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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4895.txt b/4895.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb9de73 --- /dev/null +++ b/4895.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2995 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Life of John of Barneveld, 1618 +#95 in our series by John Lothrop Motley + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1618 + +Author: John Lothrop Motley + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4895] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1618 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +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 95 + +Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v9, 1618 + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + Maurice revolutionizes the Provinces--Danckaert's libellous Pamphlet + --Barneveld's Appeal to the Prince--Barneveld'a Remonstrance to the + States--The Stadholder at Amsterdam--The Treaty of Truce nearly + expired--King of Spain and Archduke Albert--Scheme for recovering + the Provinces--Secret Plot to make Maurice Sovereign. + +Early in the year (1618) Maurice set himself about revolutionizing the +provinces on which he could not yet thoroughly rely. The town of Nymegen +since its recovery from the Spaniards near the close of the preceding +century had held its municipal government, as it were, at the option of +the Prince. During the war he had been, by the terms of surrender, +empowered to appoint and to change its magistracy at will. No change had +occurred for many years, but as the government had of late fallen into +the hands of the Barneveldians, and as Maurice considered the Truce to be +a continuance of the war, he appeared suddenly, in the city at the head +of a body of troops and surrounded by his lifeguard. Summoning the whole +board of magistrates into the townhouse, he gave them all notice to quit, +disbanding them like a company of mutinous soldiery, and immediately +afterwards appointed a fresh list of functionaries in their stead. + +This done, he proceeded to Arnhem, where the States of Gelderland were in +session, appeared before that body, and made a brief announcement of the +revolution which he had so succinctly effected in the most considerable +town of their province. The Assembly, which seems, like many other +assemblies at precisely this epoch, to have had an extraordinary capacity +for yielding to gentle violence, made but little resistance to the +extreme measures now undertaken by the Stadholder, and not only highly +applauded the subjugation of Nymegen, but listened with sympathy to his +arguments against the Waartgelders and in favour of the Synod. + +Having accomplished so much by a very brief visit to Gelderland, the +Prince proceeded, to Overyssel, and had as little difficulty in bringing +over the wavering minds of that province into orthodoxy and obedience. +Thus there remained but two provinces out of seven that were still +"waartgeldered" and refused to be "synodized." + +It was rebellion against rebellion. Maurice and his adherents accused +the States' right party of mutiny against himself and the States-General. +The States' right party accused the Contra-Remonstrants in the cities of +mutiny against the lawful sovereignty of each province. + +The oath of the soldiery, since the foundation of the Republic, had been +to maintain obedience and fidelity to the States-General, the Stadholder, +and the province in which they were garrisoned, and at whose expense they +were paid. It was impossible to harmonize such conflicting duties and +doctrines. Theory had done its best and its worst. The time was fast +approaching, as it always must approach, when fact with its violent besom +would brush away the fine-spun cobwebs which had been so long +undisturbed. + +"I will grind the Advocate and all his party into fine meal," said the +Prince on one occasion. + +A clever caricature of the time represented a pair of scales hung up +in a great hall. In the one was a heap of parchments, gold chains, and +magisterial robes; the whole bundle being marked the "holy right of each +city." In the other lay a big square, solid, ironclasped volume, marked +"Institutes of Calvin." Each scale was respectively watched by Gomarus +and by Arminius. The judges, gowned, furred, and ruffed, were looking +decorously on, when suddenly the Stadholder, in full military attire, was +seen rushing into the apartment and flinging his sword into the scale +with the Institutes. + +The civic and legal trumpery was of course made to kick the beam. + +Maurice had organized his campaign this year against the Advocate and his +party as deliberately as he had ever arranged the details of a series of +battles and sieges against the Spaniard. And he was proving himself as +consummate master in political strife as in the great science of war. + +He no longer made any secret of his conviction that Barneveld was a +traitor to his country, bought with Spanish gold. There was not the +slightest proof for these suspicions, but he asserted them roundly. +"The Advocate is travelling straight to Spain," he said to Count +Cuylenborg. "But we will see who has got the longest purse." + +And as if it had been a part of the campaign, a prearranged diversion to +the more direct and general assault on the entrenchments of the States' +right party, a horrible personal onslaught was now made from many +quarters upon the Advocate. It was an age of pamphleteering, of +venomous, virulent, unscrupulous libels. And never even in that age had +there been anything to equal the savage attacks upon this great +statesman. It moves the gall of an honest man, even after the lapse of +two centuries and a half, to turn over those long forgotten pages and +mark the depths to which political and theological party spirit could +descend. That human creatures can assimilate themselves so closely to +the reptile, and to the subtle devil within the reptile, when a party end +is to be gained is enough to make the very name of man a term of +reproach. + +Day by day appeared pamphlets, each one more poisonous than its +predecessor. There was hardly a crime that was not laid at the door of +Barneveld and all his kindred. The man who had borne a matchlock in +early youth against the foreign tyrant in days when unsuccessful +rebellion meant martyrdom and torture; who had successfully guided the +councils of the infant commonwealth at a period when most of his accusers +were in their cradles, and when mistake was ruin to the republic; he on +whose strong arm the father of his country had leaned for support; the +man who had organized a political system out of chaos; who had laid down +the internal laws, negotiated the great indispensable alliances, directed +the complicated foreign policy, established the system of national +defence, presided over the successful financial administration of a state +struggling out of mutiny into national existence; who had rocked the +Republic in its cradle and ever borne her in his heart; who had made her +name beloved at home and honoured and dreaded abroad; who had been the +first, when the great Taciturn had at last fallen a victim to the +murderous tyrant of Spain, to place the youthful Maurice in his father's +place, and to inspire the whole country with sublime courage to persist +rather than falter in purpose after so deadly a blow; who was as truly +the founder of the Republic as William had been the author of its +independence,--was now denounced as a traitor, a pope, a tyrant, a venal +hucksterer of his country's liberties. His family name, which had long +been an ancient and knightly one, was defiled and its nobility disputed; +his father and mother, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, accused +of every imaginable and unimaginable crime, of murder, incest, robbery, +bastardy, fraud, forgery, blasphemy. He had received waggon-loads of +Spanish pistoles; he had been paid 120,000 ducats by Spain for +negotiating the Truce; he was in secret treaty with Archduke Albert +to bring 18,000 Spanish mercenaries across the border to defeat the +machinations of Prince Maurice, destroy his life, or drive him from the +country; all these foul and bitter charges and a thousand similar ones +were rained almost daily upon that grey head. + +One day the loose sheets of a more than commonly libellous pamphlet were +picked up in the streets of the Hague and placed in the Advocate's hands. +It was the work of the drunken notary Danckaerts already mentioned, then +resident in Amsterdam, and among the papers thus found was a list of +wealthy merchants of that city who had contributed to the expense of its +publication. The opposition of Barneveld to the West India Corporation +could never be forgiven. The Advocate was notified in this production +that he was soon to be summoned to answer for his crimes. The country +was weary of him, he was told, and his life was forfeited. + +Stung at last beyond endurance by the persistent malice of his enemies, +he came before the States of Holland for redress. Upon his remonstrance +the author of this vile libel was summoned to answer before the upper +tribunal at the Hague for his crime. The city of Amsterdam covered him +with the shield 'de non evocando,' which had so often in cases of less +consequence proved of no protective value, and the notary was never +punished, but on the contrary after a brief lapse of time rewarded as for +a meritorious action. + +Meantime, the States of Holland, by formal act, took the name and honour +of Barneveld under their immediate protection as a treasure belonging +specially to themselves. Heavy penalties were denounced upon the authors +and printers of these libellous attacks, and large rewards offered for +their detection. Nothing came, however, of such measures. + +On the 24th April the Advocate addressed a frank, dignified, and +conciliatory letter to the Prince. The rapid progress of calumny against +him had at last alarmed even his steadfast soul, and he thought it best +to make a last appeal to the justice and to the clear intellect of +William the Silent's son. + +"Gracious Prince," he said, "I observe to my greatest sorrow an entire +estrangement of your Excellency from me, and I fear lest what was said +six months since by certain clerical persons and afterwards by some +politicians concerning your dissatisfaction with me, which until now I +have not been able to believe, must be true. I declare nevertheless with +a sincere heart to have never willingly given cause for any such feeling; +having always been your very faithful servant and with God's help hoping +as such to die. Ten years ago during the negotiations for the Truce I +clearly observed the beginning of this estrangement, but your Excellency +will be graciously pleased to remember that I declared to you at that +time my upright and sincere intention in these negotiations to promote +the service of the country and the interests of your Excellency, and that +I nevertheless offered at the time not only to resign all my functions +but to leave the country rather than remain in office and in the country +to the dissatisfaction of your Excellency." + +He then rapidly reviewed the causes which had produced the alienation of +which he complained and the melancholy divisions caused by the want of +mutual religious toleration in the Provinces; spoke of his efforts to +foster a spirit of conciliation on the dread subject of predestination, +and referred to the letter of the King of Great Britain deprecating +discussion and schism on this subject, and urging that those favourable +to the views of the Remonstrants ought not to be persecuted. Referring +to the intimate relations which Uytenbogaert had so long enjoyed with the +Prince, the Advocate alluded to the difficulty he had in believing that +his Excellency intended to act in opposition to the efforts of the States +of Holland in the cause of mutual toleration, to the manifest detriment +of the country and of many of its best and truest patriots and the +greater number of the magistrates in all the cities. + +He reminded the Prince that all attempts to accommodate these fearful +quarrels had been frustrated, and that on his departure the previous year +to Utrecht on account of his health he had again offered to resign all +his offices and to leave Holland altogether rather than find himself in +perpetual opposition to his Excellency. + +"I begged you in such case," he said, "to lend your hand to the procuring +for me an honourable discharge from My Lords the States, but your +Excellency declared that you could in no wise approve such a step and +gave me hope that some means of accommodating the dissensions would yet +be proposed." + +"I went then to Vianen, being much indisposed; thence I repaired to +Utrecht to consult my old friend Doctor Saulo Saul, in whose hands I +remained six weeks, not being able, as I hoped, to pass my seventieth +birthday on the 24th September last in my birthplace, the city of +Amersfoort. All this time I heard not one single word or proposal of +accommodation. On the contrary it was determined that by a majority +vote, a thing never heard of before, it was intended against the solemn +resolves of the States of Holland, of Utrecht, and of Overyssel to bring +these religious differences before the Assembly of My Lords the States- +General, a proceeding directly in the teeth of the Act of Union and other +treaties, and before a Synod which people called National, and that +meantime every effort was making to discredit all those who stood up for +the laws of these Provinces and to make them odious and despicable in the +eyes of the common people. + +"Especially it was I that was thus made the object of hatred and contempt +in their eyes. Hundreds of lies and calumnies, circulated in the form of +libels, seditious pamphlets, and lampoons, compelled me to return from +Utrecht to the Hague. Since that time I have repeatedly offered my +services to your Excellency for the promotion of mutual accommodation and +reconciliation of differences, but without success." + +He then alluded to the publication with which the country was ringing, +'The Necessary and Living Discourse of a Spanish Counsellor', and which +was attributed to his former confidential friend, now become his +deadliest foe, ex-Ambassador Francis Aerssens, and warned the Prince that +if he chose, which God forbid, to follow the advice of that seditious +libel, nothing but ruin to the beloved Fatherland and its lovers, to the +princely house of Orange-Nassau and to the Christian religion could be +the issue. "The Spanish government could desire no better counsel," +he said, "than this which these fellows give you; to encourage distrust +and estrangement between your Excellency and the nobles, the cities, and +the magistrates of the land and to propose high and haughty imaginings +which are easy enough to write, but most difficult to practise, and which +can only enure to the advantage of Spain. Therefore most respectfully I +beg your Excellency not to believe these fellows, but to reject their +counsels . . . . Among them are many malignant hypocrites and +ambitious men who are seeking their own profit in these changes of +government--many utterly ragged and beggarly fellows and many infamous +traitors coming from the provinces which have remained under the dominion +of the Spaniard, and who are filled with revenge, envy, and jealousy at +the greater prosperity and bloom of these independent States than they +find at home. + +"I fear," he said in conclusion, "that I have troubled your Excellency +too long, but to the fulfilment of my duty and discharge of my conscience +I could not be more brief. It saddens me deeply that in recompense for +my long and manifold services I am attacked by so many calumnious, lying, +seditious, and fraudulent libels, and that these indecencies find their +pretext and their food in the evil disposition of your Excellency towards +me. And although for one-and-thirty years long I have been able to live +down such things with silence, well-doing, and truth, still do I now find +myself compelled in this my advanced old age and infirmity to make some +utterances in defence of myself and those belonging to me, however much +against my heart and inclinations." + +He ended by enclosing a copy of the solemn state paper which he was about +to lay before the States of Holland in defence of his honour, and +subscribed himself the lifelong and faithful servant of the Prince. + +The Remonstrance to the States contained a summary review of the +political events of his life, which was indeed nothing more nor less than +the history of his country and almost of Europe itself during that +period, broadly and vividly sketched with the hand of a master. It was +published at once and strengthened the affection of his friends and the +wrath of his enemies. It is not necessary to our purpose to reproduce or +even analyse the document, the main facts and opinions contained in it +being already familiar to the reader. The frankness however with which, +in reply to the charges so profusely brought against him of having grown +rich by extortion, treason, and corruption, of having gorged himself with +plunder at home and bribery from the enemy, of being the great pensioner +of Europe and the Marshal d'Ancre of the Netherlands--he alluded to the +exact condition of his private affairs and the growth and sources of his +revenue, giving, as it were, a kind of schedule of his property, has in +it something half humorous, half touching in its simplicity. + +He set forth the very slender salaries attached to his high offices of +Advocate of Holland, Keeper of the Seals, and other functions. He +answered the charge that he always had at his disposition 120,000 florins +to bribe foreign agents withal by saying that his whole allowance for +extraordinary expenses and trouble in maintaining his diplomatic and +internal correspondence was exactly 500 florins yearly. He alluded to +the slanders circulated as to his wealth and its sources by those who +envied him for his position and hated him for his services. + +"But I beg you to believe, My Lords," he continued, "that my property is +neither so great nor so small as some people represent it to be. + +"In the year '75 I married my wife," he said. "I was pleased with her +person. I was likewise pleased with the dowry which was promptly paid +over to me, with firm expectation of increase and betterment . . . . +I ac knowledge that forty-three years ago my wife and myself had got +together so much of real and personal property that we could live +honourably upon it. I had at that time as good pay and practice as any +advocate in the courts which brought me in a good 4000 florins a year; +there being but eight advocates practising at the time, of whom I was +certainly not the one least employed. In the beginning of the year '77 +I came into the service of the city of Rotterdam as 'Pensionary. Upon my +salary from that town I was enabled to support my family, having then but +two children. Now I can clearly prove that between the years 1577 and +1616 inclusive I have inherited in my own right or that of my wife, from +our relatives, for ourselves and our