly implored aid
+from the King of Spain.  Archduke Albert had urged Philip to render such
+assistance as a matter of justice, and the Emperor had naturally declared
+that the whole right as eldest son belonged, notwithstanding the will,
+to the Prince.
+
+With the young Neuburg accordingly under the able guidance of Maximilian,
+it was not likely that the grasp of the Spanish party upon these all-
+important territories would be really loosened.  The Emperor still
+claimed the right to decide among the candidates and to hold the
+provinces under sequestration till the decision should be made--that was
+to say, until the Greek Kalends.  The original attempt to do this through
+Archduke Leopold had been thwarted, as we have seen, by the prompt
+movements of Maurice sustained by the policy of Barneveld.  The Advocate
+was resolved that the Emperor's name should not be mentioned either in
+the preamble or body of the treaty.  And his course throughout the
+simulations, which were never negotiations, was perpetually baffled as
+much by the easiness and languor of his allies as the ingenuity of the
+enemy.
+
+He was reproached with the loss of Wesel, that Geneva of the Rhine,
+which would never be abandoned by Spain if it was not done forthwith.
+Let Spain guarantee the Treaty of Xanten, he said, and then she cannot
+come back.  All else is illusion.  Moreover, the Emperor had given
+positive orders that Wesel should not be given up.  He was assured by
+Villeroy that France would never put on her harness for Aachen, that
+cradle of Protestantism.  That was for the States-General to do, whom it
+so much more nearly concerned.  The whole aim of Barneveld was not to
+destroy the Treaty of Xanten, but to enforce it in the only way in which
+it could be enforced, by the guarantee of Spain.  So secured, it would be
+a barrier in the universal war of religion which he foresaw was soon to
+break out.  But it was the resolve of Spain, instead of pledging herself
+to the treaty, to establish the legal control of the territory in the
+hand of the Emperor.  Neuburg complained that Philip in writing to him
+did not give him the title of Duke of Julich and Cleve, although be had
+been placed in possession of those estates by the arms of Spain.  Philip,
+referring to Archduke Albert for his opinion on this subject, was advised
+that, as the Emperor had not given Neuburg the investiture of the
+duchies, the King was quite right in refusing him the title.  Even
+should the Treaty of Xanten be executed, neither he nor the Elector of
+Brandenburg would be anything but administrators until the question of
+right was decided by the Emperor.
+
+Spain had sent Neuburg the Order of the Golden Fleece as a reward for his
+conversion, but did not intend him to be anything but a man of straw in
+the territories which he claimed by sovereign right.  They were to form a
+permanent bulwark to the Empire, to Spain, and to Catholicism.
+
+Barneveld of course could never see the secret letters passing between
+Brussels and Madrid, but his insight into the purposes of the enemy was
+almost as acute as if the correspondence of Philip and Albert had been in
+the pigeonholes of his writing-desk in the Kneuterdyk.
+
+The whole object of Spain and the Emperor, acting through the Archduke,
+was to force the States to abandon their positions in the duchies
+simultaneously with the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, and to be
+satisfied with a bare convention between themselves and Archduke Albert
+that there should be no renewed occupation by either party.  Barneveld,
+finding it impossible to get Spain upon the treaty, was resolved that at
+least the two mediating powers, their great allies, the sovereigns of
+Great Britain and France, should guarantee the convention, and that the
+promises of the Archduke should be made to them.  This was steadily
+refused by Spain; for the Archduke never moved an inch in the matter
+except according to the orders of Spain, and besides battling and
+buffeting with the Archduke, Barneveld was constantly deafened with the
+clamour of the English king, who always declared Spain to be in the right
+whatever she did, and forced to endure with what patience he might the
+goading of that King's envoy.  France, on the other hand, supported the
+States as firmly as could have been reasonably expected.
