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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of John of Barneveld,
+1614-23, Volume II., by John Lothrop Motley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1614-23, Volume II.
+
+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Last Updated: February 7, 2009
+Release Date: October 15, 2006 [EBook #4898]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN OF BARNEVELD, II. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+VOLUME II. 1614-23
+
+
+By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. 1614-17
+
+   The Advocate sounds the Alarm in Germany--His Instructions to
+   Langerac and his Forethought--The Prince--Palatine and his Forces
+   take Aachen, Mulheim, and other Towns--Supineness of the
+   Protestants--Increased Activity of Austria and the League--Barneveld
+   strives to obtain Help from England--Neuburg departs for Germany--
+   Barneveld the Prime Minister of Protestantism--Ernest Mansfield
+   takes service under Charles Emmanuel--Count John of Nassau goes to
+   Savoy--Slippery Conduct of King James in regard to the New Treaty
+   proposed--Barneveld's Influence greater in France than in England--
+   Sequestration feared--The Elector of Brandenburg cited to appear
+   before the Emperor at Prague--Murder of John van Wely--Uytenbogaert
+   incurs Maurice's Displeasure--Marriage of the King of France with
+   Anne of Austria--Conference between King James and Caron concerning
+   Piracy, Cloth Trade and Treaty of Xanten--Barneveld's Survey of the
+   Condition of Europe--His Efforts to avert the impending general War.
+
+I have thus purposely sketched the leading features of a couple of
+momentous, although not eventful, years--so far as the foreign policy of
+the Republic is concerned--in order that the reader may better understand
+the bearings and the value of the Advocate's actions and writings at that
+period. This work aims at being a political study. I would attempt to
+exemplify the influence of individual humours and passions--some of them
+among the highest and others certainly the basest that agitate
+humanity-upon the march of great events, upon general historical results
+at certain epochs, and upon the destiny of eminent personages. It may
+also be not uninteresting to venture a glance into the internal structure
+and workings of a republican and federal system of government, then for
+the first time reproduced almost spontaneously upon an extended scale.
+
+Perhaps the revelation of some of its defects, in spite of the faculty
+and vitality struggling against them, may not be without value for our
+own country and epoch. The system of Switzerland was too limited and
+homely, that of Venice too purely oligarchical, to have much moral for us
+now, or to render a study of their pathological phenomena especially
+instructive. The lessons taught us by the history of the Netherland
+confederacy may have more permanent meaning.
+
+Moreover, the character of a very considerable statesman at an
+all-important epoch, and in a position of vast responsibility, is always
+an historical possession of value to mankind. That of him who furnishes
+the chief theme for these pages has been either overlooked and neglected
+or perhaps misunderstood by posterity. History has not too many really
+important and emblematic men on its records to dispense with the memory
+of Barneveld, and the writer therefore makes no apology for dilating
+somewhat fully upon his lifework by means of much of his entirely
+unpublished and long forgotten utterances.
+
+The Advocate had ceaselessly been sounding the alarm in Germany. For the
+Protestant Union, fascinated, as it were, by the threatening look of the
+Catholic League, seemed relapsing into a drowse.
+
+"I believe," he said to one of his agents in that country, "that the
+Evangelical electors and princes and the other estates are not alive to
+the danger. I am sure that it is not apprehended in Great Britain. France
+is threatened with troubles. These are the means to subjugate the
+religion, the laws and liberties of Germany. Without an army the troops
+now on foot in Italy cannot be kept out of Germany. Yet we do not hear
+that the Evangelicals are making provision of troops, money, or any other
+necessaries. In this country we have about one hundred places occupied
+with our troops, among whom are many who could destroy a whole army. But
+the maintenance of these places prevents our being very strong in the
+field, especially outside our frontiers. But if in all Germany there be
+many places held by the Evangelicals which would disperse a great army is
+very doubtful. Keep a watchful eye. Economy is a good thing, but the
+protection of a country and its inhabitants must be laid to heart. Watch
+well if against these Provinces, and against Bohemia, Austria, and other
+as it is pretended rebellious states, these plans are not directed. Look
+out for the movements of the Italian and Bavarian troops against Germany.
+You see how they are nursing the troubles and misunderstandings in
+France, and turning them to account."
+
+He instructed the new ambassador in Paris to urge upon the French
+government the absolute necessity of punctuality in furnishing the
+payment of their contingent in the Netherlands according to convention.
+The States of Holland themselves had advanced the money during three
+years' past, but this anticipation was becoming very onerous. It was
+necessary to pay the troops every month regularly, but the funds from
+Paris were always in arrear. England contributed about one-half as much
+in subsidy, but these moneys went in paying the garrisons of Brielle,
+Flushing, and Rammekens, fortresses pledged to that crown. The Ambassador
+was shrewdly told not to enlarge on the special employment of the English
+funds while holding up to the Queen's government that she was not the
+only potentate who helped bear burthens for the Provinces, and insisted
+on a continuation of this aid. "Remember and let them remember," said the
+Advocate, "that the reforms which they are pretending to make there by
+relieving the subjects of contributions tends to enervate the royal
+authority and dignity both within and without, to diminish its lustre and
+reputation, and in sum to make the King unable to gratify and assist his
+subjects, friends, and allies. Make them understand that the taxation in
+these Provinces is ten times higher than there, and that My Lords the
+States hitherto by the grace of God and good administration have
+contrived to maintain it in order to be useful to themselves and their
+friends. Take great pains to have it well understood that this is even
+more honourable and more necessary for a king of France, especially in
+his minority, than for a republic 'hoc turbato seculo.' We all see
+clearly how some potentates in Europe are keeping at all time under one
+pretext or another strong forces well armed on a war footing. It
+therefore behoves his Majesty to be likewise provided with troops, and at
+least with a good exchequer and all the requirements of war, as well for
+the security of his own state as for the maintenance of the grandeur and
+laudable reputation left to him by the deceased king."
+
+Truly here was sound and substantial advice, never and nowhere more
+needed than in France. It was given too with such good effect as to bear
+fruit even upon stoniest ground, and it is a refreshing spectacle to see
+this plain Advocate of a republic, so lately sprung into existence out of
+the depths of oppression and rebellion, calmly summoning great kings as
+it were before him and instructing them in those vital duties of
+government in discharge of which the country he administered already
+furnished a model. Had England and France each possessed a Barneveld at
+that epoch, they might well have given in exchange for him a wilderness
+of Epernons and Sillerys, Bouillons and Conde's; of Winwoods, Lakes,
+Carrs, and Villierses. But Elizabeth with her counsellors was gone, and
+Henry was gone, and Richelieu had not come; while in England James and
+his minions were diligently opening an abyss between government and
+people which in less than half a lifetime more should engulph the
+kingdom.
+
+Two months later he informed the States' ambassador of the communications
+made by the Prince of Conde and the Dukes of Nevers and Bouillon to the
+government at the Hague now that they had effected a kind of
+reconciliation with the Queen. Langerac was especially instructed to do
+his best to assist in bringing about cordial relations, if that were
+possible, between the crown and the rebels, and meantime he was
+especially directed to defend du Maurier against the calumnious
+accusations brought against him, of which Aerssens had been the secret
+sower.
+
+"You will do your best to manage," he said, "that no special ambassador
+be sent hither, and that M. du Maurier may remain with us, he being a
+very intelligent and moderate person now well instructed as to the state
+of our affairs, a professor of the Reformed religion, and having many
+other good qualities serviceable to their Majesties and to us.
+
+"You will visit the Prince, and other princes and officers of the crown
+who are coming to court again, and do all good offices as well for the
+court as for M. du Maurier, in order that through evil plots and
+slanderous reports no harm may come to him.
+
+"Take great pains to find out all you can there as to the designs of the
+King of Spain, the Archdukes, and the Emperor, in the affair of Julich.
+You are also to let it be known that the change of religion on the part
+of the Prince-Palatine of Neuburg will not change our good will and
+affection for him, so far as his legal claims are concerned."
+
+So long as it was possible for the States to retain their hold on both
+the claimants, the Advocate, pursuant to his uniform policy of
+moderation, was not disposed to help throw the Palatine into the hands of
+the Spanish party. He was well aware, however, that Neuburg by his
+marriage and his conversion was inevitably to become the instrument of
+the League and to be made use of in the duchies at its pleasure, and that
+he especially would be the first to submit with docility to the decree of
+the Emperor. The right to issue such decree the States under guidance of
+Barneveld were resolved to resist at all hazards.
+
+"Work diligently, nevertheless," said he, "that they permit nothing there
+directly or indirectly that may tend to the furtherance of the League, as
+too prejudicial to us and to all our fellow religionists. Tell them too
+that the late king, the King of Great Britain, the united electors and
+princes of Germany, and ourselves, have always been resolutely opposed to
+making the dispute about the succession in the duchies depend on the will
+of the Emperor and his court. All our movements in the year 1610 against
+the attempted sequestration under Leopold were to carry out that purpose.
+Hold it for certain that our present proceedings for strengthening and
+maintaining the city and fortress of Julich are considered serviceable
+and indispensable by the British king and the German electors and
+princes. Use your best efforts to induce the French government to pursue
+the same policy--if it be not possible openly, then at least secretly. My
+conviction is that, unless the Prince-Palatine is supported by, and his
+whole designs founded upon, the general league against all our brethren
+of the religion, affairs may be appeased."
+
+The Envoy was likewise instructed to do his best to further the
+matrimonial alliance which had begun to be discussed between the Prince
+of Wales and the second daughter of France. Had it been possible at that
+moment to bring the insane dream of James for a Spanish alliance to
+naught, the States would have breathed more freely. He was also to urge
+payment of the money for the French regiments, always in arrears since
+Henry's death and Sully's dismissal, and always supplied by the exchequer
+of Holland. He was informed that the Republic had been sending some war
+ships to the Levant, to watch the armada recently sent thither by Spain,
+and other armed vessels into the Baltic, to pursue the corsairs with whom
+every sea was infested. In one year alone he estimated the loss to Dutch
+merchants by these pirates at 800,000 florins. "We have just captured two
+of the rovers, but the rascally scum is increasing," he said.
+
+Again alluding to the resistance to be made by the States to the Imperial
+pretensions, he observed, "The Emperor is about sending us a herald in
+the Julich matter, but we know how to stand up to him."
+
+And notwithstanding the bare possibility which he had admitted, that the
+Prince of Neuburg might not yet have wholly sold himself, body and soul,
+to the Papists, he gave warning a day or two afterwards in France that
+all should be prepared for the worst.
+
+"The Archdukes and the Prince of Neuburg appear to be taking the war
+earnestly in hand," he said. "We believe that the Papistical League is
+about to make a great effort against all the co-religionists. We are
+watching closely their movements. Aachen is first threatened, and the
+Elector-Palatine likewise. France surely, for reasons of state, cannot
+permit that they should be attacked. She did, and helped us to do, too
+much in the Julich campaign to suffer the Spaniards to make themselves
+masters there now."
+
+It has been seen that the part played by France in the memorable campaign
+of 1610 was that of admiring auxiliary to the States' forces; Marshal de
+la Chatre having in all things admitted the superiority of their army and
+the magnificent generalship of Prince Maurice. But the government of the
+Dowager had been committed by that enterprise to carry out the life-long
+policy of Henry, and to maintain his firm alliance with the Republic.
+Whether any of the great king's acuteness and vigour in countermining and
+shattering the plans of the House of Austria was left in the French
+court, time was to show. Meantime Barneveld was crying himself hoarse
+with warnings into the dull ears of England and France.
+
+A few weeks later the Prince of Neuburg had thrown off the mask. Twelve
+thousand foot and 1500 horse had been raised in great haste, so the
+Advocate informed the French court, by Spain and the Archdukes, for the
+use of that pretender. Five or six thousand Spaniards were coming by sea
+to Flanders, and as many Italians were crossing the mountains, besides a
+great number mustering for the same purpose in Germany and Lorraine.
+Barneveld was constantly receiving most important intelligence of
+military plans and movements from Prague, which he placed daily before
+the eyes of governments wilfully blind.
+
+"I ponder well at this crisis," he said to his friend Caron, "the
+intelligence I received some months back from Ratisbon, out of the
+cabinet of the Jesuits, that the design of the Catholic or Roman League
+is to bring this year a great army into the field, in order to make
+Neuburg, who was even then said to be of the Roman profession and League,
+master of Julich and the duchies; to execute the Imperial decree against
+Aachen and Mulheim, preventing any aid from being sent into Germany by
+these Provinces, or by Great Britain, and placing the Archduke and
+Marquis Spinola in command of the forces; to put another army on the
+frontiers of Austria, in order to prevent any succour coming from
+Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, Moravia, and Silesia into Germany; to keep all
+these disputed territories in subjection and devotion to the Emperor, and
+to place the general conduct of all these affairs in the hands of
+Archduke Leopold and other princes of the House of Austria. A third army
+is to be brought into the Upper Palatinate, under command of the Duke of
+Bavaria and others of the League, destined to thoroughly carry out its
+designs against the Elector-Palatine, and the other electors, princes,
+and estates belonging to the religion."
+
+This intelligence, plucked by Barneveld out of the cabinet of the
+Jesuits, had been duly communicated by him months before to those whom it
+most concerned, and as usual it seemed to deepen the lethargy of the
+destined victims and their friends. Not only the whole Spanish campaign
+of the present year had thus been duly mapped out by the Advocate, long
+before it occurred, but this long buried and forgotten correspondence of
+the statesman seems rather like a chronicle of transactions already past,
+so closely did the actual record, which posterity came to know too well,
+resemble that which he saw, and was destined only to see, in prophetic
+vision.
+
+Could this political seer have cast his horoscope of the Thirty Years'
+War at this hour of its nativity for the instruction of such men as
+Walsingham or Burleigh, Henry of Navarre or Sully, Richelieu or Gustavus
+Adolphus, would the course of events have been modified? These very
+idlest of questions are precisely those which inevitably occur as one
+ponders the seeming barrenness of an epoch in reality so pregnant.
+
+"One would think," said Barneveld, comparing what was then the future
+with the real past, "that these plans in Prague against the
+Elector-Palatine are too gross for belief; but when I reflect on the
+intense bitterness of these people, when I remember what was done within
+living men's memory to the good elector Hans Frederic of Saxony for
+exactly the same reasons, to wit, hatred of our religion, and
+determination to establish Imperial authority, I have great apprehension.
+I believe that the Roman League will use the present occasion to carry
+out her great design; holding France incapable of opposition to her,
+Germany in too great division, and imagining to themselves that neither
+the King of Great Britain nor these States are willing or able to offer
+effectual and forcible resistance. Yet his Majesty of Great Britain ought
+to be able to imagine how greatly the religious matter in general
+concerns himself and the electoral house of the Palatine, as principal
+heads of the religion, and that these vast designs should be resisted
+betimes, and with all possible means and might. My Lords the States have
+good will, but not sufficient strength, to oppose these great forces
+single-handed. One must not believe that without great and prompt
+assistance in force from his Majesty and other fellow religionists My
+Lords the States can undertake so vast an affair. Do your uttermost duty
+there, in order that, ere it be too late, this matter be taken to heart
+by his Majesty, and that his authority and credit be earnestly used with
+other kings, electors, princes, and republics, that they do likewise. The
+promptest energy, good will, and affection may be reckoned on from us."
+
+Alas! it was easy for his Majesty to take to heart the matter of Conrad
+Vorstius, to spend reams of diplomatic correspondence, to dictate whole
+volumes for orations brimming over with theological wrath, for the
+edification of the States-General, against that doctor of divinity. But
+what were the special interests of his son-in-law, what the danger to all
+the other Protestant electors and kings, princes and republics, what the
+imperilled condition of the United Provinces, and, by necessary
+consequence, the storm gathering over his own throne, what the whole fate
+of Protestantism, from Friesland to Hungary, threatened by the
+insatiable, all-devouring might of the double house of Austria, the
+ancient church, and the Papistical League, what were hundred thousands of
+men marching towards Bohemia, the Netherlands, and the duchies, with the
+drum beating for mercenary recruits in half the villages of Spain, Italy,
+and Catholic Germany, compared with the danger to Christendom from an
+Arminian clergyman being appointed to the theological professorship at
+Leyden?
+
+The world was in a blaze, kings and princes were arming, and all the time
+that the monarch of the powerful, adventurous, and heroic people of Great
+Britain could spare from slobbering over his minions, and wasting the
+treasures of the realm to supply their insatiate greed, was devoted to
+polemical divinity, in which he displayed his learning, indeed, but
+changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day. The magnitude
+of this wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination.
+
+Moreover, should he listen to the adjurations of the States and his
+fellow religionists, should he allow himself to be impressed by the
+eloquence of Barneveld and take a manly and royal decision in the great
+emergency, it would be indispensable for him to come before that odious
+body, the Parliament of Great Britain, and ask for money. It would be
+perhaps necessary for him to take them into his confidence, to degrade
+himself by speaking to them of the national affairs. They might not be
+satisfied with the honour of voting the supplies at his demand, but were
+capable of asking questions as to their appropriation. On the whole it
+was more king-like and statesman-like to remain quiet, and give advice.
+Of that, although always a spendthrift, he had an inexhaustible supply.
+
+Barneveld had just hopes from the Commons of Great Britain, if the King
+could be brought to appeal to Parliament. Once more he sounded the bugle
+of alarm. "Day by day the Archdukes are making greater and greater
+enrolments of riders and infantry in ever increasing mass," he cried,
+"and therewith vast provision of artillery and all munitions of war.
+Within ten or twelve days they will be before Julich in force. We are
+sending great convoys to reinforce our army there. The Prince of Neuburg
+is enrolling more and more troops every day. He will soon be master of
+Mulheim. If the King of Great Britain will lay this matter earnestly to
+heart for the preservation of the princes, electors, and estates of the
+religion, I cannot doubt that Parliament would cooperate well with his
+Majesty, and this occasion should be made use of to redress the whole
+state of affairs."
+
+It was not the Parliament nor the people of Great Britain that would be
+in fault when the question arose of paying in money and in blood for the
+defence of civil and religious liberty. But if James should venture
+openly to oppose Spain, what would the Count of Gondemar say, and what
+would become of the Infanta and the two millions of dowry?
+
+It was not for want of some glimmering consciousness in the mind of James
+of the impending dangers to Northern Europe and to Protestantism from the
+insatiable ambition of Spain, and the unrelenting grasp of the Papacy
+upon those portions of Christendom which were slipping from its control,
+that his apathy to those perils was so marked. We have seen his leading
+motives for inaction, and the world was long to feel its effects.
+
+"His Majesty firmly believes," wrote Secretary Winwood, "that the
+Papistical League is brewing great and dangerous plots. To obviate them
+in everything that may depend upon him, My Lords the States will find him
+prompt. The source of all these entanglements comes from Spain. We do not
+think that the Archduke will attack Julich this year, but rather fear for
+Mulheim and Aix-la-Chapelle."
+
+But the Secretary of State, thus acknowledging the peril, chose to be
+blind to its extent, while at the same time undervaluing the powers by
+which it might be resisted. "To oppose the violence of the enemy," he
+said, "if he does resort to violence, is entirely impossible. It would be
+furious madness on our part to induce him to fall upon the
+Elector-Palatine, for this would be attacking Great Britain and all her
+friends and allies. Germany is a delicate morsel, but too much for the
+throat of Spain to swallow all at once. Behold the evil which troubles
+the conscience of the Papistical League. The Emperor and his brothers are
+all on the brink of their sepulchre, and the Infants of Spain are too
+young to succeed to the Empire. The Pope would more willingly permit its
+dissolution than its falling into the hands of a prince not of his
+profession. All that we have to do in this conjuncture is to attend the
+best we can to our own affairs, and afterwards to strengthen the good
+alliance existing among us, and not to let ourselves be separated by the
+tricks and sleights of hand of our adversaries. The common cause can
+reckon firmly upon the King of Great Britain, and will not find itself
+deceived."
+
+Excellent commonplaces, but not very safe ones. Unluckily for the allies,
+to attend each to his own affairs when the enemy was upon them, and to
+reckon firmly upon a king who thought it furious madness to resist the
+enemy, was hardly the way to avert the danger. A fortnight later, the man
+who thought it possible to resist, and time to resist, before the net was
+over every head, replied to the Secretary by a picture of the Spaniards'
+progress.
+
+"Since your letter," he said, "you have seen the course of Spinola with
+the army of the King and the Archdukes. You have seen the Prince-Palatine
+of Neuburg with his forces maintained by the Pope and other members of
+the Papistical League. On the 29th of August they forced Aachen, where
+the magistrates and those of the Reformed religion have been extremely
+maltreated. Twelve hundred soldiers are lodged in the houses there of
+those who profess our religion. Mulheim is taken and dismantled, and the
+very houses about to be torn down. Duren, Castre, Grevenborg, Orsoy,
+Duisburg, Ruhrort, and many other towns, obliged to receive Spanish
+garrisons. On the 4th of September they invested Wesel. On the 6th it was
+held certain that the cities of Cleve, Emmerich, Rees, and others in that
+quarter, had consented to be occupied. The States have put one hundred
+and thirty-five companies of foot (about 14,000 men) and 4000 horse and a
+good train of artillery in the field, and sent out some ships of war.
+Prince Maurice left the Hague on the 4th of September to assist Wesel,
+succour the Prince of Brandenburg, and oppose the hostile proceedings of
+Spinola and the Palatine of Neuburg . . . . Consider, I pray you, this
+state of things, and think how much heed they have paid to the demands of
+the Kings of Great Britain and France to abstain from hostilities. Be
+sure that without our strong garrison in Julich they would have snapped
+up every city in Julich, Cleve, and Berg. But they will now try to make
+use of their slippery tricks, their progress having been arrested by our
+army. The Prince of Neuburg is sending his chancellor here 'cum mediis
+componendae pacis,' in appearance good and reasonable, in reality
+deceptive . . . . If their Majesties, My Lords the States, and the
+princes of the Union, do not take an energetic resolution for making head
+against their designs, behold their League in full vigour and ours
+without soul. Neither the strength nor the wealth of the States are
+sufficient of themselves to withstand their ambitious and dangerous
+designs. We see the possessory princes treated as enemies upon their own
+estates, and many thousand souls of the Reformed religion cruelly
+oppressed by the Papistical League. For myself I am confirmed in my
+apprehensions and believe that neither our religion nor our Union can
+endure such indignities. The enemy is making use of the minority in
+France and the divisions among the princes of Germany to their great
+advantage . . . . I believe that the singular wisdom of his Majesty will
+enable him to apply promptly the suitable remedies, and that your
+Parliament will make no difficulty in acquitting itself well in repairing
+those disorders."
+
+The year dragged on to its close. The supineness of the Protestants
+deepened in direct proportion to the feverish increase of activity on the
+part of Austria and the League. The mockery of negotiation in which
+nothing could be negotiated, the parade of conciliation when war of
+extermination was intended, continued on the part of Spain and Austria.
+Barneveld was doing his best to settle all minor differences between the
+States and Great Britain, that these two bulwarks of Protestantism might
+stand firmly together against the rising tide. He instructed the
+Ambassador to exhaust every pacific means of arrangement in regard to the
+Greenland fishery disputes, the dyed cloth question, and like causes of
+ill feeling. He held it more than necessary, he said, that the
+inhabitants of the two countries should now be on the very best terms
+with each other. Above all, he implored the King through the Ambassador
+to summon Parliament in order that the kingdom might be placed in
+position to face the gathering danger.
+
+"I am amazed and distressed," he said, "that the statesmen of England do
+not comprehend the perils with which their fellow religionists are
+everywhere threatened, especially in Germany and in these States. To
+assist us with bare advice and sometimes with traducing our actions,
+while leaving us to bear alone the burthens, costs, and dangers, is not
+serviceable to us." Referring to the information and advice which he had
+sent to England and to France fifteen months before, he now gave
+assurance that the Prince of Neuburg and Spinola were now in such force,
+both foot and cavalry, with all necessary munitions, as to hold these
+most important territories as a perpetual "sedem bedli," out of which to
+attack Germany at their pleasure and to cut off all possibility of aid
+from England and the States. He informed the court of St. James that
+besides the forces of the Emperor and the House of Austria, the Duke of
+Bavaria and Spanish Italy, there were now several thousand horse and foot
+under the Bishop of Wurzburg, 8000 or 9000 under the Bishop-Elector of
+Mayence, and strong bodies of cavalry under Count Vaudemont in Lorraine,
+all mustering for the war. The pretext seems merely to reduce Frankfurt
+to obedience, even as Donauworth had previously been used as a colour for
+vast designs. The real purpose was to bring the Elector-Palatine and the
+whole Protestant party in Germany to submission. "His Majesty," said the
+Advocate, "has now a very great and good subject upon which to convoke
+Parliament and ask for a large grant. This would be doubtless consented
+to if Parliament receives the assurance that the money thus accorded
+shall be applied to so wholesome a purpose. You will do your best to
+further this great end. We are waiting daily to hear if the Xanten
+negotiation is broken off or not. I hope and I fear. Meantime we bear as
+heavy burthens as if we were actually at war."
+
+He added once more the warning, which it would seem superfluous to repeat
+even to schoolboys in diplomacy, that this Xanten treaty, as proposed by
+the enemy, was a mere trap.
+
+Spinola and Neuburg, in case of the mutual disbanding, stood ready at an
+instant's warning to re-enlist for the League not only all the troops
+that the Catholic army should nominally discharge, but those which would
+be let loose from the States' army and that of Brandenburg as well. They
+would hold Rheinberg, Groll, Lingen, Oldenzaal, Wachtendonk, Maestricht,
+Aachen, and Mulheim with a permanent force of more than 20,000 men. And
+they could do all this in four days' time.
+
+A week or two later all his prophesies had been fulfilled. "The Prince of
+Neuburg," he said, "and Marquis Spinola have made game of us most
+impudently in the matter of the treaty. This is an indignity for us,
+their Majesties, and the electors and princes. We regard it as
+intolerable. A despatch came from Spain forbidding a further step in the
+negotiation without express order from the King. The Prince and Spinola
+are gone to Brussels, the ambassadors have returned to the Hague, the
+armies are established in winter-quarters. The cavalry are ravaging the
+debateable land and living upon the inhabitants at their discretion. M.
+de Refuge is gone to complain to the Archdukes of the insult thus put
+upon his sovereign. Sir Henry Wotton is still here. We have been plunged
+into an immensity of extraordinary expense, and are amazed that at this
+very moment England should demand money from us when we ought to be
+assisted by a large subsidy by her. We hope that now at least his Majesty
+will take a vigorous resolution and not suffer his grandeur and dignity
+to be vilipended longer. If the Spaniard is successful in this step, he
+is ready for greater ones, and will believe that mankind is ready to bear
+and submit to everything. His Majesty is the first king of the religion.
+He bears the title of Defender of the Faith. His religion, his only
+daughter, his son-in-law, his grandson are all especially interested
+besides his own dignity, besides the common weal."
+
+He then adverted to the large subsidies from Queen Elizabeth many years
+before, guaranteed, it was true, by the cautionary towns, and to the
+gallant English regiments, sent by that great sovereign, which had been
+fighting so long and so splendidly in the Netherlands for the common
+cause of Protestantism and liberty. Yet England was far weaker then, for
+she had always her northern frontier to defend against Scotland, ever
+ready to strike her in the back. "But now his Majesty," said Barneveld,
+"is King of England and Scotland both. His frontier is free. Ireland is
+at peace. He possesses quietly twice as much as the Queen ever did. He is
+a king. Her Majesty was a woman. The King has children and heirs. His
+nearest blood is engaged in this issue. His grandeur and dignity have
+been wronged. Each one of these considerations demands of itself a manly
+resolution. You will do your best to further it."
+
+The almost ubiquitous power of Spain, gaining after its exhaustion new
+life through the strongly developed organization of the League, and the
+energy breathed into that mighty conspiracy against human liberty by the
+infinite genius of the "cabinet of Jesuits," was not content with
+overshadowing Germany, the Netherlands, and England, but was threatening
+Savoy with 40,000 men, determined to bring Charles Emmanuel either to
+perdition or submission.
+
+Like England, France was spell-bound by the prospect of Spanish
+marriages, which for her at least were not a chimera, and looked on
+composedly while Savoy was on point of being sacrificed by the common
+invader of independent nationality whether Protestant or Catholic.
+Nothing ever showed more strikingly the force residing in singleness of
+purpose with breadth and unity of design than all these primary movements
+of the great war now beginning. The chances superficially considered were
+vastly in favour of the Protestant cause. In the chief lands, under the
+sceptre of the younger branch of Austria, the Protestants outnumbered the
+Catholics by nearly ten to one. Bohemia, the Austrias, Moravia, Silesia,
+Hungary were filled full of the spirit of Huss, of Luther, and even of
+Calvin. If Spain was a unit, now that the Moors and Jews had been
+expelled, and the heretics of Castille and Aragon burnt into submission,
+she had a most lukewarm ally in Venice, whose policy was never controlled
+by the Church, and a dangerous neighbour in the warlike, restless, and
+adventurous House of Savoy, to whom geographical considerations were ever
+more vital than religious scruples. A sincere alliance of France, the
+very flower of whose nobility and people inclined to the Reformed
+religion, was impossible, even if there had been fifty infantes to
+espouse fifty daughters of France. Great Britain, the Netherlands, and
+the united princes of Germany seemed a solid and serried phalanx of
+Protestantism, to break through which should be hopeless. Yet at that
+moment, so pregnant with a monstrous future, there was hardly a sound
+Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland. How long would that policy
+remain sound and united? How long would the Republic speak through the
+imperial voice of Barneveld? Time was to show and to teach many lessons.
+The united princes of Germany were walking, talking, quarrelling in their
+sleep; England and France distracted and bedrugged, while Maximilian of
+Bavaria and Ferdinand of Gratz, the cabinets of Madrid and the Vatican,
+were moving forward to their aims slowly, steadily, relentlessly as Fate.
+And Spain was more powerful than she had been since the Truce began. In
+five years she had become much more capable of aggression. She had
+strengthened her positions in the Mediterranean by the acquisition and
+enlargement of considerable fortresses in Barbary and along a large sweep
+of the African coast, so as to be almost supreme in Africa. It was
+necessary for the States, the only power save Turkey that could face her
+in those waters, to maintain a perpetual squadron of war ships there to
+defend their commerce against attack from the Spaniard and from the
+corsairs, both Mahometan and Christian, who infested every sea. Spain was
+redoubtable everywhere, and the Turk, engaged in Persian campaigns, was
+offering no diversion against Hungary and Vienna.
+
+"Reasons of state worthy of his Majesty's consideration and wisdom," said
+Barneveld, "forbid the King of Great Britain from permitting the Spaniard
+to give the law in Italy. He is about to extort obedience and humiliation
+from the Duke of Savoy, or else with 40,000 men to mortify and ruin him,
+while entirely assuring himself of France by the double marriages. Then
+comes the attack on these Provinces, on Protestant Germany, and all other
+states and realms of the religion."
+
+With the turn of the year, affairs were growing darker and darker. The
+League was rolling up its forces in all directions; its chiefs proposed
+absurd conditions of pacification, while war was already raging, and yet
+scarcely any government but that of the Netherlands paid heed to the
+rising storm. James, fatuous as ever, listened to Gondemar, and wrote
+admonitory letters to the Archduke. It was still gravely proposed by the
+Catholic party that there should be mutual disbanding in the duchies,
+with a guarantee from Marquis Spinola that there should be no more
+invasion of those territories. But powers and pledges from the King of
+Spain were what he needed.
+
+To suppose that the Republic and her allies would wait quietly, and not
+lift a finger until blows were actually struck against the Protestant
+electors or cities of Germany, was expecting too much ingenuousness on
+the part of statesmen who had the interests of Protestantism at heart.
+What they wanted was the signed, sealed, ratified treaty faithfully
+carried out. Then if the King of Spain and the Archdukes were willing to
+contract with the States never to make an attempt against the Holy German
+Empire, but to leave everything to take its course according to the
+constitutions, liberties, and traditions and laws of that empire, under
+guidance of its electors, princes, estates, and cities, the United
+Provinces were ready, under mediation of the two kings, their allies and
+friends, to join in such an arrangement. Thus there might still be peace
+in Germany, and religious equality as guaranteed by the "Majesty-Letter,"
+and the "Compromise" between the two great churches, Roman and Reformed,
+be maintained. To bring about this result was the sincere endeavour of
+Barneveld, hoping against hope. For he knew that all was hollowness and
+sham on the part of the great enemy. Even as Walsingham almost alone had
+suspected and denounced the delusive negotiations by which Spain
+continued to deceive Elizabeth and her diplomatists until the Armada was
+upon her coasts, and denounced them to ears that were deafened and souls
+that were stupified by the frauds practised upon them, so did Barneveld,
+who had witnessed all that stupendous trickery of a generation before,
+now utter his cries of warning that Germany might escape in time from her
+impending doom.
+
+"Nothing but deceit is lurking in the Spanish proposals," he said. "Every
+man here wonders that the English government does not comprehend these
+malversations. Truly the affair is not to be made straight by new
+propositions, but by a vigorous resolution of his Majesty. It is in the
+highest degree necessary to the salvation of Christendom, to the
+conservation of his Majesty's dignity and greatness, to the service of
+the princes and provinces, and of all Germany, nor can this vigorous
+resolution be longer delayed without enormous disaster to the common weal
+. . . . . I have the deepest affection for the cause of the Duke of
+Savoy, but I cannot further it so long as I cannot tell what his Majesty
+specifically is resolved to do, and what hope is held out from Venice,
+Germany, and other quarters. Our taxes are prodigious, the ordinary and
+extraordinary, and we have a Spanish army at our front door."
+
+The armaments, already so great, had been enlarged during the last month
+of the year. Vaudemont was at the head of a further force of 2000 cavalry
+and 8000 foot, paid for by Spain and the Pope; 24,000 additional
+soldiers, riders and infantry together, had been gathered by Maximilian
+of Bavaria at the expense of the League. Even if the reports were
+exaggerated, the Advocate thought it better to be too credulous than as
+apathetic as the rest of the Protestants.
+
+"We receive advices every day," he wrote to Caron, "that the Spaniards
+and the Roman League are going forward with their design. They are trying
+to amuse the British king and to gain time, in order to be able to deal
+the heavier blows. Do all possible duty to procure a timely and vigorous
+resolution there. To wait again until we are anticipated will be fatal to
+the cause of the Evangelical electors and princes of Germany and
+especially of his Electoral Highness of Brandenburg. We likewise should
+almost certainly suffer irreparable damage, and should again bear our
+cross, as men said last year in regard to Aachen, Wesel, and so many
+other places. The Spaniard is sly, and has had a long time to contrive
+how he can throw the net over the heads of all our religious allies.
+Remember all the warnings sent from here last year, and how they were all
+tossed to the winds, to the ruin of so many of our co-religionists. If it
+is now intended over there to keep the Spaniards in check merely by
+speeches or letters, it would be better to say so clearly to our friends.
+So long as Parliament is not convoked in order to obtain consents and
+subsidies for this most necessary purpose, so long I fail to believe that
+this great common cause of Christendom, and especially of Germany, is
+taken to heart by England."
+
+He adverted with respectfully subdued scorn to King James's proposition
+that Spinola should give a guarantee. "I doubt if he accepts the
+suggestion," said Barneveld, "unless as a notorious trick, and if he did,
+what good would the promise of Spinola do us? We consider Spinola a great
+commander having the purses and forces of the Spaniards and the Leaguers
+in his control; but should they come into other hands, he would not be a
+very considerable personage for us. And that may happen any day. They
+don't seem in England to understand the difference between Prince Maurice
+in his relations to our state and that of Marquis Spinola to his
+superiors. Try to make them comprehend it. A promise from the Emperor,
+King of Spain, and the princes of the League, such as his Majesty in his
+wisdom has proposed to Spinola, would be most tranquillizing for all the
+Protestant princes and estates of the Empire, especially for the Elector
+and Electress Palatine, and for ourselves. In such a case no difficulty
+would be made on our side."
+
+After expressing his mind thus freely in regard to James and his policy,
+he then gave the Ambassador a word of caution in characteristic fashion.
+"Cogita," he said, "but beware of censuring his Majesty's projects. I do
+not myself mean to censure them, nor are they publicly laughed at here,
+but look closely at everything that comes from Brussels, and let me know
+with diligence."
+
+And even as the Advocate was endeavouring with every effort of his skill
+and reason to stir the sluggish James into vigorous resolution in behalf
+of his own children, as well as of the great cause of Protestantism and
+national liberty, so was he striving to bear up on his strenuous
+shoulders the youthful king of France, and save him from the swollen
+tides of court intrigue and Jesuitical influence fast sweeping him to
+destruction.
+
+He had denounced the recent and paltry proposition made on the part of
+the League, and originally suggested by James, as a most open and
+transparent trap, into which none but the blind would thrust themselves.
+The Treaty of Xanten, carried out as it had been signed and guaranteed by
+the great Catholic powers, would have brought peace to Christendom. To
+accept in place of such guarantee the pledge of a simple soldier, who
+to-morrow might be nothing, was almost too ridiculous a proposal to be
+answered gravely. Yet Barneveld through the machinations of the Catholic
+party was denounced both at the English and French courts as an obstacle
+to peace, when in reality his powerful mind and his immense industry were
+steadily directed to the noblest possible end--to bring about a solemn
+engagement on the part of Spain, the Emperor, and the princes of the
+League, to attack none of the Protestant powers of Germany, especially
+the Elector-Palatine, but to leave the laws, liberties, and privileges of
+the States within the Empire in their original condition. And among those
+laws were the great statutes of 1609 and 1610, the "Majesty-Letter" and
+the "Compromise," granting full right of religious worship to the
+Protestants of the Kingdom of Bohemia. If ever a policy deserved to be
+called truly liberal and truly conservative, it was the policy thus
+steadily maintained by Barneveld.
+
+Adverting to the subterfuge by which the Catholic party had sought to set
+aside the treaty of Xanten, he instructed Langerac, the States'
+ambassador in Paris, and his own pupils to make it clear to the French
+government that it was impossible that in such arrangements the Spanish
+armies would not be back again in the duchies at a moment's notice. It
+could not be imagined even that they were acting sincerely.
+
+"If their upright intention," he said, "is that no actual, hostile,
+violent attack shall be made upon the duchies, or upon any of the
+princes, estates, or cities of the Holy Empire, as is required for the
+peace and tranquillity of Christendom, and if all the powers interested
+therein will come into a good and solid convention to that effect. My
+Lords the States will gladly join in such undertaking and bind themselves
+as firmly as the other powers. If no infraction of the laws and liberties
+of the Holy Empire be attempted, there will be peace for Germany and its
+neighbours. But the present extravagant proposition can only lead to
+chicane and quarrels. To press such a measure is merely to inflict a
+disgrace upon us. It is an attempt to prevent us from helping the
+Elector-Palatine and the other Protestant princes of Germany and
+coreligionists everywhere against hostile violence. For the
+Elector-Palatine can receive aid from us and from Great Britain through
+the duchies only. It is plainly the object of the enemy to seclude us
+from the Palatine and the rest of Protestant Germany. It is very
+suspicious that the proposition of Prince Maurice, supported by the two
+kings and the united princes of Germany, has been rejected."
+
+The Advocate knew well enough that the religious franchises granted by
+the House of Habsburg at the very moment in which Spain signed her peace
+with the Netherlands, and exactly as the mad duke of Cleve was
+expiring--with a dozen princes, Catholic and Protestant, to dispute his
+inheritance--would be valuable just so long as they could be maintained
+by the united forces of Protestantism and of national independence and no
+longer. What had been extorted from the Catholic powers by force would be
+retracted by force whenever that force could be concentrated. It had been
+necessary for the Republic to accept a twelve years' truce with Spain in
+default of a peace, while the death of John of Cleve, and subsequently of
+Henry IV., had made the acquisition of a permanent pacification between
+Catholicism and Protestantism, between the League and the Union, more
+difficult than ever. The so-called Thirty Years' War--rather to be called
+the concluding portion of the Eighty Years' War--had opened in the
+debateable duchies exactly at the moment when its forerunner, the forty
+years' war of the Netherlands, had been temporarily and nominally
+suspended. Barneveld was perpetually baffled in his efforts to obtain a
+favourable peace for Protestant Europe, less by the open diplomacy and
+military force of the avowed enemies of Protestantism than by the secret
+intrigues and faintheartedness of its nominal friends. He was unwearied
+in his efforts simultaneously to arouse the courts of England and France
+to the danger to Europe from the overshadowing power of the House of
+Austria and the League, and he had less difficulty in dealing with the
+Catholic Lewis and his mother than with Protestant James. At the present
+moment his great designs were not yet openly traversed by a strong
+Protestant party within the very republic which he administered.
+
+"Look to it with earnestness and grave deliberation," he said to
+Langerac, "that they do not pursue us there with vain importunity to
+accept something so notoriously inadmissible and detrimental to the
+common weal. We know that from the enemy's side every kind of unseemly
+trick is employed, with the single object of bringing about
+misunderstanding between us and the King of France. A prompt and vigorous
+resolution on the part of his Majesty, to see the treaty which we made
+duly executed, would be to help the cause. Otherwise, not. We cannot here
+believe that his Majesty, in this first year of his majority, will submit
+to such a notorious and flagrant affront, or that he will tolerate the
+oppression of the Duke of Savoy. Such an affair in the beginning of his
+Majesty's reign cannot but have very great and prejudicial consequences,
+nor can it be left to linger on in uncertainty and delay. Let him be
+prompt in this. Let him also take a most Christian--kingly, vigorous
+resolution against the great affront put upon him in the failure to carry
+out the treaty. Such a resolve on the part of the two kings would restore
+all things to tranquillity and bring the Spaniard and his adherents 'in
+terminos modestiae. But so long as France is keeping a suspicious eye
+upon England, and England upon France, everything will run to combustion,
+detrimental to their Majesties and to us, and ruinous to all the good
+inhabitants."
+
+To the Treaty of Xanten faithfully executed he held as to an anchor in
+the tempest until it was torn away, not by violence from without, but by
+insidious mutiny within. At last the government of James proposed that
+the pledges on leaving the territory should be made to the two allied
+kings as mediators and umpires. This was better than the naked promises
+originally suggested, but even in this there was neither heartiness nor
+sincerity. Meantime the Prince of Neuburg, negotiations being broken off,
+departed for Germany, a step which the Advocate considered ominous. Soon
+afterwards that prince received a yearly pension of 24,000 crowns from
+Spain, and for this stipend his claims on the sovereignty of the duchies
+were supposed to be surrendered.
+
+"If this be true," said Barneveld, "we have been served with covered
+dishes."
+
+The King of England wrote spirited and learned letters to the
+Elector-Palatine, assuring him of his father-in-law's assistance in case
+he should be attacked by the League. Sir Henry Wotton, then on special
+mission at the Hague, showed these epistles to Barneveld.
+
+"When I hear that Parliament has been assembled and has granted great
+subsidies," was the Advocate's comment, "I shall believe that effects may
+possibly follow from all these assurances."
+
+It was wearisome for the Advocate thus ever to be foiled; by the
+pettinesses and jealousies of those occupying the highest earthly places,
+in his efforts to stem the rising tide of Spanish and Catholic
+aggression, and to avert the outbreak of a devastating war to which he
+saw Europe doomed. It may be wearisome to read the record. Yet it is the
+chronicle of Christendom during one of the most important and fateful
+epochs of modern history. No man can thoroughly understand the
+complication and precession of phenomena attending the disastrous dawn of
+the renewed war, on an even more awful scale than the original conflict
+in the Netherlands, without studying the correspondence of Barneveld. The
+history of Europe is there. The fate of Christendom is there. The
+conflict of elements, the crash of contending forms of religion and of
+nationalities, is pictured there in vivid if homely colours. The
+Advocate, while acting only in the name of a slender confederacy, was in
+truth, so long as he held his place, the prime minister of European
+Protestantism. There was none other to rival him, few to comprehend him,
+fewer still to sustain him. As Prince Maurice was at that moment the
+great soldier of Protestantism without clearly scanning the grandeur of
+the field in which he was a chief actor, or foreseeing the vastness of
+its future, so the Advocate was its statesman and its prophet. Could the
+two have worked together as harmoniously as they had done at an earlier
+day, it would have been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But,
+alas! the evil genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial
+relations between soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the
+distance, darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life
+out in exertions for what he deemed the true cause of progress and
+humanity.
+
+Nor can the fate of the man himself, his genuine character, and the
+extraordinary personal events towards which he was slowly advancing, be
+accurately unfolded without an attempt by means of his letters to lay
+bare his inmost thoughts. Especially it will be seen at a later moment
+how much value was attached to this secret correspondence with the
+ambassadors in London and Paris.
+
+The Advocate trusted to the support of France, Papal and Medicean as the
+court of the young king was, because the Protestant party throughout the
+kingdom was too powerful, warlike, and numerous to be trifled with, and
+because geographical considerations alone rendered a cordial alliance
+between Spain and France very difficult. Notwithstanding the Spanish
+marriages, which he opposed so long as opposition was possible, he knew
+that so long as a statesman remained in the kingdom, or a bone for one
+existed, the international policy of Henry, of Sully, and of Jeannin
+could not be wholly abandoned.
+
+He relied much on Villeroy, a political hack certainly, an ancient
+Leaguer, and a Papist, but a man too cool, experienced, and wily to be
+ignorant of the very hornbook of diplomacy, or open to the shallow
+stratagems by which Spain found it so easy to purchase or to deceive. So
+long as he had a voice in the council, it was certain that the Netherland
+alliance would not be abandoned, nor the Duke of Savoy crushed. The old
+secretary of state was not especially in favour at that moment, but
+Barneveld could not doubt his permanent place in French affairs until
+some man of real power should arise there. It was a dreary period of
+barrenness and disintegration in that kingdom while France was mourning
+Henry and waiting for Richelieu.
+
+The Dutch ambassador at Paris was instructed accordingly to maintain.
+good relations with Villeroy, who in Barneveld's opinion had been a
+constant and sincere friend to the Netherlands. "Don't forget to caress
+the old gentleman you wot of," said the Advocate frequently, but
+suppressing his name, "without troubling yourself with the reasons
+mentioned in your letter. I am firmly convinced that he will overcome all
+difficulties. Don't believe either that France will let the Duke of Savoy
+be ruined. It is against every reason of State." Yet there were few to
+help Charles Emmanuel in this Montferrat war, which was destined to drag
+feebly on, with certain interludes of negotiations, for two years longer.
+The already notorious condottiere Ernest Mansfeld, natural son of old
+prince Peter Ernest, who played so long and so high a part in command of
+the Spanish armies in the Netherlands, had, to be sure, taken service
+under the Duke. Thenceforth he was to be a leader and a master in that
+wild business of plunder, burning, blackmailing, and murder, which was
+opening upon Europe, and was to afford occupation for many thousands of
+adventurers of high and low degree.
+
+Mansfeld, reckless and profligate, had already changed his banner more
+than once. Commanding a company under Leopold in the duchies, he had been
+captured by the forces of the Union, and, after waiting in vain to be
+ransomed by the Archduke, had gone secretly over to the enemy. Thus
+recovering his liberty, he had enlisted a regiment under Leopold's name
+to fight the Union, and had then, according to contract, transferred
+himself and most of his adventurers to the flag of the Union. The
+military operations fading away in the duchies without being succeeded by
+permanent peace, the Count, as he was called, with no particular claim to
+such title, had accepted a thousand florins a year as retainer from the
+Union and had found occupation under Charles Emmanuel. Here the Spanish
+soldier of a year or two before found much satisfaction and some profit
+in fighting Spanish soldiers. He was destined to reappear in the
+Netherlands, in France, in Bohemia, in many places where there were
+villages to be burned, churches to be plundered, cities to be sacked,
+nuns and other women to be outraged, dangerous political intrigues to be
+managed. A man in the prime of his age, fair-haired, prematurely
+wrinkled, battered, and hideous of visage, with a hare-lip and a
+humpback; slovenly of dress, and always wearing an old grey hat without a
+band to it; audacious, cruel, crafty, and licentious--such was Ernest
+Mansfeld, whom some of his contemporaries spoke of as Ulysses Germanicus,
+others as the new Attila, all as a scourge to the human race. The
+cockneys of Paris called him "Machefer," and nurses long kept children
+quiet by threatening them with that word. He was now enrolled on the
+Protestant side, although at the moment serving Savoy against Spain in a
+question purely personal. His armies, whether in Italy or in Germany,
+were a miscellaneous collection of adventurers of high and low degree, of
+all religions, of all countries, unfrocked priests and students, ruined
+nobles, bankrupt citizens, street vagabonds--earliest type perhaps of the
+horrible military vermin which were destined to feed so many years long
+on the unfortunate dismembered carcass of Germany.
+
+Many demands had been made upon the States for assistance to Savoy,--as
+if they and they alone were to bear the brunt and pay the expense of all
+the initiatory campaigns against Spain.
+
+"We are much importuned," said the Advocate, "to do something for the
+help of Savoy . . . . We wish and we implore that France, Great Britain,
+the German princes, the Venetians, and the Swiss would join us in some
+scheme of effective assistance. But we have enough on our shoulders at
+this moment."
+
+They had hardly money enough in their exchequer, admirably ordered as it
+was, for enterprises so far from home when great Spanish armies were
+permanently encamped on their border.
+
+Partly to humour King James and partly from love of adventure, Count John
+of Nassau had gone to Savoy at the head of a small well disciplined body
+of troops furnished by the States.
+
+"Make use of this piece of news," said Barneveld, communicating the fact
+to Langerac, "opportunely and with discretion. Besides the wish to give
+some contentment to the King of Great Britain, we consider it
+inconsistent with good conscience and reasons of state to refuse help to
+a great prince against oppression by those who mean to give the law to
+everybody; especially as we have been so earnestly and frequently
+importuned to do so."
+
+And still the Spaniards and the League kept their hold on the duchies,
+while their forces, their munitions, their accumulation of funds waged
+hourly. The war of chicane was even more deadly than an actual campaign,
+for when there was no positive fighting the whole world seemed against
+the Republic. And the chicane was colossal.
+
+"We cannot understand," said Barneveld, "why M. de Prevaulx is coming
+here on special mission. When a treaty is signed and sealed, it only
+remains to execute it. The Archduke says he is himself not known in the
+treaty, and that nothing can be demanded of him in relation to it. This
+he says in his letters to the King of Great Britain. M. de Refuge knows
+best whether or not Marquis Spinola, Ottavio Visconti, Chancellor
+Pecquius, and others, were employed in the negotiation by the Archduke.
+We know very well here that the whole business was conducted by them. The
+Archduke is willing to give a clean and sincere promise not to re-occupy,
+and asks the same from the States. If he were empowered by the Emperor,
+the King of Spain, and the League, and acted in such quality, something
+might be done for the tranquillity of Germany. But he promises for
+himself only, and Emperor, King, or League, may send any general to do
+what they like to-morrow. What is to prevent it?
+
+"And so My Lords the States, the Elector of Brandenburg, and others
+interested are cheated and made fools of. And we are as much troubled by
+these tricks as by armed force. Yes, more; for we know that great
+enterprises are preparing this year against Germany and ourselves, that
+all Neuburg's troops have been disbanded and re-enlisted under the
+Spanish commanders, and that forces are levying not only in Italy and
+Spain, but in Germany, Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Upper Burgundy, and that
+Wesel has been stuffed full of gunpowder and other munitions, and very
+strongly fortified."
+
+For the States to agree to a treaty by which the disputed duchies should
+be held jointly by the Princes of Neuburg and of Brandenburg, and the
+territory be evacuated by all foreign troops; to look quietly on while
+Neuburg converted himself to Catholicism, espoused the sister of
+Maximilian of Bavaria, took a pension from Spain, resigned his claims in
+favour of Spain, and transferred his army to Spain; and to expect that
+Brandenburg and all interested in Brandenburg, that is to say, every
+Protestant in Europe, should feel perfectly easy under such arrangement
+and perfectly protected by the simple promise of a soldier of fortune
+against Catholic aggression, was a fantastic folly hardly worthy of a
+child. Yet the States were asked to accept this position, Brandenburg and
+all Protestant Germany were asked to accept it, and Barneveld was howled
+at by his allies as a marplot and mischief-maker, and denounced and
+insulted by diplomatists daily, because he mercilessly tore away the
+sophistries of the League and of the League's secret friend, James
+Stuart.
+
+The King of Spain had more than 100,000 men under arms, and was enlisting
+more soldiers everywhere and every day, had just deposited 4,000,000
+crowns with his Antwerp bankers for a secret purpose, and all the time
+was exuberant in his assurances of peace. One would have thought that
+there had never been negotiations in Bourbourg, that the Spanish Armada
+had never sailed from Coruna.
+
+"You are wise and prudent in France," said the Advocate, "but we are used
+to Spanish proceedings, and from much disaster sustained are filled with
+distrust. The King of England seems now to wish that the Archduke should
+draw up a document according to his good pleasure, and that the States
+should make an explanatory deed, which the King should sign also and ask
+the King of France to do the same. But this is very hazardous.
+
+"We do not mean to receive laws from the King of Spain, nor the Archduke
+. . . . The Spanish proceedings do not indicate peace but war. One must
+not take it ill of us that we think these matters of grave importance to
+our friends and ourselves. Affairs have changed very much in the last
+four months. The murder of the first vizier of the Turkish emperor and
+his designs against Persia leave the Spanish king and the Emperor free
+from attack in that quarter, and their armaments are far greater than
+last year . . . . I cannot understand why the treaty of Xanten, formerly
+so highly applauded, should now be so much disapproved. . . . The King of
+Spain and the Emperor with their party have a vast design to give the law
+to all Christendom, to choose a Roman king according to their will, to
+reduce the Evangelical electors, princes, and estates of Germany to
+obedience, to subject all Italy, and, having accomplished this, to
+proceed to triumph over us and our allies, and by necessary consequence
+over France and England. They say they have established the Emperor's
+authority by means of Aachen and Mulheim, will soon have driven us out of
+Julich, and have thus arranged matters entirely to their heart's content.
+They can then, in name of the Emperor, the League, the Prince of Neuburg,
+or any one else, make themselves in eight days masters of the places
+which they are now imaginarily to leave as well as of those which we are
+actually to surrender, and by possession of which we could hold out a
+long time against all their power."
+
+Those very places held by the States--Julich, Emmerich, and others--had
+recently been fortified at much expense, under the superintendence of
+Prince Maurice, and by advice of the Advocate. It would certainly be an
+act of madness to surrender them on the terms proposed. These warnings
+and forebodings of Barneveld sound in our ears like recorded history, yet
+they were far earlier than the actual facts. And now to please the
+English king, the States had listened to his suggestion that his name and
+that of the King of France should be signed as mediators to a new
+arrangement proposed in lieu of the Xanten treaty. James had suggested
+this, Lewis had agreed to it. Yet before the ink had dried in James's
+pen, he was proposing that the names of the mediating sovereigns should
+be omitted from the document? And why? Because Gondemar was again
+whispering in his ear. "They are renewing the negotiations in England,"
+said the Advocate, "about the alliance between the Prince of Wales and
+the second daughter of Spain; and the King of Great Britain is seriously
+importuning us that the Archdukes and My Lords the States should make
+their pledges 'impersonaliter' and not to the kings." James was also
+willing that the name of the Emperor should appear upon it. To prevent
+this, Barneveld would have had himself burned at the stake. It would be
+an ignominious and unconditional surrender of the whole cause.
+
+"The Archduke will never be contented," said the Advocate, "unless his
+Majesty of Great Britain takes a royal resolution to bring him to reason.
+That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice. We have been ready
+and are still ready to execute the treaty of Xanten. The Archduke is the
+cause of the dispute concerning the act. We approved the formularies of
+their Majesties, and have changed them three times to suit the King of
+Great Britain. Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter, so
+that we can no longer digest the Spanish impudence, and are amazed that
+his Majesty can listen any more to the Spanish ministers. We fear that
+those ministers are working through many hands, in order by one means or
+another to excite quarrels between his Majesty, us, and the respective
+inhabitants of the two countries . . . . . Take every precaution that no
+attempt be made there to bring the name of the Emperor into the act. This
+would be contrary to their Majesties' first resolution, very prejudicial
+to the Elector of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to ourselves. And it
+is indispensable that the promise be made to the two kings as mediators,
+as much for their reputation and dignity as for the interests of the
+Elector, the territories, and ourselves. Otherwise too the Spaniards will
+triumph over us as if they had driven us by force of arms into this
+promise."
+
+The seat of war, at the opening of the apparently inevitable conflict
+between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union, would be those
+debateable duchies, those border provinces, the possession of which was
+of such vital importance to each of the great contending parties, and the
+populations of which, although much divided, were on the whole more
+inclined to the League than to the Union. It was natural enough that the
+Dutch statesman should chafe at the possibility of their being lost to
+the Union through the adroitness of the Catholic managers and the
+supineness of the great allies of the Republic.
+
+Three weeks later than these last utterances of the Advocate, he was
+given to understand that King James was preparing to slide away from the
+position which had been three times changed to make it suitable for him.
+His indignation was hot.
+
+"Sir Henry Wotton," he said, "has communicated to me his last despatches
+from Newmarket. I am in the highest degree amazed that after all our
+efforts at accommodation, with so much sacrifice to the electors, the
+provinces, and ourselves, they are trying to urge us there to consent
+that the promise be not made to the Kings of France and Great Britain as
+mediators, although the proposition came from the Spanish side. After we
+had renounced, by desire of his Majesty, the right to refer the promise
+to the Treaty of Xanten, it was judged by both kings to be needful and
+substantial that the promise be made to their Majesties. To change this
+now would be prejudicial to the kings, to the electors, the duchies, and
+to our commonwealth; to do us a wrong and to leave us naked. France
+maintains her position as becoming and necessary. That Great Britain
+should swerve from it is not to be digested here. You will do your utmost
+according to my previous instructions to prevent any pressure to this
+end. You will also see that the name of the Emperor is mentioned neither
+in the preamble nor the articles of the treaty. It would be contrary to
+all our policy since 1610. You may be firmly convinced that malice is
+lurking under the Emperor's name, and that he and the King of Spain and
+their adherents, now as before, are attempting a sequestration. This is
+simply a pretext to bring those principalities and provinces into the
+hands of the Spaniards, for which they have been labouring these thirty
+years. We are constantly cheated by these Spanish tricks. Their intention
+is to hold Wesel and all the other places until the conclusion of the
+Italian affair, and then to strike a great blow."
+
+Certainly were never words more full of sound statesmanship, and of
+prophecy too soon to be fulfilled, than these simple but pregnant
+warnings. They awakened but little response from the English government
+save cavils and teasing reminders that Wesel had been the cradle of
+German Calvinism, the Rhenish Geneva, and that it was sinful to leave it
+longer in the hands of Spain. As if the Advocate had not proved to
+demonstration that to stock hands for a new deal at that moment was to
+give up the game altogether.
+
+His influence in France was always greater than in England, and this had
+likewise been the case with William the Silent. And even now that the
+Spanish matrimonial alliance was almost a settled matter at the French
+court, while with the English king it was but a perpetual will-o'the-wisp
+conducting to quagmires ineffable, the government at Paris sustained the
+policy of the Advocate with tolerable fidelity, while it was constantly
+and most capriciously traversed by James.
+
+Barneveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet
+despair. "We hope that the Spanish-French marriages," he said, "may be
+broken up of themselves; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay
+or prevent them authoritatively, or in conjunction with others, the
+effort would have the contrary effect."
+
+In this certainly he was doomed to disappointment.
+
+He had already notified the French court of the absolute necessity of the
+great points to be insisted upon in the treaty, and there he found more
+docility than in London or Newmarket.
+
+All summer he was occupied with this most important matter, uttering
+Cassandra-like warnings into ears wilfully deaf. The States had gone as
+far as possible in concession. To go farther would be to wreck the great
+cause upon the very quicksands which he had so ceaselessly pointed out.
+"We hope that nothing further will be asked of us, no scruples be felt as
+to our good intentions," he said, "and that if Spain and the Archdukes
+are not ready now to fulfil the treaty, their Majesties will know how to
+resent this trifling with their authority and dignity, and how to set
+matters to rights with their own hands in the duchies. A new treaty,
+still less a sequestration, is not to be thought of for a moment."
+
+Yet the month of August came and still the names of the mediating kings
+were not on the treaty, and still the spectre of sequestration had not
+been laid. On the contrary, the peace of Asti, huddled up between Spain
+and Savoy, to be soon broken again, had caused new and painful
+apprehensions of an attempt at sequestration, for it was established by
+several articles in that treaty that all questions between Savoy and
+Mantua should be referred to the Emperor's decision. This precedent was
+sure to be followed in the duchies if not resisted by force, as it had
+been so successfully resisted five years before by the armies of the
+States associated with those of France. Moreover the first step at
+sequestration had been actually taken. The Emperor had peremptorily
+summoned the Elector of Brandenburg and all other parties interested to
+appear before him on the 1st of August in Prague. There could be but one
+object in this citation, to drive Brandenburg and the States out of the
+duchies until the Imperial decision as to the legitimate sovereignty
+should be given. Neuburg being already disposed of and his claims ceded
+to the Emperor, what possibility was there in such circumstances of
+saving one scrap of the territory from the clutch of the League? None
+certainly if the Republic faltered in its determination, and yielded to
+the cowardly advice of James. "To comply with the summons," said
+Barneveld, "and submit to its consequences will be an irreparable injury
+to the electoral house of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to our
+co-religionists everywhere, and a very great disgrace to both their
+Majesties and to us."
+
+He continued, through the ambassador in London, to hold up to the King,
+in respectful but plain language, the shamelessness of his conduct in
+dispensing the enemy from his pledge to the mediators, when the Republic
+expressly, in deference to James, had given up the ampler guarantees of
+the treaty. The arrangement had been solemnly made, and consented to by
+all the provinces, acting in their separate and sovereign capacity. Such
+a radical change, even if it were otherwise permissible, could not be
+made without long debates, consultations, and votes by the several
+states. What could be more fatal at such a crisis than this childish and
+causeless delay. There could be no doubt in any statesman's eyes that the
+Spanish party meant war and a preparatory hoodwinking. And it was even
+worse for the government of the Republic to be outwitted in diplomacy
+than beaten in the field.
+
+"Every man here," said the Advocate, "has more apprehension of fraud than
+of force. According to the constitution of our state, to be overcome by
+superior power must be endured, but to be overreached by trickery is a
+reproach to the government."