children by lawful succession, more +than 400 Holland morgens of land (about 800 acres), more than 2000 +florins yearly of redeemable rents, a good house in the city of Delft, +some houses in the open country, and several thousand florins in ready +money. I have likewise reclaimed in the course of the past forty years +out of the water and swamps by dyking more than an equal number of acres +to those inherited, and have bought and sold property during the same +period to the value of 800,000 florins; having sometimes bought 100,000 +florins' worth and sold 60,000 of it for 160,000, and so on." + +It was evident that the thrifty Advocate during his long life had +understood how to turn over his money, and it was not necessary to +imagine "waggon-loads of Spanish pistoles" and bribes on a gigantic scale +from the hereditary enemy in order to account for a reasonable opulence +on his part. + +"I have had nothing to do with trade," he continued, "it having been the +custom of my ancestors to risk no money except where the plough goes. In +the great East India Company however, which with four years of hard work, +public and private, I have helped establish, in order to inflict damage +on the Spaniards and Portuguese, I have adventured somewhat more than +5000 florins . . . . Now even if my condition be reasonably good, I +think no one has reason to envy me. Nevertheless I have said it in your +Lordships' Assembly, and I repeat it solemnly on this occasion, that I +have pondered the state of my affairs during my recent illness and found +that in order to leave my children unencumbered estates I must sell +property to the value of 60,000 or 70,000 florins. This I would rather +do than leave the charge to my children. That I should have got thus +behindhand through bad management, I beg your Highnesses not to believe. +But I have inherited, with the succession of four persons whose only heir +I was and with that of others to whom I was co-heir, many burthens as +well. I have bought property with encumbrances, and I have dyked and +bettered several estates with borrowed money. Now should it please your +Lordships to institute a census and valuation of the property of your +subjects, I for one should be very well pleased. For I know full well +that those who in the estimates of capital in the year 1599 rated +themselves at 50,000 or 60,000 florins now may boast of having twice as +much property as I have. Yet in that year out of patriotism I placed +myself on the list of those liable for the very highest contributions, +being assessed on a property of 200,000 florins." + +The Advocate alluded with haughty contempt to the notorious lies +circulated by his libellers in regard to his lineage, as if the vast +services and unquestioned abilities of such a statesman would not have +illustrated the obscurest origin. But as he happened to be of ancient +and honourable descent, he chose to vindicate his position in that +regard. + +"I was born in the city of Amersfoort," he said, "by the father's side +an Oldenbarneveld; an old and noble race, from generation to generation +steadfast and true; who have been duly summoned for many hundred years +to the assembly of the nobles of their province as they are to this day. +By my mother's side I am sprung from the ancient and knightly family of +Amersfoort, which for three or four hundred years has been known as +foremost among the nobles of Utrecht in all state affairs and as landed +proprietors." + +It is only for the sake of opening these domestic and private lights upon +an historical character whose life was so pre-eminently and almost +exclusively a public one that we have drawn some attention to this +stately defence made by the Advocate of his birth, life, and services to +the State. The public portions of the state paper belong exclusively to +history, and have already been sufficiently detailed. + +The letter to Prince Maurice was delivered into his hands by Cornelis van +der Myle, son-in-law of Barneveld. + +No reply to it was ever sent, but several days afterwards the Stadholder +called from his open window to van der Myle, who happened to be passing +by. He then informed him that he neither admitted the premises nor the +conclusion of the Advocate's letter, saying that many things set down in +it were false. He furthermore told him a story of a certain old man who, +having in his youth invented many things and told them often for truth, +believed them when he came to old age to be actually true and was ever +ready to stake his salvation upon them. Whereupon he shut the window and +left van der Myle to make such application of the parable as he thought +proper, vouchsafing no further answer to Barneveld's communication. + +Dudley Carleton related the anecdote to his government with much glee, +but it may be doubted whether this bold way of giving the lie to a +venerable statesman through his son-in-law would have been accounted +as triumphant argumentation anywhere out of a barrack. + +As for the Remonstrance to the States of Holland, although most +respectfully received in that assembly except by the five opposition +cities, its immediate effect on the public was to bring down a fresh +"snow storm"--to use the expression of a contemporary--of pamphlets, +libels, caricatures, and broadsheets upon the head of the Advocate. +In every bookseller's and print shop window in all the cities of the +country, the fallen statesman was represented in all possible ludicrous, +contemptible, and hateful shapes, while hags and blind beggars about the +streets screeched filthy and cursing ballads against him, even at his +very doors. + +The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny has rarely been more +strikingly illustrated than in the case of this statesman. Blackened +daily all over by a thousand trowels, the purest and noblest character +must have been defiled, and it is no wonder that the incrustation upon +the Advocate's fame should have lasted for two centuries and a half. It +may perhaps endure for as many more: Not even the vile Marshal d'Ancre, +who had so recently perished, was more the mark of obloquy in a country +which he had dishonoured, flouted, and picked to the bone than was +Barneveld in a commonwealth which he had almost created and had served +faithfully from youth to old age. It was even the fashion to compare him +with Concini in order to heighten the wrath of the public, as if any +parallel between the ignoble, foreign paramour of a stupid and sensual +queen, and the great statesman, patriot, and jurist of whom civilization +will be always proud, could ever enter any but an idiot's brain. + +Meantime the Stadholder, who had so successfully handled the Assembly of +Gelderland and Overyssel, now sailed across the Zuiderzee from Kampen to +Amsterdam. On his approach to the stately northern Venice, standing full +of life and commercial bustle upon its vast submerged forest of Norwegian +pines, he was met by a fleet of yachts and escorted through the water +gates of the into the city. + +Here an immense assemblage of vessels of every class, from the humble +gondola to the bulky East Indianian and the first-rate ship of war, gaily +bannered with the Orange colours and thronged from deck to topmast by +enthusiastic multitudes, was waiting to receive their beloved stadholder. +A deafening cannonade saluted him on his approach. The Prince was +escorted to the Square or Dam, where on a high scaffolding covered with +blue velvet in front of the stately mediaeval town-hall the burgomasters +and board of magistrates in their robes of office were waiting to receive +him. The strains of that most inspiriting and suggestive of national +melodies, the 'Wilhelmus van Nassouwen,' rang through the air, and when +they were silent, the chief magistrate poured forth a very eloquent and +tedious oration, and concluded by presenting him with a large orange in +solid gold; Maurice having succeeded to the principality a few months +before on the death of his half-brother Philip William. + +The "Blooming in Love," as one of the Chambers of "Rhetoric " in which +the hard-handed but half-artistic mechanics and shopkeepers of the +Netherlands loved to disport themselves was called, then exhibited upon +an opposite scaffold a magnificent representation of Jupiter astride upon +an eagle and banding down to the Stadholder as if from the clouds that +same principality. Nothing could be neater or more mythological. + +The Prince and his escort, sitting in the windows of the town-hall, the +square beneath being covered with 3000 or 4000 burgher militia in full +uniform, with orange plumes in their hats and orange scarves on their +breasts, saw still other sights. A gorgeous procession set forth by the +"Netherlandish Academy," another chamber of rhetoric, and filled with +those emblematic impersonations so dear to the hearts of Netherlanders, +had been sweeping through all the canals and along the splendid quays of +the city. The Maid of Holland, twenty feet high, led the van, followed +by the counterfeit presentment of each of her six sisters. An orange +tree full of flowers and fruit was conspicuous in one barge, while in +another, strangely and lugubriously enough, lay the murdered William the +Silent in the arms of his wife and surrounded by his weeping sons and +daughters all attired in white satin. + +In the evening the Netherland Academy, to improve the general hilarity, +and as if believing exhibitions of murder the most appropriate means of +welcoming the Prince, invited him to a scenic representation of the +assassination of Count Florence V. of Holland by Gerrit van Velsen and +other nobles. There seemed no especial reason for the selection, unless +perhaps the local one; one of the perpetrators of this crime against an +ancient predecessor of William the Silent in the sovereignty of Holland +having been a former lord proprietor of Amsterdam and the adjacent +territories, Gysbrecht van Amatel. + +Maurice returned to the Hague. Five of the seven provinces were entirely +his own. Utrecht too was already wavering, while there could be no doubt +of the warm allegiance to himself of the important commercial metropolis +of Holland, the only province in which Barneveld's influence was still +paramount. + +Owing to the watchfulness and distrust of Barneveld, which had never +faltered, Spain had not secured the entire control of the disputed +duchies, but she had at least secured the head of a venerated saint. +"The bargain is completed for the head of the glorious Saint Lawrence, +which you know I so much desire," wrote Philip triumphantly to the +Archduke Albert. He had, however, not got it for nothing. + +The Abbot of Glamart in Julich, then in possession of that treasure, had +stipulated before delivering it that if at any time the heretics or other +enemies should destroy the monastery his Majesty would establish them in +Spanish Flanders and give them the same revenues as they now enjoyed in +Julich. Count Herman van den Berg was to give a guarantee to that +effect. + +Meantime the long controversy in the duchies having tacitly come to a +standstill upon the basis of 'uti possidetis,' the Spanish government had +leisure in the midst of their preparation for the general crusade upon +European heresy to observe and enjoy the internal religious dissensions +in their revolted provinces. Although they had concluded the convention +with them as with countries over which they had no pretensions, they had +never at heart allowed more virtue to the conjunction "as," which really +contained the essence of the treaty, than grammatically belonged to it. +Spain still chose to regard the independence of the Seven Provinces as a +pleasant fiction to be dispelled when, the truce having expired by its +own limitation, she should resume, as she fully meant to do, her +sovereignty over all the seventeen Netherlands, the United as well as +the obedient. Thus at any rate the question of state rights or central +sovereignty would be settled by a very summary process. The Spanish +ambassador was wroth, as may well be supposed, when the agent of the +rebel provinces received in London the rank, title, and recognition of +ambassador. Gondemar at least refused to acknowledge Noel de Caron as +his diplomatic equal or even as his colleague, and was vehement in his +protestations on the subject. But James, much as he dreaded the Spanish +envoy and fawned upon his master, was not besotted enough to comply with +these demands at the expense of his most powerful ally, the Republic of +the Netherlands. The Spanish king however declared his ambassador's +proceedings to be in exact accordance with his instructions. He was +sorry, he said, if the affair had caused discontent to the King of Great +Britain; he intended in all respects to maintain the Treaty of Truce of +which his Majesty had been one of the guarantors, but as that treaty had +but a few more years to run, after which he should be reinstated in his +former right of sovereignty over all the Netherlands, he entirely +justified the conduct of Count Gondemar. + +It may well be conceived that, as the years passed by, as the period of +the Truce grew nearer and the religious disputes became every day more +envenomed, the government at Madrid should look on the tumultuous scene +with saturnine satisfaction. There was little doubt now, they thought, +that the Provinces, sick of their rebellion and that fancied independence +which had led them into a whirlpool of political and religious misery, +and convinced of their incompetence to govern themselves, would be only +too happy to seek the forgiving arms of their lawful sovereign. Above +all they must have learned that their great heresy had carried its +chastisement with it, that within something they called a Reformed Church +other heresies had been developed which demanded condign punishment at +the hands of that new Church, and that there could be neither rest for +them in this world nor salvation in the next except by returning to the +bosom of their ancient mother. + +Now was the time, so it was thought, to throw forward a strong force of +Jesuits as skirmishers into the Provinces by whom the way would be opened +for the reconquest of the whole territory. + +"By the advices coming to us continually from thence," wrote the King of +Spain to Archduke Albert, "we understand that the disquiets and +differences continue in Holland on matters relating to their sects, and +that from this has resulted the conversion of many to the Catholic +religion. So it has been taken into consideration whether it would not +be expedient that some fathers of the company of Jesuits be sent secretly +from Rome to Holland, who should negotiate concerning the conversion of +that people. Before taking a resolution, I have thought best to give an +account of this matter to your Highness. I should be glad if you would +inform me what priests are going to Holland, what fruits they yield, and +what can be done for the continuance of their labours. Please to advise +me very particularly together with any suggestions that may occur to you +in this matter." + +The Archduke, who was nearer the scene, was not so sure that the old +religion was making such progress as his royal nephew or those who spoke +in his name believed. At any rate, if it were not rapidly gaining +ground, it would be neither for want of discord among the Protestants +nor for lack of Jesuits to profit by it. + +"I do not understand," said he in reply, "nor is it generally considered +certain that from the differences and disturbances that the Hollanders +are having among themselves there has resulted the conversion of any of +them to our blessed Catholic faith, because their disputes are of certain +points concerning which there are different opinions within their sect. +There has always been a goodly number of priests here, the greater part +of whom belong to the Company. They are very diligent and fervent, and +the Catholics derive much comfort from them. To send more of them would +do more harm than good. It might be found out, and then they would +perhaps be driven out of Holland or even chastised. So it seems better +to leave things as they are for the present." + +The Spanish government was not discouraged however, but was pricking up +its ears anew at strange communications it was receiving from the very +bosom of the council of state in the Netherlands. This body, as will be +remembered, had been much opposed to Barneveld and to the policy pursued +under his leadership by the States of Holland. Some of its members were +secretly Catholic and still more secretly disposed to effect a revolution +in the government, the object of which should be to fuse the United +Provinces with the obedient Netherlands in a single independent monarchy +to be placed under the sceptre of the son of Philip III. + +A paper containing the outlines of this scheme had been sent to Spain, +and the King at once forwarded it in cipher to the Archduke at Brussels +for his opinion and co-operation. + +"You will see," he said, "the plan which a certain person zealous for the +public good has proposed for reducing the Netherlanders to my obedience. +. . . . You will please advise with Count Frederic van den Berg and +let me know with much particularity and profound secrecy what is thought, +what is occurring, and the form in which this matter ought to be +negotiated, and the proper way to make it march." + +Unquestionably the paper was of grave importance. It informed the King +of Spain that some principal personages in the United Netherlands, +members of the council of state, were of opinion that if his Majesty or +Archduke Albert should propose peace, it could be accomplished at that +moment more easily than ever before. They had arrived at the conviction +that no assistance was to be obtained from the King of France, who was +too much weakened by tumults and sedition at home, while nothing good +could be expected from the King of England. The greater part of the +Province of Gelderland, they said, with all Friesland, Utrecht, +Groningen, and Overyssel were inclined to a permanent peace. Being all +of them frontier provinces, they were constantly exposed to the brunt of +hostilities. Besides this, the war expenses alone would now be more than +3,000,000 florins a year. Thus the people were kept perpetually +harassed, and although evil-intentioned persons approved these burthens +under the pretence that such heavy taxation served to free them from the +tyranny of Spain, those of sense and quality reproved them and knew the +contrary to be true. "Many here know," continued these traitors in the +heart of the state council, "how good it would be for the people of the +Netherlands to have a prince, and those having this desire being on the +frontier are determined to accept the son of your Majesty for their +ruler." The conditions of the proposed arrangement were to be that the +Prince with his successors who were thus to possess all the Netherlands +were to be independent sovereigns not subject in any way to the crown of +Spain, and that the great governments and dignities of the country were +to remain in the hands then holding them. + +This last condition was obviously inserted in the plan for the special +benefit of Prince Maurice and Count