+
+"We proposed," said the Archduke, instructing an envoy whom he was
+sending to Madrid with detailed accounts of these negotiations, "that
+the promise should be made to each other as usual in treaties.  But the
+Hollanders said the promise should be made to the Kings of France and
+England, at which the Emperor would have been deeply offended, as if
+in the affair he was of no account at all.  At any moment by this
+arrangement in concert with France and England the Hollanders might walk
+in and do what they liked."
+
+Certainly there could have been no succincter eulogy of the policy
+steadily recommended, as we shall have occasion to see, by Barneveld.
+Had he on this critical occasion been backed by England and France
+combined, Spain would have been forced to beat a retreat, and
+Protestantism in the great general war just beginning would have had
+an enormous advantage in position.  But the English Solomon could not
+see the wisdom of this policy.  "The King of England says we are right,"
+continued the Archduke, "and has ordered his ambassador to insist on our
+view.  The French ambassador here says that his colleague at the Hague
+has similar instructions, but admits that he has not acted up to them.
+There is not much chance of the Hollanders changing.  It would be well
+that the King should send a written ultimatum that the Hollanders should
+sign the convention which we propose.  If they don't agree, the world at
+least will see that it is not we who are in fault."
+
+The world would see, and would never have forgiven a statesman in
+the position of Barneveld, had he accepted a bald agreement from a
+subordinate like the Archduke, a perfectly insignificant personage in
+the great drama then enacting, and given up guarantees both from the
+Archduke's master and from the two great allies of the Republic.  He
+stood out manfully against Spain and England at every hazard, and under a
+pelting storm of obloquy, and this was the man whose designs the English
+secretary of state had dared to describe "as of no other nature than to
+cause the Provinces to relapse into the hands of Spain."
+
+It appeared too a little later that Barneveld's influence with the French
+government, owing to his judicious support of it so long as it was a
+government, had been decidedly successful.  Drugged as France was by the
+Spanish marriage treaty, she was yet not so sluggish nor spell-bound as
+the King of Great Britain.
+
+"France will not urge upon the Hollanders to execute the proposal as we
+made it," wrote the Archduke to the King, "so negotiations are at a
+standstill.  The Hollanders say it is better that each party should
+remain with what each possesses.  So that if it does not come to blows,
+and if these insolences go on as they have done, the Hollanders will be
+gaining and occupying more territory every day."
+
+Thus once more the ancient enemies and masters of the Republic were
+making the eulogy of the Dutch statesman.  It was impossible at present
+for the States to regain Wesel, nor that other early stronghold of the
+Reformation, the old Imperial city of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle).  The
+price to be paid was too exorbitant.
+
+The French government had persistently refused to assist the States and
+possessory princes in the recovery of this stronghold.  The Queen-Regent
+was afraid of offending Spain, although her government had induced the
+citizens of the place to make the treaty now violated by that country.
+The Dutch ambassador had been instructed categorically to enquire whether
+their Majesties meant to assist Aachen and the princes if attacked by the
+Archdukes.  "No," said Villeroy; "we are not interested in Aachen, 'tis
+too far off.  Let them look for assistance to those who advised their
+mutiny."
+
+To the Ambassador's remonstrance that France was both interested in and
+pledged to them, the Secretary of State replied, "We made the treaty
+through compassion and love, but we shall not put on harness for Aachen.
+Don't think it.  You, the States and the United Provinces, may assist
+them if you like."
+
+The Envoy then reminded the Minister that the States-General had always
+agreed to go forward evenly in this business with the Kings of Great
+Britain and France and the united princes, the matter being of equal
+importance to all.  They had given no further pledge than this to the
+Union.
+
+It was plain, however, that France was determined not to lift a finger at
+that moment.  The Duke of Bouillon and those acting with him had tried
+hard to induce their Majesties "to write seriously to the Archduke in
+order at least to intimidate him by stiff talk," but it was hopeless.
+They thought it was not a time then to quarrel with their neighbour and
+give offence to Spain.
+
+So the stiff talk was omitted, and the Archduke was not intimidated.  The
+man who had so often intimidated him was in his grave, and his widow was
+occupied in marrying her son to the Infanta.  "These are the first-
+fruits," said Aerssens, "of the new negotiations with Spain."