+
+The summer passed away. The States maintained their positions in the
+duchies, notwithstanding the objurgations of James, and Barneveld
+remained on his watch-tower observing every movement of the
+fast-approaching war, and refusing at the price of the whole territory in
+dispute to rescue Wesel and Aix-la-Chapelle from the grasp of the League.
+
+Caron came to the Hague to have personal consultations with the
+States-General, the Advocate, and Prince Maurice, and returned before the
+close of the year. He had an audience of the King at the palace of
+Whitehall early in November, and found him as immovable as ever in his
+apathetic attitude in regard to the affairs of Germany. The murder of Sir
+Thomas Overbury and the obscene scandals concerning the King's beloved
+Carr and his notorious bride were then occupying the whole attention of
+the monarch, so that he had not even time for theological lucubrations,
+still less for affairs of state on which the peace of Christendom and the
+fate of his own children were hanging.
+
+The Ambassador found him sulky and dictatorial, but insisted on
+expressing once more to him the apprehensions felt by the States-General
+in regard to the trickery of the Spanish party in the matter of Cleve and
+Julich. He assured his Majesty that they had no intention of maintaining
+the Treaty of Xanten, and respectfully requested that the King would no
+longer urge the States to surrender the places held by them. It was a
+matter of vital importance to retain them, he said.
+
+"Sir Henry Wotton told me," replied James, "that the States at his
+arrival were assembled to deliberate on this matter, and he had no doubt
+that they would take a resolution in conformity with my intention. Now I
+see very well that you don't mean to give up the places. If I had known
+that before, I should not have warned the Archduke so many times, which I
+did at the desire of the States themselves. And now that the Archdukes
+are ready to restore their cities, you insist on holding yours. That is
+the dish you set before me."
+
+And upon this James swore a mighty oath, and beat himself upon the
+breast.
+
+"Now and nevermore will I trouble myself about the States' affairs, come
+what come will," he continued. "I have always been upright in my words
+and my deeds, and I am not going to embark myself in a wicked war because
+the States have plunged themselves into one so entirely unjust. Next
+summer the Spaniard means to divide himself into two or three armies in
+order to begin his enterprises in Germany."
+
+Caron respectfully intimated that these enterprises would be most
+conveniently carried on from the very advantageous positions which he
+occupied in the duchies. "No," said the King, "he must restore them on
+the same day on which you make your surrender, and he will hardly come
+back in a hurry."
+
+"Quite the contrary," said the Ambassador, "they will be back again in a
+twinkling, and before we have the slightest warning of their intention."
+
+But it signified not the least what Caron said. The King continued to
+vociferate that the States had never had any intention of restoring the
+cities.
+
+"You mean to keep them for yourselves," he cried, "which is the greatest
+injustice that could be perpetrated. You have no right to them, and they
+belong to other people."
+
+The Ambassador reminded him that the Elector of Brandenburg was well
+satisfied that they should be occupied by the States for his greater
+security and until the dispute should be concluded.
+
+"And that will never be," said James; "never, never. The States are
+powerful enough to carry on the war all alone and against all the world."
+
+And so he went on, furiously reiterating the words with which he had
+begun the conversation, "without accepting any reasons whatever in
+payment," as poor Caron observed.
+
+"It makes me very sad," said the Ambassador, "to find your Majesty so
+impatient and so resolved. If the names of the kings are to be omitted
+from the document, the Treaty of Xanten should at least be modified
+accordingly."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," said James; "I don't understand it so at all. I
+speak plainly and without equivocation. It must be enough for the States
+that I promise them, in case the enemy is cheating or is trying to play
+any trick whatever, or is seeking to break the Treaty of Xanten in a
+single point, to come to their assistance in person."
+
+And again the warlike James swore a big oath and smote his breast,
+affirming that he meant everything sincerely; that he cheated no one, but
+always spoke his thoughts right on, clearly and uprightly.
+
+It was certainly not a cheerful prospect for the States. Their chief ally
+was determined that they should disarm, should strip themselves naked,
+when the mightiest conspiracy against the religious freedom and
+international independence of Europe ever imagined was perfecting itself
+before their eyes, and when hostile armies, more numerous than ever
+before known, were at their very door. To wait until the enemy was at
+their throat, and then to rely upon a king who trembled at the sight of a
+drawn sword, was hardly the highest statesmanship. Even if it had been
+the chivalrous Henry instead of the pacific James that had held out the
+promise of help, they would have been mad to follow such counsel.
+
+The conversation lasted more than an hour. It was in vain that Caron
+painted in dark colours the cruel deeds done by the Spaniards in Mulheim
+and Aachen, and the proceedings of the Archbishop of Cologne in Rees. The
+King was besotted, and no impression could be made upon him.
+
+"At any rate," said the Envoy, "the arrangement cannot be concluded
+without the King of France."
+
+"What excuse is that?" said James. "Now that the King is entirely
+Spanish, you are trying to excuse your delays by referring to him. You
+have deferred rescuing the poor city of Wesel from the hands of the
+Spaniard long enough. I am amazed to have heard never a word from you on
+that subject since your departure. I had expressed my wish to you clearly
+enough that you should inform the States of my intention to give them any
+assurance they chose to demand."
+
+Caron was much disappointed at the humour of his Majesty. Coming freshly
+as he did from the council of the States, and almost from the seat of
+war, he had hoped to convince and content him. But the King was very
+angry with the States for putting him so completely in the wrong. He had
+also been much annoyed at their having failed to notify him of their
+military demonstration in the Electorate of Cologne to avenge the
+cruelties practised upon the Protestants there. He asked Caron if he was
+instructed to give him information regarding it. Being answered in the
+negative, he said he had thought himself of sufficient importance to the
+States and enough in their confidence to be apprised of their military
+movements. It was for this, he said, that his ambassador sat in their
+council. Caron expressed the opinion that warlike enterprises of the kind
+should be kept as secret as possible in order to be successful. This the
+King disputed, and loudly declared his vexation at being left in
+ignorance of the matter. The Ambassador excused himself as well as he
+could, on the ground that he had been in Zealand when the troops were
+marching, but told the King his impression that they had been sent to
+chastise the people of Cologne for their cruelty in burning and utterly
+destroying the city of Mulheim.
+
+"That is none of your affair," said the King.
+
+"Pardon me, your Majesty," replied Caron, "they are our fellow
+religionists, and some one at least ought to resent the cruelty practised
+upon them."
+
+The King admitted that the destruction of the city had been an
+unheard--of cruelty, and then passed on to speak of the quarrel between
+the Duke and City of Brunswick, and other matters. The interview ended,
+and the Ambassador, very downhearted, went to confer with the Secretary
+of State Sir Ralph Winwood, and Sir Henry Wotton.
+
+He assured these gentlemen that without fully consulting the French
+government these radical changes in the negotiations would never be
+consented to by the States. Winwood promised to confer at once with the
+French ambassador, admitting it to be impossible for the King to take up
+this matter alone. He would also talk with the Archduke's ambassador next
+day noon at dinner, who was about leaving for Brussels, and "he would put
+something into his hand that he might take home with him."
+
+"When he is fairly gone," said Caron, "it is to be hoped that the King's
+head will no longer be so muddled about these things. I wish it with all
+my heart."
+
+It was a dismal prospect for the States. The one ally on whom they had a
+right to depend, the ex-Calvinist and royal Defender of the Faith, in
+this mortal combat of Protestantism with the League, was slipping out of
+their grasp with distracting lubricity. On the other hand, the Most
+Christian King, a boy of fourteen years, was still in the control of a
+mother heart and soul with the League--so far as she had heart or
+soul--was betrothed to the daughter of Spain, and saw his kingdom torn to
+pieces and almost literally divided among themselves by rebellious
+princes, who made use of the Spanish marriages as a pretext for unceasing
+civil war.
+
+The Queen-Mother was at that moment at Bordeaux, and an emissary from the
+princes was in London. James had sent to offer his mediation between them
+and the Queen. He was fond of mediation. He considered it his special
+mission in the world to mediate. He imagined himself as looked up to by
+the nations as the great arbitrator of Christendom, and was wont to issue
+his decrees as if binding in force and infallible by nature. He had
+protested vigorously against the Spanish-French marriages, and declared
+that the princes were justified in formalizing an opposition to them, at
+least until affairs in France were restored to something like order. He
+warned the Queen against throwing the kingdom "into the combustion of war
+without necessity," and declared that, if she would trust to his
+guidance, she might make use of him as if her affairs were his own. An
+indispensable condition for much assistance, however, would be that the
+marriages should be put off.
+
+As James was himself pursuing a Spanish marriage for his son as the chief
+end and aim of his existence, there was something almost humorous in this
+protest to the Queen-Dowager and in his encouragement of mutiny in France
+in order to prevent a catastrophe there which he desired at home.
+
+The same agent of the princes, de Monbaran by name, was also privately
+accredited by them to the States with instructions to borrow 200,000
+crowns of them if he could. But so long as the policy of the Republic was
+directed by Barneveld, it was not very probable that, while maintaining
+friendly and even intimate relations with the legitimate government, she
+would enter into negotiations with rebels against it, whether princes or
+plebeians, and oblige them with loans. "He will call on me soon, no
+doubt," said Caron, "but being so well instructed as to your Mightinesses
+intentions in this matter, I hope I shall keep him away from you."
+Monbaran was accordingly kept away, but a few weeks later another
+emissary of Conde and Bouillon made his appearance at the Hague, de
+Valigny by name. He asked for money and for soldiers to reinforce
+Bouillon's city of Sedan, but he was refused an audience of the
+States-General. Even the martial ardour of Maurice and his sympathy for
+his relatives were cooled by this direct assault on his pocket. "The
+Prince," wrote the French ambassador, du Maurier, "will not furnish him
+or his adherents a thousand crowns, not if they had death between their
+teeth. Those who think it do not know how he loves his money."
+
+In the very last days of the year (1615) Caron had another interview with
+the King in which James was very benignant. He told the Ambassador that
+he should wish the States to send him some special commissioners to make
+a new treaty with him, and to treat of all unsettled affairs which were
+daily arising between the inhabitants of the respective countries. He
+wished to make a firmer union and accord between Great Britain and the
+Netherlands. He was very desirous of this, "because," said he, "if we can
+unite with and understand each other, we have under God no one what ever
+to fear, however mighty they may be."
+
+Caron duly notified Barneveld of these enthusiastic expressions of his
+Majesty. The Advocate too was most desirous of settling the troublesome
+questions about the cloth trade, the piracies, and other matters, and was
+in favour of the special commission. In regard to a new treaty of
+alliance thus loosely and vaguely suggested, he was not so sanguine
+however. He had too much difficulty in enforcing the interests of
+Protestantism in the duchies against the infatuation of James in regard
+to Spain, and he was too well aware of the Spanish marriage delusion,
+which was the key to the King's whole policy, to put much faith in these
+casual outbursts of eternal friendship with the States. He contented
+himself therefore with cautioning Caron to pause before committing
+himself to any such projects. He had frequently instructed him, however,
+to bring the disputed questions to his Majesty's notice as often as
+possible with a view to amicable arrangement.
+
+This preventive policy in regard to France was highly approved by
+Barneveld, who was willing to share in the blame profusely heaped upon
+such sincere patriots and devoted Protestants as Duplessis-Mornay and
+others, who saw small advantage to the great cause from a mutiny against
+established government, bad as it was, led by such intriguers as Conde
+and Bouillon. Men who had recently been in the pay of Spain, and one of
+whom had been cognizant of Biron's plot against the throne and life of
+Henry IV., to whom sedition was native atmosphere and daily bread, were
+not likely to establish a much more wholesome administration than that of
+Mary de' Medici. Prince Maurice sympathized with his relatives by
+marriage, who were leading the civil commotions in France and
+endeavouring to obtain funds in the Netherlands. It is needless to say
+that Francis Aerssens was deep in their intrigues, and feeding full the
+grudge which the Stadholder already bore the Advocate for his policy on
+this occasion.
+
+The Advocate thought it best to wait until the young king should himself
+rise in mutiny against his mother and her minions. Perhaps the downfall
+of the Concini's and their dowager and the escape of Lewis from thraldom
+might not be so distant as it seemed. Meantime this was the legal
+government, bound to the States by treaties of friendship and alliance,
+and it would be a poor return for the many favours and the constant aid
+bestowed by Henry IV. on the Republic, and an imbecile mode of avenging
+his murder to help throw his kingdom into bloodshed and confusion before
+his son was able to act for himself. At the same time he did his best to
+cultivate amicable relations with the princes, while scrupulously
+abstaining from any sympathy with their movements. "If the Prince and the
+other gentlemen come to court," he wrote to Langerac, "you will treat
+them with all possible caresses so far as can be done without disrespect
+to the government."
+
+While the British court was occupied with the foul details of the
+Overbury murder and its consequences, a crime of a more commonplace
+nature, but perhaps not entirely without influence on great political
+events, had startled the citizens of the Hague. It was committed in the
+apartments of the Stadholder and almost under his very eyes. A jeweller
+of Amsterdam, one John van Wely, had come to the court of Maurice to lay
+before him a choice collection of rare jewellery. In his caskets were
+rubies and diamonds to the value of more than 100,000 florins, which
+would be the equivalent of perhaps ten times as much to-day. In the
+Prince's absence the merchant was received by a confidential groom of the
+chambers, John of Paris by name, and by him, with the aid of a third
+John, a soldier of his Excellency's guard, called Jean de la Vigne,
+murdered on the spot. The deed was done in the Prince's private study.
+The unfortunate jeweller was shot, and to make sure was strangled with
+the blue riband of the Order of the Garter recently conferred upon
+Maurice, and which happened to be lying conspicuously in the room.
+
+The ruffians had barely time to take possession of the booty, to thrust
+the body behind the tapestry of the chamber, and to remove the more
+startling evidences of the crime, when the Prince arrived. He supped soon
+afterwards in the same room, the murdered jeweller still lying behind the
+arras. In the night the valet and soldier carried the corpse away from
+the room, down the stairs, and through the great courtyard, where,
+strange to say, no sentinels were on duty, and threw it into an ashpit.
+
+A deed so bloody, audacious, and stupid was of course soon discovered and
+the murderers arrested and executed. Nothing would remove the incident
+from the catalogue of vulgar crimes, or even entitle it to a place in
+history save a single circumstance. The celebrated divine John
+Uytenbogaert, leader among the Arminians, devoted friend of Barneveld,
+and up to that moment the favorite preacher of Maurice, stigmatized
+indeed, as we have seen, by the orthodox as "Court Trumpeter," was
+requested by the Prince to prepare the chief criminal for death. He did
+so, and from that day forth the Stadholder ceased to be his friend,
+although regularly listening to his preaching in the French chapel of the
+court for more than a year longer. Some time afterwards the Advocate
+informed Uytenbogaert that the Prince was very much embittered against
+him. "I knew it well," says the clergyman in his memoirs, "but not the
+reasons for it, nor do I exactly comprehend them to this day. Truly I
+have some ideas relating to certain things which I was obliged to do in
+discharge of my official duty, but I will not insist upon them, nor will
+I reveal them to any man."
+
+These were mysterious words, and the mystery is said to have been
+explained; for it would seem that the eminent preacher was not so
+entirely reticent among his confidential friends as before the public.
+Uytenbogaert--so ran the tale--in the course of his conversation with the
+condemned murderer, John of Paris, expressed a natural surprise that
+there should have been no soldiers on guard in the court on the evening
+when the crime was committed and the body subsequently removed. The valet
+informed him that he had for a long time been empowered by the Prince to
+withdraw the sentinels from that station, and that they had been
+instructed to obey his orders--Maurice not caring that they should be
+witnesses to the equivocal kind of female society that John of Paris was
+in the habit of introducing of an evening to his master's apartments. The
+valet had made use of this privilege on the night in question to rid
+himself of the soldiers who would have been otherwise on guard.
+
+The preacher felt it his duty to communicate these statements to the
+Prince, and to make perhaps a somewhat severe comment upon them. Maurice
+received the information sullenly, and, as soon as Uytenbogaert was gone,
+fell into a violent passion, throwing his hat upon the floor, stamping
+upon it, refusing to eat his supper, and allowing no one to speak to him.
+Next day some courtiers asked the clergyman what in the world he had been
+saying to the Stadholder.
+
+From that time forth his former partiality for the divine, on whose
+preaching he had been a regular attendant, was changed to hatred; a
+sentiment which lent a lurid colour to subsequent events.
+
+The attempts of the Spanish party by chicane or by force to get
+possession of the coveted territories continued year after year, and were
+steadily thwarted by the watchfulness of the States under guidance of
+Barneveld. The martial stadholder was more than ever for open war, in
+which he was opposed by the Advocate, whose object was to postpone and,
+if possible, to avert altogether the dread catastrophe which he foresaw
+impending over Europe. The Xanten arrangement seemed hopelessly thrown to
+the winds, nor was it destined to be carried out; the whole question of
+sovereignty and of mastership in those territories being swept
+subsequently into the general whirlpool of the Thirty Years' War. So long
+as there was a possibility of settlement upon that basis, the Advocate
+was in favour of settlement, but to give up the guarantees and play into
+the hands of the Catholic League was in his mind to make the Republic one
+of the conspirators against the liberties of Christendom.
+
+"Spain, the Emperor and the rest of them," said he, "make all three modes
+of pacification--the treaty, the guarantee by the mediating kings, the
+administration divided between the possessory princes--alike impossible.
+They mean, under pretext of sequestration, to make themselves absolute
+masters there. I have no doubt that Villeroy means sincerely, and
+understands the matter, but meantime we sit by the fire and burn. If the
+conflagration is neglected, all the world will throw the blame on us."
+
+Thus the Spaniards continued to amuse the British king with assurances of
+their frank desire to leave those fortresses and territories which they
+really meant to hold till the crack of doom. And while Gondemar was
+making these ingenuous assertions in London, his colleagues at Paris and
+at Brussels distinctly and openly declared that there was no authority
+whatever for them, that the Ambassador had received no such instructions,
+and that there was no thought of giving up Wesel or any other of the
+Protestant strongholds captured, whether in the duchies or out of them.
+And Gondemar, still more to keep that monarch in subjection, had been
+unusually flattering in regard to the Spanish marriage. "We are in great
+alarm here," said the Advocate, "at the tidings that the projected
+alliance of the Prince of Wales with the daughter of Spain is to be
+renewed; from which nothing good for his Majesty's person, his kingdom,
+nor for our state can be presaged. We live in hope that it will never
+be."
+
+But the other marriage was made. Despite the protest of James, the
+forebodings of Barneveld, and the mutiny of the princes, the youthful
+king of France had espoused Anne of Austria early in the year 1616. The
+British king did his best to keep on terms with France and Spain, and by
+no means renounced his own hopes. At the same time, while fixed as ever
+in his approbation of the policy pursued by the Emperor and the League,
+and as deeply convinced of their artlessness in regard to the duchies,
+the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Republic, he manifested more
+cordiality than usual in his relations with the States. Minor questions
+between the countries he was desirous of arranging--so far as matters of
+state could be arranged by orations--and among the most pressing of these
+affairs were the systematic piracy existing and encouraged in English
+ports, to the great damage of all seafaring nations and to the Hollanders
+most of all, and the quarrel about the exportation of undyed cloths,
+which had almost caused a total cessation of the woollen trade between
+the two countries. The English, to encourage their own artisans, had
+forbidden the export of undyed cloths, and the Dutch had retorted by
+prohibiting the import of dyed ones.
+
+The King had good sense enough to see the absurdity of this condition of
+things, and it will be remembered that Barneveld had frequently urged
+upon the Dutch ambassador to bring his Majesty's attention to these
+dangerous disputes. Now that the recovery of the cautionary towns had
+been so dexterously and amicably accomplished, and at so cheap a rate, it
+seemed a propitious moment to proceed to a general extinction of what
+would now be called "burning questions."
+
+James was desirous that new high commissioners might be sent from the
+States to confer with himself and his ministers upon the subjects just
+indicated, as well as upon the fishery questions as regarded both
+Greenland and Scotland, and upon the general affairs of India.
+
+He was convinced, he said to Caron, that the sea had become more and more
+unsafe and so full of freebooters that the like was never seen or heard
+of before. It will be remembered that the Advocate had recently called
+his attention to the fact that the Dutch merchants had lost in two months
+800,000 florins' worth of goods by English pirates.
+
+The King now assured the Ambassador of his intention of equipping a fleet
+out of hand and to send it forth as speedily as possible under command of
+a distinguished nobleman, who would put his honour and credit in a
+successful expedition, without any connivance or dissimulation whatever.
+In order thoroughly to scour these pirates from the seas, he expressed
+the hope that their Mightinesses the States would do the same either
+jointly or separately as they thought most advisable. Caron bluntly
+replied that the States had already ten or twelve war-ships at sea for
+this purpose, but that unfortunately, instead of finding any help from
+the English in this regard, they had always found the pirates favoured in
+his Majesty's ports, especially in Ireland and Wales.
+
+"Thus they have so increased in numbers," continued the Ambassador, "that
+I quite believe what your Majesty says, that not a ship can pass with
+safety over the seas. More over, your Majesty has been graciously pleased
+to pardon several of these corsairs, in consequence of which they have
+become so impudent as to swarm everywhere, even in the river Thames,
+where they are perpetually pillaging honest merchantmen."
+
+"I confess," said the King, "to having pardoned a certain Manning, but
+this was for the sake of his old father, and I never did anything so
+unwillingly in my life. But I swear that if it were the best nobleman in
+England, I would never grant one of them a pardon again."
+
+Caron expressed his joy at hearing such good intentions on the part of
+his Majesty, and assured him that the States-General would be equally
+delighted.
+
+In the course of the summer the Dutch ambassador had many opportunities
+of seeing the King very confidentially, James having given him the use of
+the royal park at Bayscot, so that during the royal visits to that place
+Caron was lodged under his roof.
+
+On the whole, James had much regard and respect for Noel de Caron. He
+knew him to be able, although he thought him tiresome. It is amusing to
+observe the King and Ambassador in their utterances to confidential
+friends each frequently making the charge of tediousness against the
+other. "Caron's general education," said James on one occasion to Cecil,
+"cannot amend his native German prolixity, for had I not interrupted him,
+it had been tomorrow morning before I had begun to speak. God preserve me
+from hearing a cause debated between Don Diego and him! . . . But in
+truth it is good dealing with so wise and honest a man, although he be
+somewhat longsome."
+
+Subsequently James came to Whitehall for a time, and then stopped at
+Theobalds for a few days on his way to Newmarket, where he stayed until
+Christmas. At Theobalds he sent again for the Ambassador, saying that at
+Whitehall he was so broken down with affairs that it would be impossible
+to live if he stayed there.
+
+He asked if the States were soon to send the commissioners, according to
+his request, to confer in regard to the cloth-trade. Without interference
+of the two governments, he said, the matter would never be settled. The
+merchants of the two countries would never agree except under higher
+authority.
+
+"I have heard both parties," he said, "the new and the old companies, two
+or three times in full council, and tried to bring them to an agreement,
+but it won't do. I have heard that My Lords the States have been hearing
+both sides, English and the Hollanders, over and over again, and that the
+States have passed a provisional resolution, which however does not suit
+us. Now it is not reasonable, as we are allies, that our merchants should
+be obliged to send their cloths roundabout, not being allowed either to
+sell them in the United Provinces or to pass them through your
+territories. I wish I could talk with them myself, for I am certain, if
+they would send some one here, we could make an agreement. It is not
+necessary that one should take everything from them, or that one should
+refuse everything to us. I am sure there are people of sense in your
+assembly who will justify me in favouring my own people so far as I
+reasonably can, and I know very well that My Lords the States must stand
+up for their own citizens. If we have been driving this matter to an
+extreme and see that we are ruining each other, we must take it up again
+in other fashion, for Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow. Let the
+commissioners come as soon as possible. I know they have complaints to
+make, and I have my complaints also. Therefore we must listen to each
+other, for I protest before God that I consider the community of your
+state with mine to be so entire that, if one goes to perdition, the other
+must quickly follow it."
+
+Thus spoke James, like a wise and thoughtful sovereign interested in the
+welfare of his subjects and allies, with enlightened ideas for the time
+upon public economy. It is difficult, in the man conversing thus amicably
+and sensibly with the Dutch ambassador, to realise the shrill pedant
+shrieking against Vorstius, the crapulous comrade of Carrs and Steenies,
+the fawning solicitor of Spanish marriages, the "pepperer" and hangman of
+Puritans, the butt and dupe of Gondemar and Spinola.
+
+"I protest," he said further, "that I seek nothing in your state but all
+possible friendship and good fellowship. My own subjects complain
+sometimes that your people follow too closely on their heels, and confess
+that your industry goes far above their own. If this be so, it is a lean
+kind of reproach; for the English should rather study to follow you.
+Nevertheless, when industry is directed by malice, each may easily be
+attempting to snap an advantage from the other. I have sometimes
+complained of many other things in which my subjects suffered great
+injustice from you, but all that is excusable. I will willingly listen to
+your people and grant them to be in the right when they are so. But I
+will never allow them to be in the right when they mistrust me. If I had
+been like many other princes, I should never have let the advantage of
+the cautionary towns slip out of my fingers, but rather by means of them
+attempted to get even a stronger hold on your country. I have had plenty
+of warnings from great statesmen in France, Germany, and other nations
+that I ought to give them up nevermore. Yet you know how frankly and
+sincerely I acquitted myself in that matter without ever making
+pretensions upon your state than the pretensions I still make to your
+friendship and co-operation."
+
+James, after this allusion to an important transaction to be explained in
+the next chapter, then made an observation or two on a subject which was
+rapidly overtopping all others in importance to the States, and his
+expressions were singularly at variance with his last utterances in that
+regard. "I tell you," he said, "that you have no right to mistrust me in
+anything, not even in the matter of religion. I grieve indeed to hear
+that your religious troubles continue. You know that in the beginning I
+occupied myself with this affair, but fearing that my course might be
+misunderstood, and that it might be supposed that I was seeking to
+exercise authority in your republic, I gave it up, and I will never
+interfere with the matter again, but will ever pray God that he may give
+you a happy issue out of these troubles."
+
+Alas! if the King had always kept himself on that height of amiable
+neutrality, if he had been able to govern himself in the future by these
+simplest principles of reason and justice, there might have been perhaps
+a happier issue from the troubles than time was like to reveal.
+
+Once more James referred to the crisis pending in German affairs, and as
+usual spoke of the Clove and Julich question as if it were a simple
+matter to be settled by a few strokes of the pen and a pennyworth of
+sealing-wax, instead of being the opening act in a vast tragedy, of which
+neither he, nor Carom nor Barneveld, nor Prince Maurice, nor the youthful
+king of France, nor Philip, nor Matthias, nor any of the men now foremost
+in the conduct of affairs, was destined to see the end.
+
+The King informed Caron that he had just received most satisfactory
+assurances from the Spanish ambassador in his last audience at Whitehall.
+
+"He has announced to me on the part of the King his master with great
+compliments that his Majesty seeks to please me and satisfy me in
+everything that I could possibly desire of him," said James, rolling over
+with satisfaction these unctuous phrases as if they really had any
+meaning whatever.
+
+"His Majesty says further," added the King, "that as he has been at
+various times admonished by me, and is daily admonished by other princes,
+that he ought to execute the treaty of Xanten by surrendering the city of
+Wesel and all other places occupied by Spinola, he now declares himself
+ready to carry out that treaty in every point. He will accordingly
+instruct the Archduke to do this, provided the Margrave of Brandenburg
+and the States will do the same in regard to their captured places. As he
+understands however that the States have been fortifying Julich even as
+he might fortify Wesel, he would be glad that no innovation be made
+before the end of the coming month of March. When this term shall have
+expired, he will no longer be bound by these offers, but will proceed to
+fortify Wesel and the other places, and to hold them as he best may for
+himself. Respect for me has alone induced his Majesty to make this
+resolution."
+
+We have already seen that the Spanish ambassador in Paris was at this
+very time loudly declaring that his colleague in London had no commission
+whatever to make these propositions. Nor when they were in the slightest
+degree analysed, did they appear after all to be much better than
+threats. Not a word was said of guarantees. The names of the two kings
+were not mentioned. It was nothing but Albert and Spinola then as always,
+and a recommendation that Brandenburg and the States and all the
+Protestant princes of Germany should trust to the candour of the Catholic
+League. Caron pointed out to the King that in these proposals there were
+no guarantees nor even promises that the fortresses would not be
+reoccupied at convenience of the Spaniards. He engaged however to report
+the whole statement to his masters. A few weeks afterwards the Advocate
+replied in his usual vein, reminding the King through the Ambassador that
+the Republic feared fraud on the part of the League much more than force.
+He also laid stress on the affairs of Italy, considering the fate of
+Savoy and the conflicts in which Venice was engaged as components of a
+general scheme. The States had been much solicited, as we have seen, to
+render assistance to the Duke of Savoy, the temporary peace of Asti being
+already broken, and Barneveld had been unceasing in his efforts to arouse
+France as well as England to the danger to themselves and to all
+Christendom should Savoy be crushed. We shall have occasion to see the
+prominent part reserved to Savoy in the fast opening debate in Germany.
+Meantime the States had sent one Count of Nassau with a couple of
+companies to Charles Emmanuel, while another (Ernest) had just gone to
+Venice at the head of more than three thousand adventurers. With so many
+powerful armies at their throats, as Barneveld had more than once
+observed, it was not easy for them to despatch large forces to the other
+end of Europe, but he justly reminded his allies that the States were now
+rendering more effective help to the common cause by holding great
+Spanish armies in check on their own frontier than if they assumed a more
+aggressive line in the south. The Advocate, like every statesman worthy
+of the name, was accustomed to sweep the whole horizon in his
+consideration of public policy, and it will be observed that he always
+regarded various and apparently distinct and isolated movements in
+different parts of Europe as parts of one great whole. It is easy enough
+for us, centuries after the record has been made up, to observe the
+gradual and, as it were, harmonious manner in which the great Catholic
+conspiracy against the liberties of Europe was unfolded in an ever
+widening sphere. But to the eyes of contemporaries all was then misty and
+chaotic, and it required the keen vision of a sage and a prophet to
+discern the awful shape which the future might assume. Absorbed in the
+contemplation of these portentous phenomena, it was not unnatural that
+the Advocate should attach less significance to perturbations nearer
+home. Devoted as was his life to save the great European cause of
+Protestantism, in which he considered political and religious liberty
+bound up, from the absolute extinction with which it was menaced, he
+neglected too much the furious hatreds growing up among Protestants
+within the narrow limits of his own province. He was destined one day to
+be rudely awakened. Meantime he was occupied with organizing a general
+defence of Italy, Germany, France, and England, as well as the
+Netherlands, against the designs of Spain and the League.
+
+"We wish to know," he said in answer to the affectionate messages and
+fine promises of the King of Spain to James as reported by Caron, "what
+his Majesty of Great Britain has done, is doing, and is resolved to do
+for the Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice. If they ask you what we
+are doing, answer that we with our forces and vigour are keeping off from
+the throats of Savoy and Venice 2000 riders and 10,000 infantry, with
+which forces, let alone their experience, more would be accomplished than
+with four times the number of new troops brought to the field in Italy.
+This is our succour, a great one and a very costly one, for the expense
+of maintaining our armies to hold the enemy in check here is very great."
+
+He alluded with his usual respectful and quiet scorn to the arrangements
+by which James so wilfully allowed himself to be deceived.
+
+"If the Spaniard really leaves the duchies," he said, "it is a grave
+matter to decide whether on the one side he is not resolved by that means
+to win more over us and the Elector of Brandenburg in the debateable land
+in a few days than he could gain by force in many years, or on the other
+whether by it he does not intend despatching 1200 or 1500 cavalry and
+5000 or 6000 foot, all his most experienced soldiers, from the
+Netherlands to Italy, in order to give the law at his pleasure to the
+Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice, reserving his attack upon
+Germany and ourselves to the last. The Spaniards, standing under a
+monarchical government, can in one hour resolve to seize to-morrow all
+that they and we may abandon to-day. And they can carry such a resolution
+into effect at once. Our form of government does not permit this, so that
+our republic must be conserved by distrust and good garrisons."
+
+Thus during this long period of half hostilities Barneveld, while
+sincerely seeking to preserve the peace in Europe, was determined, if
+possible, that the Republic should maintain the strongest defensive
+position when the war which he foreboded should actually begin. Maurice
+and the war party had blamed him for the obstacles which he interposed to
+the outbreak of hostilities, while the British court, as we have seen,
+was perpetually urging him to abate from his demands and abandon both the
+well strengthened fortresses in the duchies and that strong citadel of
+distrust which in his often repeated language he was determined never to
+surrender. Spinola and the military party of Spain, while preaching
+peace, had been in truth most anxious for fighting. "The only honour I
+desire henceforth," said that great commander, "is to give battle to
+Prince Maurice." The generals were more anxious than the governments to
+make use of the splendid armies arrayed against each other in such
+proximity that, the signal for conflict not having been given, it was not
+uncommon for the soldiers of the respective camps to aid each other in
+unloading munition waggons, exchanging provisions and other articles of
+necessity, and performing other small acts of mutual service.
+
+But heavy thunder clouds hanging over the earth so long and so closely
+might burst into explosion at any moment. Had it not been for the
+distracted condition of France, the infatuation of the English king, and
+the astounding inertness of the princes of the German Union, great
+advantages might have been gained by the Protestant party before the
+storm should break. But, as the French ambassador at the Hague well
+observed, "the great Protestant Union of Germany sat with folded arms
+while Hannibal was at their gate, the princes of which it was composed
+amusing themselves with staring at each other. It was verifying," he
+continued, bitterly, "the saying of the Duke of Alva, 'Germany is an old
+dog which still can bark, but has lost its teeth to bite with.'"
+
+To such imbecility had that noble and gifted people--which had never been
+organized into a nation since it crushed the Roman empire and established
+a new civilization on its ruins, and was to wait centuries longer until
+it should reconstruct itself into a whole--been reduced by subdivision,
+disintegration, the perpetual dissolvent of religious dispute, and the
+selfish policy of infinitesimal dynasties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+   James still presses for the Payment of the Dutch Republic's Debt to
+   him--A Compromise effected, with Restitution of the Cautionary
+   Towns--Treaty of Loudun--James's Dream of a Spanish Marriage
+   revives--James visits Scotland--The States-General agree to furnish
+   Money and Troops in fulfilment of the Treaty of 1609--Death of
+   Concini--Villeroy returns to Power.
+
+Besides matters of predestination there were other subjects political and
+personal which increased the King's jealousy and hatred. The debt of the
+Republic to the British crown, secured by mortgage of the important
+sea-ports and fortified towns of Flushing, Brielle, Rammekens, and other
+strong places, still existed. The possession of those places by England
+was a constant danger and irritation to the States. It was an axe
+perpetually held over their heads. It threatened their sovereignty, their
+very existence. On more than one occasion, in foreign courts, the
+representatives of the Netherlands had been exposed to the taunt that the
+Republic was after all not an independent power, but a British province.
+The gibe had always been repelled in a manner becoming the envoys of a
+proud commonwealth; yet it was sufficiently galling that English
+garrisons should continue to hold Dutch towns; one of them among the most
+valuable seaports of the Republic,--the other the very cradle of its
+independence, the seizure of which in Alva's days had always been
+reckoned a splendid achievement. Moreover, by the fifth article of the
+treaty of peace between James and Philip III., although the King had
+declared himself bound by the treaties made by Elizabeth to deliver up
+the cautionary towns to no one but the United States, he promised Spain
+to allow those States a reasonable time to make peace with the Archdukes
+on satisfactory conditions. Should they refuse to do so, he held himself
+bound by no obligations to them, and would deal with the cities as he
+thought proper, and as the Archdukes themselves might deem just.
+
+The King had always been furious at "the huge sum of money to be
+advanced, nay, given, to the States," as he phrased it. "It is so far out
+of all square," he had said, "as on my conscience I cannot think that
+ever they craved it 'animo obtinendi,' but only by that objection to
+discourage me from any thought of getting any repayment of my debts from
+them when they shall be in peace. . . . Should I ruin myself for
+maintaining them? Should I bestow as much on them as cometh to the value
+of my whole yearly rent?" He had proceeded to say very plainly that, if
+the States did not make great speed to pay him all his debt so soon as
+peace was established, he should treat their pretence at independence
+with contempt, and propose dividing their territory between himself and
+the King of France.
+
+"If they be so weak as they cannot subsist either in peace or war," he
+said, "without I ruin myself for upholding them, in that case surely
+'minus malunv est eligendum,' the nearest harm is first to be eschewed, a
+man will leap out of a burning ship and drown himself in the sea; and it
+is doubtless a farther off harm for me to suffer them to fall again in
+the hands of Spain, and let God provide for the danger that may with time
+fall upon me or my posterity than presently to starve myself and mine
+with putting the meat in their mouth. Nay, rather if they be so weak as
+they can neither sustain themselves in peace nor war, let them leave this
+vainglorious thirsting for the title of a free state (which no people are
+worthy or able to enjoy that cannot stand by themselves like
+substantives), and 'dividantur inter nos;' I mean, let their countries be
+divided between France and me, otherwise the King of Spain shall be sure
+to consume us."
+
+Such were the eyes with which James had always regarded the great
+commonwealth of which he affected to be the ally, while secretly aspiring
+to be its sovereign, and such was his capacity to calculate political
+forces and comprehend coming events.
+
+Certainly the sword was hanging by a thread. The States had made no peace
+either with the Archdukes or with Spain. They had made a truce, half the
+term of which had already run by. At any moment the keys of their very
+house-door might be placed in the hands of their arch enemy. Treacherous
+and base as the deed would be, it might be defended by the letter of a
+treaty in which the Republic had no part; and was there anything too
+treacherous or too base to be dreaded from James Stuart?
+
+But the States owed the crown of England eight millions of florins,
+equivalent to about L750,000. Where was this vast sum to be found? It was
+clearly impossible for the States to beg or to borrow it, although they
+were nearly as rich as any of the leading powers at that day.
+
+It was the merit of Barneveld, not only that he saw the chance for a good
+bargain, but that he fully comprehended a great danger. Years long James
+had pursued the phantom of a Spanish marriage for his son. To achieve
+this mighty object, he had perverted the whole policy of the realm; he
+had grovelled to those who despised him, had repaid attempts at wholesale
+assassination with boundless sycophancy. It is difficult to imagine
+anything more abject than the attitude of James towards Philip. Prince
+Henry was dead, but Charles had now become Prince of Wales in his turn,
+and there was a younger infanta whose hand was not yet disposed of.
+
+So long as the possible prize of a Most Catholic princess was dangling
+before the eyes of the royal champion of Protestantism, so long there was
+danger that the Netherlanders might wake up some fine morning and see the
+flag of Spain waving over the walls of Flushing, Brielle, and Rammekens.
+
+It was in the interest of Spain too that the envoys of James at the Hague
+were perpetually goading Barneveld to cause the States' troops to be
+withdrawn from the duchies and the illusory treaty of Xanten to be
+executed. Instead of an eighth province added to the free Netherlands,
+the result of such a procedure would have been to place that territory
+enveloping them in the hands of the enemy; to strengthen and sharpen the
+claws, as the Advocate had called them, by which Spain was seeking to
+clutch and to destroy the Republic.
+
+The Advocate steadily refused to countenance such policy in the duchies,
+and he resolved on a sudden stroke to relieve the Commonwealth from the
+incubus of the English mortgage.
+
+James was desperately pushed for money. His minions, as insatiable in
+their demands on English wealth as the parasites who fed on the
+Queen-Regent were exhaustive of the French exchequer, were greedier than
+ever now that James, who feared to face a parliament disgusted with the
+meanness of his policy and depravity of his life, could not be relied
+upon to minister to their wants.
+
+The Advocate judiciously contrived that the proposal of a compromise
+should come from the English government. Noel de Caron, the veteran
+ambassador of the States in London, after receiving certain proposals,
+offered, under instructions' from Barneveld, to pay L250,000 in full of
+all demands. It was made to appear that the additional L250,000 was in
+reality in advance of his instructions. The mouths of the minions watered
+at the mention of so magnificent a sum of money in one lump.
+
+The bargain was struck. On the 11th June 1616, Sir Robert Sidney, who had
+become Lord Lisle, gave over the city of Flushing to the States,
+represented by the Seignior van Maldere, while Sir Horace Vere placed the
+important town of Brielle in the hands of the Seignior van Mathenesse.
+According to the terms of the bargain, the English garrisons were
+converted into two regiments, respectively to be commanded by Lord
+Lisle's son, now Sir Robert Sidney, and by Sir Horace Vere, and were to
+serve the States. Lisle, who had been in the Netherlands since the days
+of his uncle Leicester and his brother Sir Philip Sidney, now took his
+final departure for England.
+
+Thus this ancient burthen had been taken off the Republic by the masterly
+policy of the Advocate. A great source of dread for foreign complication
+was closed for ever.
+
+The French-Spanish marriages had been made. Henry IV. had not been
+murdered in vain. Conde and his confederates had issued their manifesto.
+A crisis came to the States, for Maurice, always inclined to take part
+for the princes, and urged on by Aerssens, who was inspired by a deadly
+hatred for the French government ever since they had insisted on his
+dismissal from his post, and who fed the Stadholder's growing jealousy of
+the Advocate to the full, was at times almost ready for joining in the
+conflict. It was most difficult for the States-General, led by Barneveld,
+to maintain relations of amity with a government controlled by Spain,
+governed by the Concini's, and wafted to and fro by every wind that blew.
+Still it was the government, and the States might soon be called upon, in
+virtue of their treaties with Henry, confirmed by Mary de' Medici, not
+only to prevent the daily desertion of officers and soldiers of the
+French regiments to the rebellious party, but to send the regiments
+themselves to the assistance of the King and Queen.
+
+There could be no doubt that the alliance of the French Huguenots at
+Grenoble with the princes made the position of the States very critical.
+Bouillon was loud in his demands upon Maurice and the States for money
+and reinforcements, but the Prince fortunately understood the character
+of the Duke and of Conde, and comprehended the nature of French politics
+too clearly to be led into extremities by passion or by pique. He said
+loudly to any one that chose to listen:
+
+"It is not necessary to ruin the son in order to avenge the death of the
+father. That should be left to the son, who alone has legitimate
+authority to do it." Nothing could be more sensible, and the remark
+almost indicated a belief on the Prince's part in Mary's complicity in
+the murder of her husband. Duplessis-Mornay was in despair, and, like all
+true patriots and men of earnest character, felt it almost an
+impossibility to choose between the two ignoble parties contending for
+the possession of France, and both secretly encouraged by France's deadly
+enemy.
+
+The Treaty of Loudun followed, a treaty which, said du Maurier, had about
+as many negotiators as there were individuals interested in the
+arrangements. The rebels were forgiven, Conde sold himself out for a
+million and a half livres and the presidency of the council, came to
+court, and paraded himself in greater pomp and appearance of power than
+ever. Four months afterwards he was arrested and imprisoned. He submitted
+like a lamb, and offered to betray his confederates.
+
+King James, faithful to his self-imposed part of mediator-general, which
+he thought so well became him, had been busy in bringing about this
+pacification, and had considered it eminently successful. He was now
+angry at this unexpected result. He admitted that Conde had indulged in
+certain follies and extravagancies, but these in his opinion all came out
+of the quiver of the Spaniard, "who was the head of the whole intrigue."
+He determined to recall Lord Hayes from Madrid and even Sir Thomas
+Edmonds from Paris, so great was his indignation. But his wrath was
+likely to cool under the soothing communications of Gondemar, and the
+rumour of the marriage of the second infanta with the Prince of Wales
+soon afterwards started into new life. "We hope," wrote Barneveld, "that
+the alliance of his Highness the Prince of Wales with the daughter of the
+Spanish king will make no further progress, as it will place us in the
+deepest embarrassment and pain."
+
+For the reports had been so rife at the English court in regard to this
+dangerous scheme that Caron had stoutly gone to the King and asked him
+what he was to think about it. "The King told me," said the Ambassador,
+"that there was nothing at all in it, nor any appearance that anything
+ever would come of it. It was true, he said, that on the overtures made
+to him by the Spanish ambassador he had ordered his minister in Spain to
+listen to what they had to say, and not to bear himself as if the
+overtures would be rejected."
+
+The coyness thus affected by James could hardly impose on so astute a
+diplomatist as Noel de Caron, and the effect produced upon the policy of
+one of the Republic's chief allies by the Spanish marriages naturally
+made her statesmen shudder at the prospect of their other powerful friend
+coming thus under the malign influence of Spain.
+
+"He assured me, however," said the Envoy, "that the Spaniard is not
+sincere in the matter, and that he has himself become so far alienated
+from the scheme that we may sleep quietly upon it." And James appeared at
+that moment so vexed at the turn affairs were taking in France, so
+wounded in his self-love, and so bewildered by the ubiquitous nature of
+nets and pitfalls spreading over Europe by Spain, that he really seemed
+waking from his delusion. Even Caron was staggered? "In all his talk he
+appears so far estranged from the Spaniard," said he, "that it would seem
+impossible that he should consider this marriage as good for his state. I
+have also had other advices on the subject which in the highest degree
+comfort me. Now your Mightinesses may think whatever you like about it."
+
+The mood of the King was not likely to last long in so comfortable a
+state. Meantime he took the part of Conde and the other princes,
+justified their proceedings to the special envoy sent over by Mary de'
+Medici, and wished the States to join with him in appealing to that Queen
+to let the affair, for his sake, pass over once more.
+
+"And now I will tell your Mightinesses," said Caron, reverting once more
+to the dreaded marriage which occupies so conspicuous a place in the
+strangely mingled and party-coloured tissue of the history of those days,
+"what the King has again been telling me about the alliance between his
+son and the Infanta. He hears from Carleton that you are in very great
+alarm lest this event may take place. He understands that the special
+French envoy at the Hague, M. de la None, has been representing to you
+that the King of Great Britain is following after and begging for the
+daughter of Spain for his son. He says it is untrue. But it is true that
+he has been sought and solicited thereto, and that in consequence there
+have been talks and propositions and rejoinders, but nothing of any
+moment. As he had already told me not to be alarmed until he should
+himself give me cause for it, he expressed his amazement that I had not
+informed your Mightinesses accordingly. He assured me again that he
+should not proceed further in the business without communicating it to
+his good friends and neighbours, that he considered My Lords the States
+as his best friends and allies, who ought therefore to conceive no
+jealousy in the matter."
+
+This certainly was cold comfort. Caron knew well enough, not a clerk in
+his office but knew well enough, that James had been pursuing this prize
+for years. For the King to represent himself as persecuted by Spain to
+give his son to the Infanta was about as ridiculous as it would have been
+to pretend that Emperor Matthias was persuading him to let his son-in-law
+accept the crown of Bohemia. It was admitted that negotiations for the
+marriage were going on, and the assertion that the Spanish court was more
+eager for it than the English government was not especially calculated to
+allay the necessary alarm of the States at such a disaster. Nor was it
+much more tranquillizing for them to be assured, not that the marriage
+was off, but that, when it was settled, they, as the King's good friends
+and neighbours, should have early information of it.
+
+"I told him," said the Ambassador, "that undoubtedly this matter was of
+the highest 'importance to your Mightinesses, for it was not good for us
+to sit between two kingdoms both so nearly allied with the Spanish
+monarch, considering the pretensions he still maintained to sovereignty
+over us. Although his Majesty might not now be willing to treat to our
+prejudice, yet the affair itself in the sequence of time must of
+necessity injure our commonwealth. We hoped therefore that it would never
+come to pass."
+
+Caron added that Ambassador Digby was just going to Spain on
+extraordinary mission in regard to this affair, and that eight or ten
+gentlemen of the council had been deputed to confer with his Majesty
+about it. He was still inclined to believe that the whole negotiation
+would blow over, the King continuing to exhort him not to be alarmed, and
+assuring him that there were many occasions moving princes to treat of
+great affairs although often without any effective issue.
+
+At that moment too the King was in a state of vehement wrath with the
+Spanish Netherlands on account of a stinging libel against himself, "an
+infamous and wonderfully scandalous pamphlet," as he termed it, called
+'Corona Regis', recently published at Louvain. He had sent Sir John
+Bennet as special ambassador to the Archdukes to demand from them justice
+and condign and public chastisement on the author of the work--a rector
+Putianus as he believed, successor of Justus Lipsius in his professorship
+at Louvain--and upon the printer, one Flaminius. Delays and excuses
+having followed instead of the punishment originally demanded, James had
+now instructed his special envoy in case of further delay or evasion to
+repudiate all further friendship or intercourse with the Archduke, to
+ratify the recall of his minister-resident Trumbull, and in effect to
+announce formal hostilities.
+
+"The King takes the thing wonderfully to heart," said Caron.
+
+James in effect hated to be made ridiculous, and we shall have occasion
+to see how important a part other publications which he deemed
+detrimental to the divinity of his person were to play in these affairs.
+
+Meantime it was characteristic of this sovereign that--while ready to
+talk of war with Philip's brother-in-law for a pamphlet, while seeking
+the hand of Philip's daughter for his son--he was determined at the very
+moment when the world was on fire to take himself, the heaven-born
+extinguisher of all political conflagrations, away from affairs and to
+seek the solace of along holiday in Scotland. His counsellors
+persistently and vehemently implored him to defer that journey until the
+following year at least, all the neighbouring nations being now in a
+state of war and civil commotion. But it was in vain. He refused to
+listen to them for a moment, and started for Scotland before the middle
+of March.
+
+Conde, who had kept France in a turmoil, had sought aid alternately from
+the Calvinists at Grenoble and the Jesuits in Rome, from Spain and from
+the Netherlands, from the Pope and from Maurice of Nassau, had thus been
+caged at last. But there was little gained. There was one troublesome but
+incompetent rebel the less, but there was no king in the land. He who
+doubts the influence of the individual upon the fate of a country and
+upon his times through long passages of history may explain the
+difference between France of 1609, with a martial king aided by great
+statesmen at its head, with an exchequer overflowing with revenue hoarded
+for a great cause--and that cause an attempt at least to pacificate
+Christendom and avert a universal and almost infinite conflict now
+already opening--and the France of 1617, with its treasures already
+squandered among ignoble and ruffianly favourites, with every office in
+state, church, court, and magistracy sold to the highest bidder, with a
+queen governed by an Italian adventurer who was governed by Spain, and
+with a little king who had but lately expressed triumph at his
+confirmation because now he should no longer be whipped, and who was just
+married to a daughter of the hereditary and inevitable foe of France.
+
+To contemplate this dreary interlude in the history of a powerful state
+is to shiver at the depths of inanity and crime to which mankind can at
+once descend. What need to pursue the barren, vulgar, and often repeated
+chronicle? France pulled at by scarcely concealed strings and made to
+perform fantastic tricks according as its various puppets were swerved
+this way or that by supple bands at Madrid and Rome is not a refreshing
+spectacle. The States-General at last, after an agitated discussion,
+agreed in fulfilment of the treaty of 1609 to send 4000 men, 2000 being
+French, to help the King against the princes still in rebellion. But the
+contest was a most bitter one, and the Advocate had a difficult part to
+play between a government and a rebellion, each more despicable than the
+other. Still Louis XIII. and his mother were the legitimate government
+even if ruled by Concini. The words of the treaty made with Henry IV.
+were plain, and the ambassadors of his son had summoned the States to
+fulfil it. But many impediments were placed in the path of obvious duty
+by the party led by Francis Aerssens.
+
+"I know very well," said the Advocate to ex-Burgomaster Hooft of
+Amsterdam, father of the great historian, sending him confidentially a
+copy of the proposals made by the French ambassadors, "that many in this
+country are striving hard to make us refuse to the King the aid demanded,
+notwithstanding that we are bound to do it by the pledges given not only
+by the States-General but by each province in particular. By this no one
+will profit but the Spaniard, who unquestionably will offer much, aye,
+very much, to bring about dissensions between France and us, from which I
+foresee great damage, inconvenience, and difficulties for the whole
+commonwealth and for Holland especially. This province has already
+advanced 1,000,000 florins to the general government on the money still
+due from France, which will all be lost in case the subsidy should be
+withheld, besides other evils which cannot be trusted to the pen."
+
+On the same day on which it had been decided at the Hague to send the
+troops, a captain of guards came to the aid of the poor little king and
+shot Concini dead one fine spring morning on the bridge of the Louvre.
+"By order of the King," said Vitry. His body was burned before the statue
+of Henry IV. by the people delirious with joy. "L'hanno ammazzato" was
+shouted to his wife, Eleanora Galigai, the supposed sorceress. They were
+the words in which Concini had communicated to the Queen the murder of
+her husband seven years before. Eleanora, too, was burned after having
+been beheaded. Thus the Marshal d'Ancre and wife ceased to reign in
+France.
+
+The officers of the French regiments at the Hague danced for joy on the
+Vyverberg when the news arrived there. The States were relieved from an
+immense embarrassment, and the Advocate was rewarded for having pursued
+what was after all the only practicable policy. "Do your best," said he
+to Langerac, "to accommodate differences so far as consistent with the
+conservation of the King's authority. We hope the princes will submit
+themselves now that the 'lapis offensionis,' according to their pretence,
+is got rid of. We received a letter from them to-day sealed with the
+King's arms, with the circumscription 'Periclitante Regno, Regis vita et
+Regia familia."
+
+The shooting of Concini seemed almost to convert the little king into a
+hero. Everyone in the Netherlands, without distinction of party, was
+delighted with the achievement. "I cannot represent to the King," wrote
+du Maurier to Villeroy, "one thousandth part of the joy of all these
+people who are exalting him to heaven for having delivered the earth from
+this miserable burthen. I can't tell you in what execration this public
+pest was held. His Majesty has not less won the hearts of this state than
+if he had gained a great victory over the Spaniards. You would not
+believe it, and yet it is true, that never were the name and reputation
+of the late king in greater reverence than those of our reigning king at
+this moment."
+
+Truly here was glory cheaply earned. The fame of Henry the Great, after a
+long career of brilliant deeds of arms, high statesmanship, and twenty
+years of bountiful friendship for the States, was already equalled by
+that of Louis XIII., who had tremblingly acquiesced in the summary
+execution of an odious adventurer--his own possible father--and who never
+had done anything else but feed his canary birds.
+
+As for Villeroy himself, the Ambassador wrote that he could not find
+portraits enough of him to furnish those who were asking for them since
+his return to power.
+
+Barneveld had been right in so often instructing Langerac to "caress the
+old gentleman."
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     And give advice. Of that, although always a spendthrift
+     Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
+     Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
+     Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
+     Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
+     Denoungced as an obstacle to peace
+     France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
+     Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
+     History has not too many really important and emblematic men
+     I hope and I fear
+     King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
+     Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
+     More apprehension of fraud than of force
+     Opening an abyss between government and people
+     Successful in this step, he is ready for greater ones
+     That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice
+     The magnitude of this wonderful sovereign's littleness
+     This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination
+     Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome
+     Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. 1617
+
+   Ferdinand of Gratz crowned King of Bohemia--His Enmity to
+   Protestants--Slawata and Martinitz thrown from the Windows of the
+   Hradschin--Real Beginning of the Thirty Years' War--The Elector-
+   Palatine's Intrigues in Opposition to the House of Austria--He
+   supports the Duke of Savoy--The Emperor Matthias visits Dresden--
+   Jubilee for the Hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation.
+
+When the forlorn emperor Rudolph had signed the permission for his
+brother Matthias to take the last crown but one from his head, he bit the
+pen in a paroxysm of helpless rage. Then rushing to the window of his
+apartment, he looked down on one of the most stately prospects that the
+palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural
+lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial
+situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering
+behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the
+rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with
+the half imaginary fortress-palaces of the Wyscherad. There, in the
+mythical legendary past of Bohemia had dwelt the shadowy Libuscha,
+daughter of Krok, wife of King Premysl, foundress of Prague, who, when
+wearied of her lovers, was accustomed to toss them from those heights
+into the river. Between these picturesque precipices lay the two Pragues,
+twin-born and quarrelsome, fighting each other for centuries, and growing
+up side by side into a double, bellicose, stormy, and most splendid city,
+bristling with steeples and spires, and united by the ancient
+many-statued bridge with its blackened mediaeval entrance towers.
+
+But it was not to enjoy the prospect that the aged, discrowned, solitary
+emperor, almost as dim a figure among sovereigns as the mystic Libuscha
+herself, was gazing from the window upon the imperial city.
+
+"Ungrateful Prague," he cried, "through me thou hast become thus
+magnificent, and now thou hast turned upon and driven away thy
+benefactor. May the vengeance of God descend upon thee; may my curse come
+upon thee and upon all Bohemia."
+
+History has failed to record the special benefits of the Emperor through
+which the city had derived its magnificence and deserved this
+malediction. But surely if ever an old man's curse was destined to be
+literally fulfilled, it seemed to be this solemn imprecation of Rudolph.
+Meantime the coronation of Matthias had gone on with pomp and popular
+gratulations, while Rudolph had withdrawn into his apartments to pass the
+little that was left to him of life in solitude and in a state of
+hopeless pique with Matthias, with the rest of his brethren, with all the
+world.
+
+And now that five years had passed since his death, Matthias, who had
+usurped so much power prematurely, found himself almost in the same
+condition as that to which he had reduced Rudolph.
+
+Ferdinand of Styria, his cousin, trod closely upon his heels. He was the
+presumptive successor to all his crowns, had not approved of the
+movements of Matthias in the lifetime of his brother, and hated the
+Vienna Protestant baker's son, Cardinal Clesel, by whom all those
+movements had been directed. Professor Taubmann, of Wittenberg,
+ponderously quibbling on the name of that prelate, had said that he was
+of "one hundred and fifty ass power." Whether that was a fair measure of
+his capacity may be doubted, but it certainly was not destined to be
+sufficient to elude the vengeance of Ferdinand, and Ferdinand would soon
+have him in his power.
+
+Matthias, weary of ambitious intrigue, infirm of purpose, and shattered
+in health, had withdrawn from affairs to devote himself to his gout and
+to his fair young wife, Archduchess Anna of Tyrol, whom at the age of
+fifty-four he had espoused.
+
+On the 29th June 1617, Ferdinand of Gratz was crowned King of Bohemia.
+The event was a shock and a menace to the Protestant cause all over the
+world. The sombre figure of the Archduke had for years appeared in the
+background, foreshadowing as it were the wrath to come, while throughout
+Bohemia and the neighbouring countries of Moravia, Silesia, and the
+Austrias, the cause of Protestantism had been making such rapid progress.
+The Emperor Maximilian II. had left five stalwart sons, so that there had
+seemed little probability that the younger line, the sons of his brother,
+would succeed. But all the five were childless, and now the son of
+Archduke Charles, who had died in 1590, had become the natural heir after
+the death of Matthias to the immense family honours--his cousins
+Maximilian and Albert having resigned their claims in his favour.
+
+Ferdinand, twelve years old at his father's death, had been placed under
+the care of his maternal uncle, Duke William of Bavaria. By him the boy
+was placed at the high school of Ingolstadt, to be brought up by the
+Jesuits, in company with Duke William's own son Maximilian, five years
+his senior. Between these youths, besides the tie of cousinship, there
+grew up the most intimate union founded on perfect sympathy in religion
+and politics.
+
+When Ferdinand entered upon the government of his paternal estates of
+Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, he found that the new religion, at which
+the Jesuits had taught him to shudder as at a curse and a crime, had been
+widely spreading. His father had fought against heresy with all his
+might, and had died disappointed and broken-hearted at its progress. His
+uncle of Bavaria, in letters to his son and nephew, had stamped into
+their minds with the enthusiasm of perfect conviction that all happiness
+and blessing for governments depended on the restoration and maintenance
+of the unity of the Catholic faith. All the evils in times past and
+present resulting from religious differences had been held up to the two
+youths by the Jesuits in the most glaring colours. The first duty of a
+prince, they had inculcated, was to extirpate all false religions, to
+give the opponents of the true church no quarter, and to think no
+sacrifice too great by which the salvation of human society, brought
+almost to perdition by the new doctrines, could be effected.
+
+Never had Jesuits an apter scholar than Ferdinand. After leaving school,
+he made a pilgrimage to Loretto to make his vows to the Virgin Mary of
+extirpation of heresy, and went to Rome to obtain the blessing of Pope
+Clement VIII.
+
+Then, returning to the government of his inheritance, he seized that
+terrible two-edged weapon of which the Protestants of Germany had taught
+him the use.
+
+"Cujus regio ejus religio;" to the prince the choice of religion, to the
+subject conformity with the prince, as if that formula of shallow and
+selfish princelings, that insult to the dignity of mankind, were the
+grand result of a movement which was to go on centuries after they had
+all been forgotten in their tombs. For the time however it was a valid
+and mischievous maxim. In Saxony Catholics and Calvinists were
+proscribed; in Heidelberg Catholics and Lutherans. Why should either
+Calvinists or Lutherans be tolerated in Styria? Why, indeed? No logic
+could be more inexorable, and the pupil of the Ingolstadt Jesuits
+hesitated not an instant to carry out their teaching with the very
+instrument forged for him by the Reformation. Gallows were erected in the
+streets of all his cities, but there was no hanging. The sight of them
+proved enough to extort obedience to his edict, that every man, woman,
+and child not belonging to the ancient church should leave his dominions.
+They were driven out in hordes in broad daylight from Gratz and other
+cities. Rather reign over a wilderness than over heretics was the device
+of the Archduke, in imitation of his great relative, Philip II. of Spain.
+In short space of time his duchies were as empty of Protestants as the
+Palatinate of Lutherans, or Saxony of Calvinists, or both of Papists.
+Even the churchyards were rifled of dead Lutherans and Utraquists, their
+carcasses thrown where they could no longer pollute the true believers
+mouldering by their side.
+
+It was not strange that the coronation as King of Bohemia of a man of
+such decided purposes--a country numbering ten Protestants to one
+Catholic--should cause a thrill and a flutter. Could it be doubted that
+the great elemental conflict so steadily prophesied by Barneveld and
+instinctively dreaded by all capable of feeling the signs of the time
+would now begin? It had begun. Of what avail would be Majesty-Letters and
+Compromises extorted by force from trembling or indolent emperors, now
+that a man who knew his own mind, and felt it to be a crime not to
+extirpate all religions but the one orthodox religion, had mounted the
+throne? It is true that he had sworn at his coronation to maintain the
+laws of Bohemia, and that the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise were part
+of the laws.
+
+But when were doctors ever wanting to prove the unlawfulness of law which
+interferes with the purposes of a despot and the convictions of the
+bigot?