Lewis, although there is not an atom +of evidence that they had ever heard of the intrigue or doubt that, if +they had, they would have signally chastised its guilty authors. + +It was further stated that the Catholics having in each town a church and +free exercise of their religion would soon be in a great majority. Thus +the political and religious counter-revolution would be triumphantly +accomplished. + +It was proposed that the management of the business should be entrusted +to some gentleman of the country possessing property there who "under +pretext of the public good should make people comprehend what a great +thing it would be if they could obtain this favour from the Spanish King, +thus extricating themselves from so many calamities and miseries, and +obtaining free traffic and a prince of their own." It would be necessary +for the King and Archduke to write many letters and promise great rewards +to persons who might otherwise embarrass the good work. + +The plot was an ingenious one. There seemed in the opinion of these +conspirators in the state council but one great obstacle to its success. +It should be kept absolutely concealed from the States of Holland. The +great stipendiary of Spain, John of Barneveld, whose coffers were filled +with Spanish pistoles, whose name and surname might be read by all men in +the account-books at Brussels heading the register of mighty bribe- +takers, the man who was howled at in a thousand lampoons as a traitor +ever ready to sell his country, whom even Prince Maurice "partly +believed" to be the pensionary of Philip, must not hear a whisper of this +scheme to restore the Republic to Spanish control and place it under the +sceptre of a Spanish prince. + +The States of Holland at that moment and so long as he was a member of +the body were Barneveld and Barneveld only; thinking his thoughts, +speaking with his tongue, writing with his pen. Of this neither friend +nor foe ever expressed a doubt. Indeed it was one of the staple +accusations against him. + +Yet this paper in which the Spanish king in confidential cipher and +profound secrecy communicated to Archduke Albert his hopes and his +schemes for recovering the revolted provinces as a kingdom for his son +contained these words of caution. + +"The States of Holland and Zealand will be opposed to the plan," it said. +"If the treaty come to the knowledge of the States and Council of Holland +before it has been acted upon by the five frontier provinces the whole +plan will be demolished." + +Such was the opinion entertained by Philip himself of the man who was +supposed to be his stipendiary. I am not aware that this paper has ever +been alluded to in any document or treatise private or public from the +day of its date to this hour. It certainly has never been published, but +it lies deciphered in the Archives of the Kingdom at Brussels, and is +alone sufficient to put to shame the slanderers of the Advocate's +loyalty. + +Yet let it be remembered that in this very summer exactly at the moment +when these intrigues were going on between the King of Spain and the +class of men most opposed to Barneveld, the accusations against his +fidelity were loudest and rifest. + +Before the Stadholder had so suddenly slipped down to Brielle in order +to secure that important stronghold for the Contra-Remonstrant party, +reports had been carefully strewn among the people that the Advocate +was about to deliver that place and other fortresses to Spain. + +Brielle, Flushing, Rammekens, the very cautionary towns and keys to the +country which he had so recently and in such masterly manner delivered +from the grasp of the hereditary ally he was now about to surrender to +the ancient enemy. + +The Spaniards were already on the sea, it was said. Had it not been for +his Excellency's watchfulness and promptitude, they would already under +guidance of Barneveld and his crew have mastered the city of Brielle. +Flushing too through Barneveld's advice and connivance was open at a +particular point, in order that the Spaniards, who had their eye upon it, +might conveniently enter and take possession of the place. The air was +full of wild rumours to this effect, and already the humbler classes who +sided with the Stadholder saw in him the saviour of the country from the +treason of the Advocate and the renewed tyranny of Spain. + +The Prince made no such pretence, but simply took possession of the +fortress in order to be beforehand with the Waartgelders. The Contra- +Remonstrants in Brielle had desired that "men should see who had the +hardest fists," and it would certainly have been difficult to find harder +ones than those of the hero of Nieuwpoort. + +Besides the Jesuits coming in so skilfully to triumph over the warring +sects of Calvinists, there were other engineers on whom the Spanish +government relied to effect the reconquest of the Netherlands. +Especially it was an object to wreak vengeance on Holland, that head and +front of the revolt, both for its persistence in rebellion and for the +immense prosperity and progress by which that rebellion had been +rewarded. Holland had grown fat and strong, while the obedient +Netherlands were withered to the marrow of their bones. But there was a +practical person then resident in Spain to whom the Netherlands were well +known, to whom indeed everything was well known, who had laid before the +King a magnificent scheme for destroying the commerce and with it the +very existence of Holland to the great advantage of the Spanish finances +and of the Spanish Netherlands. Philip of course laid it before the +Archduke as usual, that he might ponder it well and afterwards, if +approved, direct its execution. + +The practical person set forth in an elaborate memoir that the Hollanders +were making rapid progress in commerce, arts, and manufactures, while the +obedient provinces were sinking as swiftly into decay. The Spanish +Netherlands were almost entirely shut off from the sea, the rivers +Scheldt and Meuse being hardly navigable for them on account of the +control of those waters by Holland. The Dutch were attracting to their +dominions all artisans, navigators, and traders. Despising all other +nations and giving them the law, they had ruined the obedient provinces. +Ostend, Nieuwpoort, Dunkerk were wasting away, and ought to be restored. + +"I have profoundly studied forty years long the subjects of commerce and +navigation," said the practical person, "and I have succeeded in +penetrating the secrets and acquiring, as it were, universal knowledge-- +let me not be suspected of boasting--of the whole discovered world and of +the ocean. I have been assisted by study of the best works of geography +and history, by my own labours, and by those of my late father, a man of +illustrious genius and heroical conceptions and very zealous in the +Catholic faith." + +The modest and practical son of an illustrious but anonymous father, then +coming to the point, said it would be the easiest thing in the world to +direct the course of the Scheldt into an entirely new channel through +Spanish Flanders to the sea. Thus the Dutch ports and forts which had +been constructed with such magnificence and at such vast expense would be +left high and dry; the Spaniards would build new ones in Flanders, and +thus control the whole navigation and deprive the Hollanders of that +empire of the sea which they now so proudly arrogated. This scheme was +much simpler to carry out than the vulgar might suppose, and, when. +accomplished, it would destroy the commerce, navigation, and fisheries of +the Hollanders, throwing it all into the hands of the Archdukes. This +would cause such ruin, poverty, and tumults everywhere that all would be +changed. The Republic of the United States would annihilate itself and +fall to pieces; the religious dissensions, the war of one sect with +another, and the jealousy of the House of Nassau, suspected of plans +hostile to popular liberties, finishing the work of destruction. "Then +the Republic," said the man of universal science, warming at sight of the +picture he was painting, "laden with debt and steeped in poverty, will +fall to the ground of its own weight, and thus debilitated will crawl +humbly to place itself in the paternal hands of the illustrious house +of Austria." + +It would be better, he thought, to set about the work, before the +expiration of the Truce. At any rate, the preparation for it, or the +mere threat of it, would ensure a renewal of that treaty on juster terms. +It was most important too to begin at once the construction of a port on +the coast of Flanders, looking to the north. + +There was a position, he said, without naming it, in which whole navies +could ride in safety, secure from all tempests, beyond the reach of the +Hollanders, open at all times to traffic to and from England, France, +Spain, Norway, Sweden, Russia--a perfectly free commerce, beyond the +reach of any rights or duties claimed or levied by the insolent republic. +In this port would assemble all the navigators of the country, and it +would become in time of war a terror to the Hollanders, English, and all +northern peoples. In order to attract, protect, and preserve these +navigators and this commerce, many great public edifices must be built, +together with splendid streets of houses and impregnable fortifications. +It should be a walled and stately city, and its name should be +Philipopolis. If these simple projects, so easy of execution, pleased +his Majesty, the practical person was ready to explain them in all their +details. + +His Majesty was enchanted with the glowing picture, but before quite +deciding on carrying the scheme into execution thought it best to consult +the Archduke. + +The reply of Albert has not been preserved. It was probably not +enthusiastic, and the man who without boasting had declared himself to +know everything was never commissioned to convert his schemes into +realities. That magnificent walled city, Philipopolis, with its gorgeous +streets and bristling fortresses, remained unbuilt, the Scheldt has +placidly flowed through its old channel to the sea from that day to this, +and the Republic remained in possession of the unexampled foreign trade +with which rebellion had enriched it. + +These various intrigues and projects show plainly enough however the +encouragement given to the enemies of the United Provinces and of +Protestantism everywhere by these disastrous internal dissensions. But +yesterday and the Republic led by Barneveld in council and Maurice of +Nassau in the field stood at the head of the great army of resistance to +the general crusade organized by Spain and Rome against all unbelievers. +And now that the war was absolutely beginning in Bohemia, the Republic +was falling upon its own sword instead of smiting with it the universal +foe. + +It was not the King of Spain alone that cast longing eyes on the fair +territory of that commonwealth which the unparalleled tyranny of his +father had driven to renounce his sceptre. Both in the Netherlands and +France, among the extreme orthodox party, there were secret schemes, to +which Maurice was not privy, to raise Maurice to the sovereignty of the +Provinces. Other conspirators with a wider scope and more treasonable +design were disposed to surrender their country to the dominion of +France, stipulating of course large rewards and offices for themselves +and the vice-royalty of what should then be the French Netherlands to +Maurice. + +The schemes were wild enough perhaps, but their very existence, which is +undoubted, is another proof, if more proof were wanted, of the lamentable +tendency, in times of civil and religious dissension, of political +passion to burn out the very first principles of patriotism. + +It is also important, on account of the direct influence exerted by these +intrigues upon subsequent events of the gravest character, to throw a +beam of light on matters which were thought to have been shrouded for +ever in impenetrable darkness. + +Langerac, the States' Ambassador in Paris, was the very reverse of his +predecessor, the wily, unscrupulous, and accomplished Francis Aerssens. +The envoys of the Republic were rarely dull, but Langerac was a +simpleton. They were renowned for political experience, skill, +familiarity with foreign languages, knowledge of literature, history, +and public law; but he was ignorant, spoke French very imperfectly, +at a court where not a human being could address him in his own tongue, +had never been employed in diplomacy or in high office of any kind, +and could carry but small personal weight at a post where of all others +the representative of the great republic should have commanded deference +both for his own qualities and for the majesty of his government. At a +period when France was left without a master or a guide the Dutch +ambassador, under a becoming show of profound respect, might really have +governed the country so far as regarded at least the all important +relations which bound the two nations together. But Langerac was a mere +picker-up of trifles, a newsmonger who wrote a despatch to-day with +information which a despatch was written on the morrow to contradict, +while in itself conveying additional intelligence absolutely certain to +be falsified soon afterwards. The Emperor of Germany had gone mad; +Prince Maurice had been assassinated in the Hague, a fact which his +correspondents, the States-General, might be supposed already to know, if +it were one; there had been a revolution in the royal bed-chamber; the +Spanish cook of the young queen had arrived from Madrid; the Duke of +Nevers was behaving very oddly at Vienna; such communications, and others +equally startling, were the staple of his correspondence. + +Still he was honest enough, very mild, perfectly docile to Barneveld, +dependent upon his guidance, and fervently attached to that statesman so +long as his wheel was going up the hill. Moreover, his industry in +obtaining information and his passion for imparting it made it probable +that nothing very momentous would be neglected should it be laid before +him, but that his masters, and especially the Advocate, would be enabled +to judge for themselves as to the attention due to it. + +"With this you will be apprised of some very high and weighty matters," +he wrote privately and in cipher to Barneveld, "which you will make use +of according to your great wisdom and forethought for the country's +service." + +He requested that the matter might also be confided to M. van der Myle, +that he might assist his father-in-law, so overburdened with business, in +the task of deciphering the communication. He then stated that he had +been "very earnestly informed three days before by M. du Agean"--member +of the privy council of France--"that it had recently come to the King's +ears, and his Majesty knew it to be authentic, that there was a secret +and very dangerous conspiracy in Holland of persons belonging to the +Reformed religion in which others were also mixed. This party held very +earnest and very secret correspondence with the factious portion of the +Contra-Remonstrants both in the Netherlands and France, seeking under +pretext of the religious dissensions or by means of them to confer the +sovereignty upon Prince Maurice by general consent of the Contra- +Remonstrants. Their object was also to strengthen and augment the force +of the same religious party in France, to which end the Duc de Bouillon +and M. de Chatillon were very earnestly co-operating. Langerac had +already been informed by Chatillon that the Contra-Remonstrants had +determined to make a public declaration against the Remonstrants, and +come to an open separation from them. + +"Others propose however," said the Ambassador, "that the King himself +should use the occasion to seize the sovereignty of the United Provinces +for himself and to appoint Prince Maurice viceroy, giving him in marriage +Madame Henriette of France." The object of this movement would be to +frustrate the plots of the Contra-Remonstrants, who were known to be +passionately hostile to the King and to France, and who had been +constantly traversing the negotiations of M. du Maurier. There was a +disposition to send a special and solemn embassy to the States, but it +was feared that the British king would at once do the same, to the +immense disadvantage of the Remonstrants. "M. de Barneveld," said the +envoy, "is deeply sympathized with here and commiserated. The Chancellor +has repeatedly requested me to present to you his very sincere and very +hearty respects, exhorting you to continue in your manly steadfastness +and courage." He also assured the Advocate that the French ambassador, +M. du Maurier, enjoyed the entire confidence of his government, and of +the principal members of the council, and that the King, although +contemplating, as we have seen, the seizure of the sovereignty of the +country, was most amicably disposed towards it, and so soon as the peace +of Savoy was settled "had something very good for it in his mind." +Whether the something very good was this very design to deprive it of +independence, the Ambassador did not state. He however recommended the +use of sundry small presents at the French court--especially to Madame de +Luynes, wife of the new favourite of Lewis since the death of Concini, in +which he had aided, now rising rapidly to consideration, and to Madame du +Agean--and asked to be supplied with funds accordingly. By these means +he thought it probable that at least the payment to the States of the +long arrears of the French subsidy might be secured. + +Three weeks later, returning to the subject, the Ambassador reported +another conversation with M. du Agean. That politician assured him, +"with high protestations," as a perfectly certain fact that a Frenchman +duly qualified had arrived in Paris from Holland who had been in +communication not only with him but with several of the most confidential +members of the privy council of France. This duly qualified gentleman +had been secretly commissioned to say that in opinion of the conspirators +already indicated the occasion was exactly offered by these religious +dissensions in the Netherlands for bringing the whole country under the +obedience of the King. This would be done with perfect ease if he would +only be willing to favour a little the one party, that of the Contra- +Remonstrants, and promise his Excellency "perfect and perpetual authority +in the government with other compensations." + +The proposition, said du Agean, had been rejected by the privy +councillors with a declaration that they would not mix themselves up with +any factions, nor assist any party, but that they would gladly work with +the government for the accommodation of these difficulties and +differences in the Provinces. + +"I send you all this nakedly," concluded Langerac, "exactly as it has +been communicated to me, having always answered according to my duty and +with a view by negotiating with these persons to discover the intentions +as well of one side as the other." + +The Advocate was not profoundly impressed by these revelations. He was +too experienced a statesman to doubt that in times when civil and +religious passion was running high there was never lack of fishers