+
+Both the Spanish king and the Emperor were resolved to hold Wesel to the
+very last.  Until the States should retire from all their positions on
+the bare word of the Archduke, that the Spanish forces once withdrawn
+would never return, the Protestants of those two cities must suffer.
+There was no help for it.  To save them would be to abandon all.  For
+no true statesman could be so ingenuous as thus to throw all the cards
+on the table for the Spanish and Imperial cabinet to shuffle them at
+pleasure for a new deal.  The Duke of Neuburg, now Catholic and
+especially protected by Spain, had become, instead of a pretender with
+more or less law on his side, a mere standard-bearer and agent of the
+Great Catholic League in the debateable land.  He was to be supported at
+all hazard by the Spanish forces, according to the express command of
+Philip's government, especially now that his two brothers with the
+countenance of the States were disputing his right to his hereditary
+dominions in Germany.
+
+The Archduke was sullen enough at what he called the weak-mindedness of
+France.  Notwithstanding that by express orders from Spain he had sent
+5000 troops under command of Juan de Rivas to the Queen's assistance just
+before the peace of Sainte-Menehould, he could not induce her government
+to take the firm part which the English king did in browbeating the
+Hollanders.
+
+"'Tis certain," he complained, "that if, instead of this sluggishness on
+the part of France, they had done us there the same good services we have
+had from England, the Hollanders would have accepted the promise just as
+it was proposed by us."  He implored the King, therefore, to use his
+strongest influence with the French government that it should strenuously
+intervene with the Hollanders, and compel them to sign the proposal which
+they rejected.  "There is no means of composition if France does not
+oblige them to sign," said Albert rather piteously.
+
+But it was not without reason that Barneveld had in many of his letters
+instructed the States' ambassador, Langerac, "to caress the old
+gentleman" (meaning and never naming Villeroy), for he would prove to be
+in spite of all obstacles a good friend to the States, as he always had
+been.  And Villeroy did hold firm.  Whether the Archduke was right or
+not in his conviction, that, if France would only unite with England in
+exerting a strong pressure on the Hollanders, they would evacuate the
+duchies, and so give up the game, the correspondence of Barneveld shows
+very accurately.  But the Archduke, of course, had not seen that
+correspondence.
+
+The Advocate knew what was plotting, what was impending, what was
+actually accomplished, for he was accustomed to sweep the whole horizon
+with an anxious and comprehensive glance.  He knew without requiring to
+read the secret letters of the enemy that vast preparations for an
+extensive war against the Reformation were already completed.  The
+movements in the duchies were the first drops of a coming deluge.
+The great religious war which was to last a generation of mankind had
+already begun; the immediate and apparent pretext being a little
+disputed succession to some petty sovereignties, the true cause being
+the necessity for each great party--the Protestant Union and the Catholic
+League--to secure these border provinces, the possession of which would
+be of such inestimable advantage to either.  If nothing decisive occurred
+in the year 1614, the following year would still be more convenient for
+the League.  There had been troubles in Turkey.  The Grand Vizier had
+been murdered.  The Sultan was engaged in a war with Persia.  There was
+no eastern bulwark in Europe to the ever menacing power of the Turk and
+of Mahometanism in Europe save Hungary alone.  Supported and ruled as
+that kingdom was by the House of Austria, the temper of the populations
+of Germany had become such as to make it doubtful in the present conflict
+of religious opinions between them and their rulers whether the Turk or
+the Spaniard would be most odious as an invader.  But for the moment,
+Spain and the Emperor had their hands free.  They were not in danger of
+an attack from below the Danube.  Moreover, the Spanish fleet had been
+achieving considerable successes on the Barbary coast, having seized La
+Roche, and one or two important citadels, useful both against the
+corsairs and against sudden attacks by sea from the Turk.  There were at
+least 100,000 men on a war footing ready to take the field at command of
+the two branches of the House of Austria, Spanish and German.  In the
+little war about Montserrat, Savoy was on the point of being crushed,
+and Savoy was by position and policy the only possible ally, in the
+south, of the Netherlands and of Protestant Germany.