+
+"Novus rex, nova lex," muttered the Catholics, lifting up their heads and
+hearts once more out of the oppression and insults which they had
+unquestionably suffered at the hands of the triumphant Reformers. "There
+are many empty poppy-heads now flaunting high that shall be snipped off,"
+said others. "That accursed German Count Thurn and his fellows, whom the
+devil has sent from hell to Bohemia for his own purposes, shall be
+disposed of now," was the general cry.
+
+It was plain that heresy could no longer be maintained except by the
+sword. That which had been extorted by force would be plucked back by
+force. The succession of Ferdinand was in brief a warshout to be echoed
+by all the Catholics of Europe. Before the end of the year the Protestant
+churches of Brunnau were sealed up. Those at Klostergrab were demolished
+in three days by command of the Archbishop of Prague. These dumb walls
+preached in their destruction more stirring sermons than perhaps would
+ever have been heard within them had they stood. This tearing in pieces
+of the Imperial patent granting liberty of Protestant worship, this
+summary execution done upon senseless bricks and mortar, was an act of
+defiance to the Reformed religion everywhere. Protestantism was struck in
+the face, spat upon, defied.
+
+The effect was instantaneous. Thurn and the other defenders of the
+Protestant faith were as prompt in action as the Catholics had been in
+words. A few months passed away. The Emperor was in Vienna, but his ten
+stadholders were in Prague. The fateful 23rd of May 1618 arrived.
+
+Slawata, a Bohemian Protestant, who had converted himself to the Roman
+Church in order to marry a rich widow, and who converted his peasants by
+hunting them to mass with his hounds, and Martinitz, the two stadholders
+who at Ferdinand's coronation had endeavoured to prevent him from
+including the Majesty-Letter among the privileges he was swearing to
+support, and who were considered the real authors of the royal letters
+revoking all religious rights of Protestants, were the most obnoxious of
+all. They were hurled from the council-chamber window of the Hradschin.
+The unfortunate secretary Fabricius was tossed out after them.
+Twenty-eight ells deep they fell, and all escaped unhurt by the fall;
+Fabricius being subsequently ennobled by a grateful emperor with the
+well-won title of Baron Summerset.
+
+The Thirty Years' War, which in reality had been going on for several
+years already, is dated from that day. A provisional government was
+established in Prague by the Estates under Protestant guidance, a college
+of thirty directors managing affairs.
+
+The Window-Tumble, as the event has always been called in history,
+excited a sensation in Europe. Especially the young king of France, whose
+political position should bring him rather into alliance with the rebels
+than the Emperor, was disgusted and appalled. He was used to rebellion.
+Since he was ten years old there had been a rebellion against himself
+every year. There was rebellion now. But his ministers had never been
+thrown out of window. Perhaps one might take some day to tossing out
+kings as well. He disapproved the process entirely.
+
+Thus the great conflict of Christendom, so long impending, seemed at last
+to have broken forth in full fury on a comparatively insignificant
+incident. Thus reasoned the superficial public, as if the throwing out of
+window of twenty stadholders could have created a general war in Europe
+had not the causes of war lain deep and deadly in the whole framework of
+society.
+
+The succession of Ferdinand to the throne of the holy Wenzel, in which
+his election to the German Imperial crown was meant to be involved, was a
+matter which concerned almost every household in Christendom. Liberty of
+religion, civil franchise, political charters, contract between
+government and subject, right to think, speak, or act, these were the
+human rights everywhere in peril. A compromise between the two religious
+parties had existed for half a dozen years in Germany, a feeble
+compromise by which men had hardly been kept from each others' throats.
+That compromise had now been thrown to the winds. The vast conspiracy of
+Spain, Rome, the House of Austria, against human liberty had found a
+chief in the docile, gloomy pupil of the Jesuits now enthroned in
+Bohemia, and soon perhaps to wield the sceptre of the Holy Roman Empire.
+There was no state in Europe that had not cause to put hand on
+sword-hilt. "Distrust and good garrisons," in the prophetic words of
+Barneveld, would now be the necessary resource for all intending to hold
+what had been gained through long years of toil, martyrdom, and hard
+fighting.
+
+The succession of Ferdinand excited especial dismay and indignation in
+the Palatinate. The young elector had looked upon the prize as his own.
+The marked advance of Protestant sentiment throughout the kingdom and its
+neighbour provinces had seemed to render the succession of an extreme
+Papist impossible. When Frederic had sued for and won the hand of the
+fair Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Great Britain, it was understood
+that the alliance would be more brilliant for her than it seemed. James
+with his usual vanity spoke of his son-in-law as a future king.
+
+It was a golden dream for the Elector and for the general cause of the
+Reformed religion. Heidelberg enthroned in the ancient capital of the
+Wenzels, Maximilians, and Rudolphs, the Catechism and Confession enrolled
+among the great statutes of the land, this was progress far beyond flimsy
+Majesty-Letters and Compromises, made only to be torn to pieces.
+
+Through the dim vista of futurity and in ecstatic vision no doubt even
+the Imperial crown might seem suspended over the Palatine's head. But
+this would be merely a midsummer's dream. Events did not whirl so rapidly
+as they might learn to do centuries later, and--the time for a Protestant
+to grasp at the crown of Germany could then hardly be imagined as
+ripening.
+
+But what the Calvinist branch of the House of Wittelsbach had indeed long
+been pursuing was to interrupt the succession of the House of Austria to
+the German throne. That a Catholic prince must for the immediate future
+continue to occupy it was conceded even by Frederic, but the electoral
+votes might surely be now so manipulated as to prevent a slave of Spain
+and a tool of the Jesuits from wielding any longer the sceptre of
+Charlemagne.
+
+On the other hand the purpose of the House of Austria was to do away with
+the elective principle and the prescriptive rights of the Estates in
+Bohemia first, and afterwards perhaps to send the Golden Bull itself to
+the limbo of wornout constitutional devices. At present however their
+object was to secure their hereditary sovereignty in Prague first, and
+then to make sure of the next Imperial election at Frankfurt. Time
+afterwards might fight still more in their favour, and fix them in
+hereditary possession of the German throne.
+
+The Elector-Palatine had lost no time. His counsellors even before the
+coronation of Ferdinand at Prague had done their best to excite alarm
+throughout Germany at the document by which Archdukes Maximilian and
+Albert had resigned all their hereditary claims in favour of Ferdinand
+and his male children. Should there be no such issue, the King of Spain
+claimed the succession for his own sons as great-grandchildren of Emperor
+Maximilian, considering himself nearer in the line than the Styrian
+branch, but being willing to waive his own rights in favour of so ardent
+a Catholic as Ferdinand. There was even a secret negotiation going on a
+long time between the new king of Bohemia and Philip to arrange for the
+precedence of the Spanish males over the Styrian females to the
+hereditary Austrian states, and to cede the province of Alsace to Spain.
+
+It was not wonderful that Protestant Germany should be alarmed. After a
+century of Protestantism, that Spain should by any possibility come to be
+enthroned again over Germany was enough to raise both Luther and Calvin
+from their graves. It was certainly enough to set the lively young
+palatine in motion. So soon as the election of Frederic was proclaimed,
+he had taken up the business in person. Fond of amusement, young, married
+to a beautiful bride of the royal house of England, he had hitherto left
+politics to his counsellors.
+
+Finding himself frustrated in his ambition by the election of another to
+the seat he had fondly deemed his own, he resolved to unseat him if he
+could, and, at any rate, to prevent the ulterior consequences of his
+elevation. He made a pilgrimage to Sedan, to confer with that
+irrepressible intriguer and Huguenot chieftain, the Duc de Bouillon. He
+felt sure of the countenance of the States-General, and, of course, of
+his near relative the great stadholder. He was resolved to invite the
+Duke of Lorraine to head the anti-Austrian party, and to stand for the
+kingship of the Romans and the Empire in opposition to Ferdinand. An
+emissary sent to Nancy came back with a discouraging reply. The Duke not
+only flatly refused the candidacy, but warned the Palatine that if it
+really came to a struggle he could reckon on small support anywhere, not
+even from those who now seemed warmest for the scheme. Then Frederic
+resolved to try his cousin, the great Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom all
+Catholics looked with veneration and whom all German Protestants
+respected. Had the two branches of the illustrious house of Wittelsbach
+been combined in one purpose, the opposition to the House of Austria
+might indeed have been formidable. But what were ties of blood compared
+to the iron bands of religious love and hatred? How could Maximilian,
+sternest of Papists, and Frederick V., flightiest of Calvinists, act
+harmoniously in an Imperial election? Moreover, Maximilian was united by
+ties of youthful and tender friendship as well as by kindred and perfect
+religious sympathy to his other cousin, King Ferdinand himself. The case
+seemed hopeless, but the Elector went to Munich, and held conferences
+with his cousin. Not willing to take No for an answer so long as it was
+veiled under evasive or ornamental phraseology, he continued to negotiate
+with Maximilian through his envoys Camerarius and Secretary Neu, who held
+long debates with the Duke's chief councillor, Doctor Jocher. Camerarius
+assured Jocher that his master was the Hercules to untie the Gordian
+knot, and the lion of the tribe of Judah. How either the lion of Judah or
+Hercules were to untie the knot which was popularly supposed to have been
+cut by the sword of Alexander did not appear, but Maximilian at any rate
+was moved neither by entreaties nor tropes. Being entirely averse from
+entering himself for the German crown, he grew weary at last of the
+importunity with which the scheme was urged. So he wrote a short billet
+to his councillor, to be shown to Secretary Neu.
+
+"Dear Jocher," he said, "I am convinced one must let these people
+understand the matter in a little plainer German. I am once for all
+determined not to let myself into any misunderstanding or even
+amplifications with the House of Austria in regard to the succession. I
+think also that it would rather be harmful than useful to my house to
+take upon myself so heavy a burthen as the German crown."
+
+This time the German was plain enough and produced its effect. Maximilian
+was too able a statesman and too conscientious a friend to wish to
+exchange his own proud position as chief of the League, acknowledged head
+of the great Catholic party, for the slippery, comfortless, and unmeaning
+throne of the Holy Empire, which he considered Ferdinand's right.
+
+The chiefs of the anti-Austrian party, especially the Prince of Anhalt
+and the Margrave of Anspach, in unison with the Heidelberg cabinet, were
+forced to look for another candidate. Accordingly the Margrave and the
+Elector-Palatine solemnly agreed that it was indispensable to choose an
+emperor who should not be of the House of Austria nor a slave of Spain.
+It was, to be sure, not possible to think of a Protestant prince. Bavaria
+would not oppose Austria, would also allow too much influence to the
+Jesuits. So there remained no one but the Duke of Savoy. He was a prince
+of the Empire. He was of German descent, of Saxon race, a great general,
+father of his soldiers, who would protect Europe against a Turkish
+invasion better than the bastions of Vienna could do. He would be
+agreeable to the Catholics, while the Protestants could live under him
+without anxiety because the Jesuits would be powerless with him. It would
+be a master-stroke if the princes would unite upon him. The King of
+France would necessarily be pleased with it, the King of Great Britain
+delighted.
+
+At last the model candidate had been found. The Duke of Savoy having just
+finished for a second time his chronic war with Spain, in which the
+United Provinces, notwithstanding the heavy drain on their resources, had
+allowed him 50,000 florins a month besides the soldiers under Count
+Ernest of Nassau, had sent Mansfeld with 4000 men to aid the revolted
+estates in Bohemia. Geographically, hereditarily, necessarily the deadly
+enemy of the House of Austria, he listened favourably to the overtures
+made to him by the princes of the Union, expressed undying hatred for the
+Imperial race, and thought the Bohemian revolt a priceless occasion for
+expelling them from power. He was informed by the first envoy sent to
+him, Christopher van Dohna, that the object of the great movement now
+contemplated was to raise him to the Imperial throne at the next
+election, to assist the Bohemian estates, to secure the crown of Bohemia
+for the Elector-Palatine, to protect the Protestants of Germany, and to
+break down the overweening power of the Austrian house.
+
+The Duke displayed no eagerness for the crown of Germany, while approving
+the election of Frederic, but expressed entire sympathy with the
+enterprise. It was indispensable however to form a general federation in
+Europe of England, the Netherlands, Venice, together with Protestant
+Germany and himself, before undertaking so mighty a task. While the
+negotiations were going on, both Anspach and Anhalt were in great
+spirits. The Margrave cried out exultingly, "In a short time the means
+will be in our hands for turning the world upside down." He urged the
+Prince of Anhalt to be expeditious in his decisions and actions. "He who
+wishes to trade," he said, "must come to market early."
+
+There was some disappointment at Heidelberg when the first news from
+Turin arrived, the materials for this vast scheme for an overwhelming and
+universal European war not seeming to be at their disposition. By and by
+the Duke's plans seem to deepen and broaden. He told Mansfeld, who,
+accompanied by Secretary Neu, was glad at a pause in his fighting and
+brandschatzing in Bohemia to be employed on diplomatic business, that on
+the whole he should require the crown of Bohemia for himself. He also
+proposed to accept the Imperial crown, and as for Frederic, he would
+leave him the crown of Hungary, and would recommend him to round himself
+out by adding to his hereditary dominions the province of Alsace, besides
+Upper Austria and other territories in convenient proximity to the
+Palatinate.
+
+Venice, it had been hoped, would aid in the great scheme and might in her
+turn round herself out with Friuli and Istria and other tempting
+possessions of Ferdinand, in reward for the men and money she was
+expected to furnish. That republic had however just concluded a war with
+Ferdinand, caused mainly by the depredations of the piratical Uscoques,
+in which, as we have seen, she had received the assistance of 4000
+Hollanders under command of Count John of Nassau. The Venetians had
+achieved many successes, had taken the city of Gortz, and almost reduced
+the city of Gradiska. A certain colonel Albert Waldstein however, of whom
+more might one day be heard in the history of the war now begun, had
+beaten the Venetians and opened a pathway through their ranks for succour
+to the beleaguered city. Soon afterwards peace was made on an undertaking
+that the Uscoques should be driven from their haunts, their castles
+dismantled, and their ships destroyed.
+
+Venice declined an engagement to begin a fresh war.
+
+She hated Ferdinand and Matthias and the whole Imperial brood, but, as
+old Barbarigo declared in the Senate, the Republic could not afford to
+set her house on fire in order to give Austria the inconvenience of the
+smoke.
+
+Meantime, although the Elector-Palatine had magnanimously agreed to use
+his influence in Bohemia in favour of Charles Emmanuel, the Duke seems at
+last to have declined proposing himself for that throne. He knew, he
+said, that King James wished that station for his son-in-law. The
+Imperial crown belonged to no one as yet after the death of Matthias, and
+was open therefore to his competition.
+
+Anhalt demanded of Savoy 15,000 men for the maintenance of the good
+cause, asserting that "it would be better to have the Turk or the devil
+himself on the German throne than leave it to Ferdinand."
+
+The triumvirate ruling at Prague-Thurn, Ruppa, and Hohenlohe--were
+anxious for a decision from Frederic. That simple-hearted and ingenuous
+young elector had long been troubled both with fears lest after all he
+might lose the crown of Bohemia and with qualms of conscience as to the
+propriety of taking it even if he could get it. He wrestled much in
+prayer and devout meditation whether as anointed prince himself he were
+justified in meddling with the anointment of other princes. Ferdinand had
+been accepted, proclaimed, crowned. He artlessly sent to Prague to
+consult the Estates whether they possessed the right to rebel, to set
+aside the reigning dynasty, and to choose a new king. At the same time,
+with an eye to business, he stipulated that on account of the great
+expense and trouble devolving upon him the crown must be made hereditary
+in his family. The impression made upon the grim Thurn and his colleagues
+by the simplicity of these questions may be imagined. The splendour and
+width of the Savoyard's conceptions fascinated the leaders of the Union.
+It seemed to Anspach and Anhalt that it was as well that Frederic should
+reign in Hungary as in Bohemia, and the Elector was docile. All had
+relied however on the powerful assistance of the great defender of the
+Protestant faith, the father-in-law of the Elector, the King of Great
+Britain. But James had nothing but cold water and Virgilian quotations
+for his son's ardour. He was more under the influence of Gondemar than
+ever before, more eagerly hankering for the Infanta, more completely the
+slave of Spain. He pledged himself to that government that if the
+Protestants in Bohemia continued rebellious, he would do his best to
+frustrate their designs, and would induce his son-in-law to have no
+further connection with them. And Spain delighted his heart not by
+immediately sending over the Infanta, but by proposing that he should
+mediate between the contending parties. It would be difficult to imagine
+a greater farce. All central Europe was now in arms. The deepest and
+gravest questions about which men can fight: the right to worship God
+according to their conscience and to maintain civil franchises which have
+been earned by the people with the blood and treasure of centuries, were
+now to be solved by the sword, and the pupil of Buchanan and the friend
+of Buckingham was to step between hundreds of thousands of men in arms
+with a classical oration. But James was very proud of the proposal and
+accepted it with alacrity.
+
+"You know, my dear son," he wrote to Frederic, "that we are the only king
+in Europe that is sought for by friend and foe for his mediation. It
+would be for this our lofty part very unbecoming if we were capable of
+favouring one of the parties. Your suggestion that we might secretly
+support the Bohemians we must totally reject, as it is not our way to do
+anything that we would not willingly confess to the whole world."
+
+And to do James justice, he had never fed Frederic with false hopes,
+never given a penny for his great enterprise, nor promised him a penny.
+He had contented himself with suggesting from time to time that he might
+borrow money of the States-General. His daughter Elizabeth must take care
+of herself, else what would become of her brother's marriage to the
+daughter of Spain.
+
+And now it was war to the knife, in which it was impossible that Holland,
+as well as all the other great powers should not soon be involved. It was
+disheartening to the cause of freedom and progress, not only that the
+great kingdom on which the world, had learned to rely in all movements
+upward and onward should be neutralized by the sycophancy of its monarch
+to the general oppressor, but that the great republic which so long had
+taken the lead in maintaining the liberties of Europe should now be torn
+by religious discord within itself, and be turning against the great
+statesman who had so wisely guided her councils and so accurately
+foretold the catastrophe which was now upon the world.
+
+Meantime the Emperor Matthias, not less forlorn than through his
+intrigues and rebellions his brother Rudolph had been made, passed his
+days in almost as utter retirement as if he had formally abdicated.
+Ferdinand treated him as if in his dotage. His fair young wife too had
+died of hard eating in the beginning of the winter to his inexpressible
+grief, so that there was nothing left to solace him now but the
+Rudolphian Museum.
+
+He had made but one public appearance since the coronation of Ferdinand
+in Prague. Attended by his brother Maximilian, by King Ferdinand, and by
+Cardinal Khlesl, he had towards the end of the year 1617 paid a visit to
+the Elector John George at Dresden. The Imperial party had been received
+with much enthusiasm by the great leader of Lutheranism. The Cardinal had
+seriously objected to accompanying the Emperor on this occasion. Since
+the Reformation no cardinal had been seen at the court of Saxony. He
+cared not personally for the pomps and glories of his rank, but still as
+prince of the Church he had settled right of precedence over electors. To
+waive it would be disrespectful to the Pope, to claim it would lead to
+squabbles. But Ferdinand had need of his skill to secure the vote of
+Saxony at the next Imperial election. The Cardinal was afraid of
+Ferdinand with good reason, and complied. By an agreeable fiction he was
+received at court not as cardinal but as minister, and accommodated with
+an humble place at table. Many looking on with astonishment thought he
+would have preferred to dine by himself in retirement. But this was not
+the bitterest of the mortifications that the pastor and guide of Matthias
+was to suffer at the hands of Ferdinand before his career should be
+closed. The visit at Dresden was successful, however. John George, being
+a claimant, as we have seen, for the Duchies of Cleve and Julich, had
+need of the Emperor. The King had need of John George's vote. There was a
+series of splendid balls, hunting parties, carousings.
+
+The Emperor was an invalid, the King was abstemious, but the Elector was
+a mighty drinker. It was not his custom nor that of his councillors to go
+to bed. They were usually carried there. But it was the wish of Ferdinand
+to be conciliatory, and he bore himself as well as he could at the
+banquet. The Elector was also a mighty hunter. Neither of his Imperial
+guests cared for field sports, but they looked out contentedly from the
+window of a hunting-lodge, before which for their entertainment the
+Elector and his courtiers slaughtered eight bears, ten stags, ten pigs,
+and eleven badgers, besides a goodly number of other game; John George
+shooting also three martens from a pole erected for that purpose in the
+courtyard. It seemed proper for him thus to exhibit a specimen of the
+skill for which he was justly famed. The Elector before his life closed,
+so says the chronicle, had killed 28,000 wild boars, 208 bears, 3543
+wolves, 200 badgers, 18,967 foxes, besides stags and roedeer in still
+greater number, making a grand total of 113,629 beasts. The leader of the
+Lutheran party of Germany had not lived in vain.
+
+Thus the great chiefs of Catholicism and of Protestantism amicably
+disported themselves in the last days of the year, while their respective
+forces were marshalling for mortal combat all over Christendom. The
+Elector certainly loved neither Matthias nor Ferdinand, but he hated the
+Palatine. The chief of the German Calvinists disputed that Protestant
+hegemony which John George claimed by right. Indeed the immense advantage
+enjoyed by the Catholics at the outbreak of the religious war from the
+mutual animosities between the two great divisions of the Reformed Church
+was already terribly manifest. What an additional power would it derive
+from the increased weakness of the foe, should there be still other and
+deeper and more deadly schisms within one great division itself!
+
+"The Calvinists and Lutherans," cried the Jesuit Scioppius, "are so
+furiously attacking each other with calumnies and cursings and are
+persecuting each other to such extent as to give good hope that the
+devilish weight and burthen of them will go to perdition and shame of
+itself, and the heretics all do bloody execution upon each other.
+Certainly if ever a golden time existed for exterminating the heretics,
+it is the present time."
+
+The Imperial party took their leave of Dresden, believing themselves to
+have secured the electoral vote of Saxony; the Elector hoping for
+protection to his interests in the duchies through that sequestration to
+which Barneveld had opposed such vigorous resistance. There had been much
+slavish cringing before these Catholic potentates by the courtiers of
+Dresden, somewhat amazing to the ruder churls of Saxony, the common
+people, who really believed in the religion which their prince had
+selected for them and himself.
+
+And to complete the glaring contrast, Ferdinand and Matthias had scarcely
+turned their backs before tremendous fulminations upon the ancient church
+came from the Elector and from all the doctors of theology in Saxony.
+
+For the jubilee of the hundredth anniversary of the Reformation was
+celebrated all over Germany in the autumn of this very year, and nearly
+at the exact moment of all this dancing, and fuddling, and pig shooting
+at Dresden in honour of emperors and cardinals. And Pope Paul V. had
+likewise ordained a jubilee for true believers at almost the same time.
+
+The Elector did not mince matters in his proclamation from any regard to
+the feelings of his late guests. He called on all Protestants to rejoice,
+"because the light of the Holy Gospel had now shone brightly in the
+electoral dominions for a hundred years, the Omnipotent keeping it
+burning notwithstanding the raging and roaring of the hellish enemy and
+all his scaly servants."
+
+The doctors of divinity were still more emphatic in their phraseology.
+They called on all professors and teachers of the true Evangelical
+churches, not only in Germany but throughout Christendom, to keep the
+great jubilee. They did this in terms not calculated certainly to smother
+the flames of religious and party hatred, even if it had been possible at
+that moment to suppress the fire. "The great God of Heaven," they said,
+"had caused the undertaking of His holy instrument Mr. Doctor Martin
+Luther to prosper. Through His unspeakable mercy he has driven away the
+Papal darkness and caused the sun of righteousness once more to beam upon
+the world. The old idolatries, blasphemies, errors, and horrors of the
+benighted Popedom have been exterminated in many kingdoms and countries.
+Innumerable sheep of the Lord Christ have been fed on the wholesome
+pasture of the Divine Word in spite of those monstrous, tearing, ravenous
+wolves, the Pope and his followers. The enemy of God and man, the ancient
+serpent, may hiss and rage. Yes, the Roman antichrist in his frantic
+blusterings may bite off his own tongue, may fulminate all kinds of
+evils, bans, excommunications, wars, desolations, and burnings, as long
+and as much as he likes. But if we take refuge with the Lord God, what
+can this inane, worn-out man and water-bubble do to us?" With more in the
+same taste.
+
+The Pope's bull for the Catholic jubilee was far more decorous and lofty
+in tone, for it bewailed the general sin in Christendom, and called on
+all believers to flee from the wrath about to descend upon the earth, in
+terms that were almost prophetic. He ordered all to pray that the Lord
+might lift up His Church, protect it from the wiles of the enemy,
+extirpate heresies, grant peace and true unity among Christian princes,
+and mercifully avert disasters already coming near.
+
+But if the language of Paul V. was measured and decent, the swarm of
+Jesuit pamphleteers that forthwith began to buzz and to sting all over
+Christendom were sufficiently venomous. Scioppius, in his Alarm Trumpet
+to the Holy War, and a hundred others declared that all heresies and
+heretics were now to be extirpated, the one true church to be united and
+re-established, and that the only road to such a consummation was a path
+of blood.
+
+The Lutheran preachers, on the other hand, obedient to the summons from
+Dresden, vied with each other in every town and village in heaping
+denunciations, foul names, and odious imputations on the Catholics; while
+the Calvinists, not to be behindhand with their fellow Reformers,
+celebrated the jubilee, especially at Heidelberg, by excluding Papists
+from hope of salvation, and bewailing the fate of all churches sighing
+under the yoke of Rome.
+
+And not only were the Papists and the Reformers exchanging these blasts
+and counterblasts of hatred, not less deadly in their effects than the
+artillery of many armies, but as if to make a thorough exhibition of
+human fatuity when drunk with religious passion, the Lutherans were
+making fierce paper and pulpit war upon the Calvinists. Especially Hoe,
+court preacher of John George, ceaselessly hurled savage libels against
+them. In the name of the theological faculty of Wittenberg, he addressed
+a "truehearted warning to all Lutheran Christians in Bohemia, Moravia,
+Silesia, and other provinces, to beware of the erroneous Calvinistic
+religion." He wrote a letter to Count Schlick, foremost leader in the
+Bohemian movement, asking whether "the unquiet Calvinist spirit, should
+it gain ascendency, would be any more endurable than the Papists. Oh what
+woe, what infinite woe," he cried, "for those noble countries if they
+should all be thrust into the jaws of Calvinism!"
+
+Did not preacher Hoe's master aspire to the crown of Bohemia himself? Was
+he not furious at the start which Heidelberg had got of him in the race
+for that golden prize? Was he not mad with jealousy of the Palatine, of
+the Palatine's religion, and of the Palatine's claim to "hegemony" in
+Germany?
+
+Thus embittered and bloodthirsty towards each other were the two great
+sections of the Reformed religion on the first centennial jubilee of the
+Reformation. Such was the divided front which the anti-Catholic party
+presented at the outbreak of the war with Catholicism.
+
+Ferdinand, on the other hand, was at the head of a comparatively united
+party. He could hardly hope for more than benevolent neutrality from the
+French government, which, in spite of the Spanish marriages, dared not
+wholly desert the Netherlands and throw itself into the hands of Spain;
+but Spanish diplomacy had enslaved the British king, and converted what
+should have been an active and most powerful enemy into an efficient if
+concealed ally. The Spanish and archiducal armies were enveloping the
+Dutch republic, from whence the most powerful support could be expected
+for the Protestant cause. Had it not been for the steadiness of
+Barneveld, Spain would have been at that moment established in full
+panoply over the whole surface of those inestimable positions, the
+disputed duchies. Venice was lukewarm, if not frigid; and Savoy, although
+deeply pledged by passion and interest to the downfall of the House of
+Austria, was too dangerously situated herself, too distant, too poor, and
+too Catholic to be very formidable.
+
+Ferdinand was safe from the Turkish side. A twenty years' peace,
+renewable by agreement, between the Holy Empire and the Sultan had been
+negotiated by those two sons of bakers, Cardinal Khlesl and the Vizier
+Etmekdschifade. It was destined to endure through all the horrors of the
+great war, a stronger protection to Vienna than all the fortifications
+which the engineering art could invent. He was safe too from Poland, King
+Sigmund being not only a devoted Catholic but doubly his brother-in-law.
+
+Spain, therefore, the Spanish Netherlands, the Pope, and the German
+League headed by Maximilian of Bavaria, the ablest prince on the
+continent of Europe, presented a square, magnificent phalanx on which
+Ferdinand might rely. The States-General, on the other hand, were a most
+dangerous foe. With a centennial hatred of Spain, splendidly disciplined
+armies and foremost navy of the world, with an admirable financial system
+and vast commercial resources, with a great stadholder, first captain of
+the age, thirsting for war, and allied in blood as well as religion to
+the standard-bearer of the Bohemian revolt; with councils directed by the
+wisest and most experienced of living statesman, and with the very life
+blood of her being derived from the fountain of civil and religious
+liberty, the great Republic of the United Netherlands--her Truce with the
+hereditary foe just expiring was, if indeed united, strong enough at the
+head of the Protestant forces of Europe to dictate to a world in arms.
+
+Alas! was it united?
+
+As regarded internal affairs of most pressing interest, the electoral
+vote at the next election at Frankfurt had been calculated as being
+likely to yield a majority of one for the opposition candidate, should
+the Savoyard or any other opposition candidate be found. But the
+calculation was a close one and might easily be fallacious. Supposing the
+Palatine elected King of Bohemia by the rebellious estates, as was
+probable, he could of course give the vote of that electorate and his own
+against Ferdinand, and the vote of Brandenburg at that time seemed safe.
+But Ferdinand by his visit to Dresden had secured the vote of Saxony,
+while of the three ecclesiastical electors, Cologne and Mayence were sure
+for him. Thus it would be three and three, and the seventh and decisive
+vote would be that of the Elector-Bishop of Treves. The sanguine Frederic
+thought that with French influence and a round sum of money this
+ecclesiastic might be got to vote for the opposition candidate. The
+ingenious combination was not destined to be successful, and as there has
+been no intention in the present volume to do more than slightly indicate
+the most prominent movements and mainsprings of the great struggle so far
+as Germany is concerned, without entering into detail, it may be as well
+to remind the reader that it proved wonderfully wrong. Matthias died on
+the 20th March, 1619, the election of a new emperor took place at
+Frankfurt On the 28th of the following August, and not only did Saxony
+and all three ecclesiastical electors vote for Ferdinand, but Brandenburg
+likewise, as well as the Elector-Palatine himself, while Ferdinand,
+personally present in the assembly as Elector of Bohemia, might according
+to the Golden Bull have given the seventh vote for himself had he chosen
+to do so. Thus the election was unanimous.
+
+Strange to say, as the electors proceeded through the crowd from the hall
+of election to accompany the new emperor to the church where he was to
+receive the popular acclaim, the news reached them from Prague that the
+Elector-Palatine had been elected King of Bohemia.
+
+Thus Frederic, by voting for Ferdinand, had made himself voluntarily a
+rebel should he accept the crown now offered him. Had the news arrived
+sooner, a different result and even a different history might have been
+possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Barneveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West
+India Company--Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Barneveld--Maurice
+openly the Chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrants--Tumults about the
+Churches--"Orange or Spain" the Cry of Prince Maurice and his Party--They
+take possession of the Cloister Church--"The Sharp Resolve"--Carleton's
+Orations before the States-General.
+
+King James never forgave Barneveld for drawing from him those famous
+letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and
+to admit the possibility of salvation under them. These epistles had
+brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his
+theological discussions a laughing-stock. He was still more incensed by
+the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary
+towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he believed, had
+twice outwitted him.
+
+On the other hand, Maurice, inspired by his brother-in-law the Duke of
+Bouillon and by the infuriated Francis Aerssens, abhorred Barneveld's
+French policy, which was freely denounced by the French Calvinists and by
+the whole orthodox church. In Holland he was still warmly sustained
+except in the Contra-Remonstrant Amsterdam and a few other cities of less
+importance. But there were perhaps deeper reasons for the Advocate's
+unpopularity in the great commercial metropolis than theological
+pretexts. Barneveld's name and interests were identified with the great
+East India Company, which was now powerful and prosperous beyond anything
+ever dreamt of before in the annals of commerce. That trading company had
+already founded an empire in the East. Fifty ships of war, fortresses
+guarded by 4000 pieces of artillery and 10,000 soldiers and sailors,
+obeyed the orders of a dozen private gentlemen at home seated in a back
+parlour around a green table. The profits of each trading voyage were
+enormous, and the shareholders were growing rich beyond their wildest
+imaginings. To no individual so much as to Holland's Advocate was this
+unexampled success to be ascribed. The vast prosperity of the East India
+Company had inspired others with the ambition to found a similar
+enterprise in the West. But to the West India Company then projected and
+especially favoured in Amsterdam, Barneveld was firmly opposed. He
+considered it as bound up with the spirit of military adventure and
+conquest, and as likely to bring on prematurely and unwisely a renewed
+conflict with Spain. The same reasons which had caused him to urge the
+Truce now influenced his position in regard to the West India Company.
+
+Thus the clouds were gathering every day more darkly over the head of the
+Advocate. The powerful mercantile interest in the great seat of traffic
+in the Republic, the personal animosity of the Stadholder, the
+execrations of the orthodox party in France, England, and all the
+Netherlands, the anger of the French princes and all those of the old
+Huguenot party who had been foolish enough to act with the princes in
+their purely selfish schemes against the government, and the overflowing
+hatred of King James, whose darling schemes of Spanish marriages and a
+Spanish alliance had been foiled by the Advocate's masterly policy in
+France and in the duchies, and whose resentment at having been so
+completely worsted and disarmed in the predestination matter and in the
+redemption of the great mortgage had deepened into as terrible wrath as
+outraged bigotry and vanity could engender; all these elements made up a
+stormy atmosphere in which the strongest heart might have quailed. But
+Barneveld did not quail. Doubtless he loved power, and the more danger he
+found on every side the less inclined he was to succumb. But he honestly
+believed that the safety and prosperity of the country he had so long and
+faithfully served were identified with the policy which he was pursuing.
+Arrogant, overbearing, self-concentrated, accustomed to lead senates and
+to guide the councils and share the secrets of kings, familiar with and
+almost an actor in every event in the political history not only of his
+own country but of every important state in Christendom during nearly two
+generations of mankind, of unmatched industry, full of years and
+experience, yet feeling within him the youthful strength of a thousand
+intellects compared to most of those by which he was calumniated,
+confronted, and harassed; he accepted the great fight which was forced
+upon him. Irascible, courageous, austere, contemptuous, he looked around
+and saw the Republic whose cradle he had rocked grown to be one of the
+most powerful and prosperous among the states of the world, and could
+with difficulty imagine that in this supreme hour of her strength and her
+felicity she was ready to turn and rend the man whom she was bound by
+every tie of duty to cherish and to revere.
+
+Sir Dudley Carleton, the new English ambassador to the States, had
+arrived during the past year red-hot from Venice. There he had perhaps
+not learned especially to love the new republic which had arisen among
+the northern lagunes, and whose admission among the nations had been at
+last accorded by the proud Queen of the Adriatic, notwithstanding the
+objections and the intrigues both of French and English representatives.
+He had come charged to the brim with the political spite of James against
+the Advocate, and provided too with more than seven vials of theological
+wrath. Such was the King's revenge for Barneveld's recent successes. The
+supporters in the Netherlands of the civil authority over the Church were
+moreover to be instructed by the political head of the English Church
+that such supremacy, although highly proper for a king, was "thoroughly
+unsuitable for a many-headed republic." So much for church government. As
+for doctrine, Arminianism and Vorstianism were to be blasted with one
+thunderstroke from the British throne.
+
+"In Holland," said James to his envoy, "there have been violent and sharp
+contestations amongst the towns in the cause of religion . . . . . If
+they shall be unhappily revived during your time, you shall not forget
+that you are the minister of that master whom God hath made the sole
+protector of His religion."
+
+There was to be no misunderstanding in future as to the dogmas which the
+royal pope of Great Britain meant to prescribe to his Netherland
+subjects. Three years before, at the dictation of the Advocate, he had
+informed the States that he was convinced of their ability to settle the
+deplorable dissensions as to religion according to their wisdom and the
+power which belonged to them over churches and church servants. He had
+informed them of his having learned by experience that such questions
+could hardly be decided by the wranglings of theological professors, and
+that it was better to settle them by public authority and to forbid their
+being brought into the pulpit or among common people. He had recommended
+mutual toleration of religious difference until otherwise ordained by the
+public civil authority, and had declared that neither of the two opinions
+in regard to predestination was in his opinion far from the truth or
+inconsistent with Christian faith or the salvation of souls.
+
+It was no wonder that these utterances were quite after the Advocate's
+heart, as James had faithfully copied them from the Advocate's draft.
+
+But now in the exercise of his infallibility the King issued other
+decrees. His minister was instructed to support the extreme views of the
+orthodox both as to government and dogma, and to urge the National Synod,
+as it were, at push of pike. "Besides the assistance," said he to
+Carleton, "which we would have you give to the true professors of the
+Gospel in your discourse and conferences, you may let fall how hateful
+the maintenance of these erroneous opinions is to the majesty of God, how
+displeasing unto us their dearest friends, and how disgraceful to the
+honour and government of that state."
+
+And faithfully did the Ambassador act up to his instructions. Most
+sympathetically did he embody the hatred of the King. An able,
+experienced, highly accomplished diplomatist and scholar, ready with
+tongue and pen, caustic, censorious, prejudiced, and partial, he was soon
+foremost among the foes of the Advocate in the little court of the Hague,
+and prepared at any moment to flourish the political and theological goad
+when his master gave the word.
+
+Nothing in diplomatic history is more eccentric than the long sermons
+upon abstruse points of divinity and ecclesiastical history which the
+English ambassador delivered from time to time before the States-General
+in accordance with elaborate instructions drawn up by his sovereign with
+his own hand. Rarely has a king been more tedious, and he bestowed all
+his tediousness upon My Lords the States-General. Nothing could be more
+dismal than these discourses, except perhaps the contemporaneous and
+interminable orations of Grotius to the states of Holland, to the
+magistrates of Amsterdam, to the states of Utrecht; yet Carleton was a
+man of the world, a good debater, a ready writer, while Hugo Grotius was
+one of the great lights of that age and which shone for all time.
+
+Among the diplomatic controversies of history, rarely refreshing at best,
+few have been more drouthy than those once famous disquisitions, and they
+shall be left to shrivel into the nothingness of the past, so far as is
+consistent with the absolute necessities of this narrative.
+
+The contest to which the Advocate was called had become mainly a personal
+and a political one, although the weapons with which it was fought were
+taken from ecclesiastical arsenals. It was now an unequal contest.
+
+For the great captain of the country and of his time, the son of William
+the Silent, the martial stadholder, in the fulness of his fame and vigour
+of his years, had now openly taken his place as the chieftain of the
+Contra-Remonstrants. The conflict between the civil and the military
+element for supremacy in a free commonwealth has never been more vividly
+typified than in this death-grapple between Maurice and Barneveld.
+
+The aged but still vigorous statesman, ripe with half a century of
+political lore, and the high-born, brilliant, and scientific soldier,
+with the laurels of Turnhout and Nieuwpoort and of a hundred famous
+sieges upon his helmet, reformer of military science, and no mean
+proficient in the art of politics and government, were the
+representatives and leaders of the two great parties into which the
+Commonwealth had now unhappily divided itself. But all history shows that
+the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt to have the advantage, in a
+struggle for popular affection and popular applause, over the statesman,
+however consummate. The general imagination is more excited by the
+triumphs of the field than by those of the tribune, and the man who has
+passed many years of life in commanding multitudes with necessarily
+despotic sway is often supposed to have gained in the process the
+attributes likely to render him most valuable as chief citizen of a flee
+commonwealth. Yet national enthusiasm is so universally excited by
+splendid military service as to forbid a doubt that the sentiment is
+rooted deeply in our nature, while both in antiquity and in modern times
+there are noble although rare examples of the successful soldier
+converting himself into a valuable and exemplary magistrate.
+
+In the rivalry of Maurice and Barneveld however for the national
+affection the chances were singularly against the Advocate. The great
+battles and sieges of the Prince had been on a world's theatre, had
+enchained the attention of Christendom, and on their issue had frequently
+depended, or seemed to depend, the very existence of the nation. The
+labours of the statesman, on the contrary, had been comparatively secret.
+His noble orations and arguments had been spoken with closed doors to
+assemblies of colleagues--rather envoys than senators--were never printed
+or even reported, and could be judged of only by their effects; while his
+vast labours in directing both the internal administration and especially
+the foreign affairs of the Commonwealth had been by their very nature as
+secret as they were perpetual and enormous.
+
+Moreover, there was little of what we now understand as the democratic
+sentiment in the Netherlands. There was deep and sturdy attachment to
+ancient traditions, privileges, special constitutions extorted from a
+power acknowledged to be superior to the people. When partly to save
+those chartered rights, and partly to overthrow the horrible
+ecclesiastical tyranny of the sixteenth century, the people had
+accomplished a successful revolt, they never dreamt of popular
+sovereignty, but allowed the municipal corporations, by which their local
+affairs had been for centuries transacted, to unite in offering to
+foreign princes, one after another, the crown which they had torn from
+the head of the Spanish king. When none was found to accept the dangerous
+honour, they had acquiesced in the practical sovereignty of the States;
+but whether the States-General or the States-Provincial were the supreme
+authority had certainly not been definitely and categorically settled. So
+long as the States of Holland, led by the Advocate, had controlled in
+great matters the political action of the States-General, while the
+Stadholder stood without a rival at the head of their military affairs,
+and so long as there were no fierce disputes as to government and dogma
+within the bosom of the Reformed Church, the questions which were now
+inflaming the whole population had been allowed to slumber.
+
+The termination of the war and the rise of Arminianism were almost
+contemporaneous. The Stadholder, who so unwillingly had seen the
+occupation in which he had won so much glory taken from him by the Truce,
+might perhaps find less congenial but sufficiently engrossing business as
+champion of the Church and of the Union.
+
+The new church--not freedom of worship for different denominations of
+Christians, but supremacy of the Church of Heidelberg and Geneva--seemed
+likely to be the result of the overthrow of the ancient church. It is the
+essence of the Catholic Church to claim supremacy over and immunity from
+the civil authority, and to this claim for the Reformed Church, by which
+that of Rome had been supplanted, Barneveld was strenuously opposed.
+
+The Stadholder was backed, therefore, by the Church in its purity, by the
+majority of the humbler classes--who found in membership of the oligarchy
+of Heaven a substitute for those democratic aspirations on earth which
+were effectually suppressed between the two millstones of burgher
+aristocracy and military discipline--and by the States-General, a
+majority of which were Contra-Remonstrant in their faith.
+
+If the sword is usually an overmatch for the long robe in political
+struggles, the cassock has often proved superior to both combined. But in
+the case now occupying our attention the cassock was in alliance with the
+sword. Clearly the contest was becoming a desperate one for the
+statesman.
+
+And while the controversy between the chiefs waged hotter and hotter, the
+tumults around the churches on Sundays in every town and village grew
+more and more furious, ending generally in open fights with knives,
+bludgeons, and brickbats; preachers and magistrates being often too glad
+to escape with a whole skin. One can hardly be ingenuous enough to
+consider all this dirking, battering, and fisticuffing as the legitimate
+and healthy outcome of a difference as to the knotty point whether all
+men might or might not be saved by repentance and faith in Christ.
+
+The Greens and Blues of the Byzantine circus had not been more typical of
+fierce party warfare in the Lower Empire than the greens and blues of
+predestination in the rising commonwealth, according to the real or
+imagined epigram of Prince Maurice.
+
+"Your divisions in religion," wrote Secretary Lake to Carleton, "have, I
+doubt not, a deeper root than is discerned by every one, and I doubt not
+that the Prince Maurice's carriage doth make a jealousy of affecting a
+party under the pretence of supporting one side, and that the States fear
+his ends and aims, knowing his power with the men of war; and that
+howsoever all be shadowed under the name of religion there is on either
+part a civil end, of the one seeking a step of higher authority, of the
+other a preservation of liberty."
+
+And in addition to other advantages the Contra-Remonstrants had now got a
+good cry--an inestimable privilege in party contests.
+
+"There are two factions in the land," said Maurice, "that of Orange and
+that of Spain, and the two chiefs of the Spanish faction are those
+political and priestly Arminians, Uytenbogaert and Oldenbarneveld."
+
+Orange and Spain! the one name associated with all that was most
+venerated and beloved throughout the country, for William the Silent
+since his death was almost a god; the other ineradicably entwined at that
+moment with, everything execrated throughout the land. The Prince of
+Orange's claim to be head of the Orange faction could hardly be disputed,
+but it was a master stroke of political malice to fix the stigma of
+Spanish partisanship on the Advocate. If the venerable patriot who had
+been fighting Spain, sometimes on the battle-field and always in the
+council, ever since he came to man's estate, could be imagined even in a
+dream capable of being bought with Spanish gold to betray his country,
+who in the ranks of the Remonstrant party could be safe from such
+accusations? Each party accused the other of designs for altering or
+subverting the government. Maurice was suspected of what were called
+Leicestrian projects, "Leycestrana consilia"--for the Earl's plots to
+gain possession of Leyden and Utrecht had never been forgotten--while the
+Prince and those who acted with him asserted distinctly that it was the
+purpose of Barneveld to pave the way for restoring the Spanish
+sovereignty and the Popish religion so soon as the Truce had reached its
+end?
+
+Spain and Orange. Nothing for a faction fight could be neater. Moreover
+the two words rhyme in Netherlandish, which is the case in no other
+language, "Spanje-Oranje." The sword was drawn and the banner unfurled.
+
+The "Mud Beggars" of the Hague, tired of tramping to Ryswyk of a Sunday
+to listen to Henry Rosaeus, determined on a private conventicle in the
+capital. The first barn selected was sealed up by the authorities, but
+Epoch Much, book-keeper of Prince Maurice, then lent them his house. The
+Prince declared that sooner than they should want a place of assembling
+he would give them his own. But he meant that they should have a public
+church to themselves, and that very soon. King James thoroughly approved
+of all these proceedings. At that very instant such of his own subjects
+as had seceded from the Established Church to hold conventicles in barns
+and breweries and backshops in London were hunted by him with bishops'
+pursuivants and other beagles like vilest criminals, thrown into prison
+to rot, or suffered to escape from their Fatherland into the
+trans-Atlantic wilderness, there to battle with wild beasts and savages,
+and to die without knowing themselves the fathers of a more powerful
+United States than the Dutch Republic, where they were fain to seek in
+passing a temporary shelter. He none the less instructed his envoy at the
+Hague to preach the selfsame doctrines for which the New England Puritans
+were persecuted, and importunately and dictatorially to plead the cause
+of those Hollanders who, like Bradford and Robinson, Winthrop and Cotton,
+maintained the independence of the Church over the State.
+
+Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves, and
+Puritanism in the Netherlands, although under temporary disadvantage at
+the Hague, was evidently the party destined to triumph throughout the
+country. James could safely sympathize therefore in Holland with what he
+most loathed in England, and could at the same time feed fat the grudge
+he owed the Advocate. The calculations of Barneveld as to the respective
+political forces of the Commonwealth seem to have been to a certain
+extent defective.
+
+He allowed probably too much weight to the Catholic party as a motive
+power at that moment, and he was anxious both from that consideration and
+from his honest natural instinct for general toleration; his own broad
+and unbigoted views in religious matters, not to force that party into a
+rebellious attitude dangerous to the state. We have seen how nearly a
+mutiny in the important city of Utrecht, set on foot by certain Romanist
+conspirators in the years immediately succeeding the Truce, had subverted
+the government, had excited much anxiety amongst the firmest allies of
+the Republic, and had been suppressed only by the decision of the
+Advocate and a show of military force.
+
+He had informed Carleton not long after his arrival that in the United
+Provinces, and in Holland in particular, were many sects and religions of
+which, according to his expression, "the healthiest and the richest part
+were the Papists, while the Protestants did not make up one-third part of
+the inhabitants."
+
+Certainly, if these statistics were correct or nearly correct, there
+could be nothing more stupid from a purely political point of view than
+to exasperate so influential a portion of the community to madness and
+rebellion by refusing them all rights of public worship. Yet because the
+Advocate had uniformly recommended indulgence, he had incurred more odium
+at home than from any other cause. Of course he was a Papist in disguise,
+ready to sell his country to Spain, because he was willing that more than
+half the population of the country should be allowed to worship God
+according to their conscience. Surely it would be wrong to judge the
+condition of things at that epoch by the lights of to-day, and perhaps in
+the Netherlands there had before been no conspicuous personage, save
+William the Silent alone, who had risen to the height of toleration on
+which the Advocate essayed to stand. Other leading politicians considered
+that the national liberties could be preserved only by retaining the
+Catholics in complete subjection.
+
+At any rate the Advocate was profoundly convinced of the necessity of
+maintaining harmony and mutual toleration among the Protestants
+themselves, who, as he said, made up but one-third of the whole people.
+In conversing with the English ambassador he divided them into "Puritans
+and double Puritans," as they would be called, he said, in England. If
+these should be at variance with each other, he argued, the Papists would
+be the strongest of all. "To prevent this inconvenience," he said, "the
+States were endeavouring to settle some certain form of government in the
+Church; which being composed of divers persecuted churches such as in the
+beginning of the wars had their refuge here, that which during the wars
+could not be so well done they now thought seasonable for a time of
+truce; and therefore would show their authority in preventing the schism
+of the Church which would follow the separation of those they call
+Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants."
+
+There being no word so offensive to Carleton's sovereign as the word
+Puritan, the Ambassador did his best to persuade the Advocate that a
+Puritan in Holland was a very different thing from a Puritan in England.
+In England he was a noxious vermin, to be hunted with dogs. In the
+Netherlands he was the governing power. But his arguments were vapourous
+enough and made little impression on Barneveld. "He would no ways yield,"
+said Sir Dudley.
+
+Meantime the Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague, not finding sufficient
+accommodation in Enoch Much's house, clamoured loudly for the use of a
+church. It was answered by the city magistrates that two of their
+persuasion, La Motte and La Faille, preached regularly in the Great
+Church, and that Rosaeus had been silenced only because he refused to
+hold communion with Uytenbogaert. Maurice insisted that a separate church
+should be assigned them. "But this is open schism," said Uytenbogaert.
+
+Early in the year there was a meeting of the Holland delegation to the
+States-General, of the state council, and of the magistracy of the Hague,
+of deputies from the tribunals, and of all the nobles resident in the
+capital. They sent for Maurice and asked his opinion as to the alarming
+situation of affairs. He called for the register-books of the States of
+Holland, and turning back to the pages on which was recorded his
+accession to the stadholderate soon after his father's murder, ordered
+the oath then exchanged between himself and the States to be read aloud.
+
+That oath bound them mutually to support the Reformed religion till the
+last drop of blood in their veins.
+
+"That oath I mean to keep," said the Stadholder, "so long as I live."
+
+No one disputed the obligation of all parties to maintain the Reformed
+religion. But the question was whether the Five Points were inconsistent
+with the Reformed religion. The contrary was clamorously maintained by
+most of those present: In the year 1586 this difference in dogma had not
+arisen, and as the large majority of the people at the Hague, including
+nearly all those of rank and substance, were of the Remonstrant
+persuasion, they naturally found it not agreeable to be sent out of the
+church by a small minority. But Maurice chose to settle the question very
+summarily. His father had been raised to power by the strict Calvinists,
+and he meant to stand by those who had always sustained William the
+Silent. "For this religion my father lost his life, and this religion
+will I defend," said he.
+
+"You hold then," said Barneveld, "that the Almighty has created one child
+for damnation and another for salvation, and you wish this doctrine to be
+publicly preached."
+
+"Did you ever hear any one preach that?" replied the Prince.
+
+"If they don't preach it, it is their inmost conviction," said the other.
+And he proceeded to prove his position by copious citations.
+
+"And suppose our ministers do preach this doctrine, is there anything
+strange in it, any reason why they should not do so?"
+
+The Advocate expressed his amazement and horror at the idea.
+
+"But does not God know from all eternity who is to be saved and who to be
+damned; and does He create men for any other end than that to which He
+from eternity knows they will come?"
+
+And so they enclosed themselves in the eternal circle out of which it was
+not probable that either the soldier or the statesman would soon find an
+issue.
+
+"I am no theologian," said Barneveld at last, breaking off the
+discussion.
+
+"Neither am I," said the Stadholder. "So let the parsons come together.
+Let the Synod assemble and decide the question. Thus we shall get out of
+all this."
+
+Next day a deputation of the secessionists waited by appointment on
+Prince Maurice. They found him in the ancient mediaeval hall of the
+sovereign counts of Holland, and seated on their old chair of state. He
+recommended them to use caution and moderation for the present, and to go
+next Sunday once more to Ryswyk. Afterwards he pledged himself that they
+should have a church at the Hague, and, if necessary, the Great Church
+itself.
+
+But the Great Church, although a very considerable Catholic cathedral
+before the Reformation, was not big enough now to hold both Henry Rosaeus
+and John Uytenbogaert. Those two eloquent, learned, and most pugnacious
+divines were the respective champions in the pulpit of the opposing
+parties, as were the Advocate and the Stadholder in the council. And
+there was as bitter personal rivalry between the two as between the
+soldier and statesman.
+
+"The factions begin to divide themselves," said Carleton, "betwixt his
+Excellency and Monsieur Barneveld as heads who join to this present
+difference their ancient quarrels. And the schism rests actually between
+Uytenbogaert and Rosaeus, whose private emulation and envy (both being
+much applauded and followed) doth no good towards the public
+pacification." Uytenbogaert repeatedly offered, however, to resign his
+functions and to leave the Hague. "He was always ready to play the
+Jonah," he said.
+
+A temporary arrangement was made soon afterwards by which Rosaeus and his
+congregation should have the use of what was called the Gasthuis Kerk,
+then appropriated to the English embassy.
+
+Carleton of course gave his consent most willingly. The Prince declared
+that the States of Holland and the city magistracy had personally
+affronted him by the obstacles they had interposed to the public worship
+of the Contra-Remonstrants. With their cause he had now thoroughly
+identified himself.
+
+The hostility between the representatives of the civil and military
+authority waxed fiercer every hour. The tumults were more terrible than
+ever. Plainly there was no room in the Commonwealth for the Advocate and
+the Stadholder. Some impartial persons believed that there would be no
+peace until both were got rid of. "There are many words among this
+free-spoken people," said Carleton, "that to end these differences they
+must follow the example of France in Marshal d'Ancre's case, and take off
+the heads of both chiefs."
+
+But these decided persons were in a small minority. Meantime the States
+of Holland met in full assembly; sixty delegates being present.
+
+It was proposed to invite his Excellency to take part in the
+deliberations. A committee which had waited upon him the day before had
+reported him as in favour of moderate rather than harsh measures in the
+church affair, while maintaining his plighted word to the seceders.
+
+Barneveld stoutly opposed the motion.
+
+"What need had the sovereign states of Holland of advice from a
+stadholder, from their servant, their functionary?" he cried.
+
+But the majority for once thought otherwise. The Prince was invited to
+come. The deliberations were moderate but inconclusive. He appeared again
+at an adjourned meeting when the councils were not so harmonious.
+
+Barneveld, Grotius, and other eloquent speakers endeavoured to point out
+that the refusal of the seceders to hold communion with the Remonstrant
+preachers and to insist on a separation was fast driving the state to
+perdition. They warmly recommended mutual toleration and harmony. Grotius
+exhausted learning and rhetoric to prove that the Five Points were not
+inconsistent with salvation nor with the constitution of the United
+Provinces.
+
+The Stadholder grew impatient at last and clapped his hand on his rapier.
+
+"No need here," he said, "of flowery orations and learned arguments. With
+this good sword I will defend the religion which my father planted in
+these Provinces, and I should like to see the man who is going to prevent
+me!"
+
+The words had an heroic ring in the ears of such as are ever ready to
+applaud brute force, especially when wielded by a prince. The argumentum
+ad ensem, however, was the last plea that William the Silent would have
+been likely to employ on such an occasion, nor would it have been easy to
+prove that the Reformed religion had been "planted" by one who had drawn
+the sword against the foreign tyrant, and had made vast sacrifices for
+his country's independence years before abjuring communion with the Roman
+Catholic Church.
+
+When swords are handled by the executive in presence of civil assemblies
+there is usually but one issue to be expected.
+
+Moreover, three whales had recently been stranded at Scheveningen, one of
+them more than sixty feet long, and men wagged their beards gravely as
+they spoke of the event, deeming it a certain presage of civil
+commotions. It was remembered that at the outbreak of the great war two
+whales had been washed ashore in the Scheldt. Although some free-thinking
+people were inclined to ascribe the phenomenon to a prevalence of strong
+westerly gales, while others found proof in it of a superabundance of
+those creatures in the Polar seas, which should rather give encouragement
+to the Dutch and Zealand fisheries, it is probable that quite as dark
+forebodings of coming disaster were caused by this accident as by the
+trumpet-like defiance which the Stadholder had just delivered to the
+States of Holland.
+
+Meantime the seceding congregation of the Hague had become wearied of the
+English or Gasthuis Church, and another and larger one had been promised
+them. This was an ancient convent on one of the principal streets of the
+town, now used as a cannon-foundry. The Prince personally superintended
+the preparations for getting ready this place of worship, which was
+thenceforth called the Cloister Church. But delays were, as the
+Contra-Remonstrants believed, purposely interposed, so that it was nearly
+Midsummer before there were any signs of the church being fit for use.
+
+They hastened accordingly to carry it, as it were, by assault. Not
+wishing peaceably to accept as a boon from the civil authority what they
+claimed as an indefeasible right, they suddenly took possession one
+Sunday night of the Cloister Church.
+
+It was in a state of utter confusion--part monastery, part foundry, part
+conventicle. There were few seats, no altar, no communion-table, hardly
+any sacramental furniture, but a pulpit was extemporized. Rosaeus
+preached in triumph to an enthusiastic congregation, and three children
+were baptized with the significant names of William, Maurice, and Henry.
+
+On the following Monday there was a striking scene on the Voorhout. This
+most beautiful street of a beautiful city was a broad avenue, shaded by a
+quadruple row of limetrees, reaching out into the thick forest of secular
+oaks and beeches--swarming with fallow-deer and alive with the notes of
+singing birds--by which the Hague, almost from time immemorial, has been
+embowered. The ancient cloisterhouse and church now reconverted to
+religious uses--was a plain, rather insipid structure of red brick picked
+out with white stone, presenting three symmetrical gables to the street,
+with a slender belfry and spire rising in the rear.
+
+Nearly adjoining it on the north-western side was the elegant and
+commodious mansion of Barneveld, purchased by him from the
+representatives of the Arenberg family, surrounded by shrubberies and
+flower-gardens; not a palace, but a dignified and becoming abode for the
+first citizen of a powerful republic.
+
+On that midsummer's morning it might well seem that, in rescuing the old
+cloister from the military purposes to which it had for years been
+devoted, men had given an even more belligerent aspect to the scene than
+if it had been left as a foundry. The miscellaneous pieces of artillery
+and other fire-arms lying about, with piles of cannon-ball which there
+had not been time to remove, were hardly less belligerent and threatening
+of aspect than the stern faces of the crowd occupied in thoroughly
+preparing the house for its solemn destination. It was determined that
+there should be accommodation on the next Sunday for all who came to the
+service. An army of carpenters, joiners, glaziers, and other
+workmen-assisted by a mob of citizens of all ranks and ages, men and
+women, gentle and simple were busily engaged in bringing planks and
+benches; working with plane, adze, hammer and saw, trowel and shovel, to
+complete the work.
+
+On the next Sunday the Prince attended public worship for the last time
+at the Great Church under the ministration of Uytenbogaert. He was
+infuriated with the sermon, in which the bold Remonstrant bitterly
+inveighed against the proposition for a National Synod. To oppose that
+measure publicly in the very face of the Stadholder, who now considered
+himself as the Synod personified, seemed to him flat blasphemy. Coming
+out of the church with his step-mother, the widowed Louise de Coligny,
+Princess of Orange, he denounced the man in unmeasured terms. "He is the
+enemy of God," said Maurice. At least from that time forth, and indeed
+for a year before, Maurice was the enemy of the preacher.
+
+On the following Sunday, July 23, Maurice went in solemn state to the
+divine service at the Cloister Church now thoroughly organized. He was
+accompanied by his cousin, the famous Count William Lewis of Nassau,
+Stadholder of Friesland, who had never concealed his warm sympathy with
+the Contra-Remonstrants, and by all the chief officers of his household
+and members of his staff. It was an imposing demonstration and meant for
+one. As the martial stadholder at the head of his brilliant cavalcade
+rode forth across the drawbridge from the Inner Court of the old moated
+palace--where the ancient sovereign Dirks and Florences of Holland had so
+long ruled their stout little principality--along the shady and stately
+Kneuterdyk and so through the Voorhout, an immense crowd thronged around
+his path and accompanied him to the church. It was as if the great
+soldier were marching to siege or battle-field where fresher glories than
+those of Sluys or Geertruidenberg were awaiting him.
+
+The train passed by Barneveld's house and entered the cloister. More than
+four thousand persons were present at the service or crowded around the
+doors vainly attempting to gain admission into the overflowing aisles;
+while the Great Church was left comparatively empty, a few hundred only
+worshipping there. The Cloister Church was thenceforth called the
+Prince's Church, and a great revolution was beginning even in the Hague.
+
+The Advocate was wroth as he saw the procession graced by the two
+stadholders and their military attendants. He knew that he was now to bow
+his head to the Church thus championed by the chief personage and
+captain-general of the state, to renounce his dreams of religious
+toleration, to sink from his post of supreme civic ruler, or to accept an
+unequal struggle in which he might utterly succumb. But his iron nature
+would break sooner than bend. In the first transports of his indignation
+he is said to have vowed vengeance against the immediate instruments by
+which the Cloister Church had, as he conceived, been surreptitiously and
+feloniously seized. He meant to strike a blow which should startle the
+whole population of the Hague, send a thrill of horror through the
+country, and teach men to beware how they trifled with the sovereign
+states of Holland, whose authority had so long been undisputed, and with
+him their chief functionary.
+
+He resolved--so ran the tale of the preacher Trigland, who told it to
+Prince Maurice, and has preserved it in his chronicle--to cause to be
+seized at midnight from their beds four men whom he considered the
+ringleaders in this mutiny, to have them taken to the place of execution
+on the square in the midst of the city, to have their heads cut off at
+once by warrant from the chief tribunal without any previous warning, and
+then to summon all the citizens at dawn of day, by ringing of bells and
+firing of cannon, to gaze on the ghastly spectacle, and teach them to
+what fate this pestilential schism and revolt against authority had
+brought its humble tools. The victims were to be Enoch Much, the Prince's
+book-keeper, and three others, an attorney, an engraver, and an
+apothecary, all of course of the Contra-Remonstrant persuasion. It was
+necessary, said the Advocate, to make once for all an example, and show
+that there was a government in the land.