in +troubled waters, and that if a body of conspirators could secure a +handsome compensation by selling their country to a foreign prince, they +would always be ready to do it. + +But although believed by Maurice to be himself a stipendiary of Spain, +he was above suspecting the Prince of any share in the low and stupid +intrigue which du Agean had imagined or disclosed. That the Stadholder +was ambitious of greater power, he hardly doubted, but that he was +seeking to acquire it by such corrupt and circuitous means, he did not +dream. He confidentially communicated the plot as in duty bound to some +members of the States, and had the Prince been accused in any +conversation or statement of being privy to the scheme, he would have +thought himself bound to mention it to him. The story came to the ears +of Maurice however, and helped to feed his wrath against the Advocate, +as if he were responsible for a plot, if plot it were, which had been +concocted by his own deadliest enemies. The Prince wrote a letter +alluding to this communication of Langerac and giving much alarm to that +functionary. He thought his despatches must have been intercepted and +proposed in future to write always by special courier. Barneveld thought +that unnecessary except when there were more important matters than those +appeared to him to be and requiring more haste. + +"The letter of his Excellency," said he to the Ambassador, "is caused in +my opinion by the fact that some of the deputies to this assembly to whom +I secretly imparted your letter or its substance did not rightly +comprehend or report it. You did not say that his Excellency had any +such design or project, but that it had been said that the Contra- +Remonstrants were entertaining such a scheme. I would have shown the +letter to him myself, but I thought it not fair, for good reasons, to +make M. du Agean known as the informant. I do not think it amiss for you +to write yourself to his Excellency and tell him what is said, but +whether it would be proper to give up the name of your author, I think +doubtful. At all events one must consult about it. We live in a strange +world, and one knows not whom to trust." + +He instructed the Ambassador to enquire into the foundation of these +statements of du Agean and send advices by every occasion of this affair +and others of equal interest. He was however much more occupied with +securing the goodwill of the French government, which he no more +suspected of tampering in these schemes against the independence of the +Republic than he did Maurice himself. He relied and he had reason to +rely on their steady good offices in the cause of moderation and +reconciliation. "We are not yet brought to the necessary and much +desired unity," he said, "but we do not despair, hoping that his +Majesty's efforts through M. du Maurier, both privately and publicly, +will do much good. Be assured that they are very agreeable to all +rightly disposed people . . . . My trust is that God the Lord will +give us a happy issue and save this country from perdition." He approved +of the presents to the two ladies as suggested by Langerac if by so doing +the payment of the arrearages could be furthered. He was still hopeful +and confident in the justice of his cause and the purity of his +conscience. "Aerssens is crowing like a cock," he said, "but the truth +will surely prevail." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + A Deputation from Utrecht to Maurice--The Fair at Utrecht--Maurice + and the States' Deputies at Utrecht--Ogle refuses to act in + Opposition to the States--The Stadholder disbands the Waartgelders-- + The Prince appoints forty Magistrates--The States formally disband + the Waartgelders. + +The eventful midsummer had arrived. The lime-tree blossoms were fragrant +in the leafy bowers overshadowing the beautiful little rural capital of +the Commonwealth. The anniversary of the Nieuwpoort victory, July 2, had +come and gone, and the Stadholder was known to be resolved that his +political campaign this year should be as victorious as that memorable +military one of eighteen years before. + +Before the dog-days should begin to rage, the fierce heats of theological +and political passion were to wax daily more and more intense. + +The party at Utrecht in favour of a compromise and in awe of the +Stadholder sent a deputation to the Hague with the express but secret +purpose of conferring with Maurice. They were eight in number, three of +whom, including Gillis van Ledenberg, lodged at the house of Daniel +Tressel, first clerk of the States-General. + +The leaders of the Barneveld party, aware of the purport of this mission +and determined to frustrate it, contrived a meeting between the Utrecht +commissioners and Grotius, Hoogerbeets, de Haan, and de Lange at +Tressel's house. + +Grotius was spokesman. Maurice had accused the States of Holland of +mutiny and rebellion, and the distinguished Pensionary of Rotterdam now +retorted the charges of mutiny, disobedience, and mischief-making upon +those who, under the mask of religion, were attempting to violate the +sovereignty of the States, the privileges and laws of the province, +the authority of the, magistrates, and to subject them to the power of +others. To prevent such a catastrophe many cities had enlisted +Waartgelders. By this means they had held such mutineers to their duty, +as had been seen at Leyden, Haarlem, and other places. The States of +Utrecht had secured themselves in the same way. But the mischiefmakers +and the ill-disposed had been seeking everywhere to counteract these +wholesome measures and to bring about a general disbanding of these +troops. This it was necessary to resist with spirit. It was the very +foundation of the provinces' sovereignty, to maintain which the public +means must be employed. It was in vain to drive the foe out of the +country if one could not remain in safety within one's own doors. They +had heard with sorrow that Utrecht was thinking of cashiering its troops, +and the speaker proceeded therefore to urge with all the eloquence he was +master of the necessity of pausing before taking so fatal a step. + +The deputies of Utrecht answered by pleading the great pecuniary burthen +which the maintenance of the mercenaries imposed upon that province, and +complained that there was no one to come to their assistance, exposed as +they were to a sudden and overwhelming attack from many quarters. The +States-General had not only written but sent commissioners to Utrecht +insisting on the disbandment. They could plainly see the displeasure of +the Prince. It was a very different affair in Holland, but the States of +Utrecht found it necessary of two evils to choose the least. + +They had therefore instructed their commissioners to request the Prince +to remove the foreign garrison from their capital and to send the old +companies of native militia in their place, to be in the pay of the +episcopate. In this case the States would agree to disband the new +levies. + +Grotius in reply again warned the commissioners against communicating +with Maurice according to their instructions, intimated that the native +militia on which they were proposing to rely might have been debauched, +and he held out hopes that perhaps the States of Utrecht might derive +some relief from certain financial measures now contemplated in Holland. + +The Utrechters resolved to wait at least several days before opening the +subject of their mission to the Prince. Meantime Ledenberg made a rough +draft of a report of what had occurred between them and Grotius and his +colleagues which it was resolved to lay secretly before the States of +Utrecht. The Hollanders hoped that they had at last persuaded the +commissioners to maintain the Waartgelders. + +The States of Holland now passed a solemn resolution to the effect that +these new levies had been made to secure municipal order and maintain the +laws from subversion by civil tumults. If this object could be obtained +by other means, if the Stadholder were willing to remove garrisons of +foreign mercenaries on whom there could be no reliance, and supply their +place with native troops both in Holland and Utrecht, an arrangement +could be made for disbanding the Waartgelders. + +Barneveld, at the head of thirty deputies from the nobles and cities, +waited upon Maurice and verbally communicated to him this resolution. He +made a cold and unsatisfactory reply, although it seems to have been +understood that by according twenty companies of native troops he might +have contented both Holland and Utrecht. + +Ledenberg and his colleagues took their departure from the Hague without +communicating their message to Maurice. Soon afterwards the States- +General appointed a commission to Utrecht with the Stadholder at the head +of it. + +The States of Holland appointed another with Grotius as its chairman. + +On the 25th July Grotius and Pensionary Hoogerbeets with two colleagues +arrived in Utrecht. + +Gillis van Ledenberg was there to receive them. A tall, handsome, bald- +headed, well-featured, mild, gentlemanlike man was this secretary of the +Utrecht assembly, and certainly not aware, while passing to and fro on +such half diplomatic missions between two sovereign assemblies, that he +was committing high-treason. He might well imagine however, should +Maurice discover that it was he who had prevented the commissioners from +conferring with him as instructed, that it would go hard with him. + +Ledenberg forthwith introduced Grotius and his committee to the Assembly +at Utrecht. + +While these great personages were thus holding solemn and secret council, +another and still greater personage came upon the scene. + +The Stadholder with the deputation from the States-General arrived at +Utrecht. + +Evidently the threads of this political drama were converging to a +catastrophe, and it might prove a tragical one. + +Meantime all looked merry enough in the old episcopal city. There were +few towns in Lower or in Upper Germany more elegant and imposing than +Utrecht. Situate on the slender and feeble channel of the ancient Rhine +as it falters languidly to the sea, surrounded by trim gardens and +orchards, and embowered in groves of beeches and limetrees, with busy +canals fringed with poplars, lined with solid quays, and crossed by +innumerable bridges; with the stately brick tower of St. Martin's rising +to a daring height above one of the most magnificent Gothic cathedrals in +the Netherlands; this seat of the Anglo-Saxon Willebrord, who eight +hundred years before had preached Christianity to the Frisians, and had +founded that long line of hard-fighting, indomitable bishops, obstinately +contesting for centuries the possession of the swamps and pastures about +them with counts, kings, and emperors, was still worthy of its history +and its position. + +It was here too that sixty-one years before the famous Articles of +Union were signed. By that fundamental treaty of the Confederacy, +the Provinces agreed to remain eternally united as if they were but one +province, to make no war nor peace save by unanimous consent, while on +lesser matters a majority should rule; to admit both Catholics and +Protestants to the Union provided they obeyed its Articles and conducted +themselves as good patriots, and expressly declared that no province or +city should interfere with another in the matter of divine worship. + +From this memorable compact, so enduring a landmark in the history of +human freedom, and distinguished by such breadth of view for the times +both in religion and politics, the city had gained the title of cradle of +liberty: 'Cunabula libertatis'. + +Was it still to deserve the name? At that particular moment the mass of +the population was comparatively indifferent to the terrible questions +pending. It was the kermis or annual fair, and all the world was keeping +holiday in Utrecht. The pedlars and itinerant merchants from all the +cities and provinces had brought their wares jewellery and crockery, +ribbons and laces, ploughs and harrows, carriages and horses, cows and +sheep, cheeses and butter firkins, doublets and petticoats, guns and +pistols, everything that could serve the city and country-side for months +to come--and displayed them in temporary booths or on the ground, in +every street and along every canal. The town was one vast bazaar. The +peasant-women from the country, with their gold and silver tiaras and the +year's rent of a comfortable farm in their earrings and necklaces, and +the sturdy Frisian peasants, many of whom had borne their matchlocks in +the great wars which had lasted through their own and their fathers' +lifetime, trudged through the city, enjoying the blessings of peace. +Bands of music and merry-go-rounds in all the open places and squares; +open-air bakeries of pancakes and waffles; theatrical exhibitions, raree- +shows, jugglers, and mountebanks at every corner--all these phenomena +which had been at every kermis for centuries, and were to repeat +themselves for centuries afterwards, now enlivened the atmosphere of the +grey, episcopal city. Pasted against the walls of public edifices were +the most recent placards and counter-placards of the States-General and +the States of Utrecht on the great subject of religious schisms and +popular tumults. In the shop-windows and on the bookstalls of Contra- +Remonstrant tradesmen, now becoming more and more defiant as the last +allies of Holland, the States of Utrecht, were gradually losing courage, +were seen the freshest ballads and caricatures against the Advocate. +Here an engraving represented him seated at table with Grotius, +Hoogerbeets, and others, discussing the National Synod, while a flap of +the picture being lifted put the head of the Duke of Alva on the legs of +Barneveld, his companions being transformed in similar manner into +Spanish priests and cardinals assembled at the terrible Council of Blood- +with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the distance. +Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General shaking the +leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve through which +came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate and his +abettors. Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen cocks +rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder--Arminians by a detestable pun +being converted into "Arme haenen" or "Poor cocks." One represented the +Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of a golden +bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his official +robes to receive them, or whole carriage-loads of Arminians starting off +bag and baggage on the road to Rome, with Lucifer in the perspective +waiting to give them a warm welcome in his own dominions; and so on, and +so on. Moving through the throng, with iron calque on their heads and +halberd in hand, were groups of Waartgelders scowling fiercely at many +popular demonstrations such as they had been enlisted to suppress, but +while off duty concealing outward symptoms of wrath which in many +instances perhaps would have been far from genuine. + +For although these mercenaries knew that the States of Holland, who were +responsible for the pay of the regular troops then in Utrecht, authorized +them to obey no orders save from the local authorities, yet it was +becoming a grave question for the Waartgelders whether their own wages +were perfectly safe, a circumstance which made them susceptible to the +atmosphere of Contra-Remonstrantism which was steadily enwrapping the +whole country. A still graver question was whether such resistance as +they could offer to the renowned Stadholder, whose name was magic to +every soldier's heart not only in his own land but throughout +Christendom, would not be like parrying a lance's thrust with a bulrush. +In truth the senior captain of the Waartgelders, Harteveld by name, had +privately informed the leaders of the Barneveld party in Utrecht that he +would not draw his sword against Prince Maurice and the States-General. +"Who asks you to do so?" said some of the deputies, while Ledenberg on +the other hand flatly accused him of cowardice. For this affront the +Captain had vowed revenge. + +And in the midst of this scene of jollity and confusion, that midsummer +night, entered the stern Stadholder with his fellow commissioners; the +feeble plans for shutting the gates upon him not having been carried into +effect. + +"You hardly expected such a guest at your fair," said he to the +magistrates, with a grim smile on his face as who should say, "And what +do you think of me now I have came?" + +Meantime the secret conference of Grotius and colleagues with the States +of Utrecht proceeded. As a provisional measure, Sir John Ogle, commander +of the forces paid by Holland, had been warned as to where his obedience +was due. It had likewise been intimated that the guard should be doubled +at the Amersfoort gate, and a watch set on the river Lek above and below +the city in order to prevent fresh troops of the States-General from +being introduced by surprise. + +These precautions had been suggested a year before, as we have seen, in a +private autograph letter from Barneveld to Secretary Ledenberg. + +Sir John Ogle had flatly refused to act in opposition to the Stadholder +and the States-General, whom he recognized as his lawful superiors and +masters, and he warned Ledenberg and his companions as to the perilous +nature of the course which they were pursuing. Great was the indignation +of the Utrechters and the Holland commissioners in consequence. + +Grotius in his speech enlarged on the possibility of violence being used +by the Stadholder, while some of the members of the Assembly likewise +thought it likely that he would smite the gates open by force. Grotius, +when reproved afterwards for such strong language towards Prince Maurice, +said that true Hollanders were no courtiers, but were wont to call +everything by its right name. + +He stated in strong language the regret felt by Holland that a majority +of the States of Utrecht had determined to disband the Waartgelders which +had been constitutionally enlisted according to the right of each +province under the 1st Article of the Union of Utrecht to protect itself +and its laws. + +Next day there were conferences between Maurice and the States of Utrecht +and between him and the Holland deputies. The Stadholder calmly demanded +the disbandment and the Synod. The Hollanders spoke of securing first +the persons and rights of the magistracy. + +"The magistrates are to be protected," said Maurice, "but we must first +know how they are going to govern. People have tried to introduce five +false points into the Divine worship. People have tried to turn me out +of the stadholdership and to drive me from the country. But I have taken +my measures. I know well what I am about. I have got five provinces on +my side, and six cities of Holland will send deputies to Utrecht to +sustain me here." + +The Hollanders protested that there was no design whatever, so far as +they knew, against his princely dignity or person. All were ready to +recognize his rank and services by every means in their power. But it +was desirable by conciliation and compromise, not by stern