+
+While professing the most pacific sentiments towards the States, and a
+profound anxiety to withdraw his troops from their borders, the King of
+Spain, besides daily increasing those forces, had just raised 4,000,000
+ducats, a large portion of which was lodged with his bankers in Brussels.
+Deeds like those were of more significance than sugared words.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Almost infinite power of the meanest of passions
+Ludicrous gravity
+Safest citadel against an invader and a tyrant is distrust
+Their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze
+Therefore now denounced the man whom he had injured
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Life of John Barneveld, v6, Motley #91
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE JOHN OF BARNEVELD 1609-1615:
+
+Abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlour
+Advanced orthodox party-Puritans
+Allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body
+Almost infinite power of the meanest of passions
+And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
+Aristocracy of God's elect
+As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
+At a blow decapitated France
+Atheist, a tyrant, because he resisted dictation from the clergy
+Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics
+Christian sympathy and a small assistance not being sufficient
+Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+Contained within itself the germs of a larger liberty
+Could not be both judge and party in the suit
+Covered now with the satirical dust of centuries
+Deadly hatred of Puritans in England and Holland
+Determined to bring the very name of liberty into contempt
+Disputing the eternal damnation of young children
+Doctrine of predestination in its sternest and strictest sense
+Emperor of Japan addressed him as his brother monarch
+Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
+Estimating his character and judging his judges
+Everybody should mind his own business
+Fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge
+Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
+Give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
+Great war of religion and politics was postponed
+He was not imperial of aspect on canvas or coin
+He was a sincere bigot
+He who would have all may easily lose all
+He who spreads the snare always tumbles into the ditch himself
+Impatience is often on the part of the non-combatants
+Intense bigotry of conviction
+International friendship, the self-interest of each
+It was the true religion, and there was none other
+James of England, who admired, envied, and hated Henry
+Jealousy, that potent principle
+Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
+King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day
+Language which is ever living because it is dead
+Louis XIII.
+Ludicrous gravity
+More fiercely opposed to each other than to Papists
+Most detestable verses that even he had ever composed
+Neither kings nor governments are apt to value logic
+No man can be neutral in civil contentions
+No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves
+No man pretended to think of the State
+None but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say
+Outdoing himself in dogmatism and inconsistency
+Philip IV.
+Power the poison of which it is so difficult to resist
+Practised successfully the talent of silence
+Presents of considerable sums of money to the negotiators made
+Priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests
+Princes show what they have in them at twenty-five  or never
+Putting the cart before the oxen
+Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests
+Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition
+Religious toleration, which is a phrase of insult
+Safest citadel against an invader and a tyrant is distrust
+Schism in the Church had become a public fact
+Secure the prizes of war without the troubles and dangers
+Senectus edam maorbus est
+She declined to be his procuress
+Small matter which human folly had dilated into a great one
+Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial
+So much in advance of his time as to favor religious equality
+Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel
+That cynical commerce in human lives
+The defence of the civil authority against the priesthood
+The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses
+The truth in shortest about matters of importance
+The voice of slanderers
+The Catholic League and the Protestant Union
+The vehicle is often prized more than the freight
+Their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze
+Theological hatred was in full blaze throughout the country
+Theology and politics were one
+There was no use in holding language of authority to him
+There was but one king in Europe, Henry the Bearnese
+Therefore now denounced the man whom he had injured
+They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini
+Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful
+Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of the forty years
+To look down upon their inferior and lost fellow creatures
+Uncouple the dogs and let them run
+Unimaginable outrage as the most legitimate industry
+Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration
+What could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy
+Whether repentance could effect salvation
+Whether dead infants were hopelessly damned
+Whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed by partisans
+Wish to appear learned in matters of which they are ignorant
+Work of the aforesaid Puritans and a few Jesuits
+Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal authority
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1609-15 ***
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