+
+He had reckoned on a ready adhesion to this measure and a sentence from
+the tribunal through the influence of his son-in-law, the Seignior van
+Veenhuyzen, who was president of the chief court. His attempt was foiled
+however by the stern opposition of two Zealand members of the court, who
+managed to bring up from a bed of sickness, where he had long been lying,
+a Holland councillor whom they knew to be likewise opposed to the fierce
+measure, and thus defeated it by a majority of one.
+
+Such is the story as told by contemporaries and repeated from that day to
+this. It is hardly necessary to say that Barneveld calmly denied having
+conceived or even heard of the scheme. That men could go about looking
+each other in the face and rehearsing such gibberish would seem
+sufficiently dispiriting did we not know to what depths of credulity men
+in all ages can sink when possessed by the demon of party malice.
+
+If it had been narrated on the Exchange at Amsterdam or Flushing during
+that portentous midsummer that Barneveld had not only beheaded but
+roasted alive, and fed the dogs and cats upon the attorney, the
+apothecary, and the engraver, there would have been citizens in plenty to
+devour the news with avidity.
+
+But although the Advocate had never imagined such extravagances as these,
+it is certain that he had now resolved upon very bold measures, and that
+too without an instant's delay. He suspected the Prince of aiming at
+sovereignty not only over Holland but over all the provinces and to be
+using the Synod as a principal part of his machinery. The gauntlet was
+thrown down by the Stadholder, and the Advocate lifted it at once. The
+issue of the struggle would depend upon the political colour of the town
+magistracies. Barneveld instinctively felt that Maurice, being now
+resolved that the Synod should be held, would lose no time in making a
+revolution in all the towns through the power he held or could plausibly
+usurp. Such a course would, in his opinion, lead directly to an
+unconstitutional and violent subversion of the sovereign rights of each
+province, to the advantage of the central government. A religious creed
+would be forced upon Holland and perhaps upon two other provinces which
+was repugnant to a considerable majority of the people. And this would be
+done by a majority vote of the States-General, on a matter over which, by
+the 13th Article of the fundamental compact--the Union of Utrecht--the
+States-General had no control, each province having reserved the
+disposition of religious affairs to itself. For let it never be forgotten
+that the Union of the Netherlands was a compact, a treaty, an agreement
+between sovereign states. There was no pretence that it was an
+incorporation, that the people had laid down a constitution, an organic
+law. The people were never consulted, did not exist, had not for
+political purposes been invented. It was the great primal defect of their
+institutions, but the Netherlanders would have been centuries before
+their age had they been able to remedy that defect. Yet the Netherlanders
+would have been much behind even that age of bigotry had they admitted
+the possibility in a free commonwealth, of that most sacred and important
+of all subjects that concern humanity, religious creed--the relation of
+man to his Maker--to be regulated by the party vote of a political board.
+
+It was with no thought of treason in his heart or his head therefore that
+the Advocate now resolved that the States of Holland and the cities of
+which that college was composed should protect their liberties and
+privileges, the sum of which in his opinion made up the sovereignty of
+the province he served, and that they should protect them, if necessary,
+by force. Force was apprehended. It should be met by force. To be
+forewarned was to be forearmed. Barneveld forewarned the States of
+Holland.
+
+On the 4th August 1617, he proposed to that assembly a resolution which
+was destined to become famous. A majority accepted it after brief debate.
+It was to this effect.
+
+The States having seen what had befallen in many cities, and especially
+in the Hague, against the order, liberties, and laws of the land, and
+having in vain attempted to bring into harmony with the States certain
+cities which refused to co-operate with the majority, had at last
+resolved to refuse the National Synod, as conflicting with the
+sovereignty and laws of Holland. They had thought good to set forth in
+public print their views as to religious worship, and to take measures to
+prevent all deeds of violence against persons and property. To this end
+the regents of cities were authorized in case of need, until otherwise
+ordained, to enrol men-at-arms for their security and prevention of
+violence. Furthermore, every one that might complain of what the regents
+of cities by strength of this resolution might do was ordered to have
+recourse to no one else than the States of Holland, as no account would
+be made of anything that might be done or undertaken by the tribunals.
+
+Finally, it was resolved to send a deputation to Prince Maurice, the
+Princess-Widow, and Prince Henry, requesting them to aid in carrying out
+this resolution.
+
+Thus the deed was done. The sword was drawn. It was drawn in self-defence
+and in deliberate answer to the Stadholder's defiance when he rapped his
+sword hilt in face of the assembly, but still it was drawn. The States of
+Holland were declared sovereign and supreme. The National Synod was
+peremptorily rejected. Any decision of the supreme courts of the Union in
+regard to the subject of this resolution was nullified in advance.
+Thenceforth this measure of the 4th August was called the "Sharp
+Resolve." It might prove perhaps to be double-edged.
+
+It was a stroke of grim sarcasm on the part of the Advocate thus solemnly
+to invite the Stadholder's aid in carrying out a law which was aimed
+directly at his head; to request his help for those who meant to defeat
+with the armed hand that National Synod which he had pledged himself to
+bring about.
+
+The question now arose what sort of men-at-arms it would be well for the
+city governments to enlist. The officers of the regular garrisons had
+received distinct orders from Prince Maurice as their military superior
+to refuse any summons to act in matters proceeding from the religious
+question. The Prince, who had chief authority over all the regular
+troops, had given notice that he would permit nothing to be done against
+"those of the Reformed religion," by which he meant the
+Contra-Remonstrants and them only.
+
+In some cities there were no garrisons, but only train-bands. But the
+train bands (Schutters) could not be relied on to carry out the Sharp
+Resolve, for they were almost to a man Contra-Remonstrants. It was
+therefore determined to enlist what were called "Waartgelders;" soldiers,
+inhabitants of the place, who held themselves ready to serve in time of
+need in consideration of a certain wage; mercenaries in short.
+
+This resolution was followed as a matter of course by a solemn protest
+from Amsterdam and the five cities who acted with her.
+
+On the same day Maurice was duly notified of the passage of the law. His
+wrath was great. High words passed between him and the deputies. It could
+hardly have been otherwise expected. Next-day he came before the Assembly
+to express his sentiments, to complain of the rudeness with which the
+resolution of 4th August had been communicated to him, and to demand
+further explanations. Forthwith the Advocate proceeded to set forth the
+intentions of the States, and demanded that the Prince should assist the
+magistrates in carrying out the policy decided upon. Reinier Pauw,
+burgomaster of Amsterdam, fiercely interrupted the oration of Barneveld,
+saying that although these might be his views, they were not to be held
+by his Excellency as the opinions of all. The Advocate, angry at the
+interruption, answered him sternly, and a violent altercation, not
+unmixed with personalities, arose. Maurice, who kept his temper admirably
+on this occasion, interfered between the two and had much difficulty in
+quieting the dispute. He then observed that when he took the oath as
+stadholder these unfortunate differences had not arisen, but all had been
+good friends together. This was perfectly true, but he could have added
+that they might all continue good friends unless the plan of imposing a
+religious creed upon the minority by a clerical decision were persisted
+in. He concluded that for love of one of the two great parties he would
+not violate the oath he had taken to maintain the Reformed religion to
+the last drop of his blood. Still, with the same 'petitio principii' that
+the Reformed religion and the dogmas of the Contra-Remonstrants were one
+and the same thing, he assured the Assembly that the authority of the
+magistrates would be sustained by him so long as it did not lead to the
+subversion of religion.
+
+Clearly the time for argument had passed. As Dudley Carleton observed,
+men had been disputing 'pro aris' long enough. They would soon be
+fighting 'pro focis.'
+
+In pursuance of the policy laid down by the Sharp Resolution, the States
+proceeded to assure themselves of the various cities of the province by
+means of Waartgelders. They sent to the important seaport of Brielle and
+demanded a new oath from the garrison. It was intimated that the Prince
+would be soon coming there in person to make himself master of the place,
+and advice was given to the magistrates to be beforehand with him. These
+statements angered Maurice, and angered him the more because they
+happened to be true. It was also charged that he was pursuing his
+Leicestrian designs and meant to make himself, by such steps, sovereign
+of the country. The name of Leicester being a byword of reproach ever
+since that baffled noble had a generation before left the Provinces in
+disgrace, it was a matter of course that such comparisons were
+excessively exasperating. It was fresh enough too in men's memory that
+the Earl in his Netherland career had affected sympathy with the
+strictest denomination of religious reformers, and that the profligate
+worldling and arrogant self-seeker had used the mask of religion to cover
+flagitious ends. As it had indeed been the object of the party at the
+head of which the Advocate had all his life acted to raise the youthful
+Maurice to the stadholderate expressly to foil the plots of Leicester, it
+could hardly fail to be unpalatable to Maurice to be now accused of
+acting the part of Leicester.
+
+He inveighed bitterly on the subject before the state council: The state
+council, in a body, followed him to a meeting of the States-General. Here
+the Stadholder made a vehement speech and demanded that the States of
+Holland should rescind the "Sharp Resolution," and should desist from the
+new oaths required from the soldiery. Barneveld, firm as a rock, met
+these bitter denunciations. Speaking in the name of Holland, he repelled
+the idea that the sovereign States of that province were responsible to
+the state council or to the States-General either. He regretted, as all
+regretted, the calumnies uttered against the Prince, but in times of such
+intense excitement every conspicuous man was the mark of calumny.
+
+The Stadholder warmly repudiated Leicestrian designs, and declared that
+he had been always influenced by a desire to serve his country and
+maintain the Reformed religion. If he had made mistakes, he desired to be
+permitted to improve in the future.
+
+Thus having spoken, the soldier retired from the Assembly with the state
+council at his heels.
+
+The Advocate lost no time in directing the military occupation of the
+principal towns of Holland, such as Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam,
+Schoonhoven, Hoorn, and other cities.
+
+At Leyden especially, where a strong Orange party was with difficulty
+kept in obedience by the Remonstrant magistracy, it was found necessary
+to erect a stockade about the town-hall and to plant caltrops and other
+obstructions in the squares and streets.
+
+The broad space in front; of the beautiful medieval seat of the municipal
+government, once so sacred for the sublime and pathetic scenes enacted
+there during the famous siege and in the magistracy of Peter van der
+Werff, was accordingly enclosed by a solid palisade of oaken planks,
+strengthened by rows of iron bars with barbed prongs: The entrenchment
+was called by the populace the Arminian Fort, and the iron spear heads
+were baptized Barneveld's teeth. Cannon were planted at intervals along
+the works, and a company or two of the Waartgelders, armed from head to
+foot, with snaphances on their shoulders, stood ever ready to issue forth
+to quell any disturbances. Occasionally a life or two was lost of citizen
+or soldier, and many doughty blows were interchanged.
+
+It was a melancholy spectacle. No commonwealth could be more fortunate
+than this republic in possessing two such great leading minds. No two men
+could be more patriotic than both Stadholder and Advocate. No two men
+could be prouder, more overbearing, less conciliatory.
+
+"I know Mons. Barneveld well," said Sir Ralph Winwood, "and know that he
+hath great powers and abilities, and malice itself must confess that man
+never hath done more faithful and powerful service to his country than
+he. But 'finis coronat opus' and 'il di lodi lacera; oportet imperatorem
+stantem mori.'"
+
+The cities of Holland were now thoroughly "waartgeldered," and Barneveld
+having sufficiently shown his "teeth" in that province departed for
+change of air to Utrecht. His failing health was assigned as the pretext
+for the visit, although the atmosphere of that city has never been
+considered especially salubrious in the dog-days.
+
+Meantime the Stadholder remained quiet, but biding his time. He did not
+choose to provoke a premature conflict in the strongholds of the
+Arminians as he called them, but with a true military instinct preferred
+making sure of the ports. Amsterdam, Enkhuyzen, Flushing, being without
+any effort of his own within his control, he quietly slipped down the
+river Meuse on the night of the 29th September, accompanied by his
+brother Frederic Henrys and before six o'clock next morning had
+introduced a couple of companies of trustworthy troops into Brielle, had
+summoned the magistrates before him, and compelled them to desist from
+all further intention of levying mercenaries. Thus all the fortresses
+which Barneveld had so recently and in such masterly fashion rescued from
+the grasp of England were now quietly reposing in the hands of the
+Stadholder.
+
+Maurice thought it not worth his while for the present to quell the
+mutiny--as he considered it the legal and constitutional defence of
+vested right--as great jurists like Barneveld and Hugo Grotius accounted
+the movement--at its "fountain head Leyden or its chief stream Utrecht;"
+to use the expression of Carleton. There had already been bloodshed in
+Leyden, a burgher or two having been shot and a soldier stoned to death
+in the streets, but the Stadholder deemed it unwise to precipitate
+matters. Feeling himself, with his surpassing military knowledge and with
+a large majority of the nation at his back, so completely master of the
+situation, he preferred waiting on events. And there is no doubt that he
+was proving himself a consummate politician and a perfect master of
+fence. "He is much beloved and followed both of soldiers and people,"
+said the English ambassador, "he is a man 'innoxiae popularitatis' so as
+this jealousy cannot well be fastened upon him; and in this cause of
+religion he stirred not until within these few months he saw he must
+declare himself or suffer the better party to be overborne."
+
+The chief tribunal-high council so called-of the country soon gave
+evidence that the "Sharp Resolution" had judged rightly in reckoning on
+its hostility and in nullifying its decisions in advance.
+
+They decided by a majority vote that the Resolution ought not to be
+obeyed, but set aside. Amsterdam, and the three or four cities usually
+acting with her, refused to enlist troops.
+
+Rombout Hoogerbeets, a member of the tribunal, informed Prince Maurice
+that he "would no longer be present on a bench where men disputed the
+authority of the States of Holland, which he held to be the supreme
+sovereignty over him."
+
+This was plain speaking; a distinct enunciation of what the States' right
+party deemed to be constitutional law.
+
+And what said Maurice in reply?
+
+"I, too, recognize the States of Holland as sovereign; but we might at
+least listen to each other occasionally."
+
+Hoogerbeets, however, deeming that listening had been carried far enough,
+decided to leave the tribunal altogether, and to resume the post which he
+had formerly occupied as Pensionary or chief magistrate of Leyden.
+
+Here he was soon to find himself in the thick of the conflict. Meantime
+the States-General, in full assembly, on 11th November 1617, voted that
+the National Synod should be held in the course of the following year.
+The measure was carried by a strict party vote and by a majority of one.
+The representatives of each province voting as one, there were four in
+favour of to three against the Synod. The minority, consisting of
+Holland, Utrecht, and Overyssel, protested against the vote as an
+outrageous invasion of the rights of each province, as an act of flagrant
+tyranny and usurpation.
+
+The minority in the States of Holland, the five cities often named,
+protested against the protest.
+
+The defective part of the Netherland constitutions could not be better
+illustrated. The minority of the States of Holland refused to be bound by
+a majority of the provincial assembly. The minority of the States-General
+refused to be bound by the majority of the united assembly.
+
+This was reducing politics to an absurdity and making all government
+impossible. It is however quite certain that in the municipal governments
+a majority had always governed, and that a majority vote in the
+provincial assemblies had always prevailed. The present innovation was to
+govern the States-General by a majority.
+
+Yet viewed by the light of experience and of common sense, it would be
+difficult to conceive of a more preposterous proceeding than thus to cram
+a religious creed down the throats of half the population of a country by
+the vote of a political assembly. But it was the seventeenth and not the
+nineteenth century.
+
+Moreover, if there were any meaning in words, the 13th Article of Union,
+reserving especially the disposition over religious matters to each
+province, had been wisely intended to prevent the possibility of such
+tyranny.
+
+When the letters of invitation to the separate states and to others were
+drawing up in the general assembly, the representatives of the three
+states left the chamber. A solitary individual from Holland remained
+however, a burgomaster of Amsterdam.
+
+Uytenbogaert, conversing with Barneveld directly afterwards, advised him
+to accept the vote. Yielding to the decision of the majority, it would be
+possible, so thought the clergyman, for the great statesman so to handle
+matters as to mould the Synod to his will, even as he had so long
+controlled the States-Provincial and the States-General.
+
+"If you are willing to give away the rights of the land," said the
+Advocate very sharply, "I am not."
+
+Probably the priest's tactics might have proved more adroit than the
+stony opposition on which Barneveld was resolved.
+
+But it was with the aged statesman a matter of principle, not of policy.
+His character and his personal pride, the dignity of opinion and office,
+his respect for constitutional law, were all at stake.
+
+Shallow observers considered the struggle now taking place as a personal
+one. Lovers of personal government chose to look upon the Advocate's
+party as a faction inspired with an envious resolve to clip the wings of
+the Stadholder, who was at last flying above their heads.
+
+There could be no doubt of the bitter animosity between the two men.
+There could be no doubt that jealousy was playing the part which that
+master passion will ever play in all the affairs of life. But there could
+be no doubt either that a difference of principle as wide as the world
+separated the two antagonists.
+
+Even so keen an observer as Dudley Carleton, while admitting the man's
+intellectual power and unequalled services, could see nothing in the
+Advocate's present course but prejudice, obstinacy, and the insanity of
+pride. "He doth no whit spare himself in pains nor faint in his
+resolution," said the Envoy, "wherein notwithstanding he will in all
+appearance succumb ere afore long, having the disadvantages of a weak
+body, a weak party, and a weak cause." But Carleton hated Barneveld, and
+considered it the chief object of his mission to destroy him, if he
+could. In so doing he would best carry out the wishes of his sovereign.
+
+The King of Britain had addressed a somewhat equivocal letter to the
+States-General on the subject of religion in the spring of 1617. It
+certainly was far from being as satisfactory as, the epistles of 1613
+prepared under the Advocate's instructions, had been, while the exuberant
+commentary upon the royal text, delivered in full assembly by his
+ambassador soon after the reception of the letter, was more than usually
+didactic, offensive, and ignorant. Sir Dudley never omitted an
+opportunity of imparting instruction to the States-General as to the
+nature of their constitution and the essential dogmas on which their
+Church was founded. It is true that the great lawyers and the great
+theologians of the country were apt to hold very different opinions from
+his upon those important subjects, but this was so much the worse for the
+lawyers and theologians, as time perhaps might prove.
+
+The King in this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he
+had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier
+letters had been misinterpreted. They had been made use of, he said, to
+authorize the very error against which they had been directed. They had
+been held to intend the very contrary of what they did mean. He felt
+himself bound in conscience therefore, finding these differences ready to
+be "hatched into schisms," to warn the States once more against pests so
+pernicious.
+
+Although the royal language was somewhat vague so far as enunciation of
+doctrine, a point on which he had once confessed himself fallible, was
+concerned, there was nothing vague in his recommendation of a National
+Synod. To this the opposition of Barneveld was determined not upon
+religious but upon constitutional grounds. The confederacy did not
+constitute a nation, and therefore there could not be a national synod
+nor a national religion.
+
+Carleton came before the States-General soon afterwards with a prepared
+oration, wearisome as a fast-day sermon after the third turn of the
+hour-glass, pragmatical as a schoolmaster's harangue to fractious little
+boys.
+
+He divided his lecture into two heads--the peace of the Church, and the
+peace of the Provinces--starting with the first. "A Jove principium," he
+said, "I will begin with that which is both beginning and end. It is the
+truth of God's word and its maintenance that is the bond of our common
+cause. Reasons of state invite us as friends and neighbours by the
+preservation of our lives and property, but the interest of religion
+binds us as Christians and brethren to the mutual defence of the liberty
+of our consciences."
+
+He then proceeded to point out the only means by which liberty of
+conscience could be preserved. It was by suppressing all forms of
+religion but one, and by silencing all religious discussion. Peter
+Titelman and Philip II. could not have devised a more pithy formula. All
+that was wanting was the axe and faggot to reduce uniformity to practice.
+Then liberty of conscience would be complete.
+
+"One must distinguish," said the Ambassador, "between just liberty and
+unbridled license, and conclude that there is but one truth single and
+unique. Those who go about turning their brains into limbecks for
+distilling new notions in religious matters only distract the union of
+the Church which makes profession of this unique truth. If it be
+permitted to one man to publish the writings and fantasies of a sick
+spirit and for another moved by Christian zeal to reduce this wanderer
+'ad sanam mentem;' why then 'patet locus adversus utrumque,' and the
+common enemy (the Devil) slips into the fortress." He then proceeded to
+illustrate this theory on liberty of conscience by allusions to Conrad
+Vorstius.
+
+This infamous sectary had in fact reached such a pitch of audacity, said
+the Ambassador, as not only to inveigh against the eternal power of God
+but to indulge in irony against the honour of his Majesty King James.
+
+And in what way had he scandalized the government of the Republic? He had
+dared to say that within its borders there was religious toleration. He
+had distinctly averred that in the United Provinces heretics were not
+punished with death or with corporal chastisement.
+
+"He declares openly," said Carleton, "that contra haereticos etiam vere
+dictos (ne dum falso et calumniose sic traductos) there is neither
+sentence of death nor other corporal punishment, so that in order to
+attract to himself a great following of birds of the name feather he
+publishes to all the world that here in this country one can live and die
+a heretic, unpunished, without being arrested and without danger."
+
+In order to suppress this reproach upon the Republic at which the
+Ambassador stood aghast, and to prevent the Vorstian doctrines of
+religious toleration and impunity of heresy from spreading among "the
+common people, so subject by their natures to embrace new opinions," he
+advised of course that "the serpent be sent back to the nest where he was
+born before the venom had spread through the whole body of the Republic."
+
+A week afterwards a long reply was delivered on part of the
+States-General to the Ambassador's oration. It is needless to say that it
+was the work of the Advocate, and that it was in conformity with the
+opinions so often exhibited in the letters to Caron and others of which
+the reader has seen many samples.
+
+That religious matters were under the control of the civil government,
+and that supreme civil authority belonged to each one of the seven
+sovereign provinces, each recognizing no superior within its own sphere,
+were maxims of state always enforced in the Netherlands and on which the
+whole religious controversy turned.
+
+"The States-General have always cherished the true Christian Apostolic
+religion," they said, "and wished it to be taught under the authority and
+protection of the legal government of these Provinces in all purity, and
+in conformity with the Holy Scriptures, to the good people of these
+Provinces. And My Lords the States and magistrates of the respective
+provinces, each within their own limits, desire the same."
+
+They had therefore given express orders to the preachers "to keep the
+peace by mutual and benign toleration of the different opinions on the
+one side and the other at least until with full knowledge of the subject
+the States might otherwise ordain. They had been the more moved to this
+because his Majesty having carefully examined the opinions of the learned
+hereon each side had found both consistent with Christian belief and the
+salvation of souls."
+
+It was certainly not the highest expression of religious toleration for
+the civil authority to forbid the clergymen of the country from
+discussing in their pulpits the knottiest and most mysterious points of
+the schoolmen lest the "common people" should be puzzled. Nevertheless,
+where the close union of Church and State and the necessity of one church
+were deemed matters of course, it was much to secure subordination of the
+priesthood to the magistracy, while to enjoin on preachers abstention
+from a single exciting cause of quarrel, on the ground that there was
+more than one path to salvation, and that mutual toleration was better
+than mutual persecution, was; in that age, a stride towards religious
+equality. It was at least an advance on Carleton's dogma, that there was
+but one unique and solitary truth, and that to declare heretics not
+punishable with death was an insult to the government of the Republic.
+
+The States-General answered the Ambassador's plea, made in the name of
+his master, for immediate and unguaranteed evacuation of the debatable
+land by the arguments already so often stated in the Advocate's
+instructions to Caron. They had been put to great trouble and expense
+already in their campaigning and subsequent fortification of important
+places in the duchies. They had seen the bitter spirit manifested by the
+Spaniards in the demolition of the churches and houses of Mulheim and
+other places. "While the affair remained in its present terms of utter
+uncertainty their Mightinesses," said the States-General, "find it most
+objectionable to forsake the places which they have been fortifying and
+to leave the duchies and all their fellow-religionists, besides the
+rights of the possessory princes a prey to those who have been hankering
+for the territories for long years, and who would unquestionably be able
+to make themselves absolute masters of all within a very few days."
+
+A few months later Carleton came before the States-General again and
+delivered another elaborate oration, duly furnished to him by the King,
+upon the necessity of the National Synod, the comparative merits of
+Arminianism and Contra-Remonstrantism, together with a full exposition of
+the constitutions of the Netherlands.
+
+It might be supposed that Barneveld and Grotius and Hoogerbeets knew
+something of the law and history of their country.
+
+But James knew much better, and so his envoy endeavoured to convince his
+audience.
+
+He received on the spot a temperate but conclusive reply from the
+delegates of Holland. They informed him that the war with Spain--the
+cause of the Utrecht Union--was not begun about religion but on account
+of the violation of liberties, chartered rights and privileges, not the
+least of which rights was that of each province to regulate religious
+matters within its borders.
+
+A little later a more vehement reply was published anonymously in the
+shape of a pamphlet called 'The Balance,' which much angered the
+Ambassador and goaded his master almost to frenzy. It was deemed so
+blasphemous, so insulting to the Majesty of England, so entirely
+seditious, that James, not satisfied with inditing a rejoinder, insisted
+through Carleton that a reward should be offered by the States for the
+detection of the author, in order that he might be condignly punished.
+This was done by a majority vote, 1000 florins being offered for the
+discovery of the author and 600 for that of the printer.
+
+Naturally the step was opposed in the States-General; two deputies in
+particular making themselves conspicuous. One of them was an audacious
+old gentleman named Brinius of Gelderland, "much corrupted with
+Arminianism," so Carleton informed his sovereign. He appears to have
+inherited his audacity through his pedigree, descending, as it was
+ludicrously enough asserted he did, from a chief of the Caninefates, the
+ancient inhabitants of Gelderland, called Brinio. And Brinio the
+Caninefat had been as famous for his stolid audacity as for his
+illustrious birth; "Erat in Caninefatibus stolidae audaciae Brinio
+claritate natalium insigni."
+
+The patronizing manner in which the Ambassador alluded to the other
+member of the States-General who opposed the decree was still more
+diverting. It was "Grotius, the Pensioner of Rotterdam, a young petulant
+brain, not unknown to your Majesty," said Carleton.
+
+Two centuries and a half have rolled away, and there are few majesties,
+few nations, and few individuals to whom the name of that petulant youth
+is unknown; but how many are familiar with the achievements of the able
+representative of King James?
+
+Nothing came of the measure, however, and the offer of course helped the
+circulation of the pamphlet.
+
+It is amusing to see the ferocity thus exhibited by the royal pamphleteer
+against a rival; especially when one can find no crime in 'The Balance'
+save a stinging and well-merited criticism of a very stupid oration.
+
+Gillis van Ledenberg was generally supposed to be the author of it.
+Carleton inclined, however, to suspect Grotius, "because," said he,
+"having always before been a stranger to my house, he has made me the day
+before the publication thereof a complimentary visit, although it was
+Sunday and church time; whereby the Italian proverb, 'Chi ti caresse piu
+che suole,' &c.,' is added to other likelihoods."
+
+It was subsequently understood however that the pamphlet was written by a
+Remonstrant preacher of Utrecht, named Jacobus Taurinus; one of those who
+had been doomed to death by the mutinous government in that city seven
+years before.
+
+It was now sufficiently obvious that either the governments in the three
+opposition provinces must be changed or that the National Synod must be
+imposed by a strict majority vote in the teeth of the constitution and of
+vigorous and eloquent protests drawn up by the best lawyers in the
+country. The Advocate and Grotius recommended a provincial synod first
+and, should that not succeed in adjusting the differences of church
+government, then the convocation of a general or oecumenical synod. They
+resisted the National Synod because, in their view, the Provinces were
+not a nation. A league of seven sovereign and independent Mates was all
+that legally existed in the Netherlands. It was accordingly determined
+that the governments should be changed, and the Stadholder set himself to
+prepare the way for a thorough and, if possible, a bloodless revolution.
+He departed on the 27th November for a tour through the chief cities, and
+before leaving the Hague addressed an earnest circular letter to the
+various municipalities of Holland.
+
+A more truly dignified, reasonable, right royal letter, from the
+Stadholder's point of view, could not have been indited. The Imperial
+"we" breathing like a morning breeze through the whole of it blew away
+all legal and historical mistiness.
+
+But the clouds returned again nevertheless. Unfortunately for Maurice it
+could not be argued by the pen, however it might be proved by the sword,
+that the Netherlands constituted a nation, and that a convocation of
+doctors of divinity summoned by a body of envoys had the right to dictate
+a creed to seven republics.
+
+All parties were agreed on one point. There must be unity of divine
+worship. The territory of the Netherlands was not big enough to hold two
+systems of religion, two forms of Christianity, two sects of
+Protestantism. It was big enough to hold seven independent and sovereign
+states, but would be split into fragments--resolved into chaos--should
+there be more than one Church or if once a schism were permitted in that
+Church. Grotius was as much convinced of this as Gomarus. And yet the
+13th Article of the Union stared them all in the face, forbidding the
+hideous assumptions now made by the general government. Perhaps no man
+living fully felt its import save Barneveld alone. For groping however
+dimly and hesitatingly towards the idea of religious liberty, of general
+toleration, he was denounced as a Papist, an atheist, a traitor, a
+miscreant, by the fanatics for the sacerdotal and personal power. Yet it
+was a pity that he could never contemplate the possibility of his
+country's throwing off the swaddling clothes of provincialism which had
+wrapped its infancy. Doubtless history, law, tradition, and usage pointed
+to the independent sovereignty of each province. Yet the period of the
+Truce was precisely the time when a more generous constitution, a
+national incorporation might have been constructed to take the place of
+the loose confederacy by which the gigantic war had been fought out.
+After all, foreign powers had no connection with the States, and knew
+only the Union with which and with which alone they made treaties, and
+the reality of sovereignty in each province was as ridiculous as in
+theory it was impregnable. But Barneveld, under the modest title of
+Advocate of one province, had been in reality president and prime
+minister of the whole commonwealth. He had himself been the union and the
+sovereignty. It was not wonderful that so imperious a nature objected to
+transfer its powers to the Church, to the States-General, or to Maurice.
+
+Moreover, when nationality assumed the unlovely form of rigid religious
+uniformity; when Union meant an exclusive self-governed Church enthroned
+above the State, responsible to no civic authority and no human law, the
+boldest patriot might shiver at emerging from provincialism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+   The Commonwealth bent on Self-destruction--Evils of a Confederate
+   System of Government--Rem Bischop's House sacked--Aerssens'
+   unceasing Efforts against Barneveld--The Advocate's Interview with
+   Maurice--The States of Utrecht raise the Troops--The Advocate at
+   Utrecht--Barneveld urges mutual Toleration--Barneveld accused of
+   being Partisan of Spain--Carleton takes his Departure.
+
+It is not cheerful after widely contemplating the aspect of Christendom
+in the year of supreme preparation to examine with the minuteness
+absolutely necessary the narrow theatre to which the political affairs of
+the great republic had been reduced.
+
+That powerful commonwealth, to which the great party of the Reformation
+naturally looked for guidance in the coming conflict, seemed bent on
+self-destruction. The microcosm of the Netherlands now represented, alas!
+the war of elements going on without on a world-wide scale. As the
+Calvinists and Lutherans of Germany were hotly attacking each other even
+in sight of the embattled front of Spain and the League, so the Gomarites
+and the Arminians by their mutual rancour were tearing the political
+power of the Dutch Republic to shreds and preventing her from assuming a
+great part in the crisis. The consummate soldier, the unrivalled
+statesman, each superior in his sphere to any contemporary rival, each
+supplementing the other, and making up together, could they have been
+harmonized, a double head such as no political organism then existing
+could boast, were now in hopeless antagonism to each other. A mass of
+hatred had been accumulated against the Advocate with which he found it
+daily more and more difficult to struggle. The imperious, rugged, and
+suspicious nature of the Stadholder had been steadily wrought upon by the
+almost devilish acts of Francis Aerssens until he had come to look upon
+his father's most faithful adherent, his own early preceptor in
+statesmanship and political supporter, as an antagonist, a conspirator,
+and a tyrant.
+
+The soldier whose unrivalled ability, experience, and courage in the
+field should have placed him at the very head of the great European army
+of defence against the general crusade upon Protestantism, so constantly
+foretold by Barneveld, was now to be engaged in making bloodless but
+mischievous warfare against an imaginary conspiracy and a patriot foe.
+
+The Advocate, keeping steadily in view the great principles by which his
+political life had been guided, the supremacy of the civil authority in
+any properly organized commonwealth over the sacerdotal and military,
+found himself gradually forced into mortal combat with both. To the
+individual sovereignty of each province he held with the tenacity of a
+lawyer and historian. In that he found the only clue through the
+labyrinth which ecclesiastical and political affairs presented. So close
+was the tangle, so confused the medley, that without this slender guide
+all hope of legal issue seemed lost.
+
+No doubt the difficulty of the doctrine of individual sovereignty was
+great, some of the provinces being such slender morsels of territory,
+with resources so trivial, as to make the name of sovereignty ludicrous.
+Yet there could be as little doubt that no other theory was tenable. If
+so powerful a mind as that of the Advocate was inclined to strain the
+theory to its extreme limits, it was because in the overshadowing
+superiority of the one province Holland had been found the practical
+remedy for the imbecility otherwise sure to result from such provincial
+and meagre federalism.
+
+Moreover, to obtain Union by stretching all the ancient historical
+privileges and liberties of the separate provinces upon the Procrustean
+bed of a single dogma, to look for nationality only in common subjection
+to an infallible priesthood, to accept a Catechism as the palladium upon
+which the safety of the State was to depend for all time, and beyond
+which there was to be no further message from Heaven--such was not
+healthy constitutionalism in the eyes of a great statesman. No doubt that
+without the fervent spirit of Calvinism it would have been difficult to
+wage war with such immortal hate as the Netherlands had waged it, no
+doubt the spirit of republican and even democratic liberty lay hidden
+within that rigid husk, but it was dishonour to the martyrs who had died
+by thousands at the stake and on the battle field for the rights of
+conscience if the only result of their mighty warfare against wrong had
+been to substitute a new dogma for an old one, to stifle for ever the
+right of free enquiry, theological criticism, and the hope of further
+light from on high, and to proclaim it a libel on the Republic that
+within its borders all heretics, whether Arminian or Papist, were safe
+from the death penalty or even from bodily punishment. A theological
+union instead of a national one and obtained too at the sacrifice of
+written law and immemorial tradition, a congress in which clerical
+deputations from all the provinces and from foreign nations should
+prescribe to all Netherlanders an immutable creed and a shadowy
+constitution, were not the true remedies for the evils of confederacy,
+nor, if they had been, was the time an appropriate one for their
+application.
+
+It was far too early in the world's history to hope for such
+redistribution of powers and such a modification of the social compact as
+would place in separate spheres the Church and the State, double the
+sanctions and the consolations of religion by removing it from the
+pollutions of political warfare, and give freedom to individual
+conscience by securing it from the interference of government.
+
+It is melancholy to see the Republic thus perversely occupying its
+energies. It is melancholy to see the great soldier becoming gradually
+more ardent for battle with Barneveld and Uytenbogaert than with Spinola
+and Bucquoy, against whom he had won so many imperishable laurels. It is
+still sadder to see the man who had been selected by Henry IV. as the one
+statesman of Europe to whom he could confide his great projects for the
+pacification of Christendom, and on whom he could depend for counsel and
+support in schemes which, however fantastic in some of their details, had
+for their object to prevent the very European war of religion against
+which Barneveld had been struggling, now reduced to defend himself
+against suspicion hourly darkening and hatred growing daily more insane.
+
+The eagle glance and restless wing, which had swept the whole political
+atmosphere, now caged within the stifling limits of theological casuistry
+and personal rivalry were afflicting to contemplate.
+
+The evils resulting from a confederate system of government, from a
+league of petty sovereignties which dared not become a nation, were as
+woefully exemplified in the United Provinces as they were destined to be
+more than a century and a half later, and in another hemisphere, before
+that most fortunate and sagacious of written political instruments, the
+American Constitution of 1787, came to remedy the weakness of the old
+articles of Union.
+
+Meantime the Netherlands were a confederacy, not a nation. Their general
+government was but a committee.
+
+It could ask of, but not command, the separate provinces. It had no
+dealings with nor power over the inhabitants of the country; it could say
+"Thou shalt" neither to state nor citizen; it could consult only with
+corporations--fictitious and many-headed personages--itself incorporate.
+There was no first magistrate, no supreme court, no commander-in-chief,
+no exclusive mint nor power of credit, no national taxation, no central
+house of representation and legislation, no senate. Unfortunately it had
+one church, and out of this single matrix of centralism was born more
+discord than had been produced by all the centrifugal forces of
+provincialism combined.
+
+There had been working substitutes found, as we well know, for the
+deficiencies of this constitution, but the Advocate felt himself bound to
+obey and enforce obedience to the laws and privileges of his country so
+long as they remained without authorized change. His country was the
+Province of Holland, to which his allegiance was due and whose servant he
+was. That there was but one church paid and sanctioned by law, he
+admitted, but his efforts were directed to prevent discord within that
+church, by counselling moderation, conciliation, mutual forbearance, and
+abstention from irritating discussion of dogmas deemed by many thinkers
+and better theologians than himself not essential to salvation. In this
+he was much behind his age or before it. He certainly was not with the
+majority.
+
+And thus, while the election of Ferdinand had given the signal of war all
+over Christendom, while from the demolished churches in Bohemia the
+tocsin was still sounding, whose vibrations were destined to be heard a
+generation long through the world, there was less sympathy felt with the
+call within the territory of the great republic of Protestantism than
+would have seemed imaginable a few short years before. The capture of the
+Cloister Church at the Hague in the summer of 1617 seemed to minds
+excited by personal rivalries and minute theological controversy a more
+momentous event than the destruction of the churches in the Klostergrab
+in the following December. The triumph of Gomarism in a single Dutch city
+inspired more enthusiasm for the moment than the deadly buffet to
+European Protestantism could inspire dismay.
+
+The church had been carried and occupied, as it were, by force, as if an
+enemy's citadel. It seemed necessary to associate the idea of practical
+warfare with a movement which might have been a pacific clerical success.
+Barneveld and those who acted with him, while deploring the intolerance
+out of which the schism had now grown to maturity, had still hoped for
+possible accommodation of the quarrel. They dreaded popular tumults
+leading to oppression of the magistracy by the mob or the soldiery and
+ending in civil war. But what was wanted by the extreme partisans on
+either side was not accommodation but victory.
+
+"Religious differences are causing much trouble and discontents in many
+cities," he said. "At Amsterdam there were in the past week two
+assemblages of boys and rabble which did not disperse without violence,
+crime, and robbery. The brother of Professor Episcopius (Rem Bischop) was
+damaged to the amount of several thousands. We are still hoping that some
+better means of accommodation may be found."
+
+The calmness with which the Advocate spoke of these exciting and painful
+events is remarkable. It was exactly a week before the date of his letter
+that this riot had taken place at Amsterdam; very significant in its
+nature and nearly tragical in its results. There were no Remonstrant
+preachers left in the city, and the people of that persuasion were
+excluded from the Communion service. On Sunday morning, 17th February
+(1617), a furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop, a highly
+respectable and wealthy citizen, brother of the Remonstrant professor
+Episcopius, of Leyden. The house, an elegant mansion in one of the
+principal streets, was besieged and after an hour's resistance carried by
+storm. The pretext of the assault was that Arminian preaching was going
+on within its walls, which was not the fact. The mistress of the house,
+half clad, attempted to make her escape by the rear of the building, was
+pursued by the rabble with sticks and stones, and shrieks of "Kill the
+Arminian harlot, strike her dead," until she fortunately found refuge in
+the house of a neighbouring carpenter. There the hunted creature fell
+insensible on the ground, the master of the house refusing to give her
+up, though the maddened mob surged around it, swearing that if the
+"Arminian harlot"--as respectable a matron as lived in the city--were not
+delivered over to them, they would tear the house to pieces. The hope of
+plunder and of killing Rem Bischop himself drew them at last back to his
+mansion. It was thoroughly sacked; every portable article of value,
+linen, plate, money, furniture, was carried off, the pictures and objects
+of art destroyed, the house gutted from top to bottom. A thousand
+spectators were looking on placidly at the work of destruction as they
+returned from church, many of them with Bible and Psalm-book in their
+hands. The master effected his escape over the roof into an adjoining
+building. One of the ringleaders, a carpenter by trade, was arrested
+carrying an armful of valuable plunder. He was asked by the magistrate
+why he had entered the house. "Out of good zeal," he replied; "to help
+beat and kill the Arminians who were holding conventicle there." He was
+further asked why he hated the Arminians so much. "Are we to suffer such
+folk here," he replied, "who preach the vile doctrine that God has
+created one man for damnation and another for salvation?"--thus ascribing
+the doctrine of the church of which he supposed himself a member to the
+Arminians whom he had been plundering and wished to kill.
+
+Rem Bischop received no compensation for the damage and danger; the
+general cry in the town being that the money he was receiving from
+Barneveld and the King of Spain would make him good even if not a stone
+of the house had been left standing. On the following Thursday two elders
+of the church council waited upon and informed him that he must in future
+abstain from the Communion service.
+
+It may well be supposed that the virtual head of the government liked not
+the triumph of mob law, in the name of religion, over the civil
+authority. The Advocate was neither democrat nor demagogue. A lawyer, a
+magistrate, and a noble, he had but little sympathy with the humbler
+classes, which he was far too much in the habit of designating as rabble
+and populace. Yet his anger was less against them than against the
+priests, the foreigners, the military and diplomatic mischief-makers, by
+whom they were set upon to dangerous demonstrations. The old patrician
+scorned the arts by which highborn demagogues in that as in every age
+affect adulation for inferiors whom they despise. It was his instinct to
+protect, and guide the people, in whom he recognized no chartered nor
+inherent right to govern. It was his resolve, so long as breath was in
+him, to prevent them from destroying life and property and subverting the
+government under the leadership of an inflamed priesthood.
+
+It was with this intention, as we have just seen, and in order to avoid
+bloodshed, anarchy, and civil war in the streets of every town and
+village, that a decisive but in the Advocate's opinion a perfectly legal
+step had been taken by the States of Holland. It had become necessary to
+empower the magistracies of towns to defend themselves by enrolled troops
+against mob violence and against an enforced synod considered by great
+lawyers as unconstitutional.
+
+Aerssens resided in Zealand, and the efforts of that ex-ambassador were
+unceasing to excite popular animosity against the man he hated and to
+trouble the political waters in which no man knew better than he how to
+cast the net.
+
+"The States of Zealand," said the Advocate to the ambassador in London,
+"have a deputation here about the religious differences, urging the
+holding of a National Synod according to the King's letters, to which
+some other provinces and some of the cities of Holland incline. The
+questions have not yet been defined by a common synod, so that a national
+one could make no definition, while the particular synods and clerical
+personages are so filled with prejudices and so bound by mutual
+engagements of long date as to make one fear an unfruitful issue. We are
+occupied upon this point in our assembly of Holland to devise some
+compromise and to discover by what means these difficulties may be
+brought into a state of tranquillity."
+
+It will be observed that in all these most private and confidential
+utterances of the Advocate a tone of extreme moderation, an anxious wish
+to save the Provinces from dissensions, dangers, and bloodshed, is
+distinctly visible. Never is he betrayed into vindictive, ambitious, or
+self-seeking expressions, while sometimes, although rarely, despondent in
+mind. Nor was his opposition to a general synod absolute. He was probably
+persuaded however, as we have just seen, that it should of necessity be
+preceded by provincial ones, both in due regard to the laws of the land
+and to the true definition of the points to be submitted to its decision.
+He had small hope of a successful result from it.
+
+The British king gave him infinite distress. As towards France so towards
+England the Advocate kept steadily before him the necessity of deferring
+to powerful sovereigns whose friendship was necessary to the republic he
+served, however misguided, perverse, or incompetent those monarchs might
+be.
+
+"I had always hoped," he said, "that his Majesty would have adhered to
+his original written advice, that such questions as these ought to be
+quietly settled by authority of law and not by ecclesiastical persons,
+and I still hope that his Majesty's intention is really to that effect,
+although he speaks of synods."
+
+A month later he felt even more encouraged. "The last letter of his
+Majesty concerning our religious questions," he said, "has given rise to
+various constructions, but the best advised, who have peace and unity at
+heart, understand the King's intention to be to conserve the state of
+these Provinces and the religion in its purity. My hope is that his
+Majesty's good opinion will be followed and adopted according to the most
+appropriate methods."
+
+Can it be believed that the statesman whose upright patriotism,
+moderation, and nobleness of purpose thus breathed through every word
+spoken by him in public or whispered to friends was already held up by a
+herd of ravening slanderers to obloquy as a traitor and a tyrant?
+
+He was growing old and had suffered much from illness during this
+eventful summer, but his anxiety for the Commonwealth, caused by these
+distressing and superfluous squabbles, were wearing into him more deeply
+than years or disease could do.
+
+"Owing to my weakness and old age I can't go up-stairs as well as I
+used," he said,--[Barneveld to Caron 31 July and 21 Aug. 1617. (H. Arch.
+MS.)]--"and these religious dissensions cause me sometimes such
+disturbance of mind as will ere long become intolerable, because of my
+indisposition and because of the cry of my heart at the course people are
+pursuing here. I reflect that at the time of Duke Casimir and the Prince
+of Chimay exactly such a course was held in Flanders and in Lord
+Leicester's time in the city of Utrecht, as is best known to yourself. My
+hope is fixed on the Lord God Almighty, and that He will make those well
+ashamed who are laying anything to heart save his honour and glory and
+the welfare of our country with maintenance of its freedom and laws. I
+mean unchangeably to live and die for them . . . . Believe firmly that
+all representations to the contrary are vile calumnies."
+
+Before leaving for Vianen in the middle of August of this year (1617) the
+Advocate had an interview with the Prince. There had been no open rupture
+between them, and Barneveld was most anxious to avoid a quarrel with one
+to whose interests and honour he had always been devoted. He did not
+cling to power nor office. On the contrary, he had repeatedly importuned
+the States to accept his resignation, hoping that perhaps these unhappy
+dissensions might be quieted by his removal from the scene. He now told
+the Prince that the misunderstanding between them arising from these
+religious disputes was so painful to his heart that he would make and had
+made every possible effort towards conciliation and amicable settlement
+of the controversy. He saw no means now, he said, of bringing about
+unity, unless his Excellency were willing to make some proposition for
+arrangement. This he earnestly implored the Prince to do, assuring him of
+his sincere and upright affection for him and his wish to support such
+measures to the best of his ability and to do everything for the
+furtherance of his reputation and necessary authority. He was so desirous
+of this result, he said, that he would propose now as he did at the time
+of the Truce negotiations to lay down all his offices, leaving his
+Excellency to guide the whole course of affairs according to his best
+judgment. He had already taken a resolution, if no means of accommodation
+were possible, to retire to his Gunterstein estate and there remain till
+the next meeting of the assembly; when he would ask leave to retire for
+at least a year; in order to occupy himself with a revision and collation
+of the charters, laws, and other state papers of the country which were
+in his keeping, and which it was needful to bring into an orderly
+condition. Meantime some scheme might be found for arranging the
+religious differences, more effective than any he had been able to
+devise.
+
+His appeal seems to have glanced powerlessly upon the iron reticence of
+Maurice, and the Advocate took his departure disheartened. Later in the
+autumn, so warm a remonstrance was made to him by the leading nobles and
+deputies of Holland against his contemplated withdrawal from his post
+that it seemed a dereliction of duty on his part to retire. He remained
+to battle with the storm and to see "with anguish of heart," as he
+expressed it, the course religious affairs were taking.
+
+The States of Utrecht on the 26th August resolved that on account of the
+gathering of large masses of troops in the countries immediately
+adjoining their borders, especially in the Episcopate of Cologne, by aid
+of Spanish money, it was expedient for them to enlist a protective force
+of six companies of regular soldiers in order to save the city from
+sudden and overwhelming attack by foreign troops.
+
+Even if the danger from without were magnified in this preamble, which is
+by no means certain, there seemed to be no doubt on the subject in the
+minds of the magistrates. They believed that they had the right to
+protect and that they were bound to protect their ancient city from
+sudden assault, whether by Spanish soldiers or by organized mobs
+attempting, as had been done in Rotterdam, Oudewater, and other towns, to
+overawe the civil authority in the interest of the Contra-Remonstrants.
+
+Six nobles of Utrecht were accordingly commissioned to raise the troops.
+A week later they had been enlisted, sworn to obey in all things the
+States of Utrecht, and to take orders from no one else. Three days later
+the States of Utrecht addressed a letter to their Mightinesses the
+States-General and to his Excellency the Prince, notifying them that for
+the reasons stated in the resolution cited the six companies had been
+levied. There seemed in these proceedings to be no thought of mutiny or
+rebellion, the province considering itself as acting within its
+unquestionable rights as a sovereign state and without any exaggeration
+of the imperious circumstances of the case.
+
+Nor did the States-General and the Stadholder at that moment affect to
+dispute the rights of Utrecht, nor raise a doubt as to the legality of
+the proceedings. The committee sent thither by the States-General, the
+Prince, and the council of state in their written answer to the letter of
+the Utrecht government declared the reasons given for the enrolment of
+the six companies to be insufficient and the measure itself highly
+dangerous. They complained, but in very courteous language, that the
+soldiers had been levied without giving the least notice thereof to the
+general government, without asking its advice, or waiting for any
+communication from it, and they reminded the States of Utrecht that they
+might always rely upon the States-General and his Excellency, who were
+still ready, as they had been seven years before (1610), to protect them
+against every enemy and any danger.
+
+The conflict between a single province of the confederacy and the
+authority of the general government had thus been brought to a direct
+issue; to the test of arms. For, notwithstanding the preamble to the
+resolution of the Utrecht Assembly just cited, there could be little
+question that the resolve itself was a natural corollary of the famous
+"Sharp Resolution," passed by the States of Holland three weeks before.
+Utrecht was in arms to prevent, among other things at least, the forcing
+upon them by a majority of the States-General of the National Synod to
+which they were opposed, the seizure of churches by the
+Contra-Remonstrants, and the destruction of life and property by inflamed
+mobs.
+
+There is no doubt that Barneveld deeply deplored the issue, but that he
+felt himself bound to accept it. The innate absurdity of a constitutional
+system under which each of the seven members was sovereign and
+independent and the head was at the mercy of the members could not be
+more flagrantly illustrated. In the bloody battles which seemed impending
+in the streets of Utrecht and in all the principal cities of the
+Netherlands between the soldiers of sovereign states and soldiers of a
+general government which was not sovereign, the letter of the law and the
+records of history were unquestionably on the aide of the provincial and
+against the general authority. Yet to nullify the authority of the
+States-General by force of arms at this supreme moment was to stultify
+all government whatever. It was an awful dilemma, and it is difficult
+here fully to sympathize with the Advocate, for he it was who inspired,
+without dictating, the course of the Utrecht proceedings.
+
+With him patriotism seemed at this moment to dwindle into provincialism,
+the statesman to shrink into the lawyer.
+
+Certainly there was no guilt in the proceedings. There was no crime in
+the heart of the Advocate. He had exhausted himself with appeals in
+favour of moderation, conciliation, compromise. He had worked night and
+day with all the energy of a pure soul and a great mind to assuage
+religious hatreds and avert civil dissensions. He was overpowered. He had
+frequently desired to be released from all his functions, but as dangers
+thickened over the Provinces, he felt it his duty so long as he remained
+at his post to abide by the law as the only anchor in the storm. Not
+rising in his mind to the height of a national idea, and especially
+averse from it when embodied in the repulsive form of religious
+uniformity, he did not shrink from a contest which he had not provoked,
+but had done his utmost to avert. But even then he did not anticipate
+civil war. The enrolling of the Waartgelders was an armed protest, a
+symbol of legal conviction rather than a serious effort to resist the
+general government. And this is the chief justification of his course
+from a political point of view. It was ridiculous to suppose that with a
+few hundred soldiers hastily enlisted--and there were less than 1800
+Waartgelders levied throughout the Provinces and under the orders of
+civil magistrates--a serious contest was intended against a splendidly
+disciplined army of veteran troops, commanded by the first general of the
+age.
+
+From a legal point of view Barneveld considered his position impregnable.
+
+The controversy is curious, especially for Americans, and for all who are
+interested in the analysis of federal institutions and of republican
+principles, whether aristocratic or democratic. The States of Utrecht
+replied in decorous but firm language to the committee of the
+States-General that they had raised the six companies in accordance with
+their sovereign right so to do, and that they were resolved to maintain
+them. They could not wait as they had been obliged to do in the time of
+the Earl of Leicester and more recently in 1610 until they had been
+surprised and overwhelmed by the enemy before the States-General and his
+Excellency the Prince could come to their rescue. They could not suffer
+all the evils of tumults, conspiracies, and foreign invasion, without
+defending themselves.
+
+Making use, they said, of the right of sovereignty which in their
+province belonged to them alone, they thought it better to prevent in
+time and by convenient means such fire and mischief than to look on while
+it kindled and spread into a conflagration, and to go about imploring aid
+from their fellow confederates who, God better it, had enough in these
+times to do at home. This would only be to bring them as well as this
+province into trouble, disquiet, and expense. "My Lords the States of
+Utrecht have conserved and continually exercised this right of
+sovereignty in its entireness ever since renouncing the King of Spain.
+Every contract, ordinance, and instruction of the States-General has been
+in conformity with it, and the States of Utrecht are convinced that the
+States of not one of their confederate provinces would yield an atom of
+its sovereignty."
+
+They reminded the general government that by the 1st article of the
+"Closer Union" of Utrecht, on which that assembly was founded, it was
+bound to support the States of the respective provinces and strengthen
+them with counsel, treasure, and blood if their respective rights, more
+especially their individual sovereignty, the most precious of all, should
+be assailed. To refrain from so doing would be to violate a solemn
+contract. They further reminded the council of state that by its
+institution the States-Provincial had not abdicated their respective
+sovereignties, but had reserved it in all matters not specifically
+mentioned in the original instruction by which it was created.
+
+Two days afterwards Arnold van Randwyck and three other commissioners
+were instructed by the general government to confer with the States of
+Utrecht, to tell them that their reply was deemed unsatisfactory, that
+their reasons for levying soldiers in times when all good people should
+be seeking to restore harmony and mitigate dissension were insufficient,
+and to request them to disband those levies without prejudice in so doing
+to the laws and liberties of the province and city of Utrecht.
+
+Here was perhaps an opening for a compromise, the instruction being not
+without ingenuity, and the word sovereignty in regard either to the
+general government or the separate provinces being carefully omitted.
+Soon afterwards, too, the States-General went many steps farther in the
+path of concession, for they made another appeal to the government of
+Utrecht to disband the Waartgelders on the ground of expediency, and in
+so doing almost expressly admitted the doctrine of provincial
+sovereignty. It is important in regard to subsequent events to observe
+this virtual admission.
+
+"Your Honours lay especial stress upon the right of sovereignty as
+belonging to you alone in your province," they said, "and dispute
+therefore at great length upon the power and authority of the Generality,
+of his Excellency, and of the state council. But you will please to
+consider that there is here no question of this, as our commissioners had
+no instructions to bring this into dispute in the least, and most
+certainly have not done so. We have only in effect questioned whether
+that which one has an undoubted right to do can at all times be
+appropriately and becomingly done, whether it was fitting that your
+Honours, contrary to custom, should undertake these new levies upon a
+special oath and commission, and effectively complete the measure without
+giving the slightest notice thereof to the Generality."
+
+It may fairly be said that the question in debate was entirely conceded
+in this remarkable paper, which was addressed by the States-General, the
+Prince-Stadholder, and the council of state to the government of Utrecht.
+It should be observed, too, that while distinctly repudiating the
+intention of disputing the sovereignty of that province, they carefully
+abstain from using the word in relation to themselves, speaking only of
+the might and authority of the Generality, the Prince, and the council.
+
+There was now a pause in the public discussion. The soldiers were not
+disbanded, as the States of Utrecht were less occupied with establishing
+the soundness of their theory than with securing its practical results.
+They knew very well, and the Advocate knew very well, that the intention
+to force a national synod by a majority vote of the Assembly of the
+States-General existed more strongly than ever, and they meant to resist
+it to the last. The attempt was in their opinion an audacious violation
+of the fundamental pact on which the Confederacy was founded. Its success
+would be to establish the sacerdotal power in triumph over the civil
+authority.
+
+During this period the Advocate was resident in Utrecht. For change of
+air, ostensibly at least, he had absented himself from the seat of
+government, and was during several weeks under the hands of his old
+friend and physician Dr. Saul. He was strictly advised to abstain
+altogether from political business, but he might as well have attempted
+to abstain from food and drink. Gillis van Ledenberg, secretary of the
+States of Utrecht, visited him frequently. The proposition to enlist the
+Waartgelders had been originally made in the Assembly by its president,
+and warmly seconded by van Ledenberg, who doubtless conferred afterwards
+with Barneveld in person, but informally and at his lodgings.
+
+It was almost inevitable that this should be the case, nor did the
+Advocate make much mystery as to the course of action which he deemed
+indispensable at this period. Believing it possible that some sudden and
+desperate attempt might be made by evil disposed people, he agreed with
+the States of Utrecht in the propriety of taking measures of precaution.
+They were resolved not to look quietly on while soldiers and rabble under
+guidance perhaps of violent Contra-Remonstrant preachers took possession
+of the churches and even of the city itself, as had already been done in
+several towns.
+
+The chief practical object of enlisting the six companies was that the
+city might be armed against popular tumults, and they feared that the
+ordinary military force might be withdrawn.
+
+When Captain Hartvelt, in his own name and that of the other officers of
+those companies, said that they were all resolved never to use their
+weapons against the Stadholder or the States-General, he was answered
+that they would never be required to do so. They, however, made oath to
+serve against those who should seek to trouble the peace of the Province
+of Utrecht in ecclesiastical or political matters, and further against
+all enemies of the common country. At the same time it was deemed
+expedient to guard against a surprise of any kind and to keep watch and
+ward.
+
+"I cannot quite believe in the French companies," said the Advocate in a
+private billet to Ledenberg. "It would be extremely well that not only
+good watch should be kept at the city gates, but also that one might from
+above and below the river Lek be assuredly advised from the nearest
+cities if any soldiers are coming up or down, and that the same might be
+done in regard to Amersfoort." At the bottom of this letter, which was
+destined to become historical and will be afterwards referred to, the
+Advocate wrote, as he not unfrequently did, upon his private notes, "When
+read, burn, and send me back the two enclosed letters."
+
+The letter lies in the Archives unburned to this day, but, harmless as it
+looked, it was to serve as a nail in more than one coffin.
+
+In his confidential letters to trusted friends he complained of "great
+physical debility growing out of heavy sorrow," and described himself as
+entering upon his seventy-first year and no longer fit for hard political
+labour. The sincere grief, profound love of country, and desire that some
+remedy might be found for impending disaster, is stamped upon all his
+utterances whether official or secret.
+
+"The troubles growing out of the religious differences," he said, "are
+running into all sorts of extremities. It is feared that an attempt will
+be made against the laws of the land through extraordinary ways, and by
+popular tumults to take from the supreme authority of the respective
+provinces the right to govern clerical persons and regulate clerical
+disputes, and to place it at the disposition of ecclesiastics and of a
+National Synod.
+
+"It is thought too that the soldiers will be forbidden to assist the
+civil supreme power and the government of cities in defending themselves
+from acts of violence which under pretext of religion will be attempted
+against the law and the commands of the magistrates.
+
+"This seems to conflict with the common law of the respective provinces,
+each of which from all times had right of sovereignty and supreme
+authority within its territory and specifically reserved it in all
+treaties and especially in that of the Nearer Union . . . . The provinces
+have always regulated clerical matters each for itself. The Province of
+Utrecht, which under the pretext of religion is now most troubled, made
+stipulations to this effect, when it took his Excellency for governor,
+even more stringent than any others. As for Holland, she never imagined
+that one could ever raise a question on the subject . . . . All good men
+ought to do their best to prevent the enemies to the welfare of these
+Provinces from making profit out of our troubles."
+
+The whole matter he regarded as a struggle between the clergy and the
+civil power for mastery over the state, as an attempt to subject
+provincial autonomy to the central government purely in the interest of
+the priesthood of a particular sect. The remedy he fondly hoped for was
+moderation and union within the Church itself. He could never imagine the
+necessity for this ferocious animosity not only between Christians but
+between two branches of the Reformed Church. He could never be made to
+believe that the Five Points of the Remonstrance had dug an abyss too
+deep and wide ever to be bridged between brethren lately of one faith as
+of one fatherland. He was unceasing in his prayers and appeals for
+"mutual toleration on the subject of predestination." Perhaps the
+bitterness, almost amounting to frenzy, with which abstruse points of
+casuistry were then debated, and which converted differences of opinion
+upon metaphysical divinity into deadly hatred and thirst for blood, is
+already obsolete or on the road to become so. If so, then was Barneveld
+in advance of his age, and it would have been better for the peace of the
+world and the progress of Christianity if more of his contemporaries had
+placed themselves on his level.
+
+He was no theologian, but he believed himself to be a Christian, and he
+certainly was a thoughtful and a humble one. He had not the arrogance to
+pierce behind the veil and assume to read the inscrutable thoughts of the
+Omnipotent. It was a cruel fate that his humility upon subjects which he
+believed to be beyond the scope of human reason should have been tortured
+by his enemies into a crime, and that because he hoped for religious
+toleration he should be accused of treason to the Commonwealth.
+
+"Believe and cause others to believe," he said, "that I am and with the
+grace of God hope to continue an upright patriot as I have proved myself
+to be in these last forty-two years spent in the public service. In the
+matter of differential religious points I remain of the opinions which I
+have held for more than fifty years, and in which I hope to live and die,
+to wit, that a good Christian man ought to believe that he is predestined
+to eternal salvation through God's grace, giving for reasons that he
+through God's grace has a firm belief that his salvation is founded
+purely on God's grace and the expiation of our sins through our Saviour
+Jesus Christ, and that if he should fall into any sins his firm trust is
+that God will not let him perish in them, but mercifully turn him to
+repentance, so that he may continue in the same belief to the last."
+
+These expressions were contained in a letter to Caron with the intention
+doubtless that they should be communicated to the King of Great Britain,
+and it is a curious illustration of the spirit of the age, this picture
+of the leading statesman of a great republic unfolding his religious
+convictions for private inspection by the monarch of an allied nation.