decree, to +arrange these religious and political differences. + +The Stadholder replied by again insisting on the Synod. "As for the +Waartgelders," he continued, "they are worse than Spanish fortresses. +They must away." + +After a little further conversation in this vein the Prince grew more +excited. + +"Everything is the fault of the Advocate," he cried. + +"If Barneveld were dead," replied Grotius, "all the rest of us would +still deem ourselves bound to maintain the laws. People seem to despise +Holland and to wish to subject it to the other provinces." + +"On the contrary," cried the Prince, "it is the Advocate who wishes to +make Holland the States-General." + +Maurice was tired of argument. There had been much ale-house talk some +three months before by a certain blusterous gentleman called van Ostrum +about the necessity of keeping the Stadholder in check. "If the Prince +should undertake," said this pot-valiant hero, "to attack any of the +cities of Utrecht or Holland with the hard hand, it is settled to station +8000 or 10,000 soldiers in convenient places. Then we shall say to the +Prince, if you don't leave us alone, we shall make an arrangement with +the Archduke of Austria and resume obedience to him. We can make such a +treaty with him as will give us religious freedom and save us from +tyranny of any kind. I don't say this for myself, but have heard it on +good authority from very eminent persons." + +This talk had floated through the air to the Stadholder. + +What evidence could be more conclusive of a deep design on the part of +Barneveld to sell the Republic to the Archduke and drive Maurice into +exile? Had not Esquire van Ostrum solemnly declared it at a tavern +table? And although he had mentioned no names, could the "eminent +personages" thus cited at second hand be anybody but the Advocate? + +Three nights after his last conference with the Hollanders, Maurice +quietly ordered a force of regular troops in Utrecht to be under arms at +half past three o'clock next morning. About 1000 infantry, including +companies of Ernest of Nassau's command at Arnhem and of Brederode's from +Vianen, besides a portion of the regular garrison of the place, had +accordingly been assembled without beat of drum, before half past three +in the morning, and were now drawn up on the market-place or Neu. At +break of day the Prince himself appeared on horseback surrounded by his +staff on the Neu or Neude, a large, long, irregular square into which the +seven or eight principal streets and thoroughfares of the town emptied +themselves. It was adorned by public buildings and other handsome +edifices, and the tall steeple of St. Martin's with its beautiful open- +work spire, lighted with the first rays of the midsummer sun, looked +tranquilly down upon the scene. + +Each of the entrances to the square had been securely guarded by +Maurice's orders, and cannon planted to command all the streets. A +single company of the famous Waartgelders was stationed in the Neu or +near it. The Prince rode calmly towards them and ordered them to lay +down their arms. They obeyed without a murmur. He then sent through the +city to summon all the other companies of Waartgelders to the Neu. This +was done with perfect promptness, and in a short space of time the whole +body of mercenaries, nearly 1000 in number, had laid down their arms at +the feet of the Prince. + +The snaphances and halberds being then neatly stacked in the square, the +Stadholder went home to his early breakfast. There was an end to those +mercenaries thenceforth and for ever. The faint and sickly resistance to +the authority of Maurice offered at Utrecht was attempted nowhere else. + +For days there had been vague but fearful expectations of a "blood bath," +of street battles, rioting, and plunder. Yet the Stadholder with the +consummate art which characterized all his military manoeuvres had so +admirably carried out his measure that not a shot was fired, not a blow +given, not a single burgher disturbed in his peaceful slumbers. When the +population had taken off their nightcaps, they woke to find the awful +bugbear removed which had so long been appalling them. The Waartgelders +were numbered with the terrors of the past, and not a cat had mewed at +their disappearance. + +Charter-books, parchments, 13th Articles, Barneveld's teeth, Arminian +forts, flowery orations of Grotius, tavern talk of van Ostrum, city +immunities, States' rights, provincial laws, Waartgelders and all--the +martial Stadholder, with the orange plume in his hat and the sword of +Nieuwpoort on his thigh, strode through them as easily as through the +whirligigs and mountebanks, the wades and fritters, encumbering the +streets of Utrecht on the night of his arrival. + +Secretary Ledenberg and other leading members of the States had escaped +the night before. Grotius and his colleagues also took a precipitate +departure. As they drove out of town in the twilight, they met the +deputies of the six opposition cities of Holland just arriving in their +coach from the Hague. Had they tarried an hour longer, they would have +found themselves safely in prison. + +Four days afterwards the Stadholder at the head of his body-guard +appeared at the town-house. His halberdmen tramped up the broad +staircase, heralding his arrival to the assembled magistracy. He +announced his intention of changing the whole board then and there. +The process was summary. The forty members were required to supply +forty other names, and the Prince added twenty more. From the hundred +candidates thus furnished the Prince appointed forty magistrates such +as suited himself. It is needless to say that but few of the old bench +remained, and that those few were devoted to the Synod, the States- +General, and the Stadholder. He furthermore announced that these new +magistrates were to hold office for life, whereas the board had +previously been changed every year. The cathedral church was at +once assigned for the use of the Contra-Remonstrants. + +This process was soon to be repeated throughout the two insubordinate +provinces Utrecht and Holland. + +The Prince was accused of aiming at the sovereignty of the whole country, +and one of his grief's against the Advocate was that he had begged the +Princess-Widow, Louise de Coligny, to warn her son-in-law of the dangers +of such ambition. But so long as an individual, sword in hand, could +exercise such unlimited sway over the whole municipal, and provincial +organization of the Commonwealth, it mattered but little whether he was +called King or Kaiser, Doge or Stadholder. Sovereign he was for the time +being at least, while courteously acknowledging the States-General as his +sovereign. + +Less than three weeks afterwards the States-General issued a decree +formally disbanding the Waartgelders; an almost superfluous edict, as +they had almost ceased to exist, and there were none to resist the +measure. Grotius recommended complete acquiescence. Barneveld's soul +could no longer animate with courage a whole people. + +The invitations which had already in the month of June been prepared for +the Synod to meet in the city of Dortor Dordtrecht-were now issued. The +States of Holland sent back the notification unopened, deeming it an +unwarrantable invasion of their rights that an assembly resisted by a +large majority of their body should be convoked in a city on their own +territory. But this was before the disbandment of the Waartgelders and +the general change of magistracies had been effected. + +Earnest consultations were now held as to the possibility of devising +some means of compromise; of providing that the decisions of the Synod +should not be considered binding until after having been ratified by the +separate states. In the opinion of Barneveld they were within a few +hours' work of a favourable result when their deliberations were +interrupted by a startling event. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + Fruitless Interview between Barneveld and Maurice--The Advocate, + warned of his Danger, resolves to remain at the Hague--Arrest of + Barneveld, of Qrotius, and of Hoogerbeets--The States-General assume + the Responsibility in a "Billet"--The States of Holland protest-- + The Advocate's Letter to his Family--Audience of Boississe-- + Mischief-making of Aerssens--The French Ambassadors intercede for + Barneveld--The King of England opposes their Efforts--Langerac's + Treachery to the Advocate--Maurice continues his Changes in the + Magistracy throughout the Country--Vote of Thanks by the States of + Holland. + +The Advocate, having done what he believed to be his duty, and exhausted +himself in efforts to defend ancient law and to procure moderation and +mutual toleration in religion, was disposed to acquiesce in the +inevitable. His letters giving official and private information of +those grave events were neither vindictive nor vehement. + +"I send you the last declaration of My Lords of Holland," he said to +Caron, "in regard to the National Synod, with the counter-declaration of +Dordtrecht and the other five cities. Yesterday was begun the debate +about cashiering the enrolled soldiers called Waartgelders. To-day the +late M. van Kereburg was buried." + +Nothing could be calmer than his tone. After the Waartgelders had been +disbanded, Utrecht revolutionized by main force, the National Synod +decided upon, and the process of changing the municipal magistracies +everywhere in the interest of Contra-Remonstrants begun, he continued to +urge moderation and respect for law. Even now, although discouraged, he +was not despondent, and was disposed to make the best even of the Synod. + +He wished at this supreme moment to have a personal interview with the +Prince in order to devise some means for calming the universal agitation +and effecting, if possible, a reconciliation among conflicting passions +and warring sects. He had stood at the side of Maurice and of Maurice's +great father in darker hours even than these. They had turned to him on +all trying and tragical occasions and had never found his courage +wavering or his judgment at fault. "Not a friend to the House of Nassau, +but a father," thus had Maurice with his own lips described the Advocate +to the widow of William the Silent. Incapable of an unpatriotic thought, +animated by sincere desire to avert evil and procure moderate action, +Barneveld saw no reason whatever why, despite all that had been said and +done, he should not once more hold council with the Prince. He had a +conversation accordingly with Count Lewis, who had always honoured the +Advocate while differing with him on the religious question. The +Stadholder of Friesland, one of the foremost men of his day in military +and scientific affairs, in administrative ability and philanthropic +instincts, and, in a family perhaps the most renowned in Europe for +heroic qualities and achievements, hardly second to any who had borne the +name, was in favour of the proposed interview, spoke immediately to +Prince Maurice about it, but was not hopeful as to its results. He knew +his cousin well and felt that he was at that moment resentful, perhaps +implacably so, against the whole Remonstrant party and especially against +their great leader. + +Count Lewis was small of stature, but dignified, not to say pompous, in +demeanour. His style of writing to one of lower social rank than himself +was lofty, almost regal, and full of old world formality. + +Noble, severe, right worshipful, highly learned and discreet, special +good friend," he wrote to Barneveld; "we have spoken to his Excellency +concerning the expediency of what you requested of us this forenoon. +We find however that his Excellency is not to be moved to entertain any +other measure than the National Synod which he has himself proposed in +person to all the provinces, to the furtherance of which he has made so +many exertions, and which has already been announced by the States- +General. + +"We will see by what opportunity his Excellency will appoint the +interview, and so far as lies in us you may rely on our good offices. +We could not answer sooner as the French ambassadors had audience of us +this forenoon and we were visiting his Excellency in the afternoon. +Wishing your worship good evening, we are your very good friend." + +Next day Count William wrote again. "We have taken occasion," he said, +"to inform his Excellency that you were inclined to enter into +communication with him in regard to an accommodation of the religious +difficulties and to the cashiering of the Waartgelders. He answered that +he could accept no change in the matter of the National Synod, but +nevertheless would be at your disposal whenever your worship should be +pleased to come to him." + +Two days afterwards Barneveld made his appearance at the apartments of +the Stadholder. The two great men on whom the fabric of the Republic had +so long rested stood face to face once more. + +The Advocate, with long grey beard and stern blue eye, haggard with +illness and anxiety, tall but bent with age, leaning on his staff and +wrapped in black velvet cloak--an imposing magisterial figure; the +florid, plethoric Prince in brown doublet, big russet boots, narrow ruff, +and shabby felt hat with its string of diamonds, with hand clutched on +swordhilt, and eyes full of angry menace, the very type of the high-born, +imperious soldier--thus they surveyed each other as men, once friends, +between whom a gulf had opened. + +Barneveld sought to convince the Prince that in the proceedings at +Utrecht, founded as they were on strict adherence to the laws and +traditions of the Provinces, no disrespect had been intended to him, no +invasion of his constitutional rights, and that on his part his lifelong +devotion to the House of Nassau had suffered no change. He repeated his +usual incontrovertible arguments against the Synod, as illegal and +directly tending to subject the magistracy to the priesthood, a course of +things which eight-and-twenty years before had nearly brought destruction +on the country and led both the Prince and himself to captivity in a +foreign land. + +The Prince sternly replied in very few words that the National Synod was +a settled matter, that he would never draw back from his position, and +could not do so without singular disservice to the country and to his own +disreputation. He expressed his displeasure at the particular oath +exacted from the Waartgelders. It diminished his lawful authority and +the respect due to him, and might be used per indirectum to the +oppression of those of the religion which he had sworn to maintain. His +brow grew black when he spoke of the proceedings at Utrecht, which he +denounced as a conspiracy against his own person and the constitution of +the country. + +Barneveld used in vain the powers of argument by which he had guided +kings and republics, cabinets and assemblies, during so many years. His +eloquence fell powerless upon the iron taciturnity of the Stadholder. +Maurice had expressed his determination and had no other argument to +sustain it but his usual exasperating silence. + +The interview ended as hopelessly as Count Lewis William had anticipated, +and the Prince and the Advocate separated to meet no more on earth. + +"You have doubtless heard already," wrote Barneveld to the ambassador in +London, "of all that has been passing here and in Utrecht. One must pray +to God that everything may prosper to his honour and the welfare of the +country. They are resolved to go through with the National Synod, the +government of Utrecht after the change made in it having consented with +the rest. I hope that his Majesty, according to your statement, will +send some good, learned, and peace-loving personages here, giving them +wholesome instructions to help bring our affairs into Christian unity, +accommodation, and love, by which his Majesty and these Provinces would +be best served." + +Were these the words of a baffled conspirator and traitor? Were they +uttered to produce an effect upon public opinion and avert a merited +condemnation by all good men? There is not in them a syllable of +reproach, of anger, of despair. And let it be remembered that they were +not written for the public at all. They were never known to the public, +hardly heard of either by the Advocate's enemies or friends, save the one +to whom they were addressed and the monarch to whom that friend was +accredited. They were not contained in official despatches, but in +private, confidential outpourings to a trusted political and personal +associate of many years. From the day they were written until this hour +they have never been printed, and for centuries perhaps not read. + +He proceeded to explain what he considered to be the law in the +Netherlands with regard to military allegiance. It is not probable that +there was in the country a more competent expounder of it; and defective +and even absurd as such a system was, it had carried the Provinces +successfully through a great war, and a better method for changing it +might have been found among so law-loving and conservative a people as +the Netherlanders than brute force. + +"Information has apparently been sent to England," he said, "that My +Lords of Holland through their commissioners in Utrecht dictated to the +soldiery standing at their charges something that was unreasonable. The +truth is that the States of Holland, as many of them as were assembled, +understanding that great haste was made to send his Excellency and some +deputies from the other provinces to Utrecht, while the members of the +Utrecht assembly were gone to report these difficulties to their +constituents and get fresh instructions from them, wishing that the +return of those members should be waited for and that the Assembly of +Holland might also be complete--a request which was refused--sent a +committee to Utrecht, as the matter brooked no delay, to give information +to the States of that province of what was passing here and to offer +their good offices. + +"They sent letters also to his Excellency to move him to reasonable +accommodation without taking extreme measures in opposition to those +resolutions of the States of Utrecht which his Excellency had promised to +conform with and to cause to be maintained by all officers and soldiers. +Should his Excellency make difficulty in this, the commissioners +were instructed to declare to him that they were ordered to warn the +colonels and captains standing in the payment of Holland, by letter and +word of mouth, that they were bound by oath to obey the States of Holland +as their paymasters and likewise to carry out the orders of the +provincial and municipal magistrates in the places where they were +employed. The soldiery was not to act or permit anything to be done +against those resolutions, but help to carry them out, his Excellency +himself and the troops paid by the States of Holland being indisputably +bound by oath and duty so to do." + +Doubtless a more convenient arrangement from a military point of view +might be imagined than a system of quotas by which each province in a +confederacy claimed allegiance and exacted obedience from the troops paid +by itself in what was after all a general army. Still this was the +logical and inevitable result of State rights pushed to the extreme and +indeed had been the indisputable theory and practice in the Netherlands +ever since their revolt from Spain. To pretend that the proceedings and +the oath were new because they were embarrassing was absurd. It was only +because the dominant party saw the extreme inconvenience of the system, +now that it was turned against itself, that individuals contemptuous of +law and ignorant of history denounced it as a novelty. + +But the strong and beneficent principle that lay at the bottom of the +Advocate's conduct was his unflagging resolve to maintain the civil +authority over the military in time of peace. What liberal or healthy +government would be possible otherwise? Exactly as he opposed the +subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood or the mob, so he now +defended it against the power of the sword. There was no justification +whatever for a claim on the part of Maurice to exact obedience from all +the armies of the Republic, especially in time of peace. He was himself +by oath sworn to obey the States of Holland, of Utrecht, and of the three +other provinces of which he was governor. He was not commander-in-chief. +In two of the seven provinces he had no functions whatever, military or +civil. They had another governor. + +Yet the exposition of the law, as it stood, by the Advocate and his claim +that both troops and Stadholder should be held to their oaths was +accounted a crime. He had invented a new oath--it was said--and sought +to diminish the power of the Prince. These were charges, unjust as they +were, which might one day be used with deadly effect. + +"We live in a world where everything is interpreted to the worst," he +said. "My physical weakness continues and is increased by this +affliction. I place my trust in God the Lord and in my upright and +conscientious determination to serve the country, his Excellency, and the +religion in which through God's grace I hope to continue to the end." + +On the 28th August of a warm afternoon, Barneveld was seated on a +porcelain seat in an arbor in his garden. Councillor Berkhout, +accompanied by a friend, called to see him, and after a brief +conversation gave him solemn warning that danger was impending, +that there was even a rumour of an intention to arrest him. + +The Advocate answered gravely, "Yes, there are wicked men about." + +Presently he lifted his hat courteously and said, "I thank you, +gentlemen, for the warning." + +It seems scarcely to have occurred to him that he had been engaged in +anything beyond a constitutional party struggle in which he had defended +what in his view was the side of law and order. He never dreamt of +seeking safety in flight. Some weeks before, he had been warmly advised +to do as both he and Maurice had done in former times in order to escape +the stratagems of Leicester, to take refuge in some strong city devoted +to his interests rather than remain at the Hague. But he had declined +the counsel. "I will await the issue of this business," he said, "in the +Hague, where my home is, and where I have faithfully served my masters. +I had rather for the sake of the Fatherland suffer what God chooses to +send me for having served well than that through me and on my account any +city should fall into trouble and difficulties." + +Next morning, Wednesday, at seven o'clock, Uytenbogaert paid him a visit. +He wished to consult him concerning a certain statement in regard to the +Synod which he desired him to lay before the States of Holland. The +preacher did not find his friend busily occupied at his desk, as usual, +with writing and other work. The Advocate had pushed his chair away from +the table encumbered with books and papers, and sat with his back leaning +against it, lost in thought. His stern, stoical face was like that of a +lion at bay. + +Uytenbogaert tried to arouse him from his gloom, consoling him by +reflections on the innumerable instances, in all countries and ages, +of patriotic statesmen who for faithful service had reaped nothing but +ingratitude. + +Soon afterwards he took his leave, feeling a presentiment of evil within +him which it was impossible for him to shake off as he pressed +Barneveld's hand at parting. + +Two hours later, the Advocate went in his coach to the session of the +States of Holland. The place of the Assembly as well as that of the +States-General was within what was called the Binnenhof or Inner Court; +the large quadrangle enclosing the ancient hall once the residence of the +sovereign Counts of Holland. The apartments of the Stadholder composed +the south-western portion of the large series of buildings surrounding +this court. Passing by these lodgings on his way to the Assembly, he was +accosted by a chamberlain of the Prince and informed that his Highness +desired to speak with him. He followed him towards the room where such +interviews were usually held, but in the antechamber was met by +Lieutenant Nythof, of the Prince's bodyguard. This officer told him +that he had been ordered to arrest him in the name of the States-General. +The Advocate demanded an interview with the Prince. It was absolutely +refused. Physical resistance on the part of a man of seventy-two, +stooping with age and leaning on a staff, to military force, of which +Nythof was the representative, was impossible. Barneveld put a cheerful +face on the matter, and was even inclined to converse. He was at once +carried off a prisoner and locked up in a room belonging to Maurice's +apartments. + +Soon afterwards, Grotius on his way to the States-General was invited in +precisely the same manner to go to the Prince, with whom, as he was +informed, the Advocate was at that moment conferring. As soon as he had +ascended the stairs however, he was arrested by Captain van der Meulen in +the name of the States-General, and taken to a chamber in the same +apartments, where he was guarded by two halberdmen. In the evening he +was removed to another chamber where the window shutters were barred, and +where he remained three days and nights. He was much cast down and +silent. Pensionary Hoogerbeets was made prisoner in precisely the same +manner. Thus the three statesmen--culprits as they were considered by +their enemies--were secured without noise or disturbance, each without +knowing the fate that had befallen the other. Nothing could have been +more neatly done. In the same quiet way orders were sent to secure +Secretary Ledenberg, who had returned to Utrecht, and who now after a +short confinement in that city was brought to the Hague and imprisoned in +the Hof. + +At the very moment of the Advocate's arrest his son-in-law van der Myle +happened to be paying a visit to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had arrived +very late the night before from England. It was some hours before he or +any other member of the family learned what had befallen. + +The Ambassador reported to his sovereign that the deed was highly +applauded by the well disposed as the only means left for the security +of the state. "The Arminians," he said, "condemn it as violent and +insufferable in a free republic." + +Impartial persons, he thought, considered it a superfluous proceeding now +that the Synod had been voted and the Waartgelders disbanded. + +While he was writing his despatch, the Stadholder came to call upon him, +attended by his cousin Count Lewis William. The crowd of citizens +following at a little distance, excited by the news with which the city +was now ringing, mingled with Maurice's gentlemen and bodyguards and +surged up almost into the Ambassador's doors. + +Carleton informed his guests, in the course of conversation, as to the +general opinion of indifferent judges of these events. Maurice replied +that he had disbanded the Waartgelders, but it had now become necessary +to deal with their colonel and the chief captains, meaning thereby +Barneveld and the two other prisoners. + +The news of this arrest was soon carried to the house of Barneveld, and +filled his aged wife, his son, and sons-in-law with grief and +indignation. His eldest son William, commonly called the Seignior van +Groeneveld, accompanied by his two brothers-in-law, Veenhuyzen, President +of the Upper Council, and van der Myle, obtained an interview with the +Stadholder that same afternoon. + +They earnestly requested that the Advocate, in consideration of his +advanced age, might on giving proper bail be kept prisoner in his own +house. + +The Prince received them at first with courtesy. "It is the work of the +States-General," he said, " no harm shall come to your father any more +than to myself." + +Veenhuyzen sought to excuse the opposition which the Advocate had made to +the Cloister Church. + +The word was scarcely out of his mouth when the Prince fiercely +interrupted him--"Any man who says a word against the Cloister Church," +he cried in a rage, "his feet shall not carry him from this place." + +The interview gave them on the whole but little satisfaction. Very soon +afterwards two gentlemen, Asperen and Schagen, belonging to the Chamber +of Nobles, and great adherents of Barneveld, who had procured their +enrolment in that branch, forced their way into the Stadholder's +apartments and penetrated to the door of the room where the Advocate was +imprisoned. According to Carleton they were filled with wine as well as +rage, and made a great disturbance, loudly demanding their patron's +liberation. Maurice came out of his own cabinet on hearing the noise in +the corridor, and ordered them to be disarmed and placed under arrest. +In the evening however they were released. + +Soon afterwards van der Myle fled to Paris, where he endeavoured to make +influence with the government in favour of the Advocate. His departure +without leave, being, as he was, a member of the Chamber of Nobles and of +the council of state, was accounted a great offence. Uytenbogaert also +made his escape, as did Taurinus, author of The Balance, van Moersbergen +of Utrecht, and many others more or less implicated in these commotions. + +There was profound silence in the States of Holland when the arrest of +Barneveld was announced. The majority sat like men distraught. At last +Matenesse said, "You have taken from us our head, our tongue, and our +hand, henceforth we can only sit still and look on." + +The States-General now took the responsibility of the arrest, which eight +individuals calling themselves the States-General had authorized by +secret resolution the day before (28th August). On the 29th accordingly, +the following "Billet," as it was entitled, was read to the Assembly and +ordered to be printed and circulated among the community. It was without +date or signature. + +"Whereas in the course of the changes within the city of Utrecht and in +other places brought about by the high and mighty Lords the States- +General of the United Netherlands, through his Excellency and their +Lordships' committee to him adjoined, sundry things have been discovered +of which previously there had been great suspicion, tending to the great +prejudice of the Provinces in general and of each province in particular, +not without apparent danger to the state of the country, and that thereby +not only the city of Utrecht, but various other cities of the United +Provinces would have fallen into a blood bath; and whereas the chief +ringleaders in these things are considered to be John van Barneveld, +Advocate of Holland, Rombout Hoogerbeets, and Hugo Grotius, whereof +hereafter shall declaration and announcement be made, therefore their +High Mightinesses, in order to prevent these and similar inconveniences, +to place the country in security, and to bring the good burghers of all +the cities into friendly unity again, have resolved to arrest those three +persons, in order that out of their imprisonment they may be held to +answer duly for their actions and offences." + +The deputies of Holland in the States-General protested on the same day +against the arrest, declaring themselves extraordinarily amazed at such +proceedings, without their knowledge, with usurpation of their +jurisdiction, and that they should refer to their principals for +instructions in the matter. + +They reported accordingly at once to the States of Holland in session in +the same building. Soon afterwards however a committee of five from the +States-General appeared before the Assembly to justify the proceeding. +On their departure there arose a great debate, the six cities of course +taking part with Maurice and the general government. It was finally +resolved by the majority to send a committee to the Stadholder to +remonstrate with, and by the six opposition cities another committee +to congratulate him, on his recent performances. + +His answer was to this effect: + +"What had happened was not by his order, but had been done by the States- +General, who must be supposed not to have acted without good cause. +Touching the laws and jurisdiction of Holland he would not himself +dispute, but the States of Holland would know how to settle that matter +with the States-General." + +Next day it was resolved in the Holland assembly to let the affair remain +as it was for the time being. Rapid changes were soon to be expected in +that body, hitherto so staunch for the cause of municipal laws and State +rights. + +Meantime Barneveld sat closely guarded in the apartments of the +Stadholder, while the country and very soon all Europe were ringing with +the news of his downfall, imprisonment, and disgrace. The news was a +thunder-bolt to the lovers of religious liberty, a ray of dazzling +sunlight after a storm to the orthodox. + +The showers of pamphlets, villanous lampoons, and libels began afresh. +The relatives of the fallen statesman could not appear in the streets +without being exposed to insult, and without hearing scurrilous and +obscene verses against their father and themselves, in which neither sex +nor age was spared, howled in their ears by all the ballad-mongers and +broadsheet vendors of the town. The unsigned publication of the States- +General, with its dark allusions to horrible discoveries and promised +revelations which were never made, but which reduced themselves at last +to the gibberish of a pot-house bully, the ingenious libels, the +powerfully concocted and poisonous calumnies, caricatures, and lampoons, +had done their work. People stared at each other in the streets with +open mouths as they heard how the Advocate had for years and years been +the hireling of Spain, whose government had bribed him largely to bring +about the Truce and kill the West India Company; how his pockets and his +coffers were running over with Spanish ducats; how his plot to sell the +whole country to the ancient tyrant, drive the Prince of Orange into +exile, and bring every city of the Netherlands into a "blood-bath," had, +just in time, been discovered. + +And the people believed it and hated the man they had so lately honoured, +and were ready to tear him to pieces in the streets. Men feared to +defend him lest they too should be accused of being stipendiaries of +Spain. It was a piteous spectacle; not for the venerable statesman +sitting alone there in his prison, but for the Republic in its lunacy, +for human nature in its meanness and shame. He whom Count Lewis, +although opposed to his politics, had so lately called one of the two +columns on which the whole fabric of the States reposed, Prince Maurice +being the other, now lay prostrate in the dust and reviled of all men. + +"Many who had been promoted by him to high places," said a contemporary, +"and were wont to worship him as a god, in hope that he would lift them +up still higher, now deserted him, and ridiculed him, and joined the rest +of the world in heaping dirt upon him." + +On the third day of his imprisonment the Advocate wrote this letter to +his family:-- + +"My very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren,--I know +that you are sorrowful for the troubles which have come upon me, but I +beg you to seek consolation from God the Almighty and to comfort each +other. I know before the Lord God of having given no single lawful +reason for the misfortunes which have come upon me, and I will with +patience await from His Divine hand and from my lawful superiors a happy +issue, knowing well that you and my other well-wishers will with your +prayers and good offices do all that you can to that end. + +"And so, very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, I +commend you to God's holy keeping. + +"I have been thus far well and honourably treated and accommodated, for +which I thank his princely Excellency. + +"From my chamber of arrest, last of August, anno 1618. + +"Your dear husband, father, father-in-law, and grand father, + + "JOHN OF BARNEVELD." + + +On the margin was written: + +"From the first I have requested and have at last obtained materials for +writing." + +A fortnight before the arrest, but while great troubles were known to +be impending, the French ambassador extraordinary, de Boississe, had +audience before the Assembly of the States-General. He entreated them to +maintain the cause of unity and peace as the foundation of their state; +"that state," he said, "which lifts its head so high that it equals or +surpasses the mightiest republics that ever existed, and which could not +have risen to such a height of honour and grandeur in so short a time, +but through harmony and union of all the provinces, through the valour of +his Excellency, and through your own wise counsels, both sustained by our +great king, whose aid is continued by his son."