+More than anything else it exemplifies the close commixture of theology,
+politics, and diplomacy in that age, and especially in those two
+countries.
+
+Formerly, as we have seen, the King considered a too curious fathoming of
+divine mysteries as highly reprehensible, particularly for the common
+people. Although he knew more about them than any one else, he avowed
+that even his knowledge in this respect was not perfect. It was matter of
+deep regret with the Advocate that his Majesty had not held to his former
+positions, and that he had disowned his original letters.
+
+"I believe my sentiments thus expressed," he said, "to be in accordance
+with Scripture, and I have always held to them without teasing my brains
+with the precise decrees of reprobation, foreknowledge, or the like, as
+matters above my comprehension. I have always counselled Christian
+moderation. The States of Holland have followed the spirit of his
+Majesty's letters, but our antagonists have rejected them and with
+seditious talk, sermons, and the spreading of infamous libels have
+brought matters to their present condition. There have been excesses on
+the other side as well."
+
+He then made a slight, somewhat shadowy allusion to schemes known to be
+afloat for conferring the sovereignty upon Maurice. We have seen that at
+former periods he had entertained this subject and discussed it privately
+with those who were not only friendly but devoted to the Stadholder, and
+that he had arrived at the conclusion that it would not be for the
+interest of the Prince to encourage the project. Above all he was sternly
+opposed to the idea of attempting to compass it by secret intrigue.
+Should such an arrangement be publicly discussed and legally completed,
+it would not meet with his unconditional opposition.
+
+"The Lord God knows," he said, "whether underneath all these movements
+does not lie the design of the year 1600, well known to you. As for me,
+believe that I am and by God's grace hope to remain, what I always was,
+an upright patriot, a defender of the true Christian religion, of the
+public authority, and of all the power that has been and in future may be
+legally conferred upon his Excellency. Believe that all things said,
+written, or spread to the contrary are falsehoods and calumnies."
+
+He was still in Utrecht, but about to leave for the Hague, with health
+somewhat improved and in better spirits in regard to public matters.
+
+"Although I have entered my seventy-first year," he said, "I trust still
+to be of some service to the Commonwealth and to my friends . . . . Don't
+consider an arrangement of our affairs desperate. I hope for better
+things."
+
+Soon after his return he was waited upon one Sunday evening, late in
+October--being obliged to keep his house on account of continued
+indisposition--by a certain solicitor named Nordlingen and informed that
+the Prince was about to make a sudden visit to Leyden at four o'clock
+next morning.
+
+Barneveld knew that the burgomasters and regents were holding a great
+banquet that night, and that many of them would probably have been
+indulging in potations too deep to leave them fit for serious business.
+The agitation of people's minds at that moment made the visit seem rather
+a critical one, as there would probably be a mob collected to see the
+Stadholder, and he was anxious both in the interest of the Prince and the
+regents and of both religious denominations that no painful incidents
+should occur if it was in his power to prevent them.
+
+He was aware that his son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle, had been invited
+to the banquet, and that he was wont to carry his wine discreetly. He
+therefore requested Nordlingen to proceed to Leyden that night and seek
+an interview with van der Myle without delay. By thus communicating the
+intelligence of the expected visit to one who, he felt sure, would do his
+best to provide for a respectful and suitable reception of the Prince,
+notwithstanding the exhilarated condition in which the magistrates would
+probably find themselves, the Advocate hoped to prevent any riot or
+tumultuous demonstration of any kind. At least he would act conformably
+to his duty and keep his conscience clear should disasters ensue.
+
+Later in the night he learned that Maurice was going not to Leyden but to
+Delft, and he accordingly despatched a special messenger to arrive before
+dawn at Leyden in order to inform van der Myle of this change in the
+Prince's movements. Nothing seemed simpler or more judicious than these
+precautions on the part of Barneveld. They could not fail, however, to be
+tortured into sedition, conspiracy, and treason.
+
+Towards the end of the year a meeting of the nobles and knights of
+Holland under the leadership of Barneveld was held to discuss the famous
+Sharp Resolution of 4th August and the letters and arguments advanced
+against it by the Stadholder and the council of state. It was unanimously
+resolved by this body, in which they were subsequently followed by a
+large majority of the States of Holland, to maintain that resolution and
+its consequences and to oppose the National Synod. They further resolved
+that a legal provincial synod should be convoked by the States of Holland
+and under their authority and supervision. The object of such synod
+should be to devise "some means of accommodation, mutual toleration, and
+Christian settlement of differences in regard to the Five Points in
+question."
+
+In case such compromise should unfortunately not be arranged, then it was
+resolved to invite to the assembly two or three persons from France, as
+many from England, from Germany, and from Switzerland, to aid in the
+consultations. Should a method of reconciliation and mutual toleration
+still remain undiscovered, then, in consideration that the whole
+Christian world was interested in composing these dissensions, it was
+proposed that a "synodal assembly of all Christendom," a Protestant
+oecumenical council, should in some solemn manner be convoked.
+
+These resolutions and propositions were all brought forward by the
+Advocate, and the draughts of them in his handwriting remain. They are
+the unimpeachable evidences of his earnest desire to put an end to these
+unhappy disputes and disorders in the only way which he considered
+constitutional.
+
+Before the close of the year the States of Holland, in accordance with
+the foregoing advice of the nobles, passed a resolution, the minutes of
+which were drawn up by the hand of the Advocate, and in which they
+persisted in their opposition to the National Synod. They declared by a
+large majority of votes that the Assembly of the States-General without
+the unanimous consent of the Provincial States were not competent
+according to the Union of Utrecht--the fundamental law of the General
+Assembly--to regulate religious affairs, but that this right belonged to
+the separate provinces, each within its own domain.
+
+They further resolved that as they were bound by solemn oath to maintain
+the laws and liberties of Holland, they could not surrender this right to
+the Generality, nor allow it to be usurped by any one, but in order to
+settle the question of the Five Points, the only cause known to them of
+the present disturbances, they were content under: their own authority to
+convoke a provincial synod within three months, at their own cost, and to
+invite the respective provinces, as many of them as thought good, to send
+to this meeting a certain number of pious and learned theologians.
+
+It is difficult to see why the course thus unanimously proposed by the
+nobles of Holland, under guidance of Barneveld, and subsequently by a
+majority of the States of that province, would not have been as expedient
+as it was legal. But we are less concerned with that point now than with
+the illustrations afforded by these long buried documents of the
+patriotism and sagacity of a man than whom no human creature was ever
+more foully slandered.
+
+It will be constantly borne in mind that he regarded this religious
+controversy purely from a political, legal, and constitutional--and not
+from a theological-point of view. He believed that grave danger to the
+Fatherland was lurking under this attempt, by the general government, to
+usurp the power of dictating the religious creed of all the provinces.
+Especially he deplored the evil influence exerted by the King of England
+since his abandonment of the principles announced in his famous letter to
+the States in the year 1613. All that the Advocate struggled for was
+moderation and mutual toleration within the Reformed Church. He felt that
+a wider scheme of forbearance was impracticable. If a dream of general
+religious equality had ever floated before him or before any one in that
+age, he would have felt it to be a dream which would be a reality nowhere
+until centuries should have passed away. Yet that moderation, patience,
+tolerance, and respect for written law paved the road to that wider and
+loftier region can scarcely be doubted.
+
+Carleton, subservient to every changing theological whim of his master,
+was as vehement and as insolent now in enforcing the intolerant views of
+James as he had previously been in supporting the counsels to tolerance
+contained in the original letters of that monarch.
+
+The Ambassador was often at the Advocate's bed-side during his illness
+that summer, enforcing, instructing, denouncing, contradicting. He was
+never weary of fulfilling his duties of tuition, but the patient
+Barneveld; haughty and overbearing as he was often described to be,
+rarely used a harsh or vindictive word regarding him in his letters.
+
+"The ambassador of France," he said, "has been heard before the Assembly
+of the States-General, and has made warm appeals in favour of union and
+mutual toleration as his Majesty of Great Britain so wisely did in his
+letters of 1613 . . . . If his Majesty could only be induced to write
+fresh letters in similar tone, I should venture to hope better fruits
+from them than from this attempt to thrust a national synod upon our
+necks, which many of us hold to be contrary to law, reason, and the Act
+of Union."
+
+So long as it was possible to hope that the action of the States of
+Holland would prevent such a catastrophe, he worked hard to direct them
+in what he deemed the right course.
+
+"Our political and religious differences," he said, "stand between hope
+and fear."
+
+The hope was in the acceptance of the Provincial Synod--the fear lest the
+National Synod should be carried by a minority of the cities of Holland
+combining with a majority of the other Provincial States.
+
+"This would be in violation," he said, "of the so-called Religious Peace,
+the Act of Union, the treaty with the Duke of Anjou, the negotiations of
+the States of Utrecht, and with Prince Maurice in 1590 with cognizance of
+the States-General and those of Holland for, the governorship of that
+province, the custom of the Generality for the last thirty years
+according to which religious matters have always been left to the
+disposition of the States of each province . . . . Carleton is
+strenuously urging this course in his Majesty's name, and I fear that in
+the present state of our humours great troubles will be the result."
+
+The expulsion by an armed mob, in the past year, of a Remonstrant
+preacher at Oudewater, the overpowering of the magistracy and the forcing
+on of illegal elections in that and other cities, had given him and all
+earnest patriots grave cause for apprehension. They were dreading, said
+Barneveld, a course of crimes similar to those which under the Earl of
+Leicester's government had afflicted Leyden and Utrecht.
+
+"Efforts are incessant to make the Remonstrants hateful," he said to
+Caron, "but go forward resolutely and firmly in the conviction that our
+friends here are as animated in their opposition to the Spanish dominion
+now and by God's grace will so remain as they have ever proved themselves
+to be, not only by words, but works. I fear that Mr. Carleton gives too
+much belief to the enviers of our peace and tranquillity under pretext of
+religion, but it is more from ignorance than malice."
+
+Those who have followed the course of the Advocate's correspondence,
+conversation, and actions, as thus far detailed, can judge of the
+gigantic nature of the calumny by which he was now assailed. That this
+man, into every fibre of whose nature was woven undying hostility to
+Spain, as the great foe to national independence and religious liberty
+throughout the continent of Europe, whose every effort, as we have seen,
+during all these years of nominal peace had been to organize a system of
+general European defence against the war now actually begun upon
+Protestantism, should be accused of being a partisan of Spain, a creature
+of Spain, a pensioner of Spain, was enough to make honest men pray that
+the earth might be swallowed up. If such idiotic calumnies could be
+believed, what patriot in the world could not be doubted? Yet they were
+believed. Barneveld was bought by Spanish gold. He had received whole
+boxes full of Spanish pistoles, straight from Brussels! For his part in
+the truce negotiations he had received 120,000 ducats in one lump.
+
+"It was plain," said the greatest man in the country to another great
+man, "that Barneveld and his party are on the road to Spain."
+
+"Then it were well to have proof of it," said the great man.
+
+"Not yet time," was the reply. "We must flatten out a few of them first."
+
+Prince Maurice had told the Princess-Dowager the winter before (8th
+December 1616) that those dissensions would never be decided except by
+use of weapons; and he now mentioned to her that he had received
+information from Brussels, which he in part believed, that the Advocate
+was a stipendiary of Spain. Yet he had once said, to the same Princess
+Louise, of this stipendiary that "the services which the Advocate had
+rendered to the House of Nassau were so great that all the members of
+that house might well look upon him not as their friend but their
+father." Councillor van Maldere, President of the States of Zealand, and
+a confidential friend of Maurice, was going about the Hague saying that
+"one must string up seven or eight Remonstrants on the gallows; then
+there might be some improvement."
+
+As for Arminius and Uytenbogaert, people had long told each other and
+firmly believed it, and were amazed when any incredulity was expressed in
+regard to it, that they were in regular and intimate correspondence with
+the Jesuits, that they had received large sums from Rome, and that both
+had been promised cardinals' hats. That Barneveld and his friend
+Uytenbogaert were regular pensioners of Spain admitted of no dispute
+whatever. "It was as true as the Holy Evangel." The ludicrous chatter had
+been passed over with absolute disdain by the persons attacked, but
+calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain. It
+proved to be in these cases.
+
+"You have the plague mark on your flesh, oh pope, oh pensioner," said one
+libeller. "There are letters safely preserved to make your process for
+you. Look out for your head. Many have sworn your death, for it is more
+than time that you were out of the world. We shall prove, oh great bribed
+one, that you had the 120,000 little ducats." The preacher Uytenbogaert
+was also said to have had 80,000 ducats for his share. "Go to Brussels,"
+said the pamphleteer; "it all stands clearly written out on the register
+with the names and surnames of all you great bribe-takers."
+
+These were choice morsels from the lampoon of the notary Danckaerts.
+
+"We are tortured more and more with religious differences," wrote
+Barneveld; "with acts of popular violence growing out of them the more
+continuously as they remain unpunished, and with ever increasing
+jealousies and suspicions. The factious libels become daily more numerous
+and more impudent, and no man comes undamaged from the field. I, as a
+reward for all my troubles, labours, and sorrows, have three double
+portions of them. I hope however to overcome all by God's grace and to
+defend my actions with all honourable men so long as right and reason
+have place in the world, as to which many begin to doubt. If his Majesty
+had been pleased to stick to the letters of 1613, we should never have
+got into these difficulties . . . . It were better in my opinion that
+Carleton should be instructed to negotiate in the spirit of those
+epistles rather than to torment us with the National Synod, which will do
+more harm than good."
+
+It is impossible not to notice the simplicity and patience with which the
+Advocate, in the discharge of his duty as minister of foreign affairs,
+kept the leading envoys of the Republic privately informed of events
+which were becoming day by day more dangerous to the public interests and
+his own safety. If ever a perfectly quiet conscience was revealed in the
+correspondence of a statesman, it was to be found in these letters.
+
+Calmly writing to thank Caron for some very satisfactory English beer
+which the Ambassador had been sending him from London, he proceeded to
+speak again of the religious dissensions and their consequences. He sent
+him the letter and remonstrance which he had felt himself obliged to
+make, and which he had been urged by his ever warm and constant friend
+the widow of William the Silent to make on the subject of "the seditious
+libels, full of lies and calumnies got up by conspiracy against him."
+These letters were never published, however, until years after he had
+been in his grave.
+
+"I know that you are displeased with the injustice done me," he said,
+"but I see no improvement. People are determined to force through the
+National Synod. The two last ones did much harm. This will do ten times
+more, so intensely embittered are men's tempers against each other."
+Again he deplored the King's departure from his letters of 1613, by
+adherence to which almost all the troubles would have been spared.
+
+It is curious too to observe the contrast between public opinion in Great
+Britain, including its government, in regard to the constitution of the
+United Provinces at that period of domestic dissensions and incipient
+civil war and the general impressions manifested in the same nation two
+centuries and a half later, on the outbreak of the slavery rebellion, as
+to the constitution of the United States.
+
+The States in arms against the general government on the other side of
+the Atlantic were strangely but not disingenuously assumed to be
+sovereign and independent, and many statesmen and a leading portion of
+the public justified them in their attempt to shake off the central
+government as if it were but a board of agency established by treaty and
+terminable at pleasure of any one of among sovereigns and terminable at
+pleasure of any one of them.
+
+Yet even a superficial glance at the written constitution of the Republic
+showed that its main object was to convert what had been a confederacy
+into an Incorporation; and that the very essence of its renewed political
+existence was an organic law laid down by a whole people in their
+primitive capacity in place of a league banding together a group of
+independent little corporations. The chief attributes of sovereignty--the
+rights of war and peace, of coinage, of holding armies and navies, of
+issuing bills of credit, of foreign relations, of regulating and taxing
+foreign commerce--having been taken from the separate States by the
+united people thereof and bestowed upon a government provided with a
+single executive head, with a supreme tribunal, with a popular house of
+representatives and a senate, and with power to deal directly with the
+life and property of every individual in the land, it was strange indeed
+that the feudal, and in America utterly unmeaning, word Sovereign should
+have been thought an appropriate term for the different States which had
+fused themselves three-quarters of a century before into a Union.
+
+When it is remembered too that the only dissolvent of this Union was the
+intention to perpetuate human slavery, the logic seemed somewhat perverse
+by which the separate sovereignty of the States was deduced from the
+constitution of 1787.
+
+On the other hand, the Union of Utrecht of 1579 was a league of petty
+sovereignties; a compact less binding and more fragile than the Articles
+of Union made almost exactly two hundred years later in America, and the
+worthlessness of which, after the strain of war was over, had been
+demonstrated in the dreary years immediately following the peace of 1783.
+One after another certain Netherland provinces had abjured their
+allegiance to Spain, some of them afterwards relapsing under it, some
+having been conquered by the others, while one of them, Holland, had for
+a long time borne the greater part of the expense and burthen of the war.
+
+"Holland," said the Advocate, "has brought almost all the provinces to
+their liberty. To receive laws from them or from their clerical people
+now is what our State cannot endure. It is against her laws and customs,
+in the enjoyment of which the other provinces and his Excellency as
+Governor of Holland are bound to protect us."
+
+And as the preservation of chattel slavery in the one case seemed a
+legitimate ground for destroying a government which had as definite an
+existence as any government known to mankind, so the resolve to impose a
+single religious creed upon many millions of individuals was held by the
+King and government of Great Britain to be a substantial reason for
+imagining a central sovereignty which had never existed at all. This was
+still more surprising as the right to dispose of ecclesiastical affairs
+and persons had been expressly reserved by the separate provinces in
+perfectly plain language in the Treaty of Union.
+
+"If the King were better informed," said Barneveld, "of our system and
+laws, we should have better hope than now. But one supposes through
+notorious error in foreign countries that the sovereignty stands with the
+States-General which is not the case, except in things which by the
+Articles of Closer Union have been made common to all the provinces,
+while in other matters, as religion, justice, and polity, the sovereignty
+remains with each province, which foreigners seem unable to comprehend."
+
+Early in June, Carleton took his departure for England on leave of
+absence. He received a present from the States of 3000 florins, and went
+over in very ill-humour with Barneveld. "Mr. Ambassador is much offended
+and prejudiced," said the Advocate, "but I know that he will religiously
+carry out the orders of his Majesty. I trust that his Majesty can admit
+different sentiments on predestination and its consequences, and that in
+a kingdom where the supreme civil authority defends religion the system
+of the Puritans will have no foothold."
+
+Certainly James could not be accused of allowing the system of the
+Puritans much foothold in England, but he had made the ingenious
+discovery that Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from
+Puritanism in the Netherlands.
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Acts of violence which under pretext of religion
+     Adulation for inferiors whom they despise
+     Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain
+     Created one child for damnation and another for salvation
+     Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink
+     Devote himself to his gout and to his fair young wife
+     Furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop
+     Highborn demagogues in that as in every age affect adulation
+     In this he was much behind his age or before it
+     Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves
+     Necessity of deferring to powerful sovereigns
+     Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed
+     Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory
+     Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England
+     Seemed bent on self-destruction
+     Stand between hope and fear
+     The evils resulting from a confederate system of government
+     To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. 1618
+
+   Maurice revolutionizes the Provinces--Danckaert's libellous Pamphlet
+   --Barneveld's Appeal to the Prince--Barneveld's 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
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. 1618-19
+
+   Rancour between the Politico-Religious Parties--Spanish Intrigues
+   Inconsistency of James--Brewster and Robinson's Congregation at
+   Leyden--They decide to leave for America--Robinson's Farewell Sermon
+   and Prayer at Parting.
+
+During this dark and mournful winter the internal dissensions and, as a
+matter of course, the foreign intrigues had become more dangerous than
+ever. While the man who for a whole generation had guided the policy of
+the Republic and had been its virtual chief magistrate lay hidden from
+all men's sight, the troubles which he had sought to avert were not
+diminished by his removal from the scene. The extreme or Gomarist party
+which had taken a pride in secret conventicles where they were in a
+minority, determined, as they said, to separate Christ from Belial and,
+meditating the triumph which they had at last secured, now drove the
+Arminians from the great churches. Very soon it was impossible for these
+heretics to enjoy the rights of public worship anywhere. But they were
+not dismayed. The canons of Dordtrecht had not yet been fulminated. They
+avowed themselves ready to sacrifice worldly goods and life itself in
+defence of the Five Points. In Rotterdam, notwithstanding a garrison of
+fifteen companies, more than a thousand Remonstrants assembled on
+Christmas-day in the Exchange for want of a more appropriate place of
+meeting and sang the 112th Psalm in mighty chorus. A clergyman of their
+persuasion accidentally passing through the street was forcibly laid
+hands upon and obliged to preach to them, which he did with great
+unction. The magistracy, where now the Contra-Remonstrants had the
+control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes. It
+was impossible not to be reminded of the days half a century before, when
+the early Reformers had met in the open fields or among the dunes, armed
+to the teeth, and with outlying pickets to warn the congregation of the
+approach of Red Rod and the functionaries of the Holy Inquisition.
+
+In Schoonhoven the authorities attempted one Sunday by main force to
+induct a Contra-Remonstrant into the pulpit from which a Remonstrant had
+just been expelled. The women of the place turned out with their distaffs
+and beat them from the field. The garrison was called out, and there was
+a pitched battle in the streets between soldiers, police officers, and
+women, not much to the edification certainly of the Sabbath-loving
+community on either side, the victory remaining with the ladies.
+
+In short it would be impossible to exaggerate the rancour felt between
+the different politico-religious parties. All heed for the great war now
+raging in the outside world between the hostile elements of Catholicism
+and Protestantism, embattled over an enormous space, was lost in the din
+of conflict among the respective supporters of conditional and
+unconditional damnation within the pale of the Reformed Church. The
+earthquake shaking Europe rolled unheeded, as it was of old said to have
+done at Cannae, amid the fierce shock of mortal foes in that narrow
+field.
+
+The respect for authority which had so long been the distinguishing
+characteristic of the Netherlanders seemed to have disappeared. It was
+difficult--now that the time-honoured laws and privileges in defence of
+which, and of liberty of worship included in them, the Provinces had made
+war forty years long had been trampled upon by military force--for those
+not warmed by the fire of Gomarus to feel their ancient respect for the
+magistracy. The magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword.
+
+The Spanish government was inevitably encouraged by the spectacle thus
+presented. We have seen the strong hopes entertained by the council at
+Madrid, two years before the crisis now existing had occurred. We have
+witnessed the eagerness with which the King indulged the dream of
+recovering the sovereignty which his father had lost, and the vast
+schemes which he nourished towards that purpose, founded on the internal
+divisions which were reducing the Republic to impotence. Subsequent
+events had naturally made him more sanguine than ever. There was now a
+web of intrigue stretching through the Provinces to bring them all back
+under the sceptre of Spain. The imprisonment of the great stipendiary,
+the great conspirator, the man who had sold himself and was on the point
+of selling his country, had not terminated those plots. Where was the
+supposed centre of that intrigue? In the council of state of the
+Netherlands, ever fiercely opposed to Barneveld and stuffed full of his
+mortal enemies. Whose name was most familiar on the lips of the Spanish
+partisans engaged in these secret schemes? That of Adrian Manmaker,
+President of the Council, representative of Prince Maurice as first noble
+of Zealand in the States-General, chairman of the committee sent by that
+body to Utrecht to frustrate the designs of the Advocate, and one of the
+twenty-four commissioners soon to be appointed to sit in judgment upon
+him.
+
+The tale seems too monstrous for belief, nor is it to be admitted with
+certainty, that Manmaker and the other councillors implicated had
+actually given their adhesion to the plot, because the Spanish emissaries
+in their correspondence with the King assured him of the fact. But if
+such a foundation for suspicion could have been found against Barneveld
+and his friends, the world would not have heard the last of it from that
+hour to this.
+
+It is superfluous to say that the Prince was entirely foreign to these
+plans. He had never been mentioned as privy to the little arrangements of
+Councillor du Agean and others, although he was to benefit by them. In
+the Spanish schemes he seems to have been considered as an impediment,
+although indirectly they might tend to advance him.
+
+"We have managed now, I hope, that his Majesty will be recognized as
+sovereign of the country," wrote the confidential agent of the King of
+Spain in the Netherlands, Emmanuel Sueyro, to the government of Madrid.
+"The English will oppose it with all their strength. But they can do
+nothing except by making Count Maurice sovereign of Holland and duke of
+Julich and Cleve. Maurice will also contrive to make himself master of
+Wesel, so it is necessary for the Archduke to be beforehand with him and
+make sure of the place. It is also needful that his Majesty should induce
+the French government to talk with the Netherlanders and convince them
+that it is time to prolong the Truce."
+
+This was soon afterwards accomplished. The French minister at Brussels
+informed Archduke Albert that du Maurier had been instructed to propose
+the prolongation, and that he had been conferring with the Prince of
+Orange and the States-General on the subject. At first the Prince had
+expressed disinclination, but at the last interview both he and the
+States had shown a desire for it, and the French King had requested from
+the Archduke a declaration whether the Spanish government would be
+willing to treat for it. In such case Lewis would offer himself as
+mediator and do his best to bring about a successful result.
+
+But it was not the intention of the conspirators in the Netherlands that
+the Truce should be prolonged. On the contrary the negotiation for it was
+merely to furnish the occasion for fully developing their plot. "The
+States and especially those of Zealand will reply that they no longer
+wish the Truce," continued Sueyro, "and that they would prefer war to
+such a truce. They desire to put ships on the coast of Flanders, to which
+the Hollanders are opposed because it would be disagreeable to the
+French. So the Zealanders will be the first to say that the Netherlanders
+must come back to his Majesty. This their President Hanmaker has sworn.
+The States of Overyssel will likewise give their hand to this because
+they say they will be the first to feel the shock of the war. Thus we
+shall very easily carry out our design, and as we shall concede to the
+Zealanders their demands in regard to the navigation they at least will
+place themselves under the dominion of his Majesty as will be the case
+with Friesland as well as Overyssel."
+
+It will be observed that in this secret arrangement for selling the
+Republic to its ancient master it was precisely the Provinces and the
+politicians most steadily opposed to Barneveld that took the lead.
+Zealand, Friesland, Overyssel were in the plot, but not a word was said
+of Utrecht. As for Holland itself, hopes were founded on the places where
+hatred to the Advocate was fiercest.
+
+"Between ourselves," continued the agent, "we are ten here in the
+government of Holland to support the plan, but we must not discover
+ourselves for fear of suffering what has happened to Barneveld."
+
+He added that the time for action had not yet come, and that if movements
+were made before the Synod had finished its labours, "The Gomarists would
+say that they were all sold." He implored the government at Madrid to
+keep the whole matter for the present profoundly secret because "Prince
+Maurice and the Gomarists had the forces of the country at their
+disposition." In case the plot was sprung too suddenly therefore, he
+feared that with the assistance of England Maurice might, at the head of
+the Gomarists and the army, make himself sovereign of Holland and Duke of
+Cleve, while he and the rest of the Spanish partisans might be in prison
+with Barneveld for trying to accomplish what Barneveld had been trying to
+prevent.
+
+The opinions and utterances of such a man as James I. would be of little
+worth to our history had he not happened to occupy the place he did. But
+he was a leading actor in the mournful drama which filled up the whole
+period of the Twelve Years' Truce. His words had a direct influence on
+great events. He was a man of unquestionable erudition, of powers of mind
+above the average, while the absolute deformity of his moral constitution
+made him incapable of thinking, feeling, or acting rightly on any vital
+subject, by any accident or on any occasion. If there were one thing that
+he thoroughly hated in the world, it was the Reformed religion. If in his
+thought there were one term of reproach more loathsome than another to be
+applied to a human creature, it was the word Puritan. In the word was
+subversion of all established authority in Church and State--revolution,
+republicanism, anarchy. "There are degrees in Heaven," he was wont to
+say, "there are degrees in Hell, there must be degrees on earth."
+
+He forbade the Calvinist Churches of Scotland to hold their customary
+Synod in 1610, passionately reviling them and their belief, and declaring
+"their aim to be nothing else than to deprive kings and princes of their
+sovereignty, and to reduce the whole world to a popular form of
+government where everybody would be master."
+
+When the Prince of Neuburg embraced Catholicism, thus complicating
+matters in the duchies and strengthening the hand of Spain and the
+Emperor in the debateable land, he seized the occasion to assure the
+agent of the Archduke in London, Councillor Boissetot, of his warm
+Catholic sympathies. "They say that I am the greatest heretic in the
+world!" he exclaimed; "but I will never deny that the true religion is
+that of Rome even if corrupted." He expressed his belief in the real
+presence, and his surprise that the Roman Catholics did not take the
+chalice for the blood of Christ. The English bishops, he averred, drew
+their consecration through the bishops in Mary Tudor's time from the
+Pope.
+
+As Philip II., and Ferdinand II. echoing the sentiments of his
+illustrious uncle, had both sworn they would rather reign in a wilderness
+than tolerate a single heretic in their dominions, so James had said "he
+would rather be a hermit in a forest than a king over such people as the
+pack of Puritans were who overruled the lower house."
+
+For the Netherlanders he had an especial hatred, both as rebels and
+Puritans. Soon after coming to the English throne he declared that their
+revolt, which had been going on all his lifetime and of which he never
+expected to see the end, had begun by petition for matters of religion.
+"His mother and he from their cradles," he said, "had been haunted with a
+Puritan devil, which he feared would not leave him to his grave. And he
+would hazard his crown but he would suppress those malicious spirits." It
+seemed a strange caprice of Destiny that assigned to this hater of
+Netherlanders, of Puritans, and of the Reformed religion, the decision of
+disputed points between Puritans and anti-Puritans in the Reformed Church
+of the Netherlands.
+
+It seemed stranger that his opinions should be hotly on the side of the
+Puritans.
+
+Barneveld, who often used the expression in later years, as we have seen
+in his correspondence, was opposed to the Dutch Puritans because they had
+more than once attempted subversion of the government on pretext of
+religion, especially at the memorable epoch of Leicester's government.
+
+The business of stirring up these religious conspiracies against the
+magistracy he was apt to call "Flanderizing," in allusion to those
+disastrous days and to the origin of the ringleaders in those tumults.
+But his main object, as we have seen, was to effect compromises and
+restore good feeling between members of the one church, reserving the
+right of disposing over religious matters to the government of the
+respective provinces.
+
+But James had remedied his audacious inconsistency by discovering that
+Puritanism in England and in the Netherlands resembled each other no more
+than certain letters transposed into totally different words meant one
+and the same thing. The anagrammatic argument had been neatly put by Sir
+Dudley Carleton, convincing no man. Puritanism in England "denied the
+right of human invention or imposition in religious matters." Puritanism
+in the Netherlands denied the right of the legal government to impose its
+authority in religious matters. This was the great matter of debate in
+the Provinces. In England the argument had been settled very summarily
+against the Puritans by sheriffs' officers, bishops' pursuivants, and
+county jails.
+
+As the political tendencies, so too the religious creed and observances
+of the English Puritans were identical with that of the
+Contra-Remonstrants, whom King James had helped to their great triumph.
+This was not very difficult to prove. It so happened that there were some
+English Puritans living at that moment in Leyden. They formed an
+independent society by themselves, which they called a Congregational
+Church, and in which were some three hundred communicants. The length of
+their residence there was almost exactly coeval with the Twelve Years'
+Truce. They knew before leaving England that many relics of the Roman
+ceremonial, with which they were dissatisfied, and for the discontinuance
+of which they had in vain petitioned the crown--the ring, the sign of the
+cross, white surplices, and the like--besides the whole hierarchical
+system, had been disused in the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland,
+and the United Provinces, where the forms of worship in their view had
+been brought more nearly to the early apostolic model. They admitted for
+truth the doctrinal articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches. They had not
+come to the Netherlands without cause. At an early period of King James's
+reign this congregation of seceders from the establishment had been wont
+to hold meetings at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, once a manor of the
+Archbishop of York, but then the residence of one William Brewster. This
+was a gentleman of some fortune, educated at Cambridge, a good scholar,
+who in Queen Elizabeth's time had been in the service of William Davison
+when Secretary of State. He seemed to have been a confidential private
+secretary of that excellent and unlucky statesman, who found him so
+discreet and faithful as to deserve employment before all others in
+matters of trust and secrecy. He was esteemed by Davison "rather as a son
+than a servant," and he repaid his confidence by doing him many faithful
+offices in the time of his troubles. He had however long since retired
+from connection with public affairs, living a retired life, devoted to
+study, meditation, and practical exertion to promote the cause of
+religion, and in acts of benevolence sometimes beyond his means.
+
+The pastor of the Scrooby Church, one John Robinson, a graduate of
+Cambridge, who had been a benefited clergyman in Norfolk, was a man of
+learning, eloquence, and lofty intellect. But what were such good gifts
+in the possession of rebels, seceders, and Puritans? It is needless to
+say that Brewster and Robinson were baited, persecuted, watched day and
+night, some of the congregation often clapped into prison, others into
+the stocks, deprived of the means of livelihood, outlawed, famished,
+banned. Plainly their country was no place for them. After a few years of
+such work they resolved to establish themselves in Holland, where at
+least they hoped to find refuge and toleration.
+
+But it proved as difficult for them to quit the country as to remain in
+it. Watched and hunted like gangs of coiners, forgers, or other felons
+attempting to flee from justice, set upon by troopers armed with "bills
+and guns and other weapons," seized when about to embark, pillaged and
+stripped by catchpoles, exhibited as a show to grinning country folk, the
+women and children dealt with like drunken tramps, led before
+magistrates, committed to jail; Mr. Brewster and six other of the
+principal ones being kept in prison and bound over to the assizes; they
+were only able after attempts lasting through two years' time to effect
+their escape to Amsterdam. After remaining there a year they had removed
+to Leyden, which they thought "a fair and beautiful city, and of a sweet
+situation."
+
+They settled in Leyden in the very year in which Arminius was buried
+beneath the pavement of St. Peter's Church in that town. It was the year
+too in which the Truce was signed. They were a singularly tranquil and
+brotherly community. Their pastor, who was endowed with remarkable
+gentleness and tact in dealing with his congregation, settled amicably
+all their occasional disputes. The authorities of the place held them up
+as a model. To a Walloon congregation in which there were many
+troublesome and litigious members they said: "These English have lived
+among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation against
+any of them, but your quarrels are continual."
+
+Although many of them were poor, finding it difficult to earn their
+living in a foreign land among people speaking a strange tongue, and with
+manners and habits differing from their own, and where they were obliged
+to learn new trades, having most of them come out of an agricultural
+population, yet they enjoyed a singular reputation for probity. Bakers
+and butchers and the like willingly gave credit to the poorest of these
+English, and sought their custom if known to be of the congregation. Mr.
+Brewster, who had been reduced almost to poverty by his charities and
+munificent aid to his struggling brethren, earned his living by giving
+lessons in English, having first composed a grammar according to the
+Latin model for the use of his pupils. He also set up a printing
+establishment, publishing many controversial works prohibited in England,
+a proceeding which roused the wrath of Carleton, impelling him to do his
+best to have him thrown into prison.
+
+It was not the first time that this plain, mechanical, devout Englishman,
+now past middle age, had visited the Netherlands. More than twenty-five
+years before he had accompanied William Davison on his famous embassy to
+the States, as private secretary.
+
+When the keys of Flushing, one of the cautionary towns, were committed to
+the Ambassador, he confided them to the care of Brewster, who slept with
+them under his pillow. The gold chain which Davison received as a present
+from the provincial government on leaving the country was likewise placed
+in his keeping, with orders to wear it around his neck until they should
+appear before the Queen. To a youth of ease and affluence, familiar with
+ambassadors and statesmen and not unknown at courts, had succeeded a
+mature age of obscurity, deep study, and poverty. No human creature would
+have heard of him had his career ended with his official life. Two
+centuries and a half have passed away and the name of the outlawed
+Puritan of Scrooby and Leyden is still familiar to millions of the
+English race.
+
+All these Englishmen were not poor. Many of them occupied houses of fair
+value, and were admitted to the freedom of the city. The pastor with
+three of his congregation lived in a comfortable mansion, which they had
+purchased for the considerable sum of 8000 florins, and on the garden of
+which they subsequently erected twenty-one lesser tenements for the use
+of the poorer brethren.
+
+Mr. Robinson was himself chosen a member of the famous university and
+admitted to its privileges. During his long residence in Leyden, besides
+the daily care of his congregation, spiritual and temporal, he wrote many
+learned works.
+
+Thus the little community, which grew gradually larger by emigration from
+England, passed many years of tranquillity. Their footsteps were not
+dogged by constables and pursuivants, they were not dragged daily before
+the magistrates, they were not thrown into the town jails, they were not
+hunted from place to place with bows and bills and mounted musketeers.
+They gave offence to none, and were respected by all. "Such was their
+singleheartedness and sincere affection one towards another," says their
+historian and magistrate, "that they came as near the primitive pattern
+of the first churches as any other church of these later times has done,
+according to their rank and quality."
+
+Here certainly were English Puritans more competent than any men else in
+the world to judge if it were a slander upon the English government to
+identify them with Dutch Puritans. Did they sympathize with the party in
+Holland which the King, who had so scourged and trampled upon themselves
+in England, was so anxious to crush, the hated Arminians? Did they abhor
+the Contra-Remonstrants whom James and his ambassador Carleton doted upon
+and whom Barneveld called "Double Puritans" and "Flanderizers?"
+
+Their pastor may answer for himself and his brethren.
+
+"We profess before God and men," said Robinson in his Apologia, "that we
+agree so entirely with the Reformed Dutch Churches in the matter of
+religion as to be ready to subscribe to all and each of their articles
+exactly as they are set forth in the Netherland Confession. We
+acknowledge those Reformed Churches as true and genuine, we profess and
+cultivate communion with them as much as in us lies. Those of us who
+understand the Dutch language attend public worship under their pastors.
+We administer the Holy Supper to such of their members as, known to us,
+appear at our meetings." This was the position of the Puritans. Absolute,
+unqualified accordance with the Contra-Remonstrants.
+
+As the controversy grew hot in the university between the Arminians and
+their adversaries, Mr. Robinson, in the language of his friend Bradford,
+became "terrible to the Arminians . . . . who so greatly molested the
+whole state and that city in particular."
+
+When Episcopius, the Arminian professor of theology, set forth sundry
+theses, challenging all the world to the onset, it was thought that "none
+was fitter to buckle with them" than Robinson. The orthodox professor
+Polyander so importuned the English Puritan to enter the lists on behalf
+of the Contra-Remonstrants that at last he consented and overthrew the
+challenger, horse and man, in three successive encounters. Such at least
+was the account given by his friend and admirer the historian. "The Lord
+did so help him to defend the truth and foil this adversary as he put him
+to an apparent nonplus in this great and public audience. And the like he
+did a second or third time upon such like occasions," said Bradford,
+adding that, if it had not been for fear of offending the English
+government, the university would have bestowed preferments and honours
+upon the champion.
+
+We are concerned with this ancient and exhausted controversy only for the
+intense light it threw, when burning, on the history which occupies us.
+
+Of the extinct volcano itself which once caused such devastation, and in
+which a great commonwealth was well-nigh swallowed up, little is left but
+slag and cinders. The past was made black and barren with them. Let us
+disturb them as little as possible.
+
+The little English congregation remained at Leyden till toward the end of
+the Truce, thriving, orderly, respected, happy. They were witnesses to
+the tumultuous, disastrous, and tragical events which darkened the
+Republic in those later years, themselves unobserved and unmolested. Not
+a syllable seems to remain on record of the views or emotions which may
+have been excited by those scenes in their minds, nor is there a trace
+left on the national records of the Netherlands of their protracted
+residence on the soil.
+
+They got their living as best they might by weaving, printing, spinning,
+and other humble trades; they borrowed money on mortgages, they built
+houses, they made wills, and such births, deaths, and marriages as
+occurred among them were registered by the town-clerk.
+
+And at last for a variety of reasons they resolved to leave the
+Netherlands. Perhaps the solution of the problem between Church and State
+in that country by the temporary subjection of State to Church may have
+encouraged them to realize a more complete theocracy, if a sphere of
+action could be found where the experiment might be tried without a
+severe battle against time-hallowed institutions and vested rights.
+Perhaps they were appalled by the excesses into which men of their own
+religious sentiments had been carried by theological and political
+passion. At any rate depart they would; the larger half of the
+congregation remaining behind however till the pioneers should have
+broken the way, and in their own language "laid the stepping-stones."
+
+They had thought of the lands beneath the Equator, Raleigh having
+recently excited enthusiasm by his poetical descriptions of Guiana. But
+the tropical scheme was soon abandoned. They had opened negotiations with
+the Stadholder and the States-General through Amsterdam merchants in
+regard to settling in New Amsterdam, and offered to colonize that country
+if assured of the protection of the United Provinces. Their petition had
+been rejected. They had then turned their faces to their old master and
+their own country, applying to the Virginia Company for a land-patent,
+which they were only too happy to promise, and to the King for liberty of
+religion in the wilderness confirmed under his broad seal, which his
+Majesty of course refused. It was hinted however that James would connive
+at them and not molest them if they carried themselves peaceably. So they
+resolved to go without the seal, for, said their magistrate very wisely,
+"if there should be a purpose or desire to wrong them, a seal would not
+serve their turn though it were as broad as the house-floor."
+
+Before they left Leyden, their pastor preached to them a farewell sermon,
+which for loftiness of spirit and breadth of vision has hardly a parallel
+in that age of intolerance. He laid down the principle that criticism of
+the Scriptures had not been exhausted merely because it had been begun;
+that the human conscience was of too subtle a nature to be imprisoned for
+ever in formulas however ingeniously devised; that the religious
+reformation begun a century ago was not completed; and that the Creator
+had not necessarily concluded all His revelations to mankind.
+
+The words have long been familiar to students of history, but they can
+hardly be too often laid to heart.
+
+Noble words, worthy to have been inscribed over the altar of the first
+church to be erected by the departing brethren, words to bear fruit after
+centuries should go by. Had not the deeply injured and misunderstood
+Grotius already said, "If the trees we plant do not shade us, they will
+yet serve for our descendants?"
+
+Yet it is passing strange that the preacher of that sermon should be the
+recent champion of the Contra-Remonstrants in the great controversy; the
+man who had made himself so terrible to the pupils of the gentle and
+tolerant Arminius.
+
+And thus half of that English congregation went down to Delftshaven,
+attended by the other half who were to follow at a later period with
+their beloved pastor. There was a pathetic leave-taking. Even many of the
+Hollanders, mere casual spectators, were in tears.
+
+Robinson, kneeling on the deck of the little vessel, offered a prayer and
+a farewell. Who could dream that this departure of an almost nameless
+band of emigrants to the wilderness was an epoch in the world's history?
+Yet these were the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, the founders of what
+was to be the mightiest republic of modern history, mighty and stable
+because it had been founded upon an idea.
+
+They were not in search of material comfort and the chances of elevating
+their condition, by removing from an overpeopled country to an organized
+Commonwealth, offering a wide field for pauper labourers. Some of them
+were of good social rank and highest education, most of them in decent
+circumstances, none of them in absolute poverty. And a few years later
+they were to be joined by a far larger company with leaders and many
+brethren of ancient birth and landed possessions, men of "education,
+figure; and estate," all ready to convert property into cash and to place
+it in joint-stock, not as the basis of promising speculation, but as the
+foundation of a church.
+
+It signifies not how much or how little one may sympathize with their
+dogma or their discipline now. To the fact that the early settlement of
+that wilderness was by self-sacrificing men of earnestness and faith, who
+were bent on "advancing the Gospel of Christ in remote parts of the
+world," in the midst of savage beasts, more savage men, and unimaginable
+difficulties and dangers, there can be little doubt that the highest
+forms of Western civilization are due. Through their provisional
+theocracy, the result of the independent church system was to establish
+the true purport of the Reformation, absolute religious equality. Civil
+and political equality followed as a matter of course.
+
+Two centuries and a half have passed away.
+
+There are now some seventy or eighty millions of the English-speaking
+race on both sides the Atlantic, almost equally divided between the
+United Kingdom and the United Republic, and the departure of those
+outcasts of James has interest and significance for them all.
+
+Most fitly then, as a distinguished American statesman has remarked, does
+that scene on board the little English vessel, with the English pastor
+uttering his farewell blessing to a handful of English exiles for
+conscience sake; depicted on canvas by eminent artists, now adorn the
+halls of the American Congress and of the British Parliament. Sympathy
+with one of the many imperishable bonds of union between the two great
+and scarcely divided peoples.
+
+We return to Barneveld in his solitary prison.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+   Barneveld's Imprisonment--Ledenberg's Examination and Death--
+   Remonstrance of De Boississe--Aerssens admitted to the order of
+   Knights--Trial of the Advocate--Barneveld's Defence--The States
+   proclaim a Public Fast--Du Maurier's Speech before the Assembly--
+   Barneveld's Sentence--Barneveld prepares for Death--Goes to
+   Execution.
+
+The Advocate had been removed within a few days after the arrest from the
+chamber in Maurice's apartments, where he had originally been confined,
+and was now in another building.
+
+It was not a dungeon nor a jail. Indeed the commonplace and domestic
+character of the scenery in which these great events were transacted has
+in it something pathetic. There was and still remains a two-storied
+structure, then of modern date, immediately behind the antique hall of
+the old Counts within the Binnenhof. On the first floor was a courtroom
+of considerable extent, the seat of one of the chief tribunals of justice
+The story above was divided into three chambers with a narrow corridor on
+each side. The first chamber, on the north-eastern side, was appropriated
+for the judges when the state prisoners should be tried. In the next Hugo
+Grotius was imprisoned. In the third was Barneveld. There was a tower at
+the north-east angle of the building, within which a winding and narrow
+staircase of stone led up to the corridor and so to the prisoners'
+apartments. Rombout Hoogerbeets was confined in another building.
+
+As the Advocate, bent with age and a life of hard work, and leaning on
+his staff, entered the room appropriated to him, after toiling up the
+steep staircase, he observed--
+
+"This is the Admiral of Arragon's apartment."
+
+It was true. Eighteen years before, the conqueror of Nieuwpoort had
+assigned this lodging to the chief prisoner of war in that memorable
+victory over the Spaniards, and now Maurice's faithful and trusted
+counsellor at that epoch was placed in durance here, as the result of the
+less glorious series of victories which had just been achieved.
+
+It was a room of moderate dimensions, some twenty-five feet square, with
+a high vaulted roof and decently furnished. Below and around him in the
+courtyard were the scenes of the Advocate's life-long and triumphant
+public services. There in the opposite building were the windows of the
+beautiful "Hall of Truce," with its sumptuous carvings and gildings, its
+sculptures and portraits, where he had negotiated with the
+representatives of all the great powers of Christendom the famous Treaty
+which had suspended the war of forty years, and where he was wont almost
+daily to give audience to the envoys of the greatest sovereigns or the
+least significant states of Europe and Asia, all of whom had been ever
+solicitous of his approbation and support.
+
+Farther along in the same building was the assembly room of the
+States-General, where some of the most important affairs of the Republic
+and of Europe had for years been conducted, and where he had been so
+indispensable that, in the words of a contemporary who loved him not,
+"absolutely nothing could be transacted in his absence, all great affairs
+going through him alone."
+
+There were two dull windows, closely barred, looking northward over an
+irregular assemblage of tile-roofed houses and chimney-stacks, while
+within a stone's throw to the west, but unseen, was his own elegant
+mansion on the Voorhout, surrounded by flower gardens and shady pleasure
+grounds, where now sat his aged wife and her children all plunged in deep
+affliction.
+
+He was allowed the attendance of a faithful servant, Jan Franken by name,
+and a sentinel stood constantly before his door. His papers had been
+taken from him, and at first he was deprived of writing materials.
+
+He had small connection with the outward world. The news of the municipal
+revolution which had been effected by the Stadholder had not penetrated
+to his solitude, but his wife was allowed to send him fruit from their
+garden. One day a basket of fine saffron pears was brought to him. On
+slicing one with a knife he found a portion of a quill inside it. Within
+the quill was a letter on thinnest paper, in minutest handwriting in
+Latin. It was to this effect.
+
+"Don't rely upon the States of Holland, for the Prince of Orange has
+changed the magistracies in many cities. Dudley Carleton is not your
+friend."
+
+A sergeant of the guard however, before bringing in these pears, had put
+a couple of them in his pocket to take home to his wife. The letter,
+copies of which perhaps had been inserted for safety in several of them,
+was thus discovered and the use of this ingenious device prevented for
+the future.
+
+Secretary Ledenberg, who had been brought to the Hague in the early days
+of September, was the first of the prisoners subjected to examination. He
+was much depressed at the beginning of it, and is said to have exclaimed
+with many sighs, "Oh Barneveld, Barneveld, what have you brought us to!"
+
+He confessed that the Waartgelders at Utrecht had been enlisted on
+notification by the Utrecht deputies in the Hague with knowledge of
+Barneveld, and in consequence of a resolution of the States in order to
+prevent internal tumults. He said that the Advocate had advised in the
+previous month of March a request to the Prince not to come to Utrecht;
+that the communication of the message, in regard to disbanding the
+Waartgelders, to his Excellency had been postponed after the deputies of
+the States of Holland had proposed a delay in that disbandment; that
+those deputies had come to Utrecht of their own accord; . . . . that they
+had judged it possible to keep everything in proper order in Utrecht if
+the garrison in the city paid by Holland were kept quiet, and if the
+States of Utrecht gave similar orders to the Waartgelders; for they did
+not believe that his Excellency would bring in troops from the outside.
+He said that he knew nothing of a new oath to be demanded of the
+garrison. He stated that the Advocate, when at Utrecht, had exhorted the
+States, according to his wont, to maintain their liberties and
+privileges, representing to them that the right to decide on the Synod
+and the Waartgelders belonged to them. Lastly, he denied knowing who was
+the author of The Balance, except by common report.
+
+Now these statements hardly amounted to a confession of abominable and
+unpardonable crimes by Ledenberg, nor did they establish a charge of
+high-treason and corrupt correspondence with the enemy against Barneveld.
+It is certain that the extent of the revelations seemed far from
+satisfactory to the accusers, and that some pressure would be necessary
+in order to extract anything more conclusive. Lieutenant Nythof told
+Grotius that Ledenberg had accordingly been threatened with torture, and
+that the executioner had even handled him for that purpose. This was
+however denied by the judges of instruction who had been charged with the
+preliminary examination.
+
+That examination took place on the 27th September. After it had been
+concluded, Ledenberg prayed long and earnestly on returning to prison. He
+then entrusted a paper written in French to his son Joost, a boy of
+eighteen, who did not understand that language. The youth had been
+allowed to keep his father company in his confinement, and slept in the
+same room.
+
+The next night but one, at two o'clock, Joost heard his father utter a
+deep groan. He was startled, groped in the darkness towards his bed and
+felt his arm, which was stone cold. He spoke to him and received no
+answer. He gave the alarm, the watch came in with lights, and it was
+found that Ledenberg had given himself two mortal wounds in the abdomen
+with a penknife and then cut his throat with a table-knife which he had
+secreted, some days before, among some papers.
+
+The paper in French given to his son was found to be to this effect.
+
+"I know that there is an inclination to set an example in my person, to
+confront me with my best friends, to torture me, afterwards to convict me
+of contradictions and falsehoods as they say, and then to found an
+ignominious sentence upon points and trifles, for this it will be
+necessary to do in order to justify the arrest and imprisonment. To
+escape all this I am going to God by the shortest road. Against a dead
+man there can be pronounced no sentence of confiscation of property. Done
+17th September (o. s.) 1618."
+
+The family of the unhappy gentleman begged his body for decent burial.
+The request was refused. It was determined to keep the dead secretary
+above ground and in custody until he could be tried, and, if possible,
+convicted and punished. It was to be seen whether it were so easy to
+baffle the power of the States-General, the Synod, and the Stadholder,
+and whether "going to God by the shortest road" was to save a culprit's
+carcass from ignominy, and his property from confiscation.
+
+The French ambassadors, who had been unwearied in their endeavour to
+restore harmony to the distracted Commonwealth before the arrest of the
+prisoners, now exerted themselves to throw the shield of their
+sovereign's friendship around the illustrious statesman and his
+fellow-sufferers.
+
+"It is with deepest sorrow," said de Boississe, "that I have witnessed
+the late hateful commotions. Especially from my heart I grieve for the
+arrest of the Seignior Barneveld, who with his discretion and wise
+administration for the past thirty years has so drawn the hearts of all
+neighbouring princes to himself, especially that of the King my master,
+that on taking up my pen to apprize him of these events I am gravely
+embarrassed, fearing to infringe on the great respect due to your
+Mightinesses or against the honour and merits of the Seignior Barneveld.
+. . . My Lords, take heed to your situation, for a great discontent is
+smouldering among your citizens. Until now, the Union has been the chief
+source of your strength. And I now fear that the King my master, the
+adviser of your renowned Commonwealth, maybe offended that you have taken
+this resolution after consulting with others, and without communicating
+your intention to his ambassador . . . . It is but a few days that an
+open edict was issued testifying to the fidelity of Barneveld, and can it
+be possible that within so short a time you have discovered that you have
+been deceived? I summon you once more in the name of the King to lay
+aside all passion, to judge these affairs without partiality, and to
+inform me what I am to say to the King. Such very conflicting accounts
+are given of these transactions that I must beg you to confide to me the
+secret of the affair. The wisest in the land speak so strongly of these
+proceedings that it will be no wonder if the King my master should give
+me orders to take the Seignior Barneveld under his protection. Should
+this prove to be the case, your Lordships will excuse my course . . . I
+beg you earnestly in your wisdom not to give cause of offence to
+neighbouring princes, especially to my sovereign, who wishes from his
+heart to maintain your dignity and interests and to assure you of his
+friendship."
+
+The language was vigorous and sincere, but the Ambassador forgot that the
+France of to-day was not the France of yesterday; that Louis XIII. was
+not Henry IV.; that it was but a cheerful fiction to call the present
+King the guide and counsellor of the Republic, and that, distraught as
+she was by the present commotions, her condition was strength and
+tranquillity compared with the apparently decomposing and helpless state
+of the once great kingdom of France. De Boississe took little by his
+demonstration.
+
+On the 12th December both de Boississe and du Maurier came before the
+States-General once more, and urged a speedy and impartial trial for the
+illustrious prisoners. If they had committed acts of treason and
+rebellion, they deserved exemplary punishment, but the ambassadors warned
+the States-General with great earnestness against the dangerous doctrine
+of constructive treason, and of confounding acts dictated by violence of
+party spirit at an excited period with the crime of high-treason against
+the sovereignty of the State.
+
+"Barneveld so honourable," they said, "for his immense and long continued
+services has both this Republic and all princes and commonwealths for his
+witnesses. It is most difficult to believe that he has attempted the
+destruction of his fatherland, for which you know that he has toiled so
+faithfully."
+
+They admitted that so grave charges ought now to be investigated. "To
+this end," said the ambassadors, "you ought to give him judges who are
+neither suspected nor impassioned, and who will decide according to the
+laws of the land, and on clear and undeniable evidence . . . . So doing
+you will show to the whole world that you are worthy to possess and to
+administer this Commonwealth to whose government God has called you."
+
+Should they pursue another and a sterner course, the envoys warned the
+Assembly that the King would be deeply offended, deeming it thus proved
+how little value they set upon his advice and his friendship.
+
+The States-General replied on the 19th December, assuring the ambassadors
+that the delay in the trial was in order to make the evidence of the
+great conspiracy complete, and would not tend to the prejudice of the
+prisoners "if they had a good consciousness of their innocence." They
+promised that the sentence upon them when pronounced would give entire
+satisfaction to all their allies and to the King of France in particular,
+of whom they spoke throughout the document in terms of profound respect.
+But they expressed their confidence that "his Majesty would not place the
+importunate and unfounded solicitations of a few particular criminals or
+their supporters before the general interests of the dignity and security
+of the Republic."
+
+On the same day the States-General addressed a letter filled with very
+elaborate and courteous commonplaces to the King, in which they expressed
+a certainty that his Majesty would be entirely satisfied with their
+actions.
+
+The official answer of the States-General to the ambassadors, just cited,
+gave but little comfort to the friends of the imprisoned statesman and
+his companions. Such expressions as "ambitious and factious
+spirits,"--"authors and patrons of the faction,"--"attempts at novelty
+through changes in religion, in justice and in the fundamental laws of
+all orders of polity," and the frequent mention of the word "conspiracy"
+boded little good.
+
+Information of this condition of affairs was conveyed to Hoogerbeets and
+Grotius by means of an ingenious device of the distinguished scholar, who
+was then editing the Latin works of the Hague poet, Janus Secundus.
+
+While the sheets were going through the press, some of the verses were
+left out, and their place supplied by others conveying the intelligence
+which it was desired to send to the prisoners. The pages which contained
+the secret were stitched together in such wise that in cutting the book
+open they were not touched but remained closed. The verses were to this
+effect. "The examination of the Advocate proceeds slowly, but there is
+good hope from the serious indignation of the French king, whose envoys
+are devoted to the cause of the prisoners, and have been informed that
+justice will be soon rendered. The States of Holland are to assemble on
+the 15th January, at which a decision will certainly be taken for
+appointing judges. The preachers here at Leyden are despised, and men are
+speaking strongly of war. The tumult which lately occurred at Rotterdam
+may bring forth some good."
+
+The quick-wited Grotius instantly discovered the device, read the
+intelligence thus communicated in the proofsheets of Secundus, and made
+use of the system to obtain further intelligence.
+
+Hoogerbeets laid the book aside, not taking much interest at that time in
+the works of the Hague poet. Constant efforts made to attract his
+attention to those poems however excited suspicion among his keepers, and
+the scheme was discovered before the Leyden pensionary had found the
+means to profit by it.'
+
+The allusions to the trial of the Advocate referred to the preliminary
+examination which took place, like the first interrogatories of Grotius
+and Hoogerbeets, in the months of November and December.
+
+The thorough manner in which Maurice had reformed the States of Holland
+has been described. There was one department of that body however which
+still required attention. The Order of Knights, small in number but
+potential in influence, which always voted first on great occasions, was
+still through a majority of its members inclined to Barneveld. Both his
+sons-in-law had seats in that college. The Stadholder had long believed
+in a spirit of hostility on the part of those nobles towards himself. He
+knew that a short time before this epoch there had been a scheme for
+introducing his young brother, Frederic Henry, into the Chamber of
+Knights. The Count had become proprietor of the barony of Naaldwyk, a
+property which he had purchased of the Counts of Arenberg, and which
+carried with it the hereditary dignity of Great Equerry of the Counts of
+Holland. As the Counts of Holland had ceased to exist, although their
+sovereignty had nearly been revived and conferred upon William the
+Silent, the office of their chief of the stables might be deemed a
+sinecure. But the jealousy of Maurice was easily awakened, especially by
+any movement made or favoured by the Advocate. He believed that in the
+election of Frederic Henry as a member of the College of Knights a plan
+lay concealed to thrust him into power and to push this elder brother
+from his place. The scheme, if scheme it were, was never accomplished,
+but the Prince's rancour remained.
+
+He now informed the nobles that they must receive into their body Francis
+Aerssens, who had lately purchased the barony of Sommelsdyk, and Daniel
+de Hartaing, Seignior of Marquette. With the presence of this deadly
+enemy of Barneveld and another gentleman equally devoted to the
+Stadholder's interest it seemed probable that the refractory majority of
+the board of nobles would be overcome. But there were grave objections to
+the admission of these new candidates. They were not eligible. The
+constitution of the States and of the college of nobles prescribed that
+Hollanders only of ancient and noble race and possessing estates in the
+province could sit in that body. Neither Aerssens nor Hartaing was born
+in Holland or possessed of the other needful qualifications.
+Nevertheless, the Prince, who had just remodelled all the municipalities
+throughout the Union which offered resistance to his authority, was not
+to be checked by so trifling an impediment as the statutes of the House
+of Nobles. He employed very much the same arguments which he had used to
+"good papa" Hooft. "This time it must be so." Another time it might not
+be necessary. So after a controversy which ended as controversies are apt
+to do when one party has a sword in his hand and the other is seated at a
+green-baize-covered table, Sommelsdyk and Marquette took their seats
+among the knights. Of course there was a spirited protest. Nothing was
+easier for the Stadholder than to concede the principle while trampling
+it with his boot-heels in practice.
+
+"Whereas it is not competent for the said two gentlemen to be admitted to
+our board," said the nobles in brief, "as not being constitutionally
+eligible, nevertheless, considering the strong desire of his Excellency
+the Prince of Orange, we, the nobles and knights of Holland, admit them
+with the firm promise to each other by noble and knightly faith ever in
+future for ourselves and descendants to maintain the privileges of our
+order now violated and never again to let them be directly or indirectly
+infringed."
+
+And so Aerssens, the unscrupulous plotter, and dire foe of the Advocate
+and all his house, burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had
+received from him during many years, and the author of the venomous
+pamphlets and diatribes which had done so much of late to blacken the
+character of the great statesman before the public, now associated
+himself officially with his other enemies, while the preliminary
+proceedings for the state trials went forward.
+
+Meantime the Synod had met at Dordtrecht. The great John Bogerman, with
+fierce, handsome face, beak and eye of a bird of prey, and a deluge of
+curly brown beard reaching to his waist, took his seat as president.
+Short work was made with the Armenians. They and their five Points were
+soon thrust out into outer darkness.
+
+It was established beyond all gainsaying that two forms of Divine worship
+in one country were forbidden by God's Word, and that thenceforth by
+Netherland law there could be but one religion, namely, the Reformed or
+Calvinistic creed.
+
+It was settled that one portion of the Netherlanders and of the rest of
+the human race had been expressly created by the Deity to be for ever
+damned, and another portion to be eternally blessed. But this history has
+little to do with that infallible council save in the political effect of
+its decrees on the fate of Barneveld. It was said that the canons of
+Dordtrecht were likely to shoot off the head of the Advocate. Their
+sessions and the trial of the Advocate were simultaneous, but not
+technically related to each other.
+
+The conclusions of both courts were preordained, for the issue of the
+great duel between Priesthood and State had been decided when the
+military chieftain threw his sword into the scale of the Church.
+
+There had been purposely a delay, before coming to a decision as to the
+fate of the state prisoners, until the work of the Synod should have
+approached completion.
+
+It was thought good that the condemnation of the opinions of the
+Arminians and the chastisement of their leaders should go hand-in-hand.