--"The King my master," he +continued, "knows not the cause of your disturbances. You have not +communicated them to him, but their most apparent cause is a difference +of opinion, born in the schools, thence brought before the public, upon a +point of theology. That point has long been deemed by many to be so hard +and so high that the best advice to give about it is to follow what God's +Word teaches touching God's secrets; to wit, that one should use +moderation and modesty therein and should not rashly press too far into +that which he wishes to be covered with the veil of reverence and wonder. +That is a wise ignorance to keep one's eyes from that which God chooses +to conceal. He calls us not to eternal life through subtle and +perplexing questions." + +And further exhorting them to conciliation and compromise, he enlarged +on the effect of their internal dissensions on their exterior relations. +"What joy, what rapture you are preparing for your neighbours by your +quarrels! How they will scorn you! How they will laugh! What a hope +do you give them of revenging themselves upon you without danger to +themselves! Let me implore you to baffle their malice, to turn their +joy into mourning, to unite yourselves to confound them." + +He spoke much more in the same vein, expressing wise and moderate +sentiments. He might as well have gone down to the neighbouring beach +when a south-west gale was blowing and talked of moderation to the waves +of the German Ocean. The tempest of passion and prejudice had risen in +its might and was sweeping all before it. Yet the speech, like other +speeches and intercessions made at this epoch by de Boississe and by the +regular French ambassador, du Maurier, was statesmanlike and reasonable. +It is superfluous to say that it was in unison with the opinions of +Barneveld, for Barneveld had probably furnished the text of the oration. +Even as he had a few years before supplied the letters which King James +had signed and subsequently had struggled so desperately to disavow, so +now the Advocate's imperious intellect had swayed the docile and amiable +minds of the royal envoys into complete sympathy with his policy. He +usually dictated their general instructions. But an end had come to such +triumphs. Dudley Carleton had returned from his leave of absence in +England, where he had found his sovereign hating the Advocate as doctors +hate who have been worsted in theological arguments and despots who have +been baffled in their imperious designs. Who shall measure the influence +on the destiny of this statesman caused by the French-Spanish marriages, +the sermons of James through the mouth of Carleton, and the mutual +jealousy of France and England? + +But the Advocate was in prison, and the earth seemed to have closed over +him. Hardly a ripple of indignation was perceptible on the calm surface +of affairs, although in the States-General as in the States of Holland +his absence seemed to have reduced both bodies to paralysis. + +They were the more easily handled by the prudent, skilful, and determined +Maurice. + +The arrest of the four gentlemen had been communicated to the kings of +France and Great Britain and the Elector-Palatine in an identical letter +from the States-General. It is noticeable that on this occasion the +central government spoke of giving orders to the Prince of Orange, over +whom they would seem to have had no legitimate authority, while on the +other hand he had expressed indignation on more than one occasion that +the respective states of the five provinces where he was governor and to +whom he had sworn obedience should presume to issue commands to him. + +In France, where the Advocate was honoured and beloved, the intelligence +excited profound sorrow. A few weeks previously the government of that +country had, as we have seen, sent a special ambassador to the States, +M. de Boississe, to aid the resident envoy, du Maurier, in his efforts to +bring about a reconciliation of parties and a termination of the +religious feud. Their exertions were sincere and unceasing. They +were as steadily countermined by Francis Aerssens, for the aim of that +diplomatist was to bring about a state of bad feeling, even at cost of +rupture, between the Republic and France, because France was friendly +to the man he most hated and whose ruin he had sworn. + +During the summer a bitter personal controversy had been going on, +sufficiently vulgar in tone, between Aerssens and another diplomatist, +Barneveld's son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle. It related to the recall +of Aerssens from the French embassy of which enough has already been laid +before the reader. Van der Myle by the production of the secret letters +of the Queen-Dowager and her counsellors had proved beyond dispute that +it was at the express wish of the French government that the Ambassador +had retired, and that indeed they had distinctly refused to receive him, +should he return. Foul words resulting in propositions for a hostile +meeting on the frontier, which however came to nothing, were interchanged +and Aerssens in the course of his altercation with the son-inlaw had +found ample opportunity for venting his spleen upon his former patron the +now fallen statesman. + +Four days after the arrest of Barneveld he brought the whole matter +before the States-General, and the intention with which he thus raked up +the old quarrel with France after the death of Henry, and his charges in +regard to the Spanish marriages, was as obvious as it was deliberate. + +The French ambassadors were furious. Boississe had arrived not simply +as friend of the Advocate, but to assure the States of the strong desire +entertained by the French government to cultivate warmest relations with +them. It had been desired by the Contra-Remonstrant party that deputies +from the Protestant churches of France should participate in the Synod, +and the French king had been much assailed by the Catholic powers for +listening to those suggestions. The Papal nuncius, the Spanish +ambassador, the envoy of the Archduke, had made a great disturbance at +court concerning the mission of Boississe. They urged with earnestness +that his Majesty was acting against the sentiments of Spain, Rome, and +the whole Catholic Church, and that he ought not to assist with his +counsel those heretics who were quarrelling among themselves over points +in their heretical religion and wishing to destroy each other. + +Notwithstanding this outcry the weather was smooth enough until the +proceedings of Aerssens came to stir up a tempest at the French court. +A special courier came from Boississe, a meeting of the whole council, +although it was Sunday, was instantly called, and the reply of the +States-General to the remonstrance of the Ambassador in the Aerssens +affair was pronounced to be so great an affront to the King that, but for +overpowering reasons, diplomatic intercourse would have at once been +suspended. "Now instead of friendship there is great anger here," said +Langerac. The king forbade under vigorous penalties the departure of any +French theologians to take part in the Synod, although the royal consent +had nearly been given. The government complained that no justice was +done in the Netherlands to the French nation, that leading personages +there openly expressed contempt for the French alliance, denouncing the +country as "Hispaniolized," and declaring that all the council were +regularly pensioned by Spain for the express purpose of keeping up the +civil dissensions in the United Provinces. + +Aerssens had publicly and officially declared that a majority of the +French council since the death of Henry had declared the crown in its +temporal as well as spiritual essence to be dependent on the Pope, and +that the Spanish marriages had been made under express condition of the +renunciation of the friendship and alliance of the States. + +Such were among the first-fruits of the fall of Barneveld and the triumph +of Aerssens, for it was he in reality who had won the victory, and he had +gained it over both Stadholder and Advocate. Who was to profit by the +estrangement between the Republic and its powerful ally at a moment too +when that great kingdom was at last beginning to emerge from the darkness +and nothingness of many years, with the faint glimmering dawn of a new +great policy? + +Barneveld, whose masterful statesmanship, following out the traditions of +William the Silent, had ever maintained through good and ill report +cordial and beneficent relations between the two countries, had always +comprehended, even as a great cardinal-minister was ere long to teach the +world, that the permanent identification of France with Spain and the +Roman League was unnatural and impossible. + +Meantime Barneveld sat in his solitary prison, knowing not what was +passing on that great stage where he had so long been the chief actor, +while small intriguers now attempted to control events. + +It was the intention of Aerssens to return to the embassy in Paris whence +he had been driven, in his own opinion, so unjustly. To render himself +indispensable, he had begun by making himself provisionally formidable to +the King's government. Later, there would be other deeds to do before +the prize was within his grasp. + +Thus the very moment when France was disposed to cultivate the most +earnest friendship with the Republic had been seized for fastening an +insult upon her. The Twelve Years' Truce with Spain was running to its +close, the relations between France and Spain were unusually cold, and +her friendship therefore more valuable than ever. + +On the other hand the British king was drawing closer his relations with +Spain, and his alliance was demonstrably of small account. The phantom +of the Spanish bride had become more real to his excited vision than +ever, so that early in the year, in order to please Gondemar, he had been +willing to offer an affront to the French ambassador. + +The Prince of Wales had given a splendid masquerade at court, to which +the envoy of his Most Catholic Majesty was bidden. Much to his amazement +the representative of the Most Christian King received no invitation, +notwithstanding that he had taken great pains to procure one. M. de +la Boderie was very angry, and went about complaining to the States' +ambassador and his other colleagues of the slight, and darkened the +lives of the court functionaries having charge of such matters with his +vengeance and despair. It was represented to him that he had himself +been asked to a festival the year before when Count Gondemar was left +out. It was hinted to him that the King had good reasons for what he +did, as the marriage with the daughter of Spain was now in train, and it +was desirable that the Spanish ambassador should be able to observe the +Prince's disposition and make a more correct report of it to his +government. It was in vain. M. de la Boderie refused to be comforted, +and asserted that one had no right to leave the French ambassador +uninvited to any "festival or triumph" at court. There was an endless +disturbance. De la Boderie sent his secretary off to Paris to complain +to the King that his ambassador was of no account in London, while much +favour was heaped upon the Spaniard. The Secretary returned with +instructions from Lewis that the Ambassador was to come home immediately, +and he went off accordingly in dudgeon. "I could see that he was in the +highest degree indignant," said Caron, who saw him before he left, "and I +doubt not that his departure will increase and keep up the former +jealousy between the governments." + +The ill-humor created by this event lasted a long time, serving to +neutralize or at least perceptibly diminish the Spanish influence +produced in France by the Spanish marriages. In the autumn, Secretary de +Puysieux by command of the King ordered every Spaniard to leave the +French court. All the "Spanish ladies and gentlemen, great and small," +who had accompanied the Queen from Madrid were included in this expulsion +with the exception of four individuals, her Majesty's father confessor, +physician, apothecary, and cook. + +The fair young queen was much vexed and shed bitter tears at this +calamity, which, as she spoke nothing but Spanish, left her isolated at +the court, but she was a little consoled by the promise that thenceforth +the King would share her couch. It had not yet occurred to him that he +was married. + +The French envoys at the Hague exhausted themselves in efforts, both +private and public, in favour of the prisoners, but it was a thankless +task. Now that the great man and his chief pupils and adherents were out +of sight, a war of shameless calumny was began upon him, such as has +scarcely a parallel in political history. + +It was as if a whole tribe of noxious and obscene reptiles were swarming +out of the earth which had suddenly swallowed him. But it was not alone +the obscure or the anonymous who now triumphantly vilified him. Men in +high places who had partaken of his patronage, who had caressed him and +grovelled before him, who had grown great through his tuition and rich +through his bounty, now rejoiced in his ruin or hastened at least to save +themselves from being involved in it. Not a man of them all but fell +away from him like water. Even the great soldier forgot whose respectful +but powerful hand it was which, at the most tragical moment, had lifted +him from the high school at Leyden into the post of greatest power and +responsibility, and had guided his first faltering footsteps by the light +of his genius and experience. Francis Aerssens, master of the field, had +now become the political tutor of the mature Stadholder. Step by step we +have been studying the inmost thoughts of the Advocate as revealed in his +secret and confidential correspondence, and the reader has been enabled +to judge of the wantonness of the calumny which converted the determined +antagonist into the secret friend of Spain. Yet it had produced its +effect upon Maurice. + +He told the French ambassadors a month after the arrest that Barneveld +had been endeavouring, during and since the Truce negotiations, to bring +back the Provinces, especially Holland, if not under the dominion of, at +least under some kind of vassalage to Spain. Persons had been feeling +the public pulse as to the possibility of securing permanent peace by +paying tribute to Spain, and this secret plan of Barneveld had so +alienated him from the Prince as to cause him to attempt every possible +means of diminishing or destroying altogether his authority. He had +spread through many cities that Maurice wished to make himself master +of the state by using the religious dissensions to keep the people +weakened and divided. + +There is not a particle of evidence, and no attempt was ever made to +produce any, that the Advocate had such plan, but certainly, if ever, man +had made himself master of a state, that man was Maurice. He continued +however to place himself before the world as the servant of the States- +General, which he never was, either theoretically or in fact. + +The French ambassadors became every day more indignant and more +discouraged. It was obvious that Aerssens, their avowed enemy, was +controlling the public policy of the government. Not only was there no +satisfaction to be had for the offensive manner in which he had filled +the country with his ancient grievances and his nearly forgotten charges +against the Queen-Dowager and those who had assisted her in the regency, +but they were repulsed at every turn when by order of their sovereign +they attempted to use his good offices in favour of the man who had ever +been the steady friend of France. + +The Stadholder also professed friendship for that country, and referred +to Colonel-General Chatillon, who had for a long time commanded the +French regiments in the Netherlands, for confirmation of his uniform +affection for those troops and attachment to their sovereign. + +He would do wonders, he said, if Lewis would declare war upon Spain by +land and sea. + +"Such fruits are not ripe," said Boississe, "nor has your love for France +been very manifest in recent events." + +"Barneveld," replied the Prince, "has personally offended me, and has +boasted that he would drive me out of the country like Leicester. He is +accused of having wished to trouble the country in order to bring it back +under the yoke of Spain. Justice will decide. The States only are +sovereign to judge this question. You must address yourself to them." + +"The States," replied the ambassadors, "will require to be aided by your +counsels." + +The Prince made no reply and remained chill and "impregnable." The +ambassadors continued their intercessions in behalf of the prisoners +both by public address to the Assembly and by private appeals to the +Stadholder and his influential friends. In virtue of the intimate +alliance and mutual guarantees existing between their government and the +Republic they claimed the acceptance of their good offices. They +insisted upon a regular trial of the prisoners according to the laws of +the land, that is to say, by the high court of Holland, which alone had +jurisdiction in the premises. If they had been guilty of high-treason, +they should be duly arraigned. In the name of the signal services of +Barneveld and of the constant friendship of that great magistrate for +France, the King demanded clemency or proof of his crimes. His Majesty +complained through his ambassadors of the little respect shown for his +counsels and for his friendship. "In times past you found ever prompt +and favourable action in your time of need." + +"This discourse," said Maurice to Chatillon, "proceeds from evil +intention." + +Thus the prisoners had disappeared from human sight, and their enemies +ran riot in slandering them. Yet thus far no public charges had been +made. + +"Nothing appears against them," said du Maurier, "and people are +beginning to open their mouths with incredible freedom. While waiting +for the condemnation of the prisoners, one is determined to dishonour +them." + +The French ambassadors were instructed to intercede to the last, but they +were steadily repulsed--while the King of Great Britain, anxious to gain +favour with Spain by aiding in the ruin of one whom he knew and Spain +knew to be her determined foe, did all he could through his ambassador to +frustrate their efforts and bring on a catastrophe. The States-General +and Maurice were now on as confidential terms with Carleton as they were +cold and repellent to Boississe and du Maurier. + +"To recall to them the benefits of the King," said du Maurier, "is to +beat the air. And then Aerssens bewitches them, and they imagine that +after having played runaway horses his Majesty will be only too happy to +receive them back, caress them, and, in order to have their friendship, +approve everything they have been doing right or wrong." + +Aerssens had it all his own way, and the States-General had just paid him +12,000 francs in cash on the ground that Langerac's salary was larger +than his had been when at the head of the same embassy many years before. + +His elevation into the body of nobles, which Maurice had just stocked +with five other of his partisans, was accounted an additional affront +to France, while on the other hand the Queen-Mother, having through +Epernon's assistance made her escape from Blois, where she had been +kept in durance since the death of Concini, now enumerated among other +grievances for which she was willing to take up arms against her son +that the King's government had favoured Barneveld. + +It was strange that all the devotees of Spain--Mary de' Medici, and +Epernon, as well as James I. and his courtiers--should be thus embittered +against the man who had sold the Netherlands to Spain. + +At last the Prince told the French ambassadors that the "people of the +Provinces considered their persistent intercessions an invasion of their +sovereignty." Few would have anything to say to them. "No one listens +to us, no one replies to us," said du Maurier, "everyone visiting us is +observed, and it is conceived a reproach here to speak to the ambassadors +of France." + +Certainly the days were changed since Henry IV. leaned on the arm of +Barneveld, and consulted with him, and with him only, among all the +statesmen of Europe on his great schemes for regenerating Christendom +and averting that general war which, now that the great king had been +murdered and the Advocate imprisoned, had already begun to ravage Europe. + +Van der Myle had gone to Paris to make such exertions as he could among +the leading members of the council in favour of his father-in-law. +Langerac, the States' ambassador there, who but yesterday had been +turning at every moment to the Advocate for light and warmth as to the +sun, now hastened to disavow all respect or regard for him. He scoffed +at the