+
+On the 23rd April 1619, the canons were signed by all the members of the
+Synod. Arminians were pronounced heretics, schismatics, teachers of false
+doctrines. They were declared incapable of filling any clerical or
+academical post. No man thenceforth was to teach children, lecture to
+adolescents, or preach to the mature, unless a subscriber to the
+doctrines of the unchanged, unchangeable, orthodox church. On the 30th
+April and 1st May the Netherland Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism
+were declared to be infallible. No change was to be possible in either
+formulary.
+
+Schools and pulpits were inexorably bound to the only true religion.
+
+On the 6th May there was a great festival at Dordtrecht in honour of the
+conclusion of the Synod. The canons, the sentence, and long prayers and
+orations in Latin by President Bogerman gladdened the souls of an immense
+multitude, which were further enlivened by the decree that both Creed and
+Catechism had stood the test of several criticisms and come out unchanged
+by a single hair. Nor did the orator of the occasion forget to render
+thanks "to the most magnanimous King James of Great Britain, through
+whose godly zeal, fiery sympathy, and truly royal labour God had so often
+refreshed the weary Synod in the midst of their toil."
+
+The Synod held one hundred and eighty sessions between the 13th November
+1618 and 29th May 1619, all the doings of which have been recorded in
+chronicles innumerable. There need be no further mention of them here.
+
+Barneveld and the companions of his fate remained in prison.
+
+On the 7th March the trial of the great Advocate began. He had sat in
+prison since the 18th of the preceding August. For nearly seven months he
+had been deprived of all communication with the outward world save such
+atoms of intelligence as could be secretly conveyed to him in the inside
+of a quill concealed in a pear and by other devices. The man who had
+governed one of the most important commonwealths of the world for nearly
+a generation long--during the same period almost controlling the politics
+of Europe--had now been kept in ignorance of the most insignificant
+everyday events. During the long summer-heat of the dog-days immediately
+succeeding his arrest, and the long, foggy, snowy, icy winter of Holland
+which ensued, he had been confined in that dreary garret-room to which he
+had been brought when he left his temporary imprisonment in the
+apartments of Prince Maurice.
+
+There was nothing squalid in the chamber, nothing specially cruel or
+repulsive in the arrangements of his captivity. He was not in fetters,
+nor fed upon bread and water. He was not put upon the rack, nor even
+threatened with it as Ledenberg had been. He was kept in a mean,
+commonplace, meagerly furnished, tolerably spacious room, and he was
+allowed the services of his faithful domestic servant John Franken. A
+sentinel paced day and night up the narrow corridor before his door. As
+spring advanced, the notes of the nightingale came through the
+prison-window from the neighbouring thicket. One day John Franken,
+opening the window that his master might the better enjoy its song,
+exchanged greeting with a fellow-servant in the Barneveld mansion who
+happened to be crossing the courtyard. Instantly workmen were sent to
+close and barricade the windows, and it was only after earnest
+remonstrances and pledges that this resolve to consign the Advocate to
+darkness was abandoned.
+
+He was not permitted the help of lawyer, clerk, or man of business. Alone
+and from his chamber of bondage, suffering from bodily infirmities and
+from the weakness of advancing age, he was compelled to prepare his
+defence against a vague, heterogeneous collection of charges, to meet
+which required constant reference, not only to the statutes, privileges,
+and customs of the country and to the Roman law, but to a thousand minute
+incidents out of which the history of the Provinces during the past dozen
+years or more had been compounded.
+
+It is true that no man could be more familiar with the science and
+practice of the law than he was, while of contemporary history he was
+himself the central figure. His biography was the chronicle of his
+country. Nevertheless it was a fearful disadvantage for him day by day to
+confront two dozen hostile judges comfortably seated at a great table
+piled with papers, surrounded by clerks with bags full of documents and
+with a library of authorities and precedents duly marked and dog's-eared
+and ready to their hands, while his only library and chronicle lay in his
+brain. From day to day, with frequent intermissions, he was led down
+through the narrow turret-stairs to a wide chamber on the floor
+immediately below his prison, where a temporary tribunal had been
+arranged for the special commission.
+
+There had been an inclination at first on the part of his judges to treat
+him as a criminal, and to require him to answer, standing, to the
+interrogatories propounded to him. But as the terrible old man advanced
+into the room, leaning on his staff, and surveying them with the air of
+haughty command habitual to him, they shrank before his glance; several
+involuntarily, rising uncovered, to salute him and making way for him to
+the fireplace about which many were standing that wintry morning.
+
+He was thenceforth always accommodated with a seat while he listened to
+and answered 'ex tempore' the elaborate series of interrogatories which
+had been prepared to convict him.
+
+Nearly seven months he had sat with no charges brought against him. This
+was in itself a gross violation of the laws of the land, for according to
+all the ancient charters of Holland it was provided that accusation
+should follow within six weeks of arrest, or that the prisoner should go
+free. But the arrest itself was so gross a violation of law that respect
+for it was hardly to be expected in the subsequent proceedings. He was a
+great officer of the States of Holland. He had been taken under their
+especial protection. He was on his way to the High Council. He was in no
+sense a subject of the States-General. He was in the discharge of his
+official duty. He was doubly and trebly sacred from arrest. The place
+where he stood was on the territory of Holland and in the very sanctuary
+of her courts and House of Assembly. The States-General were only as
+guests on her soil, and had no domain or jurisdiction there whatever. He
+was not apprehended by any warrant or form of law. It was in time of
+peace, and there was no pretence of martial law. The highest civil
+functionary of Holland was invited in the name of its first military
+officer to a conference, and thus entrapped was forcibly imprisoned.
+
+At last a board of twenty-four commissioners was created, twelve from
+Holland and two from each of the other six provinces. This affectation of
+concession to Holland was ridiculous. Either the law 'de non
+evocando'--according to which no citizen of Holland could be taken out of
+the province for trial--was to be respected or it was to be trampled
+upon. If it was to be trampled upon, it signified little whether more
+commissioners were to be taken from Holland than from each of the other
+provinces, or fewer, or none at all. Moreover it was pretended that a
+majority of the whole board was to be assigned to that province. But
+twelve is not a majority of twenty-four. There were three fascals or
+prosecuting officers, Leeuwen of Utrecht, Sylla of Gelderland, and Antony
+Duyck of Holland. Duyck was notoriously the deadly enemy of Barneveld,
+and was destined to succeed to his offices. It would have been as well to
+select Francis Aerssens himself.
+
+It was necessary to appoint a commission because there was no tribunal
+appertaining to the States-General. The general government of the
+confederacy had no power to deal with an individual. It could only
+negotiate with the sovereign province to which the individual was
+responsible, and demand his punishment if proved guilty of an offence.
+There was no supreme court of appeal. Machinery was provided for settling
+or attempting to settle disputes among the members of the confederacy,
+and if there was a culprit in this great process it was Holland itself.
+Neither the Advocate nor any one of his associates had done any act
+except by authority, express or implied, of that sovereign State.
+Supposing them unquestionably guilty of blackest crimes against the
+Generality, the dilemma was there which must always exist by the very
+nature of things in a confederacy. No sovereign can try a fellow
+sovereign. The subject can be tried at home by no sovereign but his own.
+
+The accused in this case were amenable to the laws of Holland only.
+
+It was a packed tribunal. Several of the commissioners, like Pauw and
+Muis for example, were personal enemies of Barneveld. Many of them were
+totally ignorant of law. Some of them knew not a word of any language but
+their mother tongue, although much of the law which they were to
+administer was written in Latin.
+
+Before such a court the foremost citizen of the Netherlands, the first
+living statesman of Europe, was brought day by day during a period of
+nearly three months; coming down stairs from the mean and desolate room
+where he was confined to the comfortable apartment below, which had been
+fitted up for the commission.
+
+There was no bill of indictment, no arraignment, no counsel. There were
+no witnesses and no arguments. The court-room contained, as it were, only
+a prejudiced and partial jury to pronounce both on law and fact without a
+judge to direct them, or advocates to sift testimony and contend for or
+against the prisoner's guilt. The process, for it could not be called a
+trial, consisted of a vast series of rambling and tangled interrogatories
+reaching over a space of forty years without apparent connection or
+relevancy, skipping fantastically about from one period to another, back
+and forthwith apparently no other intent than to puzzle the prisoner,
+throw him off his balance, and lead him into self-contradiction.
+
+The spectacle was not a refreshing one. It was the attempt of a multitude
+of pigmies to overthrow and bind the giant.
+
+Barneveld was served with no articles of impeachment. He asked for a list
+in writing of the charges against him, that he might ponder his answer.
+The demand was refused. He was forbidden the use of pen and ink or any
+writing materials. His papers and books were all taken from him.
+
+He was allowed to consult neither with an advocate nor even with a single
+friend. Alone in his chamber of bondage he was to meditate on his
+defence. Out of his memory and brain, and from these alone, he was to
+supply himself with the array of historical facts stretching over a
+longer period than the lifetime of many of his judges, and with the
+proper legal and historical arguments upon those facts for the
+justification of his course. That memory and brain were capacious and
+powerful enough for the task. It was well for the judges that they had
+bound themselves, at the outset, by an oath never to make known what
+passed in the courtroom, but to bury all the proceedings in profound
+secrecy forever. Had it been otherwise, had that been known to the
+contemporary public which has only been revealed more than two centuries
+later, had a portion only of the calm and austere eloquence been heard in
+which the Advocate set forth his defence, had the frivolous and ignoble
+nature of the attack been comprehended, it might have moved the very
+stones in the streets to mutiny. Hateful as the statesman had been made
+by an organized system of calumny, which was continued with unabated
+vigour and increased venom sine he had been imprisoned, there was enough
+of justice and of gratitude left in the hearts of Netherlanders to resent
+the tyranny practised against their greatest man, and the obloquy thus
+brought against a nation always devoted to their liberties and laws.
+
+That the political system of the country was miserably defective was no
+fault of Barneveld. He was bound by oath and duty to administer, not make
+the laws. A handful of petty feudal sovereignties such as had once
+covered the soil of Europe, a multitude of thriving cities which had
+wrested or purchased a mass of liberties, customs, and laws from their
+little tyrants, all subjected afterwards, without being blended together,
+to a single foreign family, had at last one by one, or two by two, shaken
+off that supremacy, and, resuming their ancient and as it were
+decapitated individualities, had bound themselves by treaty in the midst
+of a war to stand by each other, as if they were but one province, for
+purposes of common defence against the common foe.
+
+There had been no pretence of laying down a constitution, of enacting an
+organic law. The day had not come for even the conception of a popular
+constitution. The people had not been invented. It was not provinces
+only, but cities, that had contracted with each other, according to the
+very first words of the first Article of Union. Some of these cities,
+like Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, were Catholic by overwhelming majority, and
+had subsequently either fallen away from the confederacy or been
+conquered.
+
+And as if to make assurance doubly sure, the Articles of Union not only
+reserved to each province all powers not absolutely essential for
+carrying on the war in common, but by an express article (the 13th),
+declared that Holland and Zealand should regulate the matter of religion
+according to their own discretion, while the other provinces might
+conform to the provisions of the "Religious Peace" which included mutual
+protection for Catholics and Protestants--or take such other order as
+seemed most conducive to the religious and secular rights of the
+inhabitants. It was stipulated that no province should interfere with
+another in such matters, and that every individual in them all should
+remain free in his religion, no man being molested or examined on account
+of his creed. A farther declaration in regard to this famous article was
+made to the effect that no provinces or cities which held to the Roman
+Catholic religion were to be excluded from the League of Union if they
+were ready to conform to its conditions and comport themselves
+patriotically. Language could not be devised to declare more plainly than
+was done by this treaty that the central government of the League had
+neither wish nor right to concern itself with the religious affairs of
+the separate cities or provinces. If it permitted both Papists and
+Protestants to associate themselves against the common foe, it could
+hardly have been imagined, when the Articles were drawn, that it would
+have claimed the exclusive right to define the minutest points in a
+single Protestant creed.
+
+And if the exclusively secular parts of the polity prevailing in the
+country were clumsy, irregular, and even monstrous, and if its defects
+had been flagrantly demonstrated by recent events, a more reasonable
+method of reforming the laws might have been found than the imprisonment
+of a man who had faithfully administered them forty years long.
+
+A great commonwealth had grown out of a petty feudal organism, like an
+oak from an acorn in a crevice, gnarled and distorted, though
+wide-spreading and vigorous. It seemed perilous to deal radically with
+such a polity, and an almost timid conservatism on the part of its
+guardians in such an age of tempests might be pardonable.
+
+Moreover, as before remarked, the apparent imbecility resulting from
+confederacy and municipalism combined was for a season remedied by the
+actual preponderance of Holland. Two-thirds of the total wealth and
+strength of the seven republics being concentrated in one province, the
+desired union seemed almost gained by the practical solution of all in
+that single republic. But this was one great cause of the general
+disaster.
+
+It would be a thankless and tedious task to wander through the wilderness
+of interrogatories and answers extending over three months of time, which
+stood in the place of a trial. The defence of Barneveld was his own
+history, and that I have attempted to give in the preceding pages. A
+great part of the accusation was deduced from his private and official
+correspondence, and it is for this reason that I have laid such copious
+extracts from it before the reader. No man except the judges and the
+States-General had access to those letters, and it was easy therefore, if
+needful, to give them a false colouring. It is only very recently that
+they have been seen at all, and they have never been published from that
+day to this.
+
+Out of the confused mass of documents appertaining to the trial, a few
+generalizations can be made which show the nature of the attack upon him.
+He was accused of having permitted Arminius to infuse new opinions into
+the University of Leyden, and of having subsequently defended the
+appointment of Vorstius to the same place. He had opposed the National
+Synod. He had made drafts of letters for the King of Great Britain to
+sign, recommending mutual toleration on the five disputed points
+regarding predestination. He was the author of the famous Sharp
+Resolution. He had recommended the enlistment by the provinces and towns
+of Waartgelders or mercenaries. He had maintained that those mercenaries
+as well as the regular troops were bound in time of peace to be obedient
+and faithful, not only to the Generality and the stadholders, but to the
+magistrates of the cities and provinces where they were employed, and to
+the states by whom they were paid. He had sent to Leyden, warning the
+authorities of the approach of the Prince. He had encouraged all the
+proceedings at Utrecht, writing a letter to the secretary of that
+province advising a watch to be kept at the city gates as well as in the
+river, and ordering his letter when read to be burned. He had received
+presents from foreign potentates. He had attempted to damage the
+character of his Excellency the Prince by declaring on various occasions
+that he aspired to the sovereignty of the country. He had held a ciphered
+correspondence on the subject with foreign ministers of the Republic. He
+had given great offence to the King of Great Britain by soliciting from
+him other letters in the sense of those which his Majesty had written in
+1613, advising moderation and mutual toleration. He had not brought to
+condign punishment the author of 'The Balance', a pamphlet in which an
+oration of the English ambassador had been criticised, and aspersions
+made on the Order of the Garter. He had opposed the formation of the West
+India Company. He had said many years before to Nicolas van Berk that the
+Provinces had better return to the dominion of Spain. And in general, all
+his proceedings had tended to put the Provinces into a "blood bath."
+
+There was however no accusation that he had received bribes from the
+enemy or held traitorous communication with him, or that he had committed
+any act of high-treason.
+
+His private letters to Caron and to the ambassadors in Paris, with which
+the reader has been made familiar, had thus been ransacked to find
+treasonable matter, but the result was meagre in spite of the minute and
+microscopic analysis instituted to detect traces of poison in them.
+
+But the most subtle and far-reaching research into past transactions was
+due to the Greffier Cornelis Aerssens, father of the Ambassador Francis,
+and to a certain Nicolas van Berk, Burgomaster of Utrecht.
+
+The process of tale-bearing, hearsay evidence, gossip, and invention went
+back a dozen years, even to the preliminary and secret conferences in
+regard to the Treaty of Truce.
+
+Readers familiar with the history of those memorable negotiations are
+aware that Cornelis van Aerssens had compromised himself by accepting a
+valuable diamond and a bill of exchange drawn by Marquis Spinola on a
+merchant in Amsterdam, Henry Beekman by name, for 80,000 ducats. These
+were handed by Father Neyen, the secret agent of the Spanish government,
+to the Greffier as a prospective reward for his services in furthering
+the Truce. He did not reject them, but he informed Prince Maurice and the
+Advocate of the transaction. Both diamond and bill of exchange were
+subsequently deposited in the hands of the treasurer of the
+States-General, Joris de Bie, the Assembly being made officially
+acquainted with the whole course of the affair.
+
+It is passing strange that this somewhat tortuous business, which
+certainly cast a shade upon the fair fame of the elder Aerssens, and
+required him to publish as good a defence as he could against the
+consequent scandal, should have furnished a weapon wherewith to strike at
+the Advocate of Holland some dozen years later.
+
+But so it was. Krauwels, a relative of Aerssens, through whom Father
+Neyen had first obtained access to the Greffier, had stated, so it
+seemed, that the monk had, in addition to the bill, handed to him another
+draft of Spinola's for 100,000 ducats, to be given to a person of more
+consideration than Aerssens. Krauwels did not know who the person was,
+nor whether he took the money. He expressed his surprise however that
+leading persons in the government "even old and authentic
+beggars"--should allow themselves to be so seduced as to accept presents
+from the enemy. He mentioned two such persons, namely, a burgomaster at
+Delft and a burgomaster at Haarlem. Aerssens now deposed that he had
+informed the Advocate of this story, who had said, "Be quiet about it, I
+will have it investigated," and some days afterwards on being questioned
+stated that he had made enquiry and found there was something in it.
+
+So the fact that Cornelis Aerssens had taken bribes, and that two
+burgomasters were strongly suspected by Aerssens of having taken bribes,
+seems to have been considered as evidence that Barneveld had taken a
+bribe. It is true that Aerssens by advice of Maurice and Barneveld had
+made a clean breast of it to the States-General and had given them over
+the presents. But the States-General could neither wear the diamond nor
+cash the bill of exchange, and it would have been better for the Greffier
+not to contaminate his fingers with them, but to leave the gifts in the
+monk's palm. His revenge against the Advocate for helping him out of his
+dilemma, and for subsequently advancing his son Francis in a brilliant
+diplomatic career, seems to have been--when the clouds were thickening
+and every man's hand was against the fallen statesman--to insinuate that
+he was the anonymous personage who had accepted the apocryphal draft for
+100,000 ducats.
+
+The case is a pregnant example of the proceedings employed to destroy the
+Advocate.
+
+The testimony of Nicolas van Berk was at any rate more direct.
+
+On the 21st December 1618 the burgomaster testified that the Advocate had
+once declared to him that the differences in regard to Divine Worship
+were not so great but that they might be easily composed; asking him at
+the same time "whether it would not be better that we should submit
+ourselves again to the King of Spain." Barneveld had also referred, so
+said van Berk, to the conduct of the Spanish king towards those who had
+helped him to the kingdom of Portugal. The Burgomaster was unable however
+to specify the date, year, or month in which the Advocate had held this
+language. He remembered only that the conversation occurred when
+Barneveld was living on the Spui at the Hague, and that having been let
+into the house through the hall on the side of the vestibule, he had been
+conducted by the Advocate down a small staircase into the office.
+
+The only fact proved by the details seems to be that the story had lodged
+in the tenacious memory of the Burgomaster for eight years, as Barneveld
+had removed from the Spui to Arenberg House in the Voorhout in the year
+1611.
+
+No other offers from the King of Spain or the Archdukes had ever been
+made to him, said van Berk, than those indicated in this deposition
+against the Advocate as coming from that statesman. Nor had Barneveld
+ever spoken to him upon such subjects except on that one occasion.
+
+It is not necessary and would be wearisome to follow the unfortunate
+statesman through the long line of defence which he was obliged to make,
+in fragmentary and irregular form, against these discursive and confused
+assaults upon him. A continuous argument might be built up with the
+isolated parts which should be altogether impregnable. It is superfluous.
+
+Always instructive to his judges as he swept at will through the record
+of nearly half a century of momentous European history, in which he was
+himself a conspicuous figure, or expounding the ancient laws and customs
+of the country with a wealth and accuracy of illustration which testified
+to the strength of his memory, he seemed rather like a sage expounding
+law and history to a class of pupils than a criminal defending himself
+before a bench of commissioners. Moved occasionally from his austere
+simplicity, the majestic old man rose to a strain of indignant eloquence
+which might have shaken the hall of a vast assembly and found echo in the
+hearts of a thousand hearers as he denounced their petty insults or
+ignoble insinuations; glaring like a caged lion at his tormentors, who
+had often shrunk before him when free, and now attempted to drown his
+voice by contradictions, interruptions, threats, and unmeaning howls.
+
+He protested, from the outset and throughout the proceedings, against the
+jurisdiction of the tribunal. The Treaty of Union on which the Assembly
+and States-General were founded gave that assembly no power over him.
+They could take no legal cognizance of his person or his acts. He had
+been deprived of writing materials, or he would have already drawn up his
+solemn protest and argument against the existence of the commission. He
+demanded that they should be provided for him, together with a clerk to
+engross his defence. It is needless to say that the demand was refused.
+
+It was notorious to all men, he said, that on the day when violent hands
+were laid upon him he was not bound to the States-General by oath,
+allegiance, or commission. He was a well-known inhabitant of the Hague, a
+householder there, a vassal of the Commonwealth of Holland, enfeoffed of
+many notable estates in that country, serving many honourable offices by
+commission from its government. By birth, promotion, and conferred
+dignities he was subject to the supreme authority of Holland, which for
+forty years had been a free state possessed of all the attributes of
+sovereignty, political, religious, judicial, and recognizing no superior
+save God Almighty alone.
+
+He was amenable to no tribunal save that of their Mightinesses the States
+of Holland and their ordinary judges. Not only those States but the
+Prince of Orange as their governor and vassal, the nobles of Holland, the
+colleges of justice, the regents of cities, and all other vassals,
+magistrates, and officers were by their respective oaths bound to
+maintain and protect him in these his rights.
+
+After fortifying this position by legal argument and by an array of
+historical facts within his own experience, and alluding to the repeated
+instances in which, sorely against his will, he had been solicited and
+almost compelled to remain in offices of which he was weary, he referred
+with dignity to the record of his past life. From the youthful days when
+he had served as a volunteer at his own expense in the perilous sieges of
+Haarlem and Leyden down to the time of his arrest, through an unbroken
+course of honourable and most arduous political services, embassies, and
+great negotiations, he had ever maintained the laws and liberties of the
+Fatherland and his own honour unstained.
+
+That he should now in his seventy-second year be dragged, in violation of
+every privilege and statute of the country, by extraordinary means,
+before unknown judges, was a grave matter not for himself alone but for
+their Mightinesses the States of Holland and for the other provinces. The
+precious right 'de non evocando' had ever been dear to all the provinces,
+cities, and inhabitants of the Netherlands. It was the most vital
+privilege in their possession as well in civil as criminal, in secular as
+in ecclesiastical affairs.
+
+When the King of Spain in 1567, and afterwards, set up an extraordinary
+tribunal and a course of extraordinary trials, it was an undeniable fact,
+he said, that on the solemn complaint of the States all princes, nobles,
+and citizens not only in the Netherlands but in foreign countries, and
+all foreign kings and sovereigns, held those outrages to be the foremost
+and fundamental reason for taking up arms against that king, and
+declaring him to have forfeited his right of sovereignty.
+
+Yet that monarch was unquestionably the born and accepted sovereign of
+each one of the provinces, while the General Assembly was but a gathering
+of confederates and allies, in no sense sovereign. It was an unimaginable
+thing, he said, that the States of each province should allow their whole
+authority and right of sovereignty to be transferred to a board of
+commissioners like this before which he stood. If, for example, a general
+union of France, England, and the States of the United Netherlands should
+be formed (and the very words of the Act of Union contemplated such
+possibility), what greater absurdity could there be than to suppose that
+a college of administration created for the specific purposes of such
+union would be competent to perform acts of sovereignty within each of
+those countries in matters of justice, polity, and religion?
+
+It was known to mankind, he said, that when negotiations were entered
+into for bestowing the sovereignty of the Provinces on France and on
+England, special and full powers were required from, and furnished by,
+the States of each individual province.
+
+Had the sovereignty been in the assembly of the States-General, they
+might have transferred it of their own motion or kept it for themselves.
+
+Even in the ordinary course of affairs the commissioners from each
+province to the General Assembly always required a special power from
+their constituents before deciding any matter of great importance.
+
+In regard to the defence of the respective provinces and cities, he had
+never heard it doubted, he said, that the states or the magistrates of
+cities had full right to provide for it by arming a portion of their own
+inhabitants or by enlisting paid troops. The sovereign counts of Holland
+and bishops of Utrecht certainly possessed and exercised that right for
+many hundred years, and by necessary tradition it passed to the states
+succeeding to their ancient sovereignty. He then gave from the stores of
+his memory innumerable instances in which soldiers had been enlisted by
+provinces and cities all over the Netherlands from the time of the
+abjuration of Spain down to that moment. Through the whole period of
+independence in the time of Anjou, Matthias, Leicester, as well as under
+the actual government, it had been the invariable custom thus to provide
+both by land and sea and on the rivers against robbers, rebels, pirates,
+mischief-makers, assailing thieves, domestic or foreign. It had been done
+by the immortal William the Silent on many memorable occasions, and in
+fact the custom was so notorious that soldiers so enlisted were known by
+different and peculiar nicknames in the different provinces and towns.
+
+That the central government had no right to meddle with religious matters
+was almost too self-evident an axiom to prove. Indeed the chief
+difficulty under which the Advocate laboured throughout this whole
+process was the monstrous assumption by his judges of a political and
+judicial system which never had any existence even in imagination. The
+profound secrecy which enwrapped the proceedings from that day almost to
+our own and an ignorant acquiescence of a considerable portion of the
+public in accomplished facts offer the only explanation of a mystery
+which must ever excite our wonder. If there were any impeachment at all,
+it was an impeachment of the form of government itself. If language could
+mean anything whatever, a mere perusal of the Articles of Union proved
+that the prisoner had never violated that fundamental pact. How could the
+general government prescribe an especial formulary for the Reformed
+Church, and declare opposition to its decrees treasonable, when it did
+not prohibit, but absolutely admitted and invited, provinces and cities
+exclusively Catholic to enter the Union, guaranteeing to them entire
+liberty of religion?
+
+Barneveld recalled the fact that when the stadholdership of Utrecht
+thirty years before had been conferred on Prince Maurice the States of
+that province had solemnly reserved for themselves the disposition over
+religious matters in conformity with the Union, and that Maurice had
+sworn to support that resolution.
+
+Five years later the Prince had himself assured a deputation from Brabant
+that the States of each province were supreme in religious matters, no
+interference the one with the other being justifiable or possible. In
+1602 the States General in letters addressed to the States of the
+obedient provinces under dominion of the Archdukes had invited them to
+take up arms to help drive the Spaniards from the Provinces and to join
+the Confederacy, assuring them that they should regulate the matter of
+religion at their good pleasure, and that no one else should be allowed
+to interfere therewith.
+
+The Advocate then went into an historical and critical disquisition, into
+which we certainly have no need to follow him, rapidly examining the
+whole subject of predestination and conditional and unconditional
+damnation from the days of St. Augustine downward, showing a thorough
+familiarity with a subject of theology which then made up so much of the
+daily business of life, political and private, and lay at the bottom of
+the terrible convulsion then existing in the Netherlands. We turn from it
+with a shudder, reminding the reader only how persistently the statesman
+then on his trial had advocated conciliation, moderation, and kindness
+between brethren of the Reformed Church who were not able to think alike
+on one of the subtlest and most mysterious problems that casuistry has
+ever propounded.
+
+For fifty years, he said, he had been an enemy of all compulsion of the
+human conscience. He had always opposed rigorous ecclesiastical decrees.
+He had done his best to further, and did not deny having inspired, the
+advice given in the famous letters from the King of Great Britain to the
+States in 1613, that there should be mutual toleration and abstinence
+from discussion of disputed doctrines, neither of them essential to
+salvation. He thought that neither Calvin nor Beza would have opposed
+freedom of opinion on those points. For himself he believed that the
+salvation of mankind would be through God's unmerited grace and the
+redemption of sins though the Saviour, and that the man who so held and
+persevered to the end was predestined to eternal happiness, and that his
+children dying before the age of reason were destined not to Hell but to
+Heaven. He had thought fifty years long that the passion and sacrifice of
+Christ the Saviour were more potent to salvation than God's wrath and the
+sin of Adam and Eve to damnation. He had done his best practically to
+avert personal bickerings among the clergy. He had been, so far as lay in
+his power, as friendly to Remonstrants as to Contra-Remonstrants, to
+Polyander and Festus Hommius as to Uytenbogaert and Episcopius. He had
+almost finished a negotiation with Councillor Kromhout for the peaceable
+delivery of the Cloister Church on the Thursday preceding the Sunday on
+which it had been forcibly seized by the Contra-Remonstrants.
+
+When asked by one of his judges how he presumed to hope for toleration
+between two parties, each of which abhorred the other's opinions, and
+likened each other to Turks and devil-worshippers, he replied that he had
+always detested and rebuked those mutual revilings by every means in his
+power, and would have wished to put down such calumniators of either
+persuasion by the civil authority, but the iniquity of the times and the
+exasperation of men's humours had prevented him.
+
+Being perpetually goaded by one judge after another as to his
+disrespectful conduct towards the King of Great Britain, and asked why
+his Majesty had not as good right to give the advice of 1617 as the
+recommendation of tolerance in 1613, he scrupulously abstained, as he had
+done in all his letters, from saying a disrespectful word as to the
+glaring inconsistency between the two communications, or to the hostility
+manifested towards himself personally by the British ambassador. He had
+always expressed the hope, he said, that the King would adhere to his
+original position, but did not dispute his right to change his mind, nor
+the good faith which had inspired his later letters. It had been his
+object, if possible, to reconcile the two different systems recommended
+by his Majesty into one harmonious whole.
+
+His whole aim had been to preserve the public peace as it was the duty of
+every magistrate, especially in times of such excitement, to do. He could
+never comprehend why the toleration of the Five Points should be a danger
+to the Reformed religion. Rather, he thought, it would strengthen the
+Church and attract many Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, and other good
+patriots into its pale. He had always opposed the compulsory acceptance
+by the people of the special opinions of scribes and doctors. He did not
+consider, he said, the difference in doctrine on this disputed point
+between the Contra-Remonstrants and Remonstrants as one-tenth the value
+of the civil authority and its right to make laws and ordinances
+regulating ecclesiastical affairs.
+
+He believed the great bulwark of the independence of the country to be
+the Reformed Church, and his efforts had ever been to strengthen that
+bulwark by preventing the unnecessary schism which might prove its ruin.
+Many questions of property, too, were involved in the question--the
+church buildings, lands and pastures belonging to the Counts of Holland
+and their successors--the States having always exercised the right of
+church patronage--'jus patronatus'--a privilege which, as well as
+inherited or purchased advowsons, had been of late flagrantly interfered
+with.
+
+He was asked if he had not said that it had never been the intention of
+the States-General to carry on the war for this or that religion.
+
+He replied that he had told certain clergymen expressing to him their
+opinion that the war had been waged solely for the furtherance of their
+especial shade of belief, that in his view the war had been undertaken
+for the conservation of the liberties and laws of the land, and of its
+good people. Of that freedom the first and foremost point was the true
+Christian religion and liberty of conscience and opinion. There must be
+religion in the Republic, he had said, but that the war was carried on to
+sustain the opinion of one doctor of divinity or another on--differential
+points was something he had never heard of and could never believe. The
+good citizens of the country had as much right to hold by Melancthon as
+by Calvin or Beza. He knew that the first proclamations in regard to the
+war declared it to be undertaken for freedom of conscience, and so to
+his, own knowledge it had been always carried on.
+
+He was asked if he had not promised during the Truce negotiations so to
+direct matters that the Catholics with time might obtain public exercise
+of their religion.
+
+He replied that this was a notorious falsehood and calumny, adding that
+it ill accorded with the proclamation against the Jesuits drawn up by
+himself some years after the Truce. He furthermore stated that it was
+chiefly by his direction that the discourse of President Jeannin--urging
+on part of the French king that liberty of worship might be granted to
+the Papists--was kept secret, copies of it not having been furnished even
+to the commissioners of the Provinces.
+
+His indignant denial of this charge, especially taken in connection with
+his repeated assertions during the trial, that among the most patriotic
+Netherlanders during and since the war were many adherents of the ancient
+church, seems marvellously in contradiction with his frequent and most
+earnest pleas for liberty of conscience. But it did not appear
+contradictory even to his judges nor to any contemporary. His position
+had always been that the civil authority of each province was supreme in
+all matters political or ecclesiastical. The States-General, all the
+provinces uniting in the vote, had invited the Catholic provinces on more
+than one occasion to join the Union, promising that there should be no
+interference on the part of any states or individuals with the internal
+affairs religious or otherwise of the provinces accepting the invitation.
+But it would have been a gross contradiction of his own principle if he
+had promised so to direct matters that the Catholics should have public
+right of worship in Holland where he knew that the civil authority was
+sure to refuse it, or in any of the other six provinces in whose internal
+affairs he had no voice whatever. He was opposed to all tyranny over
+conscience, he would have done his utmost to prevent inquisition into
+opinion, violation of domicile, interference with private worship,
+compulsory attendance in Protestant churches of those professing the
+Roman creed. This was not attempted. No Catholic was persecuted on
+account of his religion. Compared with the practice in other countries
+this was a great step in advance. Religious tolerance lay on the road to
+religious equality, a condition which had hardly been imagined then and
+scarcely exists in Europe even to this day. But among the men in history
+whose life and death contributed to the advancement of that blessing, it
+would be vain to deny that Barneveld occupies a foremost place.
+
+Moreover, it should be remembered that religious equality then would have
+been a most hazardous experiment. So long as Church and State were
+blended, it was absolutely essential at that epoch for the preservation
+of Protestantism to assign the predominance to the State. Should the
+Catholics have obtained religious equality, the probable result would
+before long have been religious inequality, supremacy of the Catholics in
+the Church, and supremacy of the Church over the State. The fruits of the
+forty years' war would have become dust and ashes. It would be mere weak
+sentimentalism to doubt--after the bloody history which had just closed
+and the awful tragedy, then reopening--that every spark of religious
+liberty would have soon been trodden out in the Netherlands. The general
+onslaught of the League with Ferdinand, Maximilian of Bavaria, and Philip
+of Spain at its head against the distracted, irresolute, and wavering
+line of Protestantism across the whole of Europe was just preparing.
+Rather a wilderness to reign over than a single heretic, was the war-cry
+of the Emperor. The King of Spain, as we have just been reading in his
+most secret, ciphered despatches to the Archduke at Brussels, was nursing
+sanguine hopes and weaving elaborate schemes for recovering his dominion
+over the United Netherlands, and proposing to send an army of Jesuits
+thither to break the way to the reconquest. To play into his hands then,
+by granting public right of worship to the Papists, would have been in
+Barneveld's opinion like giving up Julich and other citadels in the
+debatable land to Spain just as the great war between Catholicism and
+Protestantism was breaking out. There had been enough of burning and
+burying alive in the Netherlands during the century which had closed. It
+was not desirable to give a chance for their renewal now.
+
+In regard to the Synod, Barneveld justified his course by a simple
+reference to the 13th Article of the Union. Words could not more plainly
+prohibit the interference by the States-General with the religious
+affairs of any one of the Provinces than had been done by that celebrated
+clause. In 1583 there had been an attempt made to amend that article by
+insertion of a pledge to maintain the Evangelical, Reformed, religion
+solely, but it was never carried out. He disdained to argue so
+self-evident a truth, that a confederacy which had admitted and
+constantly invited Catholic states to membership, under solemn pledge of
+noninterference with their religious affairs, had no right to lay down
+formulas for the Reformed Church throughout all the Netherlands. The oath
+of stadholder and magistrates in Holland to maintain the Reformed
+religion was framed before this unhappy controversy on predestination had
+begun, and it was mere arrogant assumption on the part of the
+Contra-Remonstrants to claim a monopoly of that religion, and to exclude
+the Remonstrants from its folds.
+
+He had steadily done his utmost to assuage those dissensions while
+maintaining the laws which he was sworn to support. He had advocated a
+provincial synod to be amicably assisted by divines from neighbouring
+countries. He had opposed a National Synod unless unanimously voted by
+the Seven Provinces, because it would have been an open violation of the
+fundamental law of the confederacy, of its whole spirit, and of liberty
+of conscience. He admitted that he had himself drawn up a protest on the
+part of three provinces (Holland, Utrecht, and Overyssel) against the
+decree for the National Synod as a breach of the Union, declaring it to
+be therefore null and void and binding upon no man. He had dictated the
+protest as oldest member present, while Grotius as the youngest had acted
+as scribe. He would have supported the Synod if legally voted, but would
+have preferred the convocation, under the authority of all the provinces,
+of a general, not a national, synod, in which, besides clergy and laymen
+from the Netherlands, deputations from all Protestant states and churches
+should take part; a kind of Protestant oecumenical council.
+
+As to the enlistment, by the States of a province, of soldiers to keep
+the peace and suppress tumults in its cities during times of political
+and religious excitement, it was the most ordinary of occurrences. In his
+experience of more than forty years he had never heard the right even
+questioned. It was pure ignorance of law and history to find it a
+novelty.
+
+To hire temporarily a sufficient number of professional soldiers, he
+considered a more wholesome means of keeping the peace than to enlist one
+portion of the citizens of a town against another portion, when party and
+religious spirit was running high. His experience had taught him that the
+mutual hatred of the inhabitants, thus inflamed, became more lasting and
+mischievous than the resentment caused through suppression of disorder by
+an armed and paid police of strangers.
+
+It was not only the right but the most solemn duty of the civil authority
+to preserve the tranquillity, property, and lives of citizens committed
+to their care. "I have said these fifty years," said Barneveld, "that it
+is better to be governed by magistrates than mobs. I have always
+maintained and still maintain that the most disastrous, shameful, and
+ruinous condition into which this land can fall is that in which the
+magistrates are overcome by the rabble of the towns and receive laws from
+them. Nothing but perdition can follow from that."
+
+There had been good reason to believe that the French garrisons as well
+as some of the train bands could not be thoroughly relied upon in
+emergencies like those constantly breaking out, and there had been
+advices of invasion by sympathizers from neighbouring countries. In many
+great cities the civil authority had been trampled upon and mob rule had
+prevailed. Certainly the recent example in the great commercial capital
+of the country--where the house of a foremost citizen had been besieged,
+stormed, and sacked, and a virtuous matron of the higher class hunted
+like a wild beast through the streets by a rabble grossly ignorant of the
+very nature of the religious quibble which had driven them mad, pelted
+with stones, branded with vilest names, and only saved by accident from
+assassination, while a church-going multitude looked calmly on--with
+constantly recurring instances in other important cities were sufficient
+reasons for the authorities to be watchful.
+
+He denied that he had initiated the proceedings at Utrecht in
+conversation with Ledenberg or any one else, but he had not refused, he
+said, his approval of the perfectly legal measures adopted for keeping
+the peace there when submitted to him. He was himself a born citizen of
+that province, and therefore especially interested in its welfare, and
+there was an old and intimate friendship between Utrecht and Holland. It
+would have been painful to him to see that splendid city in the control
+of an ignorant mob, making use of religious problems, which they did not
+comprehend, to plunder the property and take the lives of peaceful
+citizens more comfortably housed than themselves.
+
+He had neither suggested nor controlled the proceedings at Utrecht. On
+the contrary, at an interview with the Prince and Count William on the
+13th July, and in the presence of nearly thirty members of the general
+assembly, he had submitted a plan for cashiering the enlisted soldiery
+and substituting for them other troops, native-born, who should be sworn
+in the usual form to obey the laws of the Union. The deputation from
+Holland to Utrecht, according to his personal knowledge, had received no
+instructions personal or oral to authorize active steps by the troops of
+the Holland quota, but to abstain from them and to request the Prince
+that they should not be used against the will and commands of the States
+of Utrecht, whom they were bound by oath to obey so long as they were in
+garrison there.
+
+No man knew better than he whether the military oath which was called
+new-fangled were a novelty or not, for he had himself, he said, drawn it
+up thirty years before at command of the States-General by whom it was
+then ordained. From that day to this he had never heard a pretence that
+it justified anything not expressly sanctioned by the Articles of Union,
+and neither the States of Holland nor those of Utrecht had made any
+change in the oath. The States of Utrecht were sovereign within their own
+territory, and in the time of peace neither the Prince of Orange without
+their order nor the States-General had the right to command the troops in
+their territory. The governor of a province was sworn to obey the laws of
+the province and conform to the Articles of the General Union.
+
+He was asked why he wrote the warning letter to Ledenberg, and why he was
+so anxious that the letter should be burned; as if that were a deadly
+offence.
+
+He said that he could not comprehend why it should be imputed to him as a
+crime that he wished in such turbulent times to warn so important a city
+as Utrecht, the capital of his native province, against tumults,
+disorders, and sudden assaults such as had often happened to her in times
+past. As for the postscript requesting that the letter might be put in
+the fire, he said that not being a member of, the government of that
+province he was simply unwilling to leave a record that "he had been too
+curious in aliens republics, although that could hardly be considered a
+grave offence."
+
+In regard to the charge that he had accused Prince Maurice of aspiring to
+the sovereignty of the country, he had much to say. He had never brought
+such accusation in public or private. He had reason to believe
+however--he had indeed convincing proofs--that many people, especially
+those belonging to the Contra-Remonstrant party, cherished such schemes.
+He had never sought to cast suspicion on the Prince himself on account of
+those schemes. On the contrary, he had not even formally opposed them.
+What he wished had always been that such projects should be discussed
+formally, legally, and above board. After the lamentable murder of the
+late Prince he had himself recommended to the authorities of some of the
+cities that the transaction for bestowing the sovereignty of Holland upon
+William, interrupted by his death, "should be completed in favour of
+Prince Maurice in despite of the Spaniard." Recently he had requested
+Grotius to look up the documents deposited in Rotterdam belonging to this
+affair, in order that they might be consulted.
+
+He was asked whether according to Buzenval, the former French ambassador,
+Prince Maurice had not declared he would rather fling himself from the
+top of the Hague tower than accept the sovereignty. Barneveld replied
+that the Prince according to the same authority had added "under the
+conditions which had been imposed upon his father;" a clause which
+considerably modified the self-denying statement. It was desirable
+therefore to search the acts for the limitations annexed to the
+sovereignty.
+
+Three years long there had been indications from various sources that a
+party wished to change the form of government. He had not heard nor ever
+intimated that the Prince suggested such intrigues. In anonymous
+pamphlets and common street and tavern conversations the
+Contra-Remonstrants were described by those of their own persuasion as
+"Prince's Beggars" and the like. He had received from foreign countries
+information worthy of attention, that it was the design of the
+Contra-Remonstrants to raise the Prince to the sovereignty. He had
+therefore in 1616 brought the matter before the nobles and cities in a
+communication setting forth to the best of his recollection that under
+these religious disputes something else was intended. He had desired ripe
+conclusions on the matter, such as should most conduce to the service of
+the country. This had been in good faith both to the Prince and the
+Provinces, in order that, should a change in the government be thought
+desirable, proper and peaceful means might be employed to bring it about.
+He had never had any other intention than to sound the inclinations of
+those with whom he spoke, and he had many times since that period, by
+word of mouth and in writing, so lately as the month of April last
+assured the Prince that he had ever been his sincere and faithful servant
+and meant to remain so to the end of his life, desiring therefore that he
+would explain to him his wishes and intentions.
+
+Subsequently he had publicly proposed in full Assembly of Holland that
+the States should ripely deliberate and roundly declare if they were
+discontented with the form of government, and if so, what change they
+would desire. He had assured their Mightinesses that they might rely upon
+him to assist in carrying out their intentions whatever they might be. He
+had inferred however from the Prince's intimations, when he had broached
+the subject to him in 1617, that he was not inclined towards these
+supposed projects, and had heard that opinion distinctly expressed from
+the mouth of Count William.
+
+That the Contra-Remonstrants secretly entertained these schemes, he had
+been advised from many quarters, at home and abroad. In the year 1618 he
+had received information to that effect from France. Certain confidential
+counsellors of the Prince had been with him recently to confer on the
+subject. He had told them that, if his Excellency chose to speak to him
+in regard to it, would listen to his reasoning about it, both as regarded
+the interests of the country and the Prince himself, and then should
+desire him to propose and advocate it before the Assembly, he would do so
+with earnestness, zeal, and affection. He had desired however that, in
+case the attempt failed, the Prince would allow him to be relieved from
+service and to leave the country. What he wished from the bottom of his
+heart was that his Excellency would plainly discover to him the exact
+nature of his sentiments in regard to the business.
+
+He fully admitted receiving a secret letter from Ambassador Langerac,
+apprising him that a man of quality in France had information of the
+intention of the Contra-Remonstrants throughout the Provinces, should
+they come into power, to raise Prince Maurice to the sovereignty. He had
+communicated on the subject with Grotius and other deputies in order
+that, if this should prove to be the general inclination, the affair
+might be handled according to law, without confusion or disorder. This,
+he said, would be serving both the country and the Prince most
+judiciously.
+
+He was asked why he had not communicated directly with Maurice. He
+replied that he had already seen how unwillingly the Prince heard him
+allude to the subject, and that moreover there was another clause in the
+letter of different meaning, and in his view worthy of grave
+consideration by the States.
+
+No question was asked him as to this clause, but we have seen that it
+referred to the communication by du Agean to Langerac of a scheme for
+bestowing the sovereignty of the Provinces on the King of France. The
+reader will also recollect that Barneveld had advised the Ambassador to
+communicate the whole intelligence to the Prince himself.
+
+Barneveld proceeded to inform the judges that he had never said a word to
+cast suspicion upon the Prince, but had been actuated solely by the
+desire to find out the inclination of the States. The communications
+which he had made on the subject were neither for discrediting the Prince
+nor for counteracting the schemes for his advancement. On the contrary,
+he had conferred with deputies from great cities like Dordtrecht,
+Enkhuyzen, and Amsterdam, most devoted to the Contra-Remonstrant party,
+and had told them that, if they chose to propose the subject themselves,
+he would conduct himself to the best of his abilities in accordance with
+the wishes of the Prince.
+
+It would seem almost impossible for a statesman placed in Barneveld's
+position to bear himself with more perfect loyalty both to the country
+and to the Stadholder. His duty was to maintain the constitution and laws
+so long as they remained unchanged. Should it appear that the States,
+which legally represented the country, found the constitution defective,
+he was ready to aid in its amendment by fair public and legal methods.
+
+If Maurice wished to propose himself openly as a candidate for the
+sovereignty, which had a generation before been conferred upon his
+father, Barneveld would not only acquiesce in the scheme, but propose it.
+
+Should it fail, he claimed the light to lay down all his offices and go
+into exile.
+
+He had never said that the Prince was intriguing for, or even desired,
+the sovereignty. That the project existed among the party most opposed to
+himself, he had sufficient proof. To the leaders of that party therefore
+he suggested that the subject should be publicly discussed, guaranteeing
+freedom of debate and his loyal support so far as lay within his power.
+
+This was his answer to the accusation that he had meanly, secretly, and
+falsely circulated statements that the Prince was aspiring to the
+sovereignty.
+
+   [Great pains were taken, in the course of the interrogatories, to
+   elicit proof that the Advocate had concealed important diplomatic
+   information from the Prince. He was asked why, in his secret
+   instructions to Ambassador Langerac, he ordered him by an express
+   article to be very cautious about making communications to the
+   Prince. Searching questions were put in regard to these secret
+   instructions, which I have read in the Archives, and a copy of which
+   now lies before me. They are in the form of questions, some of them
+   almost puerile ones, addressed to Barneveld by the Ambassador then
+   just departing on his mission to France in 1614, with the answers
+   written in the margin by the Advocate. The following is all that
+   has reference to the Prince:
+   "Of what matters may I ordinarily write to his Excellency?"
+   Answer--"Of all great and important matters."
+   It was difficult to find much that was treasonable in that.]
+
+Among the heterogeneous articles of accusation he was asked why he had
+given no attention to those who had so, frequently proposed the formation
+of the West India Company.
+
+He replied that it had from old time been the opinion of the States of
+Holland, and always his own, that special and private licenses for
+traffic, navigation, and foreign commerce, were prejudicial to the
+welfare of the land. He had always been most earnestly opposed to them,
+detesting monopolies which interfered with that free trade and navigation
+which should be common to all mankind. He had taken great pains however
+in the years 1596 and 1597 to study the nature of the navigation and
+trade to the East Indies in regard to the nations to be dealt with in
+those regions, the nature of the wares bought and sold there, the
+opposition to be encountered from the Spaniards and Portuguese against
+the commerce of the Netherlanders, and the necessity of equipping vessels
+both for traffic and defence, and had come to the conclusion that these
+matters could best be directed by a general company. He explained in
+detail the manner in which he had procured the blending of all the
+isolated chambers into one great East India Corporation, the enormous
+pains which it had cost him to bring it about, and the great commercial
+and national success which had been the result. The Admiral of Aragon,
+when a prisoner after the battle of Nieuwpoort, had told him, he said,
+that the union of these petty corporations into one great whole had been
+as disastrous a blow to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal as the Union
+of the Provinces at Utrecht had been. In regard to the West India
+Company, its sole object, so far as he could comprehend it, had been to
+equip armed vessels, not for trade but to capture and plunder Spanish
+merchantmen and silver fleets in the West Indies and South America. This
+was an advantageous war measure which he had favoured while the war
+lasted. It was in no sense a commercial scheme however, and when the
+Truce had been made--the company not having come into existence--he
+failed to comprehend how its formation could be profitable for the
+Netherlanders. On the contrary it would expressly invite or irritate the
+Spaniards into a resumption of the war, an object which in his humble
+opinion was not at all desirable.
+
+Certainly these ideas were not especially reprehensible, but had they
+been as shallow and despicable as they seem to us enlightened, it is
+passing strange that they should have furnished matter for a criminal
+prosecution.
+
+It was doubtless a disappointment for the promoters of the company, the
+chief of whom was a bankrupt, to fail in obtaining their charter, but it
+was scarcely high-treason to oppose it. There is no doubt however that
+the disapprobation with which Barneveld regarded the West India Company,
+the seat of which was at Amsterdam, was a leading cause of the deadly
+hostility entertained for him by the great commercial metropolis.
+
+It was bad enough for the Advocate to oppose unconditional predestination
+and the damnation of infants, but to frustrate a magnificent system of
+privateering on the Spaniards in time of truce was an unpardonable crime.
+
+The patience with which the venerable statesman submitted to the taunts,
+ignorant and insolent cross-questionings, and noisy interruptions of his
+judges, was not less remarkable than the tenacity of memory which enabled
+him thus day after day, alone, unaided by books, manuscripts, or friendly
+counsel, to reconstruct the record of forty years, and to expound the
+laws of the land by an array of authorities, instances, and illustrations
+in a manner that would be deemed masterly by one who had all the
+resources of libraries, documents, witnesses, and secretaries at command.
+
+Only when insidious questions were put tending to impute to him
+corruption, venality, and treacherous correspondence with the enemy--for
+they never once dared formally to accuse him of treason--did that almost
+superhuman patience desert him.
+
+He was questioned as to certain payments made by him to a certain van der
+Vecken in Spanish coin. He replied briefly at first that his money
+transactions with that man of business extended over a period of twenty
+or thirty years, and amounted to many hundred thousands of florins,
+growing out of purchases and sales of lands, agricultural enterprises on
+his estates, moneys derived from his professional or official business
+and the like. It was impossible for him to remember the details of every
+especial money payment that might have occurred between them.
+
+Then suddenly breaking forth into a storm of indignation; he could mark
+from these questions, he said, that his enemies, not satisfied with
+having wounded his heart with their falsehoods, vile forgeries, and
+honour-robbing libels, were determined to break it. This he prayed that
+God Almighty might avert and righteously judge between him and them.
+
+It was plain that among other things they were alluding to the stale and
+senseless story of the sledge filled with baskets of coin sent by the
+Spanish envoys on their departure from the Hague, on conclusion of the
+Truce, to defray expenses incurred by them for board and lodging of
+servants, forage of horses, and the like-which had accidentally stopped
+at Barneveld's door and was forthwith sent on to John Spronssen,
+superintendent of such affairs. Passing over this wanton bit of calumny
+with disgust, he solemnly asserted that he had never at any period of his
+life received one penny nor the value of one penny from the King of
+Spain, the Archdukes, Spinola, or any other person connected with the
+enemy, saving only the presents publicly and mutually conferred according
+to invariable custom by the high contracting parties, upon the respective
+negotiators at conclusion of the Treaty of Truce. Even these gifts
+Barneveld had moved his colleagues not to accept, but proposed that they
+should all be paid into the public treasury. He had been overruled, he
+said, but that any dispassionate man of tolerable intelligence could
+imagine him, whose whole life had been a perpetual offence to Spain, to
+be in suspicious relations with that power seemed to him impossible. The
+most intense party spirit, yea, envy itself, must confess that he had
+been among the foremost to take up arms for his country's liberties, and
+had through life never faltered in their defence. And once more in that
+mean chamber, and before a row of personal enemies calling themselves
+judges, he burst into an eloquent and most justifiable sketch of the
+career of one whom there was none else to justify and so many to assail.
+
+From his youth, he said, he had made himself by his honourable and
+patriotic deeds hopelessly irreconcilable with the Spaniards. He was one
+of the advocates practising in the Supreme Court of Holland, who in the
+very teeth of the Duke of Alva had proclaimed him a tyrant and had sworn
+obedience to the Prince of Orange as the lawful governor of the land. He
+was one of those who in the same year had promoted and attended private
+gatherings for the advancement of the Reformed religion. He had helped to
+levy, and had contributed to, funds for the national defence in the early
+days of the revolt. These were things which led directly to the Council
+of Blood and the gibbet. He had borne arms himself on various bloody
+fields and had been perpetually a deputy to the rebel camps. He had been
+the original mover of the Treaty of Union which was concluded between the
+Provinces at Utrecht. He had been the first to propose and to draw up the
+declaration of Netherland independence and the abjuration of the King of
+Spain. He had been one of those who had drawn and passed the Act
+establishing the late Prince of Orange as stadholder. Of the sixty
+signers of these memorable declarations none were now living save himself
+and two others. When the Prince had been assassinated, he had done his
+best to secure for his son Maurice the sovereign position of which murder
+had so suddenly deprived the father. He had been member of the memorable
+embassies to France and England by which invaluable support for the
+struggling Provinces had been obtained.
+
+And thus he rapidly sketched the history of the great war of independence
+in which he had ever been conspicuously employed on the patriotic side.
+When the late King of France at the close of the century had made peace
+with Spain, he had been sent as special ambassador to that monarch, and
+had prevailed on him, notwithstanding his treaty with the enemy, to
+continue his secret alliance with the States and to promise them a large
+subsidy, pledges which had been sacredly fulfilled. It was on that
+occasion that Henry, who was his debtor for past services, professional,
+official, and perfectly legitimate, had agreed, when his finances should
+be in better condition, to discharge his obligations; over and above the
+customary diplomatic present which he received publicly in common with
+his colleague Admiral Nassau. This promise, fulfilled a dozen years
+later, had been one of the senseless charges of corruption brought
+against him. He had been one of the negotiators of the Truce in which
+Spain had been compelled to treat with her revolted provinces as with
+free states and her equals. He had promoted the union of the Protestant
+princes and their alliance with France and the United States in
+opposition to the designs of Spain and the League. He had organized and
+directed the policy by which the forces of England, France, and
+Protestant Germany had possessed themselves of the debateable land. He
+had resisted every scheme by which it was hoped to force the States from
+their hold of those important citadels. He had been one of the foremost
+promoters of the East India Company, an organization which the Spaniards
+confessed had been as damaging to them as the Union of the Provinces
+itself had been.
+
+The idiotic and circumstantial statements, that he had conducted
+Burgomaster van Berk through a secret staircase of his house into his
+private study for the purpose of informing him that the only way for the
+States to get out of the war was to submit themselves once more to their
+old masters, so often forced upon him by the judges, he contradicted with
+disdain and disgust. He had ever abhorred and dreaded, he said, the House
+of Spain, Austria, and Burgundy. His life had passed in open hostility to
+that house, as was known to all mankind. His mere personal interests,
+apart from higher considerations, would make an approach to the former
+sovereign impossible, for besides the deeds he had already alluded to, he
+had committed at least twelve distinct and separate acts, each one of
+which would be held high-treason by the House of Austria, and he had
+learned from childhood that these are things which monarchs never forget.
+The tales of van Berk were those of a personal enemy, falsehoods scarcely
+worth contradicting.
+
+He was grossly and enormously aggrieved by the illegal constitution of
+the commission. He had protested and continued to protest against it. If
+that protest were unheeded, he claimed at least that those men should be
+excluded from the board and the right to sit in judgment upon his person
+and his deeds who had proved themselves by words and works to be his
+capital enemies, of which fact he could produce irrefragable evidence. He
+claimed that the Supreme Court of Holland, or the High Council, or both
+together, should decide upon that point. He held as his personal enemies,
+he said, all those who had declared that he, before or since the Truce
+down to the day of his arrest, had held correspondence with the
+Spaniards, the Archdukes, the Marquis Spinola, or any one on that side,
+had received money, money value, or promises of money from them, and in
+consequence had done or omitted to do anything whatever. He denounced
+such tales as notorious, shameful, and villainous falsehoods, the
+utterers and circulators of them as wilful liars, and this he was ready
+to maintain in every appropriate way for the vindication of the truth and
+his own honour. He declared solemnly before God Almighty to the
+States-General and to the States of Holland that his course in the
+religious matter had been solely directed to the strengthening of the
+Reformed religion and to the political security of the provinces and
+cities. He had simply desired that, in the awful and mysterious matter of
+predestination, the consciences of many preachers and many thousands of
+good citizens might be placed in tranquillity, with moderate and
+Christian limitations against all excesses.
+
+From all these reasons, he said, the commissioners, the States-General,
+the Prince, and every man in the land could clearly see, and were bound
+to see, that he was the same man now that he was at the beginning of the
+war, had ever been, and with God's help should ever remain.
+
+The proceedings were kept secret from the public and, as a matter of
+course, there had been conflicting rumours from day to day as to the
+probable result of these great state trials. In general however it was
+thought that the prisoner would be acquitted of the graver charges, or
+that at most he would be permanently displaced from all office and
+declared incapable thenceforth to serve the State. The triumph of the
+Contra-Remonstrants since the Stadholder had placed himself at the head
+of them, and the complete metamorphosis of the city governments even in
+the strongholds of the Arminian party seemed to render the permanent
+political disgrace of the Advocate almost a matter of certainty.
+
+The first step that gave rise to a belief that he might be perhaps more
+severely dealt with than had been anticipated was the proclamation by the
+States-General of a public fast and humiliation for the 17th April.
+
+In this document it was announced that "Church and State--during several
+years past having been brought into great danger of utter destruction
+through certain persons in furtherance of their ambitious designs--had
+been saved by the convocation of a National Synod; that a lawful sentence
+was soon to be expected upon those who had been disturbing the
+Commonwealth; that through this sentence general tranquillity would
+probably be restored; and that men were now to thank God for this result,
+and pray to Him that He would bring the wicked counsels and stratagems of
+the enemy against these Provinces to naught."
+
+All the prisoners were asked if they too would like in their chambers of
+bondage to participate in the solemnity, although the motive for the
+fasting and prayer was not mentioned to them. Each of them in his
+separate prison room, of course without communication together, selected
+the 7th Psalm and sang it with his servant and door-keeper.
+
+From the date of this fast-day Barneveld looked upon the result of his
+trial as likely to be serious.
+
+Many clergymen refused or objected to comply with the terms of this
+declaration. Others conformed with it greedily, and preached lengthy
+thanksgiving sermons, giving praise to God that, He had confounded the
+devices of the ambitious and saved the country from the "blood bath"
+which they had been preparing for it.
+
+The friends of Barneveld became alarmed at the sinister language of this
+proclamation, in which for the first time allusions had been made to a
+forthcoming sentence against the accused.
+
+Especially the staunch and indefatigable du Maurier at once addressed
+himself again to the States-General. De Boississe had returned to France,
+having found that the government of a country torn, weakened, and
+rendered almost impotent by its own internecine factions, was not likely
+to exert any very potent influence on the fate of the illustrious
+prisoner.
+
+The States had given him to understand that they were wearied with his
+perpetual appeals, intercessions, and sermons in behalf of mercy. They
+made him feel in short that Lewis XIII. and Henry IV. were two entirely
+different personages.
+
+Du Maurier however obtained a hearing before the Assembly on the 1st May,
+where he made a powerful and manly speech in presence of the Prince,
+urging that the prisoners ought to be discharged unless they could be
+convicted of treason, and that the States ought to show as much deference
+to his sovereign as they had always done to Elizabeth of England. He made
+a personal appeal to Prince Maurice, urging upon him how much it would
+redound to his glory if he should now in generous and princely fashion
+step forward in behalf of those by whom he deemed himself to have been
+personally offended.
+
+His speech fell upon ears hardened against such eloquence and produced no
+effect.
+
+Meantime the family of Barneveld, not yet reduced to despair, chose to
+take a less gloomy view of the proclamation. Relying on the innocence of
+the great statesman, whose aims, in their firm belief, had ever been for
+the welfare and glory of his fatherland, and in whose heart there had
+never been kindled one spark of treason, they bravely expected his
+triumphant release from his long and, as they deemed it, his iniquitous
+imprisonment.
+
+On this very 1st of May, in accordance with ancient custom, a may-pole
+was erected on the Voorhout before the mansion of the captive statesman,
+and wreaths of spring flowers and garlands of evergreen decorated the
+walls within which were such braised and bleeding hearts. These
+demonstrations of a noble hypocrisy, if such it were, excited the wrath,
+not the compassion, of the Stadholder, who thought that the aged matron
+and her sons and daughters, who dwelt in that house of mourning, should
+rather have sat in sackcloth with ashes on their heads than indulge in
+these insolent marks of hope and joyful expectation.
+
+It is certain however that Count William Lewis, who, although most
+staunch on the Contra-Remonstrant side, had a veneration for the Advocate
+and desired warmly to save him, made a last and strenuous effort for that
+purpose.
+
+It was believed then, and it seems almost certain, that, if the friends
+of the Advocate had been willing to implore pardon for him, the sentence
+would have been remitted or commuted. Their application would have been
+successful, for through it his guilt would seem to be acknowledged.