slender sympathy van der Myle was finding in the bleak political +atmosphere. He had done his best to find out what he had been +negotiating with the members of the council and was glad to say that it +was so inconsiderable as to be not worth reporting. He had not spoken +with or seen the King. Jeannin, his own and his father-in-law's +principal and most confidential friend, had only spoken with him half an +hour and then departed for Burgundy, although promising to confer with +him sympathetically on his return. "I am very displeased at his coming +here," said Langerac, " . . . . . but he has found little friendship +or confidence, and is full of woe and apprehension." + +The Ambassador's labours were now confined to personally soliciting the +King's permission for deputations from the Reformed churches of France +to go to the Synod, now opened (13th November) at Dordtrecht, and to +clearing his own skirts with the Prince and States-General of any +suspicion of sympathy with Barneveld. + +In the first object he was unsuccessful, the King telling him at last +"with clear and significant words that this was impossible, on account of +his conscience, his respect for the Catholic religion, and many other +reasons." + +In regard to the second point he acted with great promptness. + +He received a summons in January 1619 from the States-General and the +Prince to send them all letters that he had ever received from Barneveld. +He crawled at once to Maurice on his knees, with the letters in his hand. + +"Most illustrious, high-born Prince, most gracious Lord," he said; +"obeying the commands which it has pleased the States and your princely +Grace to give me, I send back the letters of Advocate Barneveld. If your +princely Grace should find anything in them showing that the said +Advocate had any confidence in me, I most humbly beg your princely Grace +to believe that I never entertained any affection for, him, except only +in respect to and so far as he was in credit and good authority with the +government, and according to the upright zeal which I thought I could see +in him for the service of My high and puissant Lords the States-General +and of your princely Grace." + +Greater humbleness could be expected of no ambassador. Most nobly did +the devoted friend and pupil of the great statesman remember his duty to +the illustrious Prince and their High Mightinesses. Most promptly did he +abjure his patron now that he had fallen into the abyss. + +"Nor will it be found," he continued, "that I have had any sympathy or +communication with the said Advocate except alone in things concerning my +service. The great trust I had in him as the foremost and oldest +counsellor of the state, as the one who so confidentially instructed me +on my departure for France, and who had obtained for himself so great +authority that all the most important affairs of the country were +entrusted to him, was the cause that I simply and sincerely wrote +to him all that people were in the habit of saying at this court. + +"If I had known in the least or suspected that he was not what he ought +to be in the service of My Lords the States and of your princely Grace +and for the welfare and tranquillity of the land, I should have been well +on my guard against letting myself in the least into any kind of +communication with him whatever." + +The reader has seen how steadily and frankly the Advocate had kept +Langerac as well as Caron informed of passing events, and how little +concealment he made of his views in regard to the Synod, the +Waartgelders, and the respective authority of the States-General and +States-Provincial. Not only had Langerac no reason to suspect that +Barneveld was not what he ought to be, but he absolutely knew the +contrary from that most confidential correspondence with him which +he was now so abjectly repudiating. The Advocate, in a protracted +constitutional controversy, had made no secret of his views either +officially or privately. Whether his positions were tenable or flimsy, +they had been openly taken. + +"What is more," proceeded the Ambassador, "had I thought that any account +ought to be made of what I wrote to him concerning the sovereignty of the +Provinces, I should for a certainty not have failed to advise your Grace +of it above all." + +He then, after profuse and maudlin protestations of his most dutiful zeal +all the days of his life for "the service, honour, reputation, and +contentment of your princely Grace," observed that he had not thought it +necessary to give him notice of such idle and unfounded matters, as being +likely to give the Prince annoyance and displeasure. He had however +always kept within himself the resolution duly to notify him in case he +found that any belief was attached to the reports in Paris. "But the +reports," he said, "were popular and calumnious inventions of which no +man had ever been willing or able to name to him the authors." + +The Ambassador's memory was treacherous, and he had doubtless neglected +to read over the minutes, if he had kept them, of his wonderful +disclosures on the subject of the sovereignty before thus exculpating +himself. It will be remembered that he had narrated the story of the +plot for conferring sovereignty upon Maurice not as a popular calumny +flying about Paris with no man to father it, but he had given it to +Barneveld on the authority of a privy councillor of France and of the +King himself. "His Majesty knows it to be authentic," he had said in his +letter. That letter was a pompous one, full of mystery and so secretly +ciphered that he had desired that his friend van der Myle, whom he was +now deriding for his efforts in Paris to save his father-inlaw from his +fate, might assist the Advocate in unravelling its contents. He had now +discovered that it had been idle gossip not worthy of a moment's +attention. + +The reader will remember too that Barneveld, without attaching much +importance to the tale, had distinctly pointed out to Langerac that the +Prince himself was not implicated in the plot and had instructed the +Ambassador to communicate the story to Maurice. This advice had not been +taken, but he had kept the perilous stuff upon his breast. He now sought +to lay the blame, if it were possible to do so, upon the man to whom he +had communicated it and who had not believed it. + +The business of the States-General, led by the Advocate's enemies this +winter, was to accumulate all kind of tales, reports, and accusations to +his discredit on which to form something like a bill of indictment. They +had demanded all his private and confidential correspondence with Caron +and Langerae. The ambassador in Paris had been served, moreover, with a +string of nine interrogatories which he was ordered to answer on oath and +honour. This he did and appended the reply to his letter. + +The nine questions had simply for their object to discover what Barneveld +had been secretly writing to the Ambassador concerning the Synod, the +enlisted troops, and the supposed projects of Maurice concerning the +sovereignty. Langerac was obliged to admit in his replies that nothing +had been written except the regular correspondence which he endorsed, and +of which the reader has been able to see the sum and substance in the +copious extracts which have been given. + +He stated also that he had never received any secret instructions save +the marginal notes to the list of questions addressed by him, when about +leaving for Paris in 1614, to Barneveld. Most of these were of a trivial +and commonplace nature. + +They had however a direct bearing on the process to be instituted against +the Advocate, and the letter too which we have been examining will prove +to be of much importance. Certainly pains enough were taken to detect +the least trace of treason in a very loyal correspondence. Langerac +concluded by enclosing the Barneveld correspondence since the beginning +of the year 1614, protesting that not a single letter had been kept back +or destroyed. "Once more I recommend myself to mercy, if not to favour," +he added, "as the most faithful, most obedient, most zealous servant of +their High Mightinesses and your princely Grace, to whom I have devoted +and sacrificed my honour and life in most humble service; and am now and +forever the most humble, most obedient, most faithful servant of my most +serene, most illustrious, most highly born Prince, most gracious Lord and +princeliest Grace." + +The former adherent of plain Advocate Barneveld could hardly find +superlatives enough to bestow upon the man whose displeasure that +prisoner had incurred. + +Directly after the arrest the Stadholder had resumed his tour through +the Provinces in order to change the governments. Sliding over any +opposition which recent events had rendered idle, his course in every +city was nearly the same. A regiment or two and a train of eighty or a +hundred waggons coming through the city-gate preceded by the Prince and +his body-guard of 300, a tramp of halberdmen up the great staircase of +the town-hall, a jingle of spurs in the assembly-room, and the whole +board of magistrates were summoned into the presence of the Stadholder. +They were then informed that the world had no further need of their +services, and were allowed to bow themselves out of the presence. A new +list was then announced, prepared beforehand by Maurice on the suggestion +of those on whom he could rely. A faint resistance was here and there +attempted by magistrates and burghers who could not forget in a moment +the rights of self-government and the code of laws which had been enjoyed +for centuries. At Hoorn, for instance, there was deep indignation among +the citizens. An imprudent word or two from the authorities might have +brought about a "blood-bath." + +The burgomaster ventured indeed to expostulate. They requested the +Prince not to change the magistracy. "This is against our privileges," +they said, "which it is our duty to uphold. You will see what deep +displeasure will seize the burghers, and how much disturbance and tumult +will follow. If any faults have been committed by any member of the +government, let him be accused and let him answer for them. Let your +Excellency not only dismiss but punish such as cannot properly justify +themselves." + +But his Excellency summoned them all to the town-house and as usual +deposed them all. A regiment was drawn up in half-moon on the square +beneath the windows. To the magistrates asking why they were deposed, +he briefly replied, "The quiet of the land requires it. It is necessary +to have unanimous resolutions in the States-General at the Hague. This +cannot be accomplished without these preliminary changes. I believe that +you had good intentions and have been faithful servants of the +Fatherland. But this time it must be so." + +And so the faithful servants of the Fatherland were dismissed into space. +Otherwise how could there be unanimous voting in parliament? It must be +regarded perhaps as fortunate that the force of character, undaunted +courage, and quiet decision of Maurice enabled him to effect this violent +series of revolutions with such masterly simplicity. It is questionable +whether the Stadholder's commission technically empowered him thus to +trample on municipal law; it is certain that, if it did, the boasted +liberties of the Netherlands were a dream; but it is equally true that, +in the circumstances then existing, a vulgar, cowardly, or incompetent +personage might have marked his pathway with massacres without restoring +tranquillity. + +Sometimes there was even a comic aspect to these strokes of state. +The lists of new magistrates being hurriedly furnished by the Prince's +adherents to supply the place of those evicted, it often happened that +men not quahified by property, residence, or other attributes were +appointed to the government, so that many became magistrates before +they were citizens. + +On being respectfully asked sometimes who such a magistrate might be +whose face and name were equally unknown to his colleagues and to the +townsmen in general; "Do I know the fellows?" he would say with a +cheerful laugh. And indeed they might have all been dead men, those new +functionaries, for aught he did know. And so on through Medemblik and +Alkmaar, Brielle, Delft, Monnikendam, and many other cities progressed +the Prince, sowing new municipalities broadcast as he passed along. At +the Hague on his return a vote of thanks to the Prince was passed by the +nobles and most of the cities for the trouble he had taken in this +reforming process. But the unanimous vote had not yet been secured, the +strongholds of Arminianism, as it was the fashion to call them, not being +yet reduced. + +The Prince, in reply to the vote of thanks, said that "in what he had +done and was going to do his intention sincerely and uprightly had been +no other than to promote the interests and tranquillity of the country, +without admixture of anything personal and without prejudice to the +general commonwealth or the laws and privileges of the cities." He +desired further that "note might be taken of this declaration as record +of his good and upright intentions." + +But the sincerest and most upright intentions may be refracted by party +atmosphere from their aim, and the purest gold from the mint elude the +direct grasp through the clearest fluid in existence. At any rate it +would have been difficult to convince the host of deposed magistrates +hurled from office, although recognized as faithful servants of the +Fatherland, that such violent removal had taken place without detriment +to the laws and privileges. + +And the Stadholder went to the few cities where some of the leaven still +lingered. + +He arrived at Leyden on the 22nd October, "accompanied by a great suite +of colonels, ritmeesters, and captains," having sent on his body-guard +to the town strengthened by other troops. He was received by the +magistrates at the "Prince's Court" with great reverence and entertained +by them in the evening at a magnificent banquet. + +Next morning he summoned the whole forty of them to the town-house, +disbanded them all, and appointed new ones in their stead; some of the +old members however who could be relied upon being admitted to the +revolutionized board. + +The populace, mainly of the Stadholder's party, made themselves merry +over the discomfited "Arminians". They hung wisps of straw as derisive +wreaths of triumph over the dismantled palisade lately encircling the +town-hall, disposed of the famous "Oldenbarneveld's teeth" at auction in +the public square, and chased many a poor cock and hen, with their +feathers completely plucked from their bodies, about the street, crying +"Arme haenen, arme haenen"--Arminians or poor fowls--according to the +practical witticism much esteemed at that period. Certainly the +unfortunate Barneveldians or Arminians, or however the Remonstrants +might be designated, had been sufficiently stripped of their plumes. + +The Prince, after having made proclamation from the town-house enjoining +"modesty upon the mob" and a general abstention from "perverseness and +petulance," went his way to Haarlem, where he dismissed the magistrates +and appointed new ones, and then proceeded to Rotterdam, to Gouda, and to +Amsterdam. + +It seemed scarcely necessary to carry, out the process in the commercial +capital, the abode of Peter Plancius, the seat of the West India Company, +the head-quarters of all most opposed to the Advocate, most devoted to +the Stadholder. But although the majority of the city government was an +overwhelming one, there was still a respectable minority who, it was +thought possible, might under a change of circumstances effect much +mischief and even grow into a majority. + +The Prince therefore summoned the board before him according to his usual +style of proceeding and dismissed them all. They submitted without a +word of remonstrance. + +Ex-Burgomaster Hooft, a man of seventy-two-father of the illustrious +Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, one of the greatest historians of the +Netherlands or of any country, then a man of thirty-seven-shocked at the +humiliating silence, asked his colleagues if they had none of them a word +to say in defence of their laws and privileges. + +They answered with one accord "No." + +The old man, a personal friend of Barneveld and born the same year, then +got on his feet and addressed the Stadholder. He spoke manfully and +well, characterizing the summary deposition of the magistracy as illegal +and unnecessary, recalling to the memory of those who heard him that he +had been thirty-six years long a member of the government and always a +warm friend of the House of Nassau, and respectfully submitting that the +small minority in the municipal government, while differing from their +colleagues and from the greater number of the States-General, had limited +their opposition to strictly constitutional means, never resorting to +acts of violence or to secret conspiracy. + +Nothing could be more truly respectable than the appearance of this +ancient magistrate, in long black robe with fur edgings, high ruff around +his thin, pointed face, and decent skull-cap covering his bald old head, +quavering forth to unsympathetic ears a temperate and unanswerable +defence of things which in all ages the noblest minds have deemed most +valuable. + +His harangue was not very long. Maurice's reply was very short. + +"Grandpapa," he said, "it must be so this time. Necessity and the +service of the country require it." + +With that he dismissed the thirty-six magistrates and next day appointed +a new board, who were duly sworn to fidelity to the States-General. Of +course a large proportion of the old members were renominated. + +Scarcely had the echo of the Prince's footsteps ceased to resound through +the country as he tramped from one city to another, moulding each to his +will, when the States of Holland, now thoroughly reorganized, passed a +solemn vote of thanks to him for all that he had done. The six cities of +the minority had now become the majority, and there was unanimity at the +Hague. The Seven Provinces, States-General and States-Provincial, were +as one, and the Synod was secured. Whether the prize was worth the +sacrifices which it had cost and was still to cost might at least be +considered doubtful. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Affection of his friends and the wrath of his enemies +Depths theological party spirit could descend +Extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence +Human nature in its meanness and shame +It had not yet occurred to him that he was married +Make the very name of man a term of reproach +Never lack of fishers in troubled waters +Opposed the subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood +Pot-valiant hero +Resolve to maintain the civil authority over the military +Tempest of passion and prejudice +The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny +Yes, there are wicked men about + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1618 *** + +***********This file should be named 4895.txt or 4895.zip ********** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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