+
+Count William sent for the Fiscal Duyck. He asked him if there were no
+means of saving the life of a man who was so old and had done the country
+so much service. After long deliberation, it was decided that Prince
+Maurice should be approached on the subject. Duyck wished that the Count
+himself would speak with his cousin, but was convinced by his reasoning
+that it would be better that the Fiscal should do it. Duyck had a long
+interview accordingly with Maurice, which was followed by a very secret
+one between them both and Count William. The three were locked up
+together, three hours long, in the Prince's private cabinet. It was then
+decided that Count William should go, as if of his own accord, to the
+Princess-Dowager Louise, and induce her to send for some one of
+Barneveld's children and urge that the family should ask pardon for him.
+She asked if this was done with the knowledge of the Prince of Orange, or
+whether he would not take it amiss. The Count eluded the question, but
+implored her to follow his advice.
+
+The result was an interview between the Princess and Madame de
+Groeneveld, wife of the eldest son. That lady was besought to apply, with
+the rest of the Advocate's children, for pardon to the Lords States, but
+to act as if it were done of her own impulse, and to keep their interview
+profoundly secret.
+
+Madame de Groeneveld took time to consult the other members of the family
+and some friends. Soon afterwards she came again to the Princess, and
+informed her that she had spoken with the other children, and that they
+could not agree to the suggestion. "They would not move one step in
+it--no, not if it should cost him his head."
+
+The Princess reported the result of this interview to Count William, at
+which both were so distressed that they determined to leave the Hague.
+
+There is something almost superhuman in the sternness of this stoicism.
+Yet it lay in the proud and highly tempered character of the
+Netherlanders. There can be no doubt that the Advocate would have
+expressly dictated this proceeding if he had been consulted. It was
+precisely the course adopted by himself. Death rather than life with a
+false acknowledgment of guilt and therefore with disgrace. The loss of
+his honour would have been an infinitely greater triumph to his enemies
+than the loss of his head.
+
+There was no delay in drawing up the sentence. Previously to this
+interview with the widow of William the Silent, the family of the
+Advocate had presented to the judges three separate documents, rather in
+the way of arguments than petitions, undertaking to prove by elaborate
+reasoning and citations of precedents and texts of the civil law that the
+proceedings against him were wholly illegal, and that he was innocent of
+every crime.
+
+No notice had been taken of those appeals.
+
+Upon the questions and answers as already set forth the sentence soon
+followed, and it may be as well that the reader should be aware, at this
+point in the narrative, of the substance of that sentence so soon to be
+pronounced. There had been no indictment, no specification of crime.
+There had been no testimony or evidence. There had been no argument for
+the prosecution or the defence. There had been no trial whatever. The
+prisoner was convicted on a set of questions to which he had put in
+satisfactory replies. He was sentenced on a preamble. The sentence was a
+string of vague generalities, intolerably long, and as tangled as the
+interrogatories. His proceedings during a long career had on the whole
+tended to something called a "blood bath"--but the blood bath had never
+occurred.
+
+With an effrontery which did not lack ingenuity, Barneveld's defence was
+called by the commissioners his confession, and was formally registered
+as such in the process and the sentence; while the fact that he had not
+been stretched upon the rack during his trial, nor kept in chains for the
+eight months of his imprisonment, were complacently mentioned as proofs
+of exceptionable indulgence.
+
+"Whereas the prisoner John of Barneveld," said the sentence, "without
+being put to the torture and without fetters of iron, has confessed . . .
+to having perturbed religion, greatly afflicted the Church of God, and
+carried into practice exorbitant and pernicious maxims of State . . .
+inculcating by himself and accomplices that each province had the right
+to regulate religious affairs within its own territory, and that other
+provinces were not to concern themselves therewith"--therefore and for
+many other reasons he merited punishment.
+
+He had instigated a protest by vote of three provinces against the
+National Synod. He had despised the salutary advice of many princes and
+notable personages. He had obtained from the King of Great Britain
+certain letters furthering his own opinions, the drafts of which he had
+himself suggested, and corrected and sent over to the States' ambassador
+in London, and when written out, signed, and addressed by the King to the
+States-General, had delivered them without stating how they had been
+procured.
+
+Afterwards he had attempted to get other letters of a similar nature from
+the King, and not succeeding had defamed his Majesty as being a cause of
+the troubles in the Provinces. He had permitted unsound theologians to be
+appointed to church offices, and had employed such functionaries in
+political affairs as were most likely to be the instruments of his own
+purposes. He had not prevented vigorous decrees from being enforced in
+several places against those of the true religion. He had made them
+odious by calling them Puritans, foreigners, and "Flanderizers," although
+the United Provinces had solemnly pledged to each other their lives,
+fortunes, and blood by various conventions, to some of which the prisoner
+was himself a party, to maintain the Reformed, Evangelical, religion
+only, and to, suffer no change in it to be made for evermore.
+
+In order to carry out his design and perturb the political state of the
+Provinces he had drawn up and caused to be enacted the Sharp Resolution
+of 4th August 1617. He had thus nullified the ordinary course of justice.
+He had stimulated the magistrates to disobedience, and advised them to
+strengthen themselves with freshly enlisted military companies. He had
+suggested new-fangled oaths for the soldiers, authorizing them to refuse
+obedience to the States-General and his Excellency. He had especially
+stimulated the proceedings at Utrecht. When it was understood that the
+Prince was to pass through Utrecht, the States of that province not
+without the prisoner's knowledge had addressed a letter to his
+Excellency, requesting him not to pass through their city. He had written
+a letter to Ledenberg suggesting that good watch should be held at the
+town gates and up and down the river Lek. He had desired that Ledenberg
+having read that letter should burn it. He had interfered with the
+cashiering of the mercenaries at Utrecht. He had said that such
+cashiering without the consent of the States of that province was an act
+of force which would justify resistance by force.
+
+Although those States had sent commissioners to concert measures with the
+Prince for that purpose, he had advised them to conceal their
+instructions until his own plan for the disbandment could be carried out.
+At a secret meeting in the house of Tresel, clerk of the States-General,
+between Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and other accomplices, it was decided that
+this advice should be taken. Report accordingly was made to the prisoner.
+He had advised them to continue in their opposition to the National
+Synod.
+
+He had sought to calumniate and blacken his Excellency by saying that he
+aspired to the sovereignty of the Provinces. He had received intelligence
+on that subject from abroad in ciphered letters.
+
+He had of his own accord rejected a certain proposed, notable alliance of
+the utmost importance to this Republic.
+
+   [This refers, I think without doubt, to the conversation between
+   King James and Caron at the end of the year 1815.]
+
+He had received from foreign potentates various large sums of money and
+other presents.
+
+All "these proceedings tended to put the city of Utrecht into a
+blood-bath, and likewise to bring the whole country, and the person of
+his Excellency into the uttermost danger."
+
+This is the substance of the sentence, amplified by repetitions and
+exasperating tautology into thirty or forty pages.
+
+It will have been perceived by our analysis of Barneveld's answers to the
+commissioners that all the graver charges which he was now said to have
+confessed had been indignantly denied by him or triumphantly justified.
+
+It will also be observed that he was condemned for no categorical
+crime--lese-majesty, treason, or rebellion. The commissioners never
+ventured to assert that the States-General were sovereign, or that the
+central government had a right to prescribe a religious formulary for all
+the United Provinces. They never dared to say that the prisoner had been
+in communication with the enemy or had received bribes from him.
+
+Of insinuation and implication there was much, of assertion very little,
+of demonstration nothing whatever.
+
+But supposing that all the charges had been admitted or proved, what
+course would naturally be taken in consequence? How was a statesman who
+adhered to the political, constitutional, and religious opinions on which
+he had acted, with the general acquiescence, during a career of more than
+forty years, but which were said to be no longer in accordance with
+public opinion, to be dealt with? Would the commissioners request him to
+retire honourably from the high functions which he had over and over
+again offered to resign? Would they consider that, having fairly
+impeached and found him guilty of disturbing the public peace by
+continuing to act on his well-known legal theories, they might deprive
+him summarily of power and declare him incapable of holding office again?
+
+The conclusion of the commissioners was somewhat more severe than either
+of these measures. Their long rambling preamble ended with these decisive
+words:
+
+"Therefore the judges, in name of the Lords States-General, condemn the
+prisoner to be taken to the Binnenhof, there to be executed with the
+sword that death may follow, and they declare all his property
+confiscated."
+
+The execution was to take place so soon as the sentence had been read to
+the prisoner.
+
+After the 1st of May Barneveld had not appeared before his judges. He had
+been examined in all about sixty times.
+
+In the beginning of May his servant became impatient. "You must not be
+impatient," said his master. "The time seems much longer because we get
+no news now from the outside. But the end will soon come. This delay
+cannot last for ever."
+
+Intimation reached him on Saturday the 11th May that the sentence was
+ready and would soon be pronounced.
+
+"It is a bitter folk," said Barneveld as he went to bed. "I have nothing
+good to expect of them." Next day was occupied in sewing up and
+concealing his papers, including a long account of his examination, with
+the questions and answers, in his Spanish arm-chair. Next day van der
+Meulen said to the servant, "I will bet you a hundred florins that you'll
+not be here next Thursday."
+
+The faithful John was delighted, not dreaming of the impending result.
+
+It was Sunday afternoon, 12th May, and about half past five o'clock.
+Barneveld sat in his prison chamber, occupied as usual in writing,
+reviewing the history of the past, and doing his best to reduce into
+something like order the rambling and miscellaneous interrogatories, out
+of which his trial had been concocted, while the points dwelt in his
+memory, and to draw up a concluding argument in his own defence. Work
+which according to any equitable, reasonable, or even decent procedure
+should have been entrusted to the first lawyers of the country--preparing
+the case upon the law and the facts with the documents before them, with
+the power of cross-questioning witnesses and sifting evidence, and
+enlightened by constant conferences with the illustrious prisoner
+himself--came entirely upon his own shoulders, enfeebled as he was by
+age, physical illness, and by the exhaustion of along imprisonment.
+Without books, notes of evidence, or even copies of the charges of which
+he stood accused, he was obliged to draw up his counter-arguments against
+the impeachment and then by aid of a faithful valet to conceal his
+manuscript behind the tapestry of the chamber, or cause them to be sewed
+up in the lining of his easy-chair, lest they should be taken from him by
+order of the judges who sat in the chamber below.
+
+While he was thus occupied in preparations for his next encounter with
+the tribunal, the door opened, and three gentlemen entered. Two were the
+prosecuting officers of the government, Fiscal Sylla and Fiscal van
+Leeuwen. The other was the provost-marshal, Carel de Nijs. The servant
+was directed to leave the room.
+
+Barneveld had stepped into his dressing-room on hearing footsteps, but
+came out again with his long furred gown about him as the three entered.
+He greeted them courteously and remained standing, with his hands placed
+on the back of his chair and with one knee resting carelessly against the
+arm of it. Van Leeuwen asked him if he would not rather be seated, as
+they brought a communication from the judges. He answered in the
+negative. Von Leeuwen then informed him that he was summoned to appear
+before the judges the next morning to hear his sentence of death.
+
+"The sentence of death!" he exclaimed, without in the least changing his
+position; "the sentence of death! the sentence of death!" saying the
+words over thrice, with an air of astonishment rather than of horror. "I
+never expected that! I thought they were going to hear my defence again.
+I had intended to make some change in my previous statements, having set
+some things down when beside myself with choler."
+
+He then made reference to his long services. Van Leeuwen expressed
+himself as well acquainted with them. "He was sorry," he said, "that his
+lordship took this message ill of him."
+
+"I do not take it ill of you," said Barneveld, "but let them," meaning
+the judges, "see how they will answer it before God. Are they thus to
+deal with a true patriot? Let me have pen, ink, and paper, that for the
+last time I may write farewell to my wife."
+
+"I will go ask permission of the judges," said van Leenwen, "and I cannot
+think that my lord's request will be refused."
+
+While van Leeuwen was absent, the Advocate exclaimed, looking at the
+other legal officer:
+
+"Oh, Sylla, Sylla, if your father could only have seen to what uses they
+would put you!"
+
+Sylla was silent.
+
+Permission to write the letter was soon received from de Voogt, president
+of the commission. Pen, ink, and paper were brought, and the prisoner
+calmly sat down to write, without the slightest trace of discomposure
+upon his countenance or in any of his movements.
+
+While he was writing, Sylla said with some authority, "Beware, my lord,
+what you write, lest you put down something which may furnish cause for
+not delivering the letter."
+
+Barneveld paused in his writing, took the glasses from his eyes, and
+looked Sylla in the face.
+
+"Well, Sylla," he said very calmly, "will you in these my last moments
+lay down the law to me as to what I shall write to my wife?"
+
+He then added with a half-smile, "Well, what is expected of me?"
+
+"We have no commission whatever to lay down the law," said van Leeuwen.
+"Your worship will write whatever you like."
+
+While he was writing, Anthony Walaeus came in, a preacher and professor
+of Middelburg, a deputy to the Synod of Dordtrecht, a learned and amiable
+man, sent by the States-General to minister to the prisoner on this
+supreme occasion; and not unworthy to be thus selected.
+
+The Advocate, not knowing him, asked him why he came.
+
+"I am not here without commission," said the clergyman. "I come to
+console my lord in his tribulation."
+
+"I am a man," said Barneveld; "have come to my present age, and I know
+how to console myself. I must write, and have now other things to do."
+
+The preacher said that he would withdraw and return when his worship was
+at leisure.
+
+"Do as you like," said the Advocate, calmly going on with his writing.
+
+When the letter was finished, it was sent to the judges for their
+inspection, by whom it was at once forwarded to the family mansion in the
+Voorhout, hardly a stone's throw from the prison chamber.
+
+Thus it ran:
+
+"Very dearly beloved wife, children, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, I
+greet you altogether most affectionately. I receive at this moment the
+very heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services
+done well and faithfully to the Fatherland for so many years (after
+having performed all respectful and friendly offices to his Excellency
+the Prince with upright affection so far as my official duty and vocation
+would permit, shown friendship to many people of all sorts, and wittingly
+injured no man), must prepare myself to die to-morrow.
+
+"I console myself in God the Lord, who knows all hearts, and who will
+judge all men. I beg you all together to do the same. I have steadily and
+faithfully served My Lords the States of Holland and their nobles and
+cities. To the States of Utrecht as sovereigns of my own Fatherland I
+have imparted at their request upright and faithful counsel, in order to
+save them from tumults of the populace, and from the bloodshed with which
+they had so long been threatened. I had the same views for the cities of
+Holland in order that every one might be protected and no one injured.
+
+"Live together in love and peace. Pray for me to Almighty God, who will
+graciously hold us all in His holy keeping.
+
+"From my chamber of sorrow, the 12th May 1619.
+
+"Your very dear husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather,
+
+                  "JOHN OF BARNEVELD."
+
+It was thought strange that the judges should permit so simple and clear
+a statement, an argument in itself, to be forwarded. The theory of his
+condemnation was to rest before the public on his confessions of guilt,
+and here in the instant of learning the nature of the sentence in a few
+hours to be pronounced upon him he had in a few telling periods declared
+his entire innocence. Nevertheless the letter had been sent at once to
+its address.
+
+So soon as this sad business had been disposed of, Anthony Walaeus
+returned. The Advocate apologized to the preacher for his somewhat abrupt
+greeting on his first appearance. He was much occupied and did not know
+him, he said, although he had often heard of him. He begged him, as well
+as the provost-marshal, to join him at supper, which was soon brought.
+
+Barneveld ate with his usual appetite, conversed cheerfully on various
+topics, and pledged the health of each of his guests in a glass of beer.
+Contrary to his wont he drank at that repast no wine. After supper he
+went out into the little ante-chamber and called his servant, asking him
+how he had been faring. Now John Franken had just heard with grief
+unspeakable the melancholy news of his master's condemnation from two
+soldiers of the guard, who had been sent by the judges to keep additional
+watch over the prisoner. He was however as great a stoic as his master,
+and with no outward and superfluous manifestations of woe had simply
+implored the captain-at-arms, van der Meulen, to intercede with the
+judges that he might be allowed to stay with his lord to the last.
+Meantime he had been expressly informed that he was to say nothing to the
+Advocate in secret, and that his master was not to speak to him in a low
+tone nor whisper in his ear.
+
+When the Advocate came out into the ante-chamber and looking over his
+shoulder saw the two soldiers he at once lowered his voice.
+
+"Hush-speak low," he whispered; "this is too cruel." John then informed
+him of van der Meulen's orders, and that the soldiers had also been
+instructed to look to it sharply that no word was exchanged between
+master and man except in a loud voice.
+
+"Is it possible," said the Advocate, "that so close an inspection is held
+over me in these last hours? Can I not speak a word or two in freedom?
+This is a needless mark of disrespect."
+
+The soldiers begged him not to take their conduct amiss as they were
+obliged strictly to obey orders.
+
+He returned to his chamber, sat down in his chair, and begged Walaeus to
+go on his behalf to Prince Maurice.
+
+"Tell his Excellency," said he, "that I have always served him with
+upright affection so far as my office, duties, and principles permitted.
+If I, in the discharge of my oath and official functions, have ever done
+anything contrary to his views, I hope that he will forgive it, and that
+he will hold my children in his gracious favour."
+
+It was then ten o'clock. The preacher went downstairs and crossed the
+courtyard to the Stadholder's apartments, where he at once gained
+admittance.
+
+Maurice heard the message with tears in his eyes, assuring Walaeus that
+he felt deeply for the Advocate's misfortunes. He had always had much
+affection for him, he said, and had often warned him against his mistaken
+courses. Two things, however, had always excited his indignation. One was
+that Barneveld had accused him of aspiring to sovereignty. The other that
+he had placed him in such danger at Utrecht. Yet he forgave him all. As
+regarded his sons, so long as they behaved themselves well they might
+rely on his favour.
+
+As Walaeus was about to leave the apartment, the Prince called him back.
+
+"Did he say anything of a pardon?" he asked, with some eagerness.
+
+"My Lord," answered the clergyman, "I cannot with truth say that I
+understood him to make any allusion to it."
+
+Walaeus returned immediately to the prison chamber and made his report of
+the interview. He was unwilling however to state the particulars of the
+offence which Maurice declared himself to have taken at the acts of the
+Advocate.
+
+But as the prisoner insisted upon knowing, the clergyman repeated the
+whole conversation.
+
+"His Excellency has been deceived in regard to the Utrecht business,"
+said Barneveld, "especially as to one point. But it is true that I had
+fear and apprehension that he aspired to the sovereignty or to more
+authority in the country. Ever since the year 1600 I have felt this fear
+and have tried that these apprehensions might be rightly understood."
+
+While Walaeus had been absent, the Reverend Jean la Motte (or Lamotius)
+and another clergyman of the Hague had come to the prisoner's apartment.
+La Motte could not look upon the Advocate's face without weeping, but the
+others were more collected. Conversation now ensued among the four; the
+preachers wishing to turn the doomed statesman's thought to the
+consolations of religion.
+
+But it was characteristic of the old lawyer's frame of mind that even now
+he looked at the tragical position in which he found himself from a
+constitutional and controversial point of view. He was perfectly calm and
+undaunted at the awful fate so suddenly and unexpectedly opened before
+his eyes, but he was indignant at what he esteemed the ignorance,
+injustice, and stupidity of the sentence to be pronounced against him.
+
+"I am ready enough to die," he said to the three clergymen, "but I cannot
+comprehend why I am to die. I have done nothing except in obedience to
+the laws and privileges of the land and according to my oath, honour, and
+conscience."
+
+"These judges," he continued, "come in a time when other maxims prevail
+in the State than those of my day. They have no right therefore to sit in
+judgment upon me."
+
+The clergymen replied that the twenty-four judges who had tried the case
+were no children and were conscientious men; that it was no small thing
+to condemn a man, and that they would have to answer it before the
+Supreme Judge of all.
+
+"I console myself," he answered, "in the Lord my God, who knows all
+hearts and shall judge all men. God is just.
+
+"They have not dealt with me," he continued, "as according to law and
+justice they were bound to deal. They have taken away from me my own
+sovereign lords and masters and deposed them. To them alone I was
+responsible. In their place they have put many of my enemies who were
+never before in the government, and almost all of whom are young men who
+have not seen much or read much. I have seen and read much, and know that
+from such examples no good can follow. After my death they will learn for
+the first time what governing means."
+
+"The twenty-four judges are nearly all of them my enemies. What they have
+reproached me with, I have been obliged to hear. I have appealed against
+these judges, but it has been of no avail. They have examined me in
+piecemeal, not in statesmanlike fashion. The proceedings against me have
+been much too hard. I have frequently requested to see the notes of my
+examination as it proceeded, and to confer upon it with aid and counsel
+of friends, as would be the case in all lands governed by law. The
+request was refused. During this long and wearisome affliction and misery
+I have not once been allowed to speak to my wife and children. These are
+indecent proceedings against a man seventy-two years of age, who has
+served his country faithfully for three-and-forty years. I bore arms with
+the volunteers at my own charges at the siege of Haarlem and barely
+escaped with life."
+
+It was not unnatural that the aged statesman's thoughts should revert in
+this supreme moment to the heroic scenes in which he had been an actor
+almost a half-century before. He could not but think with bitterness of
+those long past but never forgotten days when he, with other patriotic
+youths, had faced the terrible legions of Alva in defence of the
+Fatherland, at a time when the men who were now dooming him to a
+traitor's death were unborn, and who, but for his labours, courage,
+wisdom, and sacrifices, might have never had a Fatherland to serve, or a
+judgment-seat on which to pronounce his condemnation.
+
+Not in a spirit of fretfulness, but with disdainful calm, he criticised
+and censured the proceedings against himself as a violation of the laws
+of the land and of the first principles of justice, discussing them as
+lucidly and steadily as if they had been against a third person.
+
+The preachers listened, but had nothing to say. They knew not of such
+matters, they said, and had no instructions to speak of them. They had
+been sent to call him to repentance for his open and hidden sins and to
+offer the consolations of religion.
+
+"I know that very well," he said, "but I too have something to say
+notwithstanding." The conversation then turned upon religious topics, and
+the preachers spoke of predestination.
+
+"I have never been able to believe in the matter of high predestination,"
+said the Advocate. "I have left it in the hands of God the Lord. I hold
+that a good Christian man must believe that he through God's grace and by
+the expiation of his sin through our Redeemer Jesus Christ is predestined
+to be saved, and that this belief in his salvation, founded alone on
+God's grace and the merits of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, comes to him
+through the same grace of God. And if he falls into great sins, his firm
+hope and confidence must be that the Lord God will not allow him to
+continue in them, but that, through prayer for grace and repentance, he
+will be converted from evil and remain in the faith to the end of his
+life."
+
+These feelings, he said, he had expressed fifty-two years before to three
+eminent professors of theology in whom he confided, and they had assured
+him that he might tranquilly continue in such belief without examining
+further. "And this has always been my creed," he said.
+
+The preachers replied that faith is a gift of God and not given to all
+men, that it must be given out of heaven to a man before he could be
+saved. Hereupon they began to dispute, and the Advocate spoke so
+earnestly and well that the clergymen were astonished and sat for a time
+listening to him in silence.
+
+He asked afterwards about the Synod, and was informed that its decrees
+had not yet been promulgated, but that the Remonstrants had been
+condemned.
+
+"It is a pity," said he. "One is trying to act on the old Papal system,
+but it will never do. Things have gone too far. As to the Synod, if My
+Lords the States of Holland had been heeded there would have been first a
+provincial synod and then a national one."--"But," he added, looking the
+preachers in the face, "had you been more gentle with each other, matters
+would not have taken so high a turn. But you have been too fierce one
+against the other, too full of bitter party spirit."
+
+They replied that it was impossible for them to act against their
+conscience and the supreme authority. And then they asked him if there
+was nothing that troubled him in, his conscience in the matters for which
+he must die; nothing for which he repented and sorrowed, and for which he
+would call upon God for mercy.
+
+"This I know well," he said, "that I have never willingly done wrong to
+any man. People have been ransacking my letters to Caron--confidential
+ones written several years ago to an old friend when I was troubled and
+seeking for counsel and consolation. It is hard that matter of
+impeachment against me to-day should be sought for thus."
+
+And then he fell into political discourse again on the subject of the
+Waartgelders and the State rights, and the villainous pasquils and libels
+that had circulated so long through the country.
+
+"I have sometimes spoken hastily, I confess," he said; "but that was when
+I was stung by the daily swarm of infamous and loathsome pamphlets,
+especially those directed against my sovereign masters the States of
+Holland. That I could not bear. Old men cannot well brush such things
+aside. All that was directly aimed at me in particular I endeavoured to
+overcome with such patience as I could muster. The disunion and mutual
+enmity in the country have wounded me to the heart. I have made use of
+all means in my power to accommodate matters, to effect with all
+gentleness a mutual reconciliation. I have always felt a fear lest the
+enemy should make use of our internal dissensions to strike a blow
+against us. I can say with perfect truth that ever since the year '77 I
+have been as resolutely and unchangeably opposed to the Spaniards and
+their adherents, and their pretensions over these Provinces, as any man
+in the world, no one excepted, and as ready to sacrifice property and
+shed my blood in defence of the Fatherland. I have been so devoted to the
+service of the country that I have not been able to take the necessary
+care of my own private affairs."
+
+So spoke the great statesman in the seclusion of his prison, in the
+presence of those clergymen whom he respected, at a supreme moment, when,
+if ever, a man might be expected to tell the truth. And his whole life
+which belonged to history, and had been passed on the world's stage
+before the eyes of two generations of spectators, was a demonstration of
+the truth of his words.
+
+But Burgomaster van Berk knew better. Had he not informed the twenty-four
+commissioners that, twelve years before, the Advocate wished to subject
+the country to Spain, and that Spinola had drawn a bill of exchange for
+100,000 ducats as a compensation for his efforts?
+
+It was eleven o'clock. Barneveld requested one of the brethren to say an
+evening prayer. This was done by La Motte, and they were then requested
+to return by three or four o'clock next morning. They had been directed,
+they said, to remain with him all night. "That is unnecessary," said the
+Advocate, and they retired.
+
+His servant then helped his master to undress, and he went to bed as
+usual. Taking off his signet-ring, he gave it to John Franken.
+
+"For my eldest son," he said.
+
+The valet sat down at the head of his bed in order that his master might
+speak to him before he slept. But the soldiers ordered him away and
+compelled him to sit in a distant part of the room.
+
+An hour after midnight, the Advocate having been unable to lose himself,
+his servant observed that Isaac, one of the soldiers, was fast asleep. He
+begged the other, Tilman Schenk by name, to permit him some private words
+with his master. He had probably last messages, he thought, to send to
+his wife and children, and the eldest son, M. de Groeneveld, would no
+doubt reward him well for it. But the soldier was obstinate in obedience
+to the orders of the judges.
+
+Barneveld, finding it impossible to sleep, asked his servant to read to
+him from the Prayer-book. The soldier called in a clergyman however,
+another one named Hugo Bayerus, who had been sent to the prison, and who
+now read to him the Consolations of the Sick. As he read, he made
+exhortations and expositions, which led to animated discussion, in which
+the Advocate expressed himself with so much fervour and eloquence that
+all present were astonished, and the preacher sat mute a half-hour long
+at the bed-side.
+
+"Had there been ten clergymen," said the simple-hearted sentry to the
+valet, "your master would have enough to say to all of them."
+
+Barneveld asked where the place had been prepared in which he was to die.
+
+"In front of the great hall, as I understand," said Bayerus, "but I don't
+know the localities well, having lived here but little."
+
+"Have you heard whether my Grotius is to die, and Hoogerbeets also?" he
+asked?
+
+"I have heard nothing to that effect," replied the clergyman.
+
+"I should most deeply grieve for those two gentlemen," said Barneveld,
+"were that the case. They may yet live to do the land great service. That
+great rising light, de Groot, is still young, but a very wise and learned
+gentleman, devoted to his Fatherland with all zeal, heart, and soul, and
+ready to stand up for her privileges, laws, and rights. As for me, I am
+an old and worn-out man. I can do no more. I have already done more than
+I was really able to do. I have worked so zealously in public matters
+that I have neglected my private business. I had expressly ordered my
+house at Loosduinen" [a villa by the seaside] "to be got ready, that I
+might establish myself there and put my affairs in order. I have
+repeatedly asked the States of Holland for my discharge, but could never
+obtain it. It seems that the Almighty had otherwise disposed of me."
+
+He then said he would try once more if he could sleep. The clergyman and
+the servant withdrew for an hour, but his attempt was unsuccessful. After
+an hour he called for his French Psalm Book and read in it for some time.
+Sometime after two o'clock the clergymen came in again and conversed with
+him. They asked him if he had slept, if he hoped to meet Christ, and if
+there was anything that troubled his conscience.
+
+"I have not slept, but am perfectly tranquil," he replied. "I am ready to
+die, but cannot comprehend why I must die. I wish from my heart that,
+through my death and my blood, all disunion and discord in this land may
+cease."
+
+He bade them carry his last greetings to his fellow prisoners. "Say
+farewell for me to my good Grotius," said he, "and tell him that I must
+die."
+
+The clergymen then left him, intending to return between five and six
+o'clock.
+
+He remained quiet for a little while and then ordered his valet to cut
+open the front of his shirt. When this was done, he said, "John, are you
+to stay by me to the last?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "if the judges permit it."
+
+"Remind me to send one of the clergymen to the judges with the request,"
+said his master.
+
+The faithful John, than whom no servant or friend could be more devoted,
+seized the occasion, with the thrift and stoicism of a true Hollander, to
+suggest that his lord might at the same time make some testamentary
+disposition in his favour.
+
+"Tell my wife and children," said the Advocate, "that they must console
+each other in mutual love and union. Say that through God's grace I am
+perfectly at ease, and hope that they will be equally tranquil. Tell my
+children that I trust they will be loving and friendly to their mother
+during the short time she has yet to live. Say that I wish to recommend
+you to them that they may help you to a good situation either with
+themselves or with others. Tell them that this was my last request."
+
+He bade him further to communicate to the family the messages sent that
+night through Walaeus by the Stadholder.
+
+The valet begged his master to repeat these instructions in presence of
+the clergyman, or to request one of them to convey them himself to the
+family. He promised to do so.
+
+"As long as I live," said the grateful servant, "I shall remember your
+lordship in my prayers."
+
+"No, John," said the Advocate, "that is Popish. When I am dead, it is all
+over with prayers. Pray for me while I still live. Now is the time to
+pray. When one is dead, one should no longer be prayed for."
+
+La Motte came in. Barneveld repeated his last wishes exactly as he
+desired them to be communicated to his wife and children. The preacher
+made no response. "Will you take the message?" asked the prisoner. La
+Motte nodded, but did not speak, nor did he subsequently fulfil the
+request.
+
+Before five o'clock the servant heard the bell ring in the apartment of
+the judges directly below the prison chamber, and told his master he had
+understood that they were to assemble at five o'clock.
+
+"I may as well get up then," said the Advocate; "they mean to begin
+early, I suppose. Give me my doublet and but one pair of stockings."
+
+He was accustomed to wear two or three pair at a time.
+
+He took off his underwaistcoat, saying that the silver bog which was in
+one of the pockets was to be taken to his wife, and that the servant
+should keep the loose money there for himself. Then he found an
+opportunity to whisper to him, "Take good care of the papers which are in
+the apartment." He meant the elaborate writings which he had prepared
+during his imprisonment and concealed in the tapestry and within the
+linings of the chair.
+
+As his valet handed him the combs and brushes, he said with a smile,
+"John, this is for the last time."
+
+When he was dressed, he tried, in rehearsal of the approaching scene, to
+pull over his eyes the silk skull-cap which he usually wore under his
+hat. Finding it too tight he told the valet to put the nightcap in his
+pocket and give it him when he should call for it. He then swallowed a
+half-glass of wine with a strengthening cordial in it, which he was wont
+to take.
+
+The clergymen then re-entered, and asked if he had been able to sleep. He
+answered no, but that he had been much consoled by many noble things
+which he had been reading in the French Psalm Book. The clergymen said
+that they had been thinking much of the beautiful confession of faith
+which he had made to them that evening. They rejoiced at it, they said,
+on his account, and had never thought it of him. He said that such had
+always been his creed.
+
+At his request Walaeus now offered a morning prayer Barneveld fell on his
+knees and prayed inwardly without uttering a sound. La Motte asked when
+he had concluded, "Did my Lord say Amen?"--"Yes, Lamotius," he replied;
+"Amen."--"Has either of the brethren," he added, "prepared a prayer to be
+offered outside there?"
+
+La Motte informed him that this duty had been confided to him. Some
+passages from Isaiah were now read aloud, and soon afterwards Walaeus was
+sent for to speak with the judges. He came back and said to the prisoner,
+"Has my Lord any desire to speak with his wife or children, or any of his
+friends?" It was then six o'clock, and Barneveld replied:
+
+"No, the time is drawing near. It would excite a new emotion." Walaeus
+went back to the judges with this answer, who thereupon made this
+official report:
+
+"The husband and father of the petitioners, being asked if he desired
+that any of the petitioners should come to him, declared that he did not
+approve of it, saying that it would cause too great an emotion for
+himself as well as for them. This is to serve as an answer to the
+petitioners."
+
+Now the Advocate knew nothing of the petition. Up to the last moment his
+family had been sanguine as to his ultimate acquittal and release. They
+relied on a promise which they had received or imagined that they had
+received from the Stadholder that no harm should come to the prisoner in
+consequence of the arrest made of his person in the Prince's apartments
+on the 8th of August. They had opened this tragical month of May with
+flagstaffs and flower garlands, and were making daily preparations to
+receive back the revered statesman in triumph.
+
+The letter written by him from his "chamber of sorrow," late in the
+evening of 12th May, had at last dispelled every illusion. It would be
+idle to attempt to paint the grief and consternation into which the
+household in the Voorhout was plunged, from the venerable dame at its
+head, surrounded by her sons and daughters and children's children, down
+to the humblest servant in their employment. For all revered and loved
+the austere statesman, but simple and benignant father and master.
+
+No heed had been taken of the three elaborate and argumentative petitions
+which, prepared by learned counsel in name of the relatives, had been
+addressed to the judges. They had not been answered because they were
+difficult to answer, and because it was not intended that the accused
+should have the benefit of counsel.
+
+An urgent and last appeal was now written late at night, and signed by
+each member of the family, to his Excellency the Prince and the judge
+commissioners, to this effect:
+
+"The afflicted wife and children of M. van Barneveld humbly show that
+having heard the sorrowful tidings of his coming execution, they humbly
+beg that it may be granted them to see and speak to him for the last
+time."
+
+The two sons delivered this petition at four o'clock in the morning into
+the hands of de Voogd, one of the judges. It was duly laid before the
+commission, but the prisoner was never informed, when declining a last
+interview with his family, how urgently they had themselves solicited the
+boon.
+
+Louise de Coligny, on hearing late at night the awful news, had been
+struck with grief and horror. She endeavoured, late as it was, to do
+something to avert the doom of one she so much revered, the man on whom
+her illustrious husband had leaned his life long as on a staff of iron.
+She besought an interview of the Stadholder, but it was refused. The wife
+of William the Silent had no influence at that dire moment with her
+stepson. She was informed at first that Maurice was asleep, and at four
+in the morning that all intervention was useless.
+
+The faithful and energetic du Maurier, who had already exhausted himself
+in efforts to save the life of the great prisoner, now made a last
+appeal. He, too, heard at four o'clock in the morning of the 13th that
+sentence of death was to be pronounced. Before five o'clock he made
+urgent application to be heard before the Assembly of the States-General
+as ambassador of a friendly sovereign who took the deepest interest in
+the welfare of the Republic and the fate of its illustrious statesman.
+The appeal was refused. As a last resource he drew up an earnest and
+eloquent letter to the States-General, urging clemency in the name of his
+king. It was of no avail. The letter may still be seen in the Royal
+Archives at the Hague, drawn up entirely in du Maurier's clear and
+beautiful handwriting. Although possibly a first draft, written as it
+was under such a mortal pressure for time, its pages have not one erasure
+or correction.
+
+It was seven o'clock. Barneveld having observed by the preacher (La
+Motte's) manner that he was not likely to convey the last messages which
+he had mentioned to his wife and children, sent a request to the judges
+to be allowed to write one more letter. Captain van der Meulen came back
+with the permission, saying he would wait and take it to the judges for
+their revision.
+
+The letter has been often published.
+
+"Must they see this too? Why, it is only a line in favour of John," said
+the prisoner, sitting quietly down to write this letter:
+
+"Very dear wife and children, it is going to an end with me. I am,
+through the grace of God, very tranquil. I hope that you are equally so,
+and that you may by mutual love, union, and peace help each other to
+overcome all things, which I pray to the Omnipotent as my last request.
+John Franken has served me faithfully for many years and throughout all
+these my afflictions, and is to remain with me to the end. He deserves to
+be recommended to you and to be furthered to good employments with you or
+with others. I request you herewith to see to this.
+
+"I have requested his Princely Excellency to hold my sons and children in
+his favour, to which he has answered that so long as you conduct
+yourselves well this shall be the case. I recommend this to you in the
+best form and give you all into God's holy keeping. Kiss each other and
+all my grandchildren, for the last time in my name, and fare you well.
+Out of the chamber of sorrow, 13th May 1619. Your dear husband and
+father,
+                  JOHN OF BARNEVELD.
+
+"P.S. You will make John Franken a present in memory of me."
+
+Certainly it would be difficult to find a more truly calm, courageous, or
+religious spirit than that manifested by this aged statesman at an hour
+when, if ever, a human soul is tried and is apt to reveal its innermost
+depths or shallows. Whatever Gomarus or Bogerman, or the whole Council of
+Dordtrecht, may have thought of his theology, it had at least taught him
+forgiveness of his enemies, kindness to his friends, and submission to
+the will of the Omnipotent. Every moment of his last days on earth had
+been watched and jealously scrutinized, and his bitterest enemies had
+failed to discover one trace of frailty, one manifestation of any
+vacillating, ignoble, or malignant sentiment.
+
+The drums had been sounding through the quiet but anxiously expectant
+town since four o'clock that morning, and the tramp of soldiers marching
+to the Inner Court had long been audible in the prison chamber.
+
+Walaeus now came back with a message from the judges. "The high
+commissioners," he said, "think it is beginning. Will my Lord please to
+prepare himself?"
+
+"Very well, very well," said the prisoner. "Shall we go at once?"
+
+But Walaeus suggested a prayer. Upon its conclusion, Barneveld gave his
+hand to the provost-marshal and to the two soldiers, bidding them adieu,
+and walked downstairs, attended by them, to the chamber of the judges. As
+soon as he appeared at the door, he was informed that there had been a
+misunderstanding, and he was requested to wait a little. He accordingly
+went upstairs again with perfect calmness, sat down in his chamber again,
+and read in his French Psalm Book. Half an hour later he was once more
+summoned, the provost-marshal and Captain van der Meulen reappearing to
+escort him. "Mr. Provost," said the prisoner, as they went down the
+narrow staircase, "I have always been a good friend to you."--"It is
+true," replied that officer, "and most deeply do I grieve to see you in
+this affliction."
+
+He was about to enter the judges' chamber as usual, but was informed that
+the sentence would be read in the great hall of judicature. They
+descended accordingly to the basement story, and passed down the narrow
+flight of steps which then as now connected the more modern structure,
+where the Advocate had been imprisoned and tried, with what remained of
+the ancient palace of the Counts of Holland. In the centre of the vast
+hall--once the banqueting chamber of those petty sovereigns; with its
+high vaulted roof of cedar which had so often in ancient days rung with
+the sounds of mirth and revelry--was a great table at which the
+twenty-four judges and the three prosecuting officers were seated, in
+their black caps and gowns of office. The room was lined with soldiers
+and crowded with a dark, surging mass of spectators, who had been waiting
+there all night.
+
+A chair was placed for the prisoner. He sat down, and the clerk of the
+commission, Pots by name, proceeded at once to read the sentence. A
+summary of this long, rambling, and tiresome paper has been already laid
+before the reader. If ever a man could have found it tedious to listen to
+his own death sentence, the great statesman might have been in that
+condition as he listened to Secretary Pots.
+
+During the reading of the sentence the Advocate moved uneasily on his
+seat, and seemed about to interrupt the clerk at several passages which
+seemed to him especially preposterous. But he controlled himself by a
+strong effort, and the clerk went steadily on to the conclusion.
+
+Then Barneveld said:
+
+"The judges have put down many things which they have no right to draw
+from my confession. Let this protest be added."
+
+"I thought too," he continued, "that My Lords the States-General would
+have had enough in my life and blood, and that my wife and children might
+keep what belongs to them. Is this my recompense for forty-three years'
+service to these Provinces?"
+
+President de Voogd rose:
+
+"Your sentence has been pronounced," he said. "Away! away!" So saying he
+pointed to the door into which one of the great windows at the
+south-eastern front of the hall had been converted.
+
+Without another word the old man rose from his chair and strode, leaning
+on his staff, across the hall, accompanied by his faithful valet and the
+provost and escorted by a file of soldiers. The mob of spectators flowed
+out after him at every door into the inner courtyard in front of the
+ancient palace.
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs
+     Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received
+     Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt
+     Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience
+     Heidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallible
+     I know how to console myself
+     Implication there was much, of assertion very little
+     John Robinson
+     Magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword
+     Only true religion
+     Rather a wilderness to reign over than a single heretic
+     William Brewster
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. 1619-23
+
+   Barneveld's Execution--The Advocate's Conduct on the Scaffold--The
+   Sentence printed and sent to the Provinces--The Proceedings
+   irregular and inequitable.
+
+In the beautiful village capital of the "Count's Park," commonly called
+the Hague, the most striking and picturesque spot then as now was that
+where the transformed remains of the old moated castle of those feudal
+sovereigns were still to be seen. A three-storied range of simple,
+substantial buildings in brown brickwork, picked out with white stone in
+a style since made familiar both in England and America, and associated
+with a somewhat later epoch in the history of the House of Orange,
+surrounded three sides of a spacious inner paved quadrangle called the
+Inner Court, the fourth or eastern side being overshadowed by a beechen
+grove. A square tower flanked each angle, and on both sides of the
+south-western turret extended the commodious apartments of the
+Stadholder. The great gateway on the south-west opened into a wide open
+space called the Outer Courtyard. Along the north-west side a broad and
+beautiful sheet of water, in which the walls, turrets, and chapel-spires
+of the enclosed castle mirrored themselves, was spread between the mass
+of buildings and an umbrageous promenade called the Vyverberg, consisting
+of a sextuple alley of lime-trees and embowering here and there a stately
+villa. A small island, fringed with weeping willows and tufted all over
+with lilacs, laburnums, and other shrubs then in full flower, lay in the
+centre of the miniature lake, and the tall solid tower of the Great
+Church, surmounted by a light openwork spire, looked down from a little
+distance over the scene.
+
+It was a bright morning in May. The white swans were sailing tranquilly
+to and fro over the silver basin, and the mavis, blackbird, and
+nightingale, which haunted the groves surrounding the castle and the
+town, were singing as if the daybreak were ushering in a summer festival.
+
+But it was not to a merry-making that the soldiers were marching and the
+citizens thronging so eagerly from every street and alley towards the
+castle. By four o'clock the Outer and Inner Courts had been lined with
+detachments of the Prince's guard and companies of other regiments to the
+number of 1200 men. Occupying the north-eastern side of the court rose
+the grim, time-worn front of the ancient hall, consisting of one tall
+pyramidal gable of ancient grey brickwork flanked with two tall slender
+towers, the whole with the lancet-shaped windows and severe style of the
+twelfth century, excepting a rose-window in the centre with the decorated
+mullions of a somewhat later period.
+
+In front of the lower window, with its Gothic archway hastily converted
+into a door, a shapeless platform of rough, unhewn planks had that night
+been rudely patched together. This was the scaffold. A slight railing
+around it served to protect it from the crowd, and a heap of coarse sand
+had been thrown upon it. A squalid, unclean box of unplaned boards,
+originally prepared as a coffin for a Frenchman who some time before had
+been condemned to death for murdering the son of Goswyn Meurskens, a
+Hague tavern-keeper, but pardoned by the Stadholder--lay on the scaffold.
+It was recognized from having been left for a long time, half forgotten,
+at the public execution-place of the Hague.
+
+Upon this coffin now sat two common soldiers of ruffianly aspect playing
+at dice, betting whether the Lord or the Devil would get the soul of
+Barneveld. Many a foul and ribald jest at the expense of the prisoner was
+exchanged between these gamblers, some of their comrades, and a few
+townsmen, who were grouped about at that early hour. The horrible libels,
+caricatures, and calumnies which had been circulated, exhibited, and sung
+in all the streets for so many months had at last thoroughly poisoned the
+minds of the vulgar against the fallen statesman.
+
+The great mass of the spectators had forced their way by daybreak into
+the hall itself to hear the sentence, so that the Inner Courtyard had
+remained comparatively empty.
+
+At last, at half past nine o'clock, a shout arose, "There he comes! there
+he comes!" and the populace flowed out from the hall of judgment into the
+courtyard like a tidal wave.
+
+In an instant the Binnenhof was filled with more than three thousand
+spectators.
+
+The old statesman, leaning on his staff, walked out upon the scaffold and
+calmly surveyed the scene. Lifting his eyes to Heaven, he was heard to
+murmur, "O God! what does man come to!" Then he said bitterly once more:
+"This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State!"
+
+La Motte, who attended him, said fervently: "It is no longer time to
+think of this. Let us prepare your coming before God."
+
+"Is there no cushion or stool to kneel upon?" said Barneveld, looking
+around him.
+
+The provost said he would send for one, but the old man knelt at once on
+the bare planks. His servant, who waited upon him as calmly and
+composedly as if he had been serving him at dinner, held him by the arm.
+It was remarked that neither master nor man, true stoics and Hollanders
+both, shed a single tear upon the scaffold.
+
+La Motte prayed for a quarter of an hour, the Advocate remaining on his
+knees.
+
+He then rose and said to John Franken, "See that he does not come near
+me," pointing to the executioner who stood in the background grasping his
+long double-handed sword. Barneveld then rapidly unbuttoned his doublet
+with his own hands and the valet helped him off with it. "Make haste!
+make haste!" said his master.
+
+The statesman then came forward and said in a loud, firm voice to the
+people:
+
+"Men, do not believe that I am a traitor to the country. I have ever
+acted uprightly and loyally as a good patriot, and as such I shall die."
+
+The crowd was perfectly silent.
+
+He then took his cap from John Franken, drew it over his eyes, and went
+forward towards the sand, saying:
+
+"Christ shall be my guide. O Lord, my heavenly Father, receive my
+spirit."
+
+As he was about to kneel with his face to the south, the provost said:
+
+"My lord will be pleased to move to the other side, not where the sun is
+in his face."
+
+He knelt accordingly with his face towards his own house. The servant
+took farewell of him, and Barneveld said to the executioner:
+
+"Be quick about it. Be quick."
+
+The executioner then struck his head off at a single blow.
+
+Many persons from the crowd now sprang, in spite of all opposition, upon
+the scaffold and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, cut wet
+splinters from the boards, or grubbed up the sand that was steeped in it;
+driving many bargains afterwards for these relics to be treasured, with
+various feelings of sorrow, joy, glutted or expiated vengeance.
+
+It has been recorded, and has been constantly repeated to this day, that
+the Stadholder, whose windows exactly faced the scaffold, looked out upon
+the execution with a spy-glass; saying as he did so:
+
+"See the old scoundrel, how he trembles! He is afraid of the stroke."
+
+But this is calumny. Colonel Hauterive declared that he was with Maurice
+in his cabinet during the whole period of the execution, that by order of
+the Prince all the windows and shutters were kept closed, that no person
+wearing his livery was allowed to be abroad, that he anxiously received
+messages as to the proceedings, and heard of the final catastrophe with
+sorrowful emotion.
+
+It must be admitted, however, that the letter which Maurice wrote on the
+same morning to his cousin William Lewis does not show much pathos.
+
+"After the judges," he said, "have been busy here with the sentence
+against the Advocate Barneveld for several days, at last it has been
+pronounced, and this morning, between nine o'clock and half past, carried
+into execution with the sword, in the Binnenhof before the great hall.
+
+"The reasons they had for this you will see from the sentence, which will
+doubtless be printed, and which I will send you.
+
+"The wife of the aforesaid Barneveld and also some of his sons and
+sons-in-law or other friends have never presented any supplication for
+his pardon, but till now have vehemently demanded that law and justice
+should be done to him, and have daily let the report run through the
+people that he would soon come out. They also planted a may-pole before
+their house adorned with garlands and ribbands, and practised other
+jollities and impertinences, while they ought to have conducted
+themselves in a humble and lowly fashion. This is no proper manner of
+behaving, and moreover not a practical one to move the judges to any
+favour even if they had been thereto inclined."
+
+The sentence was printed and sent to the separate provinces. It was
+accompanied by a declaration of the States-General that they had received
+information from the judges of various points, not mentioned in the
+sentence, which had been laid to the charge of the late Advocate, and
+which gave much reason to doubt whether he had not perhaps turned his
+eyes toward the enemy. They could not however legally give judgment to
+that effect without a sharper investigation, which on account of his
+great age and for other reasons it was thought best to spare him.
+
+A meaner or more malignant postscript to a state paper recounting the
+issue of a great trial it would be difficult to imagine. The first
+statesman of the country had just been condemned and executed on a
+narrative, without indictment of any specified crime. And now, by a kind
+of apologetic after-thought, six or eight individuals calling themselves
+the States-General insinuated that he had been looking towards the enemy,
+and that, had they not mercifully spared him the rack, which is all that
+could be meant by their sharper investigation, he would probably have
+confessed the charge.
+
+And thus the dead man's fame was blackened by those who had not hesitated
+to kill him, but had shrunk from enquiring into his alleged crime.
+
+Not entirely without semblance of truth did Grotius subsequently say that
+the men who had taken his life would hardly have abstained from torturing
+him if they had really hoped by so doing to extract from him a confession
+of treason.
+
+The sentence was sent likewise to France, accompanied with a statement
+that Barneveld had been guilty of unpardonable crimes which had not been
+set down in the act of condemnation. Complaints were also made of the
+conduct of du Maurier in thrusting himself into the internal affairs of
+the States and taking sides so ostentatiously against the government. The
+King and his ministers were indignant with these rebukes, and sustained
+the Ambassador. Jeannin and de Boississe expressed the opinion that he
+had died innocent of any crime, and only by reason of his strong
+political opposition to the Prince.
+
+The judges had been unanimous in finding him guilty of the acts recorded
+in their narrative, but three of them had held out for some time in
+favour of a sentence of perpetual imprisonment rather than decapitation.
+
+They withdrew at last their opposition to the death penalty for the
+wonderful reason that reports had been circulated of attempts likely to
+be made to assassinate Prince Maurice. The Stadholder himself treated
+these rumours and the consequent admonition of the States-General that he
+would take more than usual precautions for his safety with perfect
+indifference, but they were conclusive with the judges of Barneveld.
+
+"Republica poscit exemplum," said Commissioner Junius, one of the three,
+as he sided with the death-warrant party.
+
+The same Doctor Junius a year afterwards happened to dine, in company of
+one of his fellow-commissioners, with Attorney-General Sylla at Utrecht,
+and took occasion to ask them why it was supposed that Barneveld had been
+hanging his head towards Spain, as not one word of that stood in the
+sentence.
+
+The question was ingenuous on the part of one learned judge to his
+colleagues in one of the most famous state trials of history, propounded
+as a bit of after-dinner casuistry, when the victim had been more than a
+year in his grave.
+
+But perhaps the answer was still more artless. His brother lawyers
+replied that the charge was easily to be deduced from the sentence,
+because a man who breaks up the foundation of the State makes the country
+indefensible, and therefore invites the enemy to invade it. And this
+Barneveld had done, who had turned the Union, religion, alliances, and
+finances upside down by his proceedings.
+
+Certainly if every constitutional minister, accused by the opposition
+party of turning things upside down by his proceedings, were assumed to
+be guilty of deliberately inviting a hostile invasion of his country,
+there would have been few from that day to this to escape hanging.
+
+Constructive treason could scarcely go farther than it was made to do in
+these attempts to prove, after his death, that the Advocate had, as it
+was euphuistically expressed, been looking towards the enemy.
+
+And no better demonstrations than these have ever been discovered.
+
+He died at the age of seventy-one years seven months and eighteen days.
+
+His body and head were huddled into the box upon which the soldiers had
+been shaking the dice, and was placed that night in the vault of the
+chapel in the Inner Court.
+
+It was subsequently granted as a boon to the widow and children that it
+might be taken thence and decently buried in the family vault at
+Amersfoort.
+
+On the day of the execution a formal entry was made in the register of
+the States of Holland.
+
+"Monday, 13th May 1619. To-day was executed with the sword here in the
+Hague, on a scaffold thereto erected in the Binnenhof before the steps of
+the great hall, Mr. John of Barneveld, in his life Knight, Lord of
+Berkel, Rodenrys, &c., Advocate of Holland and West Friesland, for
+reasons expressed in the sentence and otherwise, with confiscation of his
+property, after he had served the State thirty-three years two months and
+five days since 8th March 1586.; a man of great activity, business,
+memory, and wisdom--yes, extraordinary in every respect. He that stands
+let him see that he does not fall, and may God be merciful to his soul.
+Amen?"
+
+A year later-on application made by the widow and children of the
+deceased to compound for the confiscation of his property by payment of a
+certain sum, eighty florins or a similar trifle, according to an ancient
+privilege of the order of nobility--the question was raised whether he
+had been guilty of high-treason, as he had not been sentenced for such a
+crime, and as it was only in case of sentence for lese-majesty that this
+composition was disallowed. It was deemed proper therefore to ask the
+court for what crime the prisoner had been condemned. Certainly a more
+sarcastic question could not have been asked. But the court had ceased to
+exist. The commission had done its work and was dissolved. Some of its
+members were dead. Letters however were addressed by the States-General
+to the individual commissioners requesting them to assemble at the Hague
+for the purpose of stating whether it was because the prisoners had
+committed lese-majesty that their property had been confiscated. They
+never assembled. Some of them were perhaps ignorant of the exact nature
+of that crime. Several of them did not understand the words. Twelve of
+them, among whom were a few jurists, sent written answers to the
+questions proposed. The question was, "Did you confiscate the property
+because the crime was lese-majesty?" The reply was, "The crime was
+lese-majesty, although not so stated in the sentence, because we
+confiscated the property." In one of these remarkable documents this was
+stated to be "the unanimous opinion of almost all the judges."
+
+The point was referred to the commissioners, some of whom attended the
+court of the Hague in person, while others sent written opinions. All
+agreed that the criminal had committed high-treason because otherwise his
+property would not have been confiscated.
+
+A more wonderful example of the argument in a circle was never heard of.
+Moreover it is difficult to understand by what right the high commission,
+which had been dissolved a year before, after having completed its work,
+could be deemed competent to emit afterwards a judicial decision. But the
+fact is curious as giving one more proof of the irregular,
+unphilosophical, and inequitable nature of these famous proceedings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+   Grotius urged to ask Forgiveness--Grotius shows great Weakness--
+   Hoogerbeets and Grotius imprisoned for Life--Grotius confined at
+   Loevestein--Grotius' early Attainments--Grotius' Deportment in
+   Prison--Escape of Grotius--Deventer's Rage at Grotius' Escape.
+
+Two days after the execution of the Advocate, judgment was pronounced
+upon Gillis van Ledenberg. It would have been difficult to try him, or to
+extort a confession of high-treason from him by the rack or otherwise, as
+the unfortunate gentleman had been dead for more than seven months.
+
+Not often has a court of justice pronounced a man, without trial, to be
+guilty of a capital offence. Not often has a dead man been condemned and
+executed. But this was the lot of Secretary Ledenberg. He was sentenced
+to be hanged, his property declared confiscated.
+
+His unburied corpse, reduced to the condition of a mummy, was brought out
+of its lurking-place, thrust into a coffin, dragged on a hurdle to the
+Golgotha outside the Hague, on the road to Ryswyk, and there hung on a
+gibbet in company of the bodies of other malefactors swinging there in
+chains.
+
+His prudent scheme to save his property for his children by committing
+suicide in prison was thus thwarted.
+
+The reading of the sentence of Ledenberg, as had been previously the case
+with that of Barneveld, had been heard by Grotius through the open window
+of his prison, as he lay on his bed. The scaffold on which the Advocate
+had suffered was left standing, three executioners were still in the
+town, and there was every reason for both Grotius and Hoogerbeets to
+expect a similar doom. Great efforts were made to induce the friends of
+the distinguished prisoners to sue for their pardon. But even as in the
+case of the Barneveld family these attempts were fruitless. The austere
+stoicism both on the part of the sufferers and their relatives excites
+something like wonder.
+
+Three of the judges went in person to the prison chamber of Hoogerbeets,
+urging him to ask forgiveness himself or to allow his friends to demand
+it for him.
+
+"If my wife and children do ask," he said, "I will protest against it. I
+need no pardon. Let justice take its course. Think not, gentlemen, that I
+mean by asking for pardon to justify your proceedings."
+
+He stoutly refused to do either. The judges, astonished, took their
+departure, saying:
+
+"Then you will fare as Barneveld. The scaffold is still standing."
+
+He expected consequently nothing but death, and said many years
+afterwards that he knew from personal experience how a man feels who goes
+out of prison to be beheaded.
+
+The wife of Grotius sternly replied to urgent intimations from a high
+source that she should ask pardon for her husband, "I shall not do it. If
+he has deserved it, let them strike off his head."
+
+Yet no woman could be more devoted to her husband than was Maria van
+Reigersbergen to Hugo de Groot, as time was to prove. The Prince
+subsequently told her at a personal interview that "one of two roads must
+be taken, that of the law or that of pardon."
+
+Soon after the arrest it was rumoured that Grotius was ready to make
+important revelations if he could first be assured of the Prince's
+protection.
+
+His friends were indignant at the statement. His wife stoutly denied its
+truth, but, to make sure, wrote to her husband on the subject.
+
+"One thing amazes me," she said; "some people here pretend to say that
+you have stated to one gentleman in private that you have something to
+disclose greatly important to the country, but that you desired
+beforehand to be taken under the protection of his Excellency. I have not
+chosen to believe this, nor do I, for I hold that to be certain which you
+have already told me--that you know no secrets. I see no reason therefore
+why you should require the protection of any man. And there is no one to
+believe this, but I thought best to write to you of it. Let me, in order
+that I may contradict the story with more authority, have by the bearer
+of this a simple Yes or No. Study quietly, take care of your health, have
+some days' patience, for the Advocate has not yet been heard."
+
+The answer has not been preserved, but there is an allusion to the
+subject in an unpublished memorandum of Grotius written while he was in
+prison.
+
+It must be confessed that the heart of the great theologian and jurist
+seems to have somewhat failed him after his arrest, and although he was
+incapable of treachery--even if he had been possessed of any secrets,
+which certainly was not the case--he did not show the same Spartan
+firmness as his wife, and was very far from possessing the heroic calm of
+Barneveld. He was much disposed to extricate himself from his unhappy
+plight by making humble, if not abject, submission to Maurice. He
+differed from his wife in thinking that he had no need of the Prince's
+protection. "I begged the Chamberlain, Matthew de Cors," he said, a few
+days after his arrest, "that I might be allowed to speak with his
+Excellency of certain things which I would not willingly trust to the
+pen. My meaning was to leave all public employment and to offer my
+service to his Excellency in his domestic affairs. Thus I hoped that the
+motives for my imprisonment would cease. This was afterwards
+misinterpreted as if I had had wonderful things to reveal."
+
+But Grotius towards the end of his trial showed still greater weakness.
+After repeated refusals, he had at last obtained permission of the judges
+to draw up in writing the heads of his defence. To do this he was allowed
+a single sheet of paper, and four hours of time, the trial having lasted
+several months. And in the document thus prepared he showed faltering in
+his faith as to his great friend's innocence, and admitted, without any
+reason whatever, the possibility of there being truth in some of the vile
+and anonymous calumnies against him.
+
+"The friendship of the Advocate of Holland I had always highly prized,"
+he said, "hoping from the conversation of so wise and experienced a
+person to learn much that was good . . . . I firmly believed that his
+Excellency, notwithstanding occasional differences as to the conduct of
+public affairs, considered him a true and upright servant of the land
+. . . . I have been therefore surprised to understand, during my
+imprisonment, that the gentlemen had proofs in hand not alone of his
+correspondence with the enemy, but also of his having received money
+from them.
+
+"He being thus accused, I have indicated by word of mouth and afterwards
+resumed in writing all matters which I thought--the above-mentioned
+proofs being made good--might be thereto indirectly referred, in order to
+show that for me no friendships were so dear as the preservation of the
+freedom of the land. I wish that he may give explanation of all to the
+contentment of the judges, and that therefore his actions--which,
+supposing the said correspondence to be true, are subject to a bad
+interpretation--may be taken in another sense."
+
+Alas! could the Advocate--among whose first words after hearing of his
+own condemnation to death were, "And must my Grotius die too?" adding,
+with a sigh of relief when assured of the contrary, "I should deeply
+grieve for that; he is so young and may live to do the State much
+service." could he have read those faltering and ungenerous words from one
+he so held in his heart, he would have felt them like the stab of Brutus.
+
+Grotius lived to know that there were no such proofs, that the judges did
+not dare even allude to the charge in their sentence, and long years
+afterwards he drew a picture of the martyred patriot such as one might
+have expected from his pen.
+
+But these written words of doubt must have haunted him to his grave.
+
+On the 18th May 1619--on the fifty-first anniversary, as Grotius
+remarked, of the condemnation of Egmont and Hoorn by the Blood Tribunal
+of Alva--the two remaining victims were summoned to receive their doom.
+The Fiscal Sylla, entering de Groot's chamber early in the morning to
+conduct him before the judges, informed him that he was not instructed to
+communicate the nature of the sentence. "But," he said, maliciously, "you
+are aware of what has befallen the Advocate."
+
+"I have heard with my own ears," answered Grotius, "the judgment
+pronounced upon Barneveld and upon Ledenberg. Whatever may be my fate, I
+have patience to bear it."
+
+The sentence, read in the same place and in the same manner as had been
+that upon the Advocate, condemned both Hoogerbeets and Grotius to
+perpetual imprisonment.
+
+The course of the trial and the enumeration of the offences were nearly
+identical with the leading process which has been elaborately described.
+
+Grotius made no remark whatever in the court-room. On returning to his
+chamber he observed that his admissions of facts had been tortured into
+confessions of guilt, that he had been tried and sentenced against all
+principles and forms of law, and that he had been deprived of what the
+humblest criminal could claim, the right of defence and the examination
+of testimony. In regard to the penalty against him, he said, there was no
+such thing as perpetual imprisonment except in hell. Alluding to the
+leading cause of all these troubles, he observed that it was with the
+Stadholder and the Advocate as Cato had said of Caesar and Pompey. The
+great misery had come not from their being enemies, but from their having
+once been friends.
+
+On the night of 5th June the prisoners were taken from their prison in
+the Hague and conveyed to the castle of Loevestein.
+
+This fortress, destined thenceforth to be famous in history and--from its
+frequent use in after-times as a state-prison for men of similar
+constitutional views to those of Grotius and the Advocate--to give its
+name to a political party, was a place of extraordinary strength. Nature
+and art had made it, according to military ideas of that age, almost
+impregnable. As a prison it seemed the very castle of despair. "Abandon
+all hope ye who enter" seemed engraven over its portal.
+
+Situate in the very narrow, acute angle where the broad, deep, and turbid
+Waal--the chief of the three branches into which the Rhine divides itself
+on entering the Netherlands--mingles its current with the silver Meuse
+whose name it adopts as the united rivers roll to the sea, it was guarded
+on many sides by these deep and dangerous streams. On the land-side it
+was surrounded by high walls and a double foss, which protected it
+against any hostile invasion from Brabant. As the Twelve Years' Truce was
+running to its close, it was certain that pains would be taken to
+strengthen the walls and deepen the ditches, that the place might be
+proof against all marauders and land-robbers likely to swarm over from
+the territory of the Archdukes. The town of Gorcum was exactly opposite
+on the northern side of the Waal, while Worcum was about a league's
+distance from the castle on the southern side, but separated from it by
+the Meuse.
+
+The prisoners, after crossing the drawbridge, were led through thirteen
+separate doors, each one secured by iron bolts and heavy locks, until
+they reached their separate apartments.
+
+They were never to see or have any communication with each other. It had
+been accorded by the States-General however that the wives of the two
+gentlemen were to have access to their prison, were to cook for them in
+the castle kitchen, and, if they chose to inhabit the fortress, might
+cross to the neighbouring town of Gorcum from time to time to make
+purchases, and even make visits to the Hague. Twenty-four stuivers, or
+two shillings, a day were allowed by the States-General for the support
+of each prisoner and his family. As the family property of Grotius was at
+once sequestered, with a view to its ultimate confiscation, it was clear
+that abject indigence as well as imprisonment was to be the lifelong lot
+of this illustrious person, who had hitherto lived in modest affluence,
+occupying the most considerable of social positions.
+
+The commandant of the fortress was inspired from the outset with a desire
+to render the prisoner's situation as hateful as it was in his power to
+make it. And much was in his power. He resolved that the family should
+really live upon their daily pittance. Yet Madame de Groot, before the
+final confiscation of her own and her husband's estates, had been able to
+effect considerable loans, both to carry on process against government
+for what the prisoners contended was an unjust confiscation, and for
+providing for the household on a decent scale and somewhat in accordance
+with the requirements of the prisoner's health. Thus there was a
+wearisome and ignoble altercation, revived from day to day, between the
+Commandant and Madame de Groot. It might have been thought enough of
+torture for this virtuous and accomplished lady, but twenty-nine years of
+age and belonging to one of the eminent families of the country, to see
+her husband, for his genius and accomplishments the wonder of Europe,
+thus cut off in the flower of his age and doomed to a living grave. She
+was nevertheless to be subjected to the perpetual inquisition of the
+market-basket, which she was not ashamed with her maid to take to and
+from Gorcum, and to petty wrangles about the kitchen fire where she was
+proud to superintend the cooking of the scanty fare for her husband and
+her five children.
+
+There was a reason for the spite of the military jailer. Lieutenant
+Prouninx, called Deventer, commandant of Loevestein, was son of the
+notorious Gerard Prouninx, formerly burgomaster of Utrecht, one of the
+ringleaders of the Leicester faction in the days when the Earl made his
+famous attempts upon the four cities. He had sworn revenge upon all those
+concerned in his father's downfall, and it was a delight therefore to
+wreak a personal vengeance on one who had since become so illustrious a
+member of that party by which the former burgomaster had been deposed,
+although Grotius at the time of Leicester's government had scarcely left
+his cradle.
+
+Thus these ladies were to work in the kitchen and go to market from time
+to time, performing this menial drudgery under the personal inspection of
+the warrior who governed the garrison and fortress, but who in vain
+attempted to make Maria van Reigersbergen tremble at his frown.
+
+Hugo de Groot, when thus for life immured, after having already undergone
+a preliminary imprisonment of nine months, was just thirty-six years of
+age. Although comparatively so young, he had been long regarded as one of
+the great luminaries of Europe for learning and genius. Of an ancient and
+knightly race, his immediate ancestors had been as famous for literature,
+science, and municipal abilities as their more distant progenitors for
+deeds of arms in the feudal struggles of Holland in the middle ages.
+
+His father and grandfather had alike been eminent for Hebrew, Greek, and
+Latin scholarship, and both had occupied high positions in the University
+of Leyden from its beginning. Hugo, born and nurtured under such
+quickening influences, had been a scholar and poet almost from his
+cradle. He wrote respectable Latin verses at the age of seven, he was
+matriculated at Leyden at the age of eleven. That school, founded amid
+the storms and darkness of terrible war, was not lightly to be entered.
+It was already illustrated by a galaxy of shining lights in science and
+letters, which radiated over Christendom. His professors were Joseph
+Scaliger, Francis Junius, Paulus Merula, and a host of others. His
+fellow-students were men like Scriverius, Vossius, Baudius, Daniel
+Heinsius. The famous soldier and poet Douza, who had commanded the forces
+of Leyden during the immortal siege, addressed him on his admission to
+the university as "Magne peer magni dignissime cura parentis," in a copy
+of eloquent verses.
+
+When fourteen years old, he took his bachelor's degree, after a rigorous
+examination not only in the classics but astronomy, mathematics,
+jurisprudence, and theology, at an age when most youths would have been
+accounted brilliant if able to enter that high school with credit.
+
+On leaving the University he was attached to the embassy of Barneveld and
+Justinus van Nassau to the court of Henry IV. Here he attracted the
+attention of that monarch, who pointed him out to his courtiers as the
+"miracle of Holland," presented him with a gold chain with his miniature
+attached to it, and proposed to confer on him the dignity of knighthood,
+which the boy from motives of family pride appears to have refused. While
+in France he received from the University of Orleans, before the age of
+fifteen, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in a very eulogistic
+diploma. On his return to Holland he published an edition of the poet
+Johannes Capella with valuable annotations, besides giving to the public
+other learned and classical works and several tragedies of more or less
+merit. At the age of seventeen he was already an advocate in full
+practice before the supreme tribunals of the Hague, and when twenty-three
+years old he was selected by Prince Maurice from a list of three
+candidates for the important post of Fiscal or Attorney-General of
+Holland. Other civic dignities, embassies, and offices of various kinds,
+had been thrust upon him one after another, in all of which he had
+acquitted himself with dignity and brilliancy. He was but twenty-six when
+he published his argument for the liberty of the sea, the famous Mare
+Liberum, and a little later appeared his work on the Antiquity of the
+Batavian Republic, which procured for him in Spain the title of "Hugo
+Grotius, auctor damnatus." At the age of twenty-nine he had completed his
+Latin history of the Netherlands from the period immediately preceding
+the war of independence down to the conclusion of the Truce, 1550-1609--a
+work which has been a classic ever since its appearance, although not
+published until after his death. A chief magistrate of Rotterdam, member
+of the States of Holland and the States-General, jurist, advocate,
+attorney-general, poet, scholar, historian, editor of the Greek and Latin
+classics, writer of tragedies, of law treatises, of theological
+disquisitions, he stood foremost among a crowd of famous contemporaries.
+His genius, eloquence, and learning were esteemed among the treasures not
+only of his own country but of Europe. He had been part and parcel of his
+country's history from his earliest manhood, and although a child in
+years compared to Barneveld, it was upon him that the great statesman had
+mainly relied ever since the youth's first appearance in public affairs.
+Impressible, emotional, and susceptive, he had been accused from time to
+time, perhaps not entirely without reason, of infirmity of purpose, or at
+least of vacillation in opinion; but his worst enemies had never assailed
+the purity of his heart or integrity of his character. He had not yet
+written the great work on the 'Rights of War and Peace', which was to
+make an epoch in the history of civilization and to be the foundation of
+a new science, but the materials lay already in the ample storehouse of
+his memory and his brain.
+
+Possessed of singular personal beauty--which the masterly portraits of
+Miereveld attest to the present day--tall, brown-haired;
+straight-featured, with a delicate aquiline nose and piercing dark blue
+eyes, he was also athletic of frame and a proficient in manly exercises.
+This was the statesman and the scholar, of whom it is difficult to speak
+but in terms of affectionate but not exaggerated eulogy, and for whom the
+Republic of the Netherlands could now find no better use than to shut him
+up in the grim fortress of Loevestein for the remainder of his days. A
+commonwealth must have deemed itself rich in men which, after cutting off
+the head of Barneveld, could afford to bury alive Hugo Grotius.
+
+His deportment in prison was a magnificent moral lesson. Shut up in a
+kind of cage consisting of a bedroom and a study, he was debarred from
+physical exercise, so necessary for his mental and bodily health. Not
+choosing for the gratification of Lieutenant Deventer to indulge in weak
+complaints, he procured a huge top, which he employed himself in whipping
+several hours a day; while for intellectual employment he plunged once
+more into those classical, juridical, and theological studies which had
+always employed his leisure hours from childhood upwards.
+
+It had been forbidden by the States-General to sell his likeness in the
+shops. The copper plates on which they had been engraved had as far as
+possible been destroyed.
+
+The wish of the government, especially of his judges, was that his name
+and memory should die at once and for ever. They were not destined to be
+successful, for it would be equally difficult to-day to find an educated
+man in Christendom ignorant of the name of Hugo Grotius, or acquainted
+with that of a single one of his judges.
+
+And his friends had not forgotten him as he lay there living in his tomb.
+Especially the learned Scriverius, Vossius, and other professors, were
+permitted to correspond with him at intervals on literary subjects, the
+letters being subjected to preliminary inspection. Scriverius sent him
+many books from his well-stocked library, de Groot's own books and papers
+having been confiscated by the government. At a somewhat later period the
+celebrated Orientalist Erpenius sent him from time to time a large chest
+of books, the precious freight being occasionally renewed and the chest
+passing to and from Loevestein by way of Gorcum. At this town lived a
+sister of Erpenius, married to one Daatselaer, a considerable dealer in
+thread and ribbons, which he exported to England. The house of Daatselaer
+became a place of constant resort for Madame de Groot as well as the wife
+of Hoogerbeets, both dames going every few days from the castle across
+the Waal to Gorcum, to make their various purchases for the use of their
+forlorn little households in the prison. Madame Daatselaer therefore
+received and forwarded into Loevestein or into Holland many parcels and
+boxes, besides attending to the periodical transmission of the mighty
+chest of books.
+
+Professor Vossius was then publishing a new edition of the tragedies of
+Seneca, and at his request Grotius enriched that work, from his prison,
+with valuable notes. He employed himself also in translating the moral
+sentences extracted by Stobaeus from the Greek tragedies; drawing
+consolation from the ethics and philosophy of the ancient dramatists,
+whom he had always admired, especially the tragedies of Euripides; he
+formed a complete moral anthology from that poet and from the works of
+Sophocles, Menander, and others, which he translated into fluent Dutch
+verse. Becoming more and more interested in the subject, he executed a
+masterly rhymed translation of the 'Theban Brothers' of Euripides, thus
+seeking distraction from his own tragic doom in the portraiture of
+antique, distant, and heroic sorrow.
+
+Turning again to legal science, he completed an Introduction to the
+Jurisprudence of Holland, a work which as soon as published became
+thenceforward a text-book and an oracle in the law courts and the high
+schools of the country. Not forgetting theology, he composed for the use
+of the humbler classes, especially for sailors, in whose lot, so exposed
+to danger and temptation, he ever took deep interest, a work on the
+proofs of Christianity in easy and familiar rhyme--a book of gold, as it
+was called at once, which became rapidly popular with those for whom it
+was designed.
+
+At a somewhat later period Professor Erpenius, publishing a new edition
+of the New Testament in Greek, with translations in Arabic, Syriac, and
+Ethiopian, solicited his friend's help both in translations and in the
+Latin commentaries and expositions with which he proposed to accompany
+the work. The prisoner began with a modest disclaimer, saying that after
+the labours of Erasmus and Beza, Maldonatus and Jasenius, there was
+little for him to glean. Becoming more enthusiastic as he went on, he
+completed a masterly commentary on the Four Evangelists, a work for which
+the learned and religious world has ever recognized a kind of debt of
+gratitude to the castle of Loevestein, and hailed in him the founder of a
+school of manly Biblical criticism.
+
+And thus nearly two years wore away. Spinning his great top for exercise;
+soothing his active and prolific brain with Greek tragedy, with Flemish
+verse, with jurisprudence, history, theology; creating, expounding,
+adorning, by the warmth of his vivid intellect; moving the world, and
+doing good to his race from the depths of his stony sepulchre; Hugo
+Grotius rose superior to his doom and took captivity captive. The man is
+not to be envied who is not moved by so noble an example of great
+calamity manfully endured.
+
+The wife of Hoogerbeets, already advanced in years, sickened during the
+imprisonment and died at Loevestein after a lingering illness, leaving
+six children to the care of her unfortunate husband. Madame de Groot had
+not been permitted by the prison authorities to minister to her in
+sickness, nor to her children after her death.
+
+Early in the year 1621 Francis Aerssens, Lord of Sommelsdyk, the arch
+enemy of Barneveld and of Grotius, was appointed special ambassador to
+Paris. The intelligence--although hardly unexpected, for the stratagems
+of Aerssens had been completely successful--moved the prisoner deeply. He
+felt that this mortal enemy, not glutted with vengeance by the beheading
+of the Advocate and the perpetual imprisonment of his friend, would do
+his best at the French court to defame and to blacken him. He did what he
+could to obviate this danger by urgent letters to friends on whom he
+could rely.
+
+At about the same time Muis van Holy, one of the twenty-four
+commissioners, not yet satisfied with the misery he had helped to
+inflict, informed the States-General that Madame de Groot had been buying
+ropes at Gorcum. On his motion a committee was sent to investigate the
+matter at Castle Loevestein, where it was believed that the ropes had
+been concealed for the purpose of enabling Grotius to make his escape
+from prison.
+
+Lieutenant Deventer had heard nothing of the story. He was in high
+spirits at the rumour however, and conducted the committee very eagerly
+over the castle, causing minute search to be made in the apartment of
+Grotius for the ropes which, as they were assured by him and his wife,
+had never existed save in the imagination of Judge Muis. They succeeded
+at least in inflicting much superfluous annoyance on their victims, and
+in satisfying themselves that it would be as easy for the prisoner to fly
+out of the fortress on wings as to make his escape with ropes, even if he
+had them.
+
+Grotius soon afterwards addressed a letter to the States-General
+denouncing the statement of Muis as a fable, and these persistent
+attempts to injure him as cowardly and wicked.
+
+A few months later Madame de Groot happened to be in the house of
+Daatselaer on one of her periodical visits to Gorcum. Conversation
+turning on these rumours March of attempts at escape, she asked Madame
+Daatselaer if she would not be much embarrassed, should Grotius suddenly
+make his appearance there.
+
+"Oh no," said the good woman with a laugh; "only let him come. We will
+take excellent care of him."
+
+At another visit one Saturday, 20th March, (1621) Madame de Groot asked
+her friend why all the bells of Gorcum march were ringing.
+
+"Because to-morrow begins our yearly fair," replied Dame Daatselaer.
+
+"Well, I suppose that all exiles and outlaws may come to Gorcum on this
+occasion," said Madame de Groot.
+
+"Such is the law, they say," answered her friend.
+
+"And my husband might come too?"
+
+"No doubt," said Madame Daatselaer with a merry laugh, rejoiced at
+finding the wife of Grotius able to speak so cheerfully of her husband in
+his perpetual and hopeless captivity. "Send him hither. He shall have, a
+warm welcome."
+
+"What a good woman you are!" said Madame de Groot with a sigh as she rose
+to take leave. "But you know very well that if he were a bird he could
+never get out of the castle, so closely, he is caged there."
+
+Next morning a wild equinoctial storm was howling around the battlements
+of the castle. Of a sudden Cornelia, daughter of the de Groots, nine
+years of age, said to her mother without any reason whatever,
+
+"To-morrow Papa must be off to Gorcum, whatever the weather may be."
+
+De Groot, as well as his wife, was aghast at the child's remark, and took
+it as a direct indication from Heaven.
+
+For while Madame Daatselaer had considered the recent observations of her
+visitor from Loevestein as idle jests, and perhaps wondered that Madame
+de Groot could be frivolous and apparently lighthearted on so dismal a
+topic, there had been really a hidden meaning in her words.
+
+For several weeks past the prisoner had been brooding over a means of
+escape. His wife, whose every thought was devoted to him, had often cast
+her eyes on the great chest or trunk in which the books of Erpenius had
+been conveyed between Loevestein and Gorcum for the use of the prisoner.
+At first the trunk had been carefully opened and its contents examined
+every time it entered or left the castle. As nothing had ever been found
+in it save Hebrew, Greek, and Latin folios, uninviting enough to the
+Commandant, that warrior had gradually ceased to inspect the chest very
+closely, and had at last discontinued the practice altogether.
+
+It had been kept for some weeks past in the prisoner's study. His wife
+thought--although it was two finger breadths less than four feet in
+length, and not very broad or deep in proportion--that it might be
+possible for him to get into it. He was considerably above middle height,
+but found that by curling himself up very closely he could just manage to
+lie in it with the cover closed. Very secretly they had many times
+rehearsed the scheme which had now taken possession of their minds, but
+had not breathed a word of it to any one. He had lain in the chest with
+the lid fastened, and with his wife sitting upon the top of it, two hours
+at a time by the hour-glass. They had decided at last that the plan,
+though fraught with danger, was not absolutely impossible, and they were
+only waiting now for a favourable opportunity. The chance remark of the
+child Cornelia settled the time for hazarding the adventure. By a strange
+coincidence, too, the commandant of the fortress, Lieutenant Deventer,
+had just been promoted to a captaincy, and was to go to Heusden to
+receive his company. He left the castle for a brief absence that very
+Sunday evening. As a precautionary measure, the trunk filled with books
+had been sent to Gorcum and returned after the usual interval only a few
+days before.
+
+The maid-servant of the de Groots, a young girl of twenty, Elsje van
+Houwening by name, quick, intelligent, devoted, and courageous, was now
+taken into their confidence. The scheme was explained to her, and she was
+asked if she were willing to take the chest under her charge with her
+master in it, instead of the usual freight of books, and accompany it to
+Gorcum.
+
+She naturally asked what punishment could be inflicted upon her in case
+the plot were discovered.
+
+"None legally," answered her master; "but I too am innocent of any crime,
+and you see to what sufferings I have been condemned."
+
+"Whatever come of it," said Elsje stoutly; "I will take the risk and
+accompany my master."
+
+Every detail was then secretly arranged, and it was provided beforehand,
+as well as possible, what should be said or done in the many
+contingencies that might arise.
+
+On Sunday evening Madame de Groot then went to the wife of the
+Commandant, with whom she had always been on more friendly terms than
+with her malicious husband. She had also recently propitiated her
+affections by means of venison and other dainties brought from Gorcum.
+She expressed the hope that, notwithstanding the absence of Captain
+Deventer, she might be permitted to send the trunk full of books next day
+from the castle.
+
+"My husband is wearing himself out," she said, "with his perpetual
+studies. I shall be glad for a little time to be rid of some of these
+folios."
+
+The Commandant's wife made no objection to this slight request.
+
+On Monday morning the gale continued to beat with unabated violence on
+the turrets. The turbid Waal, swollen by the tempest, rolled darkly and
+dangerously along the castle walls.
+
+But the die was cast. Grotius rose betimes, fell on his knees, and prayed
+fervently an hour long. Dressed only in linen underclothes with a pair of
+silk stockings, he got into the chest with the help of his wife. The big
+Testament of Erpenius, with some bunches of thread placed upon it, served
+him as a pillow. A few books and papers were placed in the interstices
+left by the curves of his body, and as much pains as possible taken to
+prevent his being seriously injured or incommoded during the hazardous
+journey he was contemplating. His wife then took solemn farewell of him,
+fastened the lock, which she kissed, and gave the key to Elsje.
+
+The usual garments worn by the prisoner were thrown on a chair by the
+bedside and his slippers placed before it. Madame de Groot then returned
+to her bed, drew the curtains close, and rang the bell.
+
+It was answered by the servant who usually waited on the prisoner, and
+who was now informed by the lady that it had been her intention to go
+herself to Gorcum, taking charge of the books which were valuable. As the
+weather was so tempestuous however, and as she was somewhat indisposed,
+it had been decided that Elsje should accompany the trunk.
+
+She requested that some soldiers might be sent as usual to take it down
+to the vessel. Two or three of the garrison came accordingly, and seeing
+the clothes and slippers of Grotius lying about, and the bed-curtains
+closed, felt no suspicion.
+
+On lifting the chest, however, one of them said, half in jest:
+
+"The Arminian must be in it himself, it seems so heavy!"
+
+"Not the Arminian," replied Madame de Groot, in a careless voice, from
+the bed; "only heavy Arminian books."
+
+Partly lifting, partly dragging the ponderous box, the soldiers managed
+to get it down the stairs and through the thirteen barred and bolted
+doors. Four several times one or other of the soldiers expressed the
+opinion that Grotius himself must be locked within it, but they never
+spoke quite seriously, and Elsje was ever ready to turn aside the remark
+with a jest. A soldier's wife, just as the box was approaching the wharf,
+told a story of a malefactor who had once been carried out of the castle
+in a chest.
+
+"And if a malefactor, why not a lawyer?" she added. A soldier said he
+would get a gimlet and bore a hole into the Arminian. "Then you must get
+a gimlet that will reach to the top of the castle, where the Arminian
+lies abed and asleep," said Elsje.
+
+Not much heed was given to this careless talk, the soldiers, before
+leaving the chamber of Grotius, having satisfied themselves that there
+were no apertures in the chest save the keyhole, and that it would be
+impossible by that means alone for sufficient air to penetrate to keep a
+man enclosed in it from smothering.
+
+Madame Deventer was asked if she chose to inspect the contents of the
+trunk, and she enquired whether the Commandant had been wont so to do.
+When told that such search had been for a long time discontinued, as
+nothing had ever been found there but books, she observed that there was
+no reason why she should be more strict than her husband, and ordered the
+soldiers to take their heavy load to the vessel.
+
+Elsje insisted that the boatmen should place a doubly thick plank for
+sliding the box on board, as it seemed probable, she said, that the usual
+one would break in two, and then the valuable books borrowed of Professor
+Erpenius would be damaged or destroyed. The request caused much further
+grumbling, but was complied with at last and the chest deposited on the
+deck. The wind still continued to blow with great fury, and as soon as
+the sails were set the vessel heeled over so much, that Elsje implored
+the skipper to cause the box to be securely lashed, as it seemed in
+imminent danger, at the first lurch of the vessel, of sliding into the
+sea.
+
+This done, Elsje sat herself down and threw her white handkerchief over
+her head, letting it flutter in the wind. One of the crew asked her why
+she did so, and she replied that the servant in the castle had been
+tormenting her, saying that she would never dare to sail to Gorcum in
+such tempestuous weather, and she was now signalling him that she had
+been as good as her word. Whereupon she continued to wave the
+handkerchief.
+
+In reality the signal was for her mistress, who was now straining her
+eyes from the barred window which looked out upon the Waal, and with whom
+the maid had agreed that if all went prosperously she would give this
+token of success. Otherwise she would sit with her head in her hands.
+
+During the voyage an officer of the garrison, who happened to be on
+board, threw himself upon the chest as a convenient seat, and began
+drumming and pounding with his heels upon it. The ever watchful Elsje,
+feeling the dreadful inconvenience to the prisoner of these proceedings,
+who perhaps was already smothering and would struggle for air if not
+relieved, politely addressed the gentleman and induced him to remove to
+another seat by telling him that, besides the books, there was some
+valuable porcelain in the chest which might easily be broken.
+
+No further incident occurred. The wind, although violent, was favourable,
+and Gorcum in due time was reached. Elsje insisted upon having her own
+precious freight carried first into the town, although the skipper for
+some time was obstinately bent on leaving it to the very last, while all
+the other merchandise in the vessel should be previously unshipped.
+
+At last on promise of payment of ten stuivers, which was considered an
+exorbitant sum, the skipper and son agreed to transport the chest between
+them on a hand-barrow. While they were trudging with it to the town, the
+son remarked to his father that there was some living thing in the box.
+For the prisoner in the anguish of his confinement had not been able to
+restrain a slight movement.
+
+"Do you hear what my son says?" cried the skipper to Elsje. "He says you
+have got something alive in your trunk."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied the cheerful maid-servant; "Arminian books are always
+alive, always full of motion and spirit."
+
+They arrived at Daatselaer's house, moving with difficulty through the
+crowd which, notwithstanding the boisterous weather, had been collected
+by the annual fair. Many people were assembled in front of the building,
+which was a warehouse of great resort, while next door was a
+book-seller's shop thronged with professors, clergymen, and other
+literary persons. The carriers accordingly entered by the backway, and
+Elsje, deliberately paying them their ten stuivers, and seeing them
+depart, left the box lying in a room at the rear and hastened to the shop
+in front.
+
+Here she found the thread and ribbon dealer and his wife, busy with their
+customers, unpacking and exhibiting their wares. She instantly whispered
+in Madame Daatselaer's ear, "I have got my master here in your back
+parlour."
+
+The dame turned white as a sheet, and was near fainting on the spot. It
+was the first imprudence Elsje had committed. The good woman recovered
+somewhat of her composure by a strong effort however, and instantly went
+with Elsje to the rear of the house.
+
+"Master! master!" cried Elsje, rapping on the chest.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"My God! my God!" shrieked the poor maid-servant. "My poor master is
+dead."
+
+"Ah!" said Madame Daatselaer, "your mistress has made a bad business of
+it. Yesterday she had a living husband. Now she has a dead one."
+
+But soon there was a vigorous rap on the inside of the lid, and a cry
+from the prisoner:
+
+"Open the chest! I am not dead, but did not at first recognize your
+voice."
+
+The lock was instantly unfastened, the lid thrown open, and Grotius arose
+in his linen clothing, like a dead man from his coffin.
+
+The dame instantly accompanied the two through a trapdoor into an upper
+room.
+
+Grotius asked her if she was always so deadly pale.
+
+"No," she replied, "but I am frightened to see you here. My lord is no
+common person. The whole world is talking of you. I fear this will cause
+the loss of all my property and perhaps bring my husband into prison in
+your place."
+
+Grotius rejoined: "I made my prayers to God before as much as this had
+been gained, and I have just been uttering fervent thanks to Him for my
+deliverance so far as it has been effected. But if the consequences are
+to be as you fear, I am ready at once to get into the chest again and be
+carried back to prison."
+
+But she answered, "No; whatever comes of it, we have you here and will do
+all that we can to help you on."
+
+Grotius being faint from his sufferings, the lady brought him a glass of
+Spanish wine, but was too much flustered to find even a cloak or shawl to
+throw over him. Leaving him sitting there in his very thin attire, just
+as he had got out of the chest, she went to the front warehouse to call
+her husband. But he prudently declined to go to his unexpected guest. It
+would be better in the examination sure to follow, he said, for him to
+say with truth that he had not seen him and knew nothing of the escape,
+from first to last.
+
+Grotius entirely approved of the answer when told to him. Meantime Madame
+Daatselaer had gone to her brother-in-law van der Veen, a clothier by
+trade, whom she found in his shop talking with an officer of the
+Loevestein garrison. She whispered in the clothier's ear, and he, making
+an excuse to the officer, followed her home at once. They found Grotius
+sitting where he had been left. Van der Veen gave him his hand, saying:
+
+"Sir, you are the man of whom the whole country is talking?"
+
+"Yes, here I am," was the reply, "and I put myself in your hands--"
+
+"There isn't a moment to lose," replied the clothier. "We must help you
+away at once."
+
+He went immediately in search of one John Lambertsen, a man in whom he
+knew he could confide, a Lutheran in religion, a master-mason by
+occupation. He found him on a scaffold against the gable-end of a house,
+working at his trade.
+
+He told him that there was a good deed to be done which he could do
+better than any man, that his conscience would never reproach him for it,
+and that he would at the same time earn no trifling reward.
+
+He begged the mason to procure a complete dress as for a journeyman, and
+to follow him to the house of his brother-in-law Daatselaer.
+
+Lambertsen soon made his appearance with the doublet, trunk-hose, and
+shoes of a bricklayer, together with trowel and measuring-rod. He was
+informed who his new journeyman was to be, and Grotius at once put on the
+disguise.
+
+The doublet did not reach to the waistband of the trunkhose, while those
+nether garments stopped short of his knees; the whole attire belonging to
+a smaller man than the unfortunate statesman. His delicate white hands,
+much exposed by the shortness of the sleeves, looked very unlike those of
+a day-labourer, and altogether the new mason presented a somewhat
+incongruous and wobegone aspect. Grotius was fearful too lest some of the
+preachers and professors frequenting the book-shop next door would
+recognize him through his disguise. Madame Daatselaer smeared his face
+and hands with chalk and plaster however and whispered encouragement, and
+so with a felt hat slouched over his forehead and a yardstick in his
+hand, he walked calmly forth into the thronged marketplace and through
+the town to the ferry, accompanied by the friendly Lambertsen. It had
+been agreed that van der Veen should leave the house in another direction
+and meet them at the landing-place.
+
+When they got to the ferry, they found the weather as boisterous as ever.
+The boatmen absolutely refused to make the dangerous crossing of the
+Merwede over which their course lay to the land of Altona, and so into
+the Spanish Netherlands, for two such insignificant personages as this
+mason and his scarecrow journeyman.
+
+Lambertsen assured them that it was of the utmost importance that he
+should cross the water at once. He had a large contract for purchasing
+stone at Altona for a public building on which he was engaged. Van der
+Veen coming up added his entreaties, protesting that he too was
+interested in this great stone purchase, and so by means of offering a
+larger price than they at first dared to propose, they were able to
+effect their passage.
+
+After landing, Lambertsen and Grotius walked to Waalwyk, van der Veen
+returning the same evening to Gorcum. It was four o'clock in the
+afternoon when they reached Waalwyk, where a carriage was hired to convey
+the fugitive to Antwerp. The friendly mason here took leave of his
+illustrious journeyman, having first told the driver that his companion
+was a disguised bankrupt fleeing from Holland into foreign territory to
+avoid pursuit by his creditors. This would explain his slightly
+concealing his face in passing through a crowd in any village.
+
+Grotius proved so ignorant of the value of different coins in making
+small payments on the road, that the honest waggoner, on being
+occasionally asked who the odd-looking stranger was, answered that he was
+a bankrupt, and no wonder, for he did not know one piece of money from
+another. For, his part he thought him little better than a fool.
+
+Such was the depreciatory opinion formed by the Waalwyk coachman as to
+the "rising light of the world" and the "miracle of Holland." They
+travelled all night and, arriving on the morning of the 21st within a few
+leagues of Antwerp, met a patrol of soldiers, who asked Grotius for his
+passport. He enquired in whose service they were, and was told in that of
+"Red Rod," as the chief bailiff of Antwerp was called. That functionary
+happened to be near, and the traveller approaching him said that his
+passport was on his feet, and forthwith told him his name and story.
+
+Red Rod treated him at once with perfect courtesy, offered him a horse
+for himself with a mounted escort, and so furthered his immediate
+entrance to Antwerp. Grotius rode straight to the house of a banished
+friend of his, the preacher Grevinkhoven. He was told by the daughter of
+that clergyman that her father was upstairs ministering at the bedside of
+his sick wife. But so soon as the traveller had sent up his name, both
+the preacher and the invalid came rushing downstairs to fall upon the
+neck of one who seemed as if risen from the dead.
+
+The news spread, and Episcopius and other exiled friends soon thronged to
+the house of Grevinkhoven, where they all dined together in great glee,
+Grotius, still in his journeyman's clothes, narrating the particulars of
+his wonderful escape.
+
+He had no intention of tarrying in his resting-place at Antwerp longer
+than was absolutely necessary. Intimations were covertly made to him that
+a brilliant destiny might be in store for him should he consent to enter
+the service of the Archdukes, nor were there waning rumours, circulated
+as a matter of course by his host of enemies, that he was about to become
+a renegade to country and religion. There was as much truth in the
+slanders as in the rest of the calumnies of which he had been the victim
+during his career. He placed on record a proof of his loyal devotion to
+his country in the letters which he wrote from Antwerp within a week of
+his arrival there. With his subsequent history, his appearance and long
+residence at the French court as ambassador of Sweden, his memorable
+labours in history, diplomacy, poetry, theology, the present narrative is
+not concerned. Driven from the service of his Fatherland, of which his
+name to all time is one of the proudest garlands, he continued to be a
+benefactor not only to her but to all mankind. If refutation is sought of
+the charge that republics are ungrateful, it will certainly not be found
+in the history of Hugo Grotius or John of Barneveld.
+
+Nor is there need to portray the wrath of Captain Deventer when he
+returned to Castle Loevestein.
+
+"Here is the cage, but your bird is flown," said corpulent Maria Grotius
+with a placid smile. The Commandant solaced himself by uttering
+imprecations on her, on her husband, and on Elsje van Houwening. But
+these curses could not bring back the fugitive. He flew to Gorcum to
+browbeat the Daatselaers and to search the famous trunk. He found in it
+the big New Testament and some skeins of thread, together with an octavo
+or two of theology and of Greek tragedies; but the Arminian was not in
+it, and was gone from the custody of the valiant Deventer for ever.
+
+After a brief period Madame de Groot was released and rejoined her
+husband. Elsje van Houwening, true heroine of the adventure, was
+subsequently married to the faithful servant of Grotius, who during the
+two years' imprisonment had been taught Latin and the rudiments of law by
+his master, so that he subsequently rose to be a thriving and respectable
+advocate at the tribunals of Holland.
+
+The Stadholder, when informed of the escape of the prisoner, observed, "I
+always thought the black pig was deceiving me," making not very
+complimentary allusion to the complexion and size of the lady who had
+thus aided the escape of her husband.
+
+He is also reported as saying that it "is no wonder they could not keep
+Grotius in prison, as he has more wit than all his judges put together."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+   Barneveld's Sons plot against Maurice--The Conspiracy betrayed to
+   Maurice--Escape of Stoutenburg--Groeneveld is arrested--Mary of
+   Barneveld appeals to the Stadholder--Groeneveld condemned to Death--
+   Execution of Groeneveld.
+
+The widow of Barneveld had remained, since the last scene of the fatal
+tragedy on the Binnenhof, in hopeless desolation. The wife of the man who
+during a whole generation of mankind had stood foremost among the
+foremost of the world, and had been one of those chief actors and
+directors in human affairs to whom men's eyes turned instinctively from
+near and from afar, had led a life of unbroken prosperity. An heiress in
+her own right, Maria van Utrecht had laid the foundation of her husband's
+wealth by her union with the rising young lawyer and statesman. Her two
+sons and two daughters had grown up around her, all four being married
+into the leading families of the land, and with apparently long lives of
+prosperity and usefulness before them. And now the headsman's sword had
+shivered all this grandeur and happiness at a blow. The name of the dead
+statesman had become a word of scoffing and reproach; vagabond
+mountebanks enacted ribald scenes to his dishonour in the public squares
+and streets; ballad-mongers yelled blasphemous libels upon him in the
+very ears of his widow and children. For party hatred was not yet glutted
+with the blood it had drunk.
+
+It would be idle to paint the misery of this brokenhearted woman.
+
+The great painters of the epoch have preserved her face to posterity; the
+grief-stricken face of a hard-featured but commanding and not uncomely
+woman, the fountains of whose tears seem exhausted; a face of austere and
+noble despair. A decorous veil should be thrown over the form of that
+aged matron, for whose long life and prosperity Fate took such merciless
+vengeance at last.
+
+For the woes of Maria of Barneveld had scarcely begun. Desolation had
+become her portion, but dishonour had not yet crossed her threshold.
+There were sterner strokes in store for her than that which smote her
+husband on the scaffold.
+
+She had two sons, both in the prime of life. The eldest, Reinier, Lord of
+Groeneveld, who had married a widow of rank and wealth, Madame de
+Brandwyk, was living since the death of his father in comparative ease,
+but entire obscurity. An easy-tempered, genial, kindly gentleman, he had
+been always much beloved by his friends and, until the great family
+catastrophe, was popular with the public, but of an infirm and
+vacillating character, easily impressed by others, and apt to be led by
+stronger natures than his own. He had held the lucrative office of head
+forester of Delfland of which he had now been deprived.
+
+The younger son William, called, from an estate conferred on him by his
+father, Lord of Stoutenburg, was of a far different mould. We have seen
+him at an earlier period of this narrative attached to the embassy of
+Francis Aerssens in Paris, bearing then from another estate the unmusical
+title of Craimgepolder, and giving his subtle and dangerous chief great
+cause of complaint by his irregular, expensive habits. He had been
+however rather a favourite with Henry IV., who had so profound a respect
+for the father as to consult him, and him only of all foreign statesmen,
+in the gravest affairs of his reign, and he had even held an office of
+honour and emolument at his court. Subsequently he had embraced the
+military career, and was esteemed a soldier of courage and promise. As
+captain of cavalry and governor of the fortress of Bergen op Zoom, he
+occupied a distinguished and lucrative position, and was likely, so soon
+as the Truce ran to its close, to make a name for himself in that
+gigantic political and religious war which had already opened in Bohemia,
+and in which it was evident the Republic would soon be desperately
+involved. His wife, Walburg de Marnix, was daughter to one of the noblest
+characters in the history of the Netherlands, or of any history, the
+illustrious Sainte-Aldegonde. Two thousand florins a year from his
+father's estate had been settled on him at his marriage, which, in
+addition to his official and military income, placed him in a position of
+affluence.
+
+After the death of his father the family estates were confiscated, and he
+was likewise deprived of his captaincy and his governorship. He was
+reduced at a blow from luxury and high station to beggary and obscurity.
+At the renewal of the war he found himself, for no fault of his own,
+excluded from the service of his country. Yet the Advocate almost in his
+last breath had recommended his sons to the Stadholder, and Maurice had
+sent a message in response that so long as the sons conducted themselves
+well they might rely upon his support.
+
+Hitherto they had not conducted themselves otherwise than well.
+Stoutenburg, who now dwelt in his house with his mother, was of a dark,
+revengeful, turbulent disposition. In the career of arms he had a right
+to look forward to success, but thus condemned to brood in idleness on
+the cruel wrongs to himself and his house it was not improbable that he
+might become dangerous.
+
+Years long he fed on projects of vengeance as his daily bread. He was
+convinced that his personal grievances were closely entwined with the
+welfare of the Commonwealth, and he had sworn to avenge the death of his
+father, the misery of his mother, and the wrongs which he was himself
+suffering, upon the Stadholder, whom he considered the author of all
+their woe. To effect a revolution in the government, and to bring back to
+power all the municipal regents whom Maurice had displaced so summarily,
+in order, as the son believed, to effect the downfall of the hated
+Advocate, this was the determination of Stoutenburg.
+
+He did not pause to reflect whether the arm which had been strong enough
+to smite to nothingness the venerable statesman in the plenitude of his
+power would be too weak to repel the attack of an obscure and disarmed
+partisan. He saw only a hated tyrant, murderer, and oppressor, as he
+considered him, and he meant to have his life.
+
+He had around him a set of daring and desperate men to whom he had from
+time to time half confided his designs. A certain unfrocked preacher of
+the Remonstrant persuasion, who, according to the fashion of the learned
+of that day, had translated his name out of Hendrik Sleet into Henricus
+Slatius, was one of his most unscrupulous instruments. Slatius, a big,
+swarthy, shag-eared, beetle-browed Hollander, possessed learning of no
+ordinary degree, a tempestuous kind of eloquence, and a habit of dealing
+with men; especially those of the humbler classes. He was passionate,
+greedy, overbearing, violent, and loose of life. He had sworn vengeance
+upon the Remonstrants in consequence of a private quarrel, but this did
+not prevent him from breathing fire and fury against the
+Contra-Remonstrants also, and especially against the Stadholder, whom he
+affected to consider the arch-enemy of the whole Commonwealth.
+
+Another twelvemonth went by. The Advocate had been nearly four years in
+his grave. The terrible German war was in full blaze. The Twelve Years'
+Truce had expired, the Republic was once more at war, and Stoutenburg,
+forbidden at the head of his troop to campaign with the Stadholder
+against the Archdukes, nourished more fiercely than ever his plan against
+the Stadholder's life.
+
+Besides the ferocious Slatius he had other associates. There was his
+cousin by marriage, van der Dussen, a Catholic gentleman, who had married
+a daughter of Elias Barneveld, and who shared all Stoutenburg's feelings
+of resentment towards Maurice. There was Korenwinder, another Catholic,
+formerly occupying an official position of responsibility as secretary of
+the town of Berkel, a man of immense corpulence, but none the less an
+active and dangerous conspirator.
+
+There was van Dyk, a secretary of Bleiswyk, equally active and dangerous,
+and as lean and hungry as Korenwinder was fat. Stoutenburg, besides other
+rewards, had promised him a cornetcy of cavalry, should their plans be
+successful. And there was the brother-in-law of Slatius, one Cornelis
+Gerritaen, a joiner by trade, living at Rotterdam, who made himself very
+useful in all the details of the conspiracy.
+
+For the plot was now arranged, the men just mentioned being its active
+agents and in constant communication with Stoutenburg.
+
+Korenwinder and van Dyk in the last days of December 1622 drew up a
+scheme on paper, which was submitted to their chief and met with his
+approval. The document began with a violent invective against the crimes
+and tyranny of the Stadholder, demonstrated the necessity of a general
+change in the government, and of getting rid of Maurice as an
+indispensable preliminary, and laid down the means and method of doing
+this deed.
+
+The Prince was in the daily habit of driving, unattended by his
+body-guard, to Ryswyk, about two miles from the Hague. It would not be
+difficult for a determined band of men divided into two parties to set
+upon him between the stables and his coach, either when alighting from or
+about to enter it--the one party to kill him while the other protected
+the retreat of the assassins, and beat down such defence as the few
+lackeys of the Stadholder could offer.
+
+The scheme, thus mapped out, was submitted to Stoutenburg, who gave it
+his approval after suggesting a few amendments. The document was then
+burnt. It was estimated that twenty men would be needed for the job, and
+that to pay them handsomely would require about 6000 guilders.
+
+The expenses and other details of the infamous plot were discussed as
+calmly as if it had been an industrial or commercial speculation. But
+6000 guilders was an immense sum to raise, and the Seigneur de
+Stoutenburg was a beggar. His associates were as forlorn as himself, but
+his brother-in-law, the ex-Ambassador van der Myle, was living at
+Beverwyk under the supervision of the police, his property not having
+been confiscated. Stoutenburg paid him a visit, accompanied by the
+Reverend Slatius, in hopes of getting funds from him, but at the first
+obscure hint of the infamous design van der Myle faced them with such
+looks, gestures, and words of disgust and indignation that the murderous
+couple recoiled, the son of Barneveld saying to the expreacher: "Let us
+be off, Slaet,'tis a mere cur. Nothing is to be made of him."
+
+The other son of Barneveld, the Seigneur de Groeneveld, had means and
+credit. His brother had darkly hinted to him the necessity of getting rid
+of Maurice, and tried to draw him into the plot. Groeneveld, more
+unstable than water, neither repelled nor encouraged these advances. He
+joined in many conversations with Stoutenburg, van Dyk, and Korenwinder,
+but always weakly affected not to know what they were driving at. "When
+we talk of business," said van Dyk to him one day, "you are always
+turning off from us and from the subject. You had better remain." Many
+anonymous letters were sent to him, calling on him to strike for
+vengeance on the murderer of his father, and for the redemption of his
+native land and the Remonstrant religion from foul oppression.
+
+At last yielding to the persuasions and threats of his fierce younger
+brother, who assured him that the plot would succeed, the government be
+revolutionized, and that then all property would be at the mercy of the
+victors, he agreed to endorse certain bills which Korenwinder undertook
+to negotiate. Nothing could be meaner, more cowardly, and more murderous
+than the proceedings of the Seigneur de Groeneveld. He seems to have felt
+no intense desire of vengeance upon Maurice, which certainly would not
+have been unnatural, but he was willing to supply money for his
+assassination. At the same time he was careful to insist that this
+pecuniary advance was by no means a free gift, but only a loan to be
+repaid by his more bloodthirsty brother upon demand with interest. With a
+businesslike caution, in ghastly contrast with the foulness of the
+contract, he exacted a note of hand from Stoutenburg covering the whole
+amount of his disbursements. There might come a time, he thought, when
+his brother's paper would be more negotiable than it was at that moment.
+
+Korenwinder found no difficulty in discounting Groeneveld's bills, and
+the necessary capital was thus raised for the vile enterprise. Van Dyk,
+the lean and hungry conspirator, now occupied himself vigorously in
+engaging the assassins, while his corpulent colleague remained as
+treasurer of the company. Two brothers Blansaerts, woollen manufacturers
+at Leyden--one of whom had been a student of theology in the Remonstrant
+Church and had occasionally preached--and a certain William Party, a
+Walloon by birth, but likewise a woollen worker at Leyden, agreed to the
+secretary's propositions. He had at first told, them that their services
+would be merely required for the forcible liberation of two Remonstrant
+clergymen, Niellius and Poppius, from the prison at Haarlem. Entertaining
+his new companions at dinner, however, towards the end of January, van
+Dyk, getting very drunk, informed them that the object of the enterprise
+was to kill the Stadholder; that arrangements had been made for effecting
+an immediate change in the magistracies in all the chief cities of
+Holland so soon as the deed was done; that all the recently deposed
+regents would enter the Hague at once, supported by a train of armed
+peasants from the country; and that better times for the oppressed
+religion, for the Fatherland, and especially for everyone engaged in the
+great undertaking, would begin with the death of the tyrant. Each man
+taking direct part in the assassination would receive at least 300
+guilders, besides being advanced to offices of honour and profit
+according to his capacity.
+
+The Blansaerts assured their superior that entire reliance might be
+placed on their fidelity, and that they knew of three or four other men
+in Leyden "as firm as trees and fierce as lions," whom they would
+engage--a fustian worker, a tailor, a chimney-sweeper, and one or two
+other mechanics. The looseness and utter recklessness with which this
+hideous conspiracy was arranged excites amazement. Van Dyk gave the two
+brothers 100 pistoles in gold--a coin about equal to a guinea--for their
+immediate reward as well as for that of the comrades to be engaged. Yet
+it seems almost certain from subsequent revelations that they were
+intending all the time to deceive him, to take as much money as they
+could get from him, "to milk, the cow as long as she would give milk," as
+William Party expressed it, and then to turn round upon and betray him.
+It was a dangerous game however, which might not prove entirely
+successful.
+
+Van Dyk duly communicated with Stoutenburg, who grew more and more
+feverish with hatred and impatience as the time for gratifying those
+passions drew nigh, and frequently said that he would like to tear the
+Stadholder to pieces with his own hands. He preferred however to act as
+controlling director over the band of murderers now enrolled.
+
+For in addition to the Leyden party, the Reverend Slatius, supplied with
+funds by van Dyk, had engaged at Rotterdam his brother-in-law Gerritsen,
+a joiner, living in that city, together with three sailors named
+respectively Dirk, John, and Herman.
+
+The ex-clergyman's house was also the arsenal of the conspiracy,
+and here were stored away a stock of pistols, snaphances, and
+sledge-hammers--together with that other death-dealing machinery, the
+whole edition of the 'Clearshining Torch', an inflammatory, pamphlet by
+Slatius--all to be used on the fatal day fast approaching.
+
+On the 1st February van Dyk visited Slatius at Rotterdam. He found
+Gerritsen hard at work.
+
+There in a dark back kitchen, by the lurid light of the fire in a dim
+wintry afternoon, stood the burly Slatius, with his swarthy face and
+heavy eyebrows, accompanied by his brother-in-law the joiner, both in
+workman's dress, melting lead, running bullets, drying powder, and
+burnishing and arranging the fire-arms and other tools to be used in the
+great crime now so rapidly maturing. The lean, busy, restless van Dyk,
+with his adust and sinister visage, came peering in upon the couple thus
+engaged, and observed their preparations with warm approval.
+
+He recommended that in addition to Dirk, John, and Herman, a few more
+hardy seafaring men should be engaged, and Slatius accordingly secured
+next day the services of one Jerome Ewouts and three other sailors. They
+were not informed of the exact nature of the enterprise, but were told
+that it was a dangerous although not a desperate one, and sure to be of
+great service to the Fatherland. They received, as all the rest had done,
+between 200 and 300 guilders in gold, that they would all be promoted to
+be captains and first mates.
+
+It was agreed that all the conspirators should assemble four days later
+at the Hague on Sunday, the 5th February, at the inn of the "Golden
+Helmet." The next day, Monday the 6th, had been fixed by Stoutenburg for
+doing the deed. Van Dyk, who had great confidence in the eloquence of
+William Party, the Walloon wool manufacturer, had arranged that he should
+make a discourse to them all in a solitary place in the downs between
+that city and the sea-shore, taking for his theme or brief the
+Clearshining Torch of Slatius.
+
+On Saturday that eminent divine entertained his sister and her husband
+Gerritsen, Jerome Ewouts, who was at dinner but half informed as to the
+scope of the great enterprise, and several other friends who were
+entirely ignorant of it. Slatius was in high spirits, although his
+sister, who had at last become acquainted with the vile plot, had done
+nothing but weep all day long. They had better be worms, with a promise
+of further reward and an intimation she said, and eat dirt for their
+food, than crawl in so base a business. Her brother comforted her with
+assurances that the project was sure to result in a triumph for religion
+and Fatherland, and drank many healths at his table to the success of all
+engaged in it. That evening he sent off a great chest filled with arms
+and ammunition to the "Golden Helmet" at the Hague under the charge of
+Jerome Ewouts and his three mates. Van Dyk had already written a letter
+to the landlord of that hostelry engaging a room there, and saying that
+the chest contained valuable books and documents to be used in a lawsuit,
+in which he was soon to be engaged, before the supreme tribunal.
+
+On the Sunday this bustling conspirator had John Blansaert and William
+Party to dine with him at the "Golden Helmet" in the Hague, and produced
+seven packages neatly folded, each containing gold pieces to the amount
+of twenty pounds sterling. These were for themselves and the others whom
+they had reported as engaged by them in Leyden. Getting drunk as usual,
+he began to bluster of the great political revolution impending, and
+after dinner examined the carbines of his guests. He asked if those
+weapons were to be relied upon. "We can blow a hair to pieces with them
+at twenty paces," they replied. "Ah! would that I too could be of the
+party," said van Dyk, seizing one of the carbines. "No, no," said John
+Blansaert, "we can do the deed better without you than with you. You must
+look out for the defence."
+
+Van Dyk then informed them that they, with one of the Rotterdam sailors,
+were to attack Maurice as he got out of his coach at Ryswyk, pin him
+between the stables and the coach, and then and there do him to death.
+"You are not to leave him," he cried, "till his soul has left his body."
+
+The two expressed their hearty concurrence with this arrangement, and
+took leave of their host for the night, going, they said, to distribute
+the seven packages of blood-money. They found Adam Blansaert waiting for
+them in the downs, and immediately divided the whole amount between
+themselves and him--the chimney-sweeper, tailor, and fustian worker,
+"firm as trees and fierce as lions," having never had any existence save
+in their fertile imaginations.
+
+On Monday, 6th February, van Dyk had a closing interview with Stoutenburg
+and his brother at the house of Groeneveld, and informed them that the
+execution of the plot had been deferred to the following day. Stoutenburg
+expressed disgust and impatience at the delay. "I should like to tear the
+Stadholder to pieces with my own hands!" he cried. He was pacified on
+hearing that the arrangements had been securely made for the morrow, and
+turning to his brother observed, "Remember that you can never retract.
+You are in our power and all your estates at our mercy." He then
+explained the manner in which the magistracies of Leyden, Gouda,
+Rotterdam, and other cities were to be instantly remodelled after the
+death of Maurice, the ex-regents of the Hague at the head of a band of
+armed peasants being ready at a moment's warning to take possession of
+the political capital.
+
+Prince Frederic Henry moreover, he hinted darkly and falsely, but in a
+manner not to be mistaken, was favourable to the movement, and would
+after the murder of Maurice take the government into his hands.
+
+Stoutenburg then went quietly home to pass the day and sleep at his
+mother's house awaiting the eventful morning of Tuesday.
+
+Van Dyk went back to his room at the "Golden Helmet" and began inspecting
+the contents of the arms and ammunition chest which Jerome Ewouts and his
+three mates had brought the night before from Rotterdam. He had been
+somewhat unquiet at having seen nothing of those mariners during the day;
+when looking out of window, he saw one of them in conference with some
+soldiers. A minute afterwards he heard a bustle in the rooms below, and
+found that the house was occupied by a guard, and that Gerritsen, with
+the three first engaged sailors Dirk, Peter, and Herman, had been
+arrested at the Zotje. He tried in vain to throw the arms back into the
+chest and conceal it under the bed, but it was too late. Seizing his hat
+and wrapping himself in his cloak, with his sword by his side, he walked
+calmly down the stairs looking carelessly at the group of soldiers and
+prisoners who filled the passages. A waiter informed the provost-marshal
+in command that the gentleman was a respectable boarder at the tavern,
+well known to him for many years. The conspirator passed unchallenged and
+went straight to inform Stoutenburg.
+
+The four mariners, last engaged by Slatius at Rotterdam, had signally
+exemplified the danger of half confidences. Surprised that they should
+have been so mysteriously entrusted with the execution of an enterprise
+the particulars of which were concealed from them, and suspecting that
+crime alone could command such very high prices as had been paid and
+promised by the ex-clergyman, they had gone straight to the residence of
+the Stadholder, after depositing the chest at the "Golden Helmet."
+
+Finding that he had driven as usual to Ryswyk, they followed him thither,
+and by dint of much importunity obtained an audience. If the enterprise
+was a patriotic one, they reasoned, he would probably know of it and
+approve it. If it were criminal, it would be useful for them to reveal
+and dangerous to conceal it.
+
+They told the story so far as they knew it to the Prince and showed him
+the money, 300 florins apiece, which they had already received from
+Slatius. Maurice hesitated not an instant. It was evident that a dark
+conspiracy was afoot. He ordered the sailors to return to the Hague by
+another and circuitous road through Voorburg, while he lost not a moment
+himself in hurrying back as fast as his horses would carry him. Summoning
+the president and several councillors of the chief tribunal, he took
+instant measures to take possession of the two taverns, and arrest all
+the strangers found in them.
+
+Meantime van Dyk came into the house of the widow Barneveld and found
+Stoutenburg in the stable-yard. He told him the plot was discovered, the
+chest of arms at the "Golden Helmet" found. "Are there any private
+letters or papers in the bog?" asked Stoutenburg. "None relating to the
+affair," was the answer.
+
+"Take yourself off as fast as possible," said Stoutenburg. Van Dyk needed
+no urging. He escaped through the stables and across the fields in the
+direction of Leyden. After skulking about for a week however and making
+very little progress, he was arrested at Hazerswoude, having broken
+through the ice while attempting to skate across the inundated and frozen
+pastures in that region.
+
+Proclamations were at once made, denouncing the foul conspiracy in which
+the sons of the late Advocate Barneveld, the Remonstrant clergyman
+Slatius, and others, were the ringleaders, and offering 4000 florins each
+for their apprehension. A public thanksgiving for the deliverance was
+made in all the churches on the 8th February.
+
+On the 12th February the States-General sent letters to all their
+ambassadors and foreign agents, informing them of this execrable plot to
+overthrow the Commonwealth and take the life of the Stadholder, set on
+foot by certain Arminian preachers and others of that faction, and this
+too in winter, when the ice and snow made hostile invasion practicable,
+and when the enemy was encamped in so many places in the neighbourhood.
+"The Arminians," said the despatch, "are so filled with bitterness that
+they would rather the Republic should be lost than that their pretended
+grievances should go unredressed." Almost every pulpit shook with
+Contra-Remonstrant thunder against the whole society of Remonstrants, who
+were held up to the world as rebels and prince-murderers; the criminal
+conspiracy being charged upon them as a body. Hardly a man of that
+persuasion dared venture into the streets and public places, for fear of
+being put to death by the rabble. The Chevalier William of Nassau,
+natural son of the Stadholder, was very loud and violent in all the
+taverns and tap-rooms, drinking mighty draughts to the damnation of the
+Arminians.
+
+Many of the timid in consequence shrank away from the society and joined
+the Contra-Remonstrant Church, while the more courageous members,
+together with the leaders of that now abhorred communion, published long
+and stirring appeals to the universal sense of justice, which was
+outraged by the spectacle of a whole sect being punished for a crime
+committed by a few individuals, who had once been unworthy members of it.
+
+Meantime hue and cry was made after the fugitive conspirators. The
+Blansaerts and William Party having set off from Leyden towards the Hague
+on Monday night, in order, as they said, to betray their employers, whose
+money they had taken, and whose criminal orders they had agreed to
+execute, attempted to escape, but were arrested within ten days. They
+were exhibited at their prison at Amsterdam to an immense concourse at a
+shilling a peep, the sums thus collected being distributed to the poor.
+Slatius made his way disguised as a boor into Friesland, and after
+various adventures attempted to cross the Bourtange Moors to Lingen.
+Stopping to refresh himself at a tavern near Koevorden, he found himself
+in the tap-room in presence of Quartermaster Blau and a company of
+soldiers from the garrison. The dark scowling boor, travel-stained and
+weary, with felt hat slouched over his forbidding visage, fierce and
+timorous at once like a hunted wild beast, excited their suspicion.
+Seeing himself watched, he got up, paid his scot, and departed, leaving
+his can of beer untasted. This decided the quartermaster, who accordingly
+followed the peasant out of the house, and arrested him as a Spanish spy
+on the watch for the train of specie which the soldiers were then
+conveying into Koevorden Castle.
+
+Slatius protested his innocence of any such design, and vehemently
+besought the officer to release him, telling him as a reason for his
+urgency and an explanation of his unprepossessing aspect--that he was an
+oculist from Amsterdam, John Hermansen by name, that he had just
+committed a homicide in that place, and was fleeing from justice.
+
+The honest quartermaster saw no reason why a suspected spy should go free
+because he proclaimed himself a murderer, nor why an oculist should
+escape the penalties of homicide. "The more reason," he said, "why thou
+shouldst be my prisoner." The ex-preacher was arrested and shut up in the
+state prison at the Hague.
+
+The famous engraver Visser executed a likeness on copper-plate of the
+grim malefactor as he appeared in his boor's disguise. The portrait,
+accompanied by a fiercely written broadsheet attacking the Remonstrant
+Church, had a great circulation, and deepened the animosity against the
+sect upon which the unfrocked preacher had sworn vengeance. His evil face
+and fame thus became familiar to the public, while the term Hendrik Slaet
+became a proverb at pot-houses, being held equivalent among tipplers to
+shirking the bottle.
+
+Korenwinder, the treasurer of the association, coming to visit
+Stoutenburg soon after van Dyk had left him, was informed of the
+discovery of the plot and did his best to escape, but was arrested within
+a fortnight's time.
+
+Stoutenburg himself acted with his usual promptness and coolness. Having
+gone straightway to his brother to notify him of the discovery and to
+urge him to instant flight, he contrived to disappear. A few days later a
+chest of merchandise was brought to the house of a certain citizen of
+Rotterdam, who had once been a fiddler, but was now a man of considerable
+property. The chest, when opened, was found to contain the Seigneur de
+Stoutenburg, who in past times had laid the fiddler under obligations,
+and in whose house he now lay concealed for many days, and until the
+strictness with which all roads and ferries in the neighbourhood were
+watched at first had somewhat given way. Meantime his cousin van der
+Dussen had also effected his escape, and had joined him in Rotterdam. The
+faithful fiddler then, for a thousand florins, chartered a trading vessel
+commanded by one Jacob Beltje to take a cargo of Dutch cheese to Wesel on
+the Rhine. By this means, after a few adventures, they effected their
+escape, and, arriving not long afterwards at Brussels, were formally
+taken under the protection of the Archduchess Isabella.
+
+Stoutenburg afterwards travelled in France and Italy, and returned to
+Brussels. His wife, loathing his crime and spurning all further
+communication with him, abandoned him to his fate. The daughter of Marnix
+of Sainte-Aldegonde had endured poverty, obscurity, and unmerited
+obloquy, which had become the lot of the great statesman's family after
+his tragic end, but she came of a race that would not brook dishonour.
+The conspirator and suborner of murder and treason, the hirer and
+companion of assassins, was no mate for her.
+
+Stoutenburg hesitated for years as to his future career, strangely enough
+keeping up a hope of being allowed to return to his country.
+
+Subsequently he embraced the cause of his country's enemies, converted
+himself to the Roman Church, and obtained a captaincy of horse in the
+Spanish service. He was seen one day, to the disgust of many spectators,
+to enter Antwerp in black foreign uniform, at the head of his troopers,
+waving a standard with a death's-head embroidered upon it, and wearing,
+like his soldiers, a sable scarf and plume. History disdains to follow
+further the career of the renegade, traitor, end assassin.
+
+When the Seigneur de Groeneveld learned from his younger brother, on the
+eventful 6th of February, that the plot had been discovered, he gave
+himself up for lost. Remorse and despair, fastening upon his naturally
+feeble character, seemed to render him powerless. His wife, of more
+hopeful disposition than himself and of less heroic mould than Walburg de
+Marnix, encouraged him to fly. He fled accordingly, through the desolate
+sandy downs which roll between the Hague and the sea, to Scheveningen,
+then an obscure fishing village on the coast, at a league's distance from
+the capital. Here a fisherman, devoted to him and his family, received
+him in his hut, disguised him in boatman's attire, and went with him to
+the strand, proposing to launch his pinkie, put out at once to sea, and
+to land him on the English coast, the French coast, in Hamburg--where he
+would.
+
+The sight of that long, sandy beach stretching for more than seventy
+miles in an unbroken, melancholy line, without cove, curve, or
+indentation to break its cruel monotony, and with the wild waves of the
+German Ocean, lashed by a wintry storm, breaking into white foam as far
+as the eye could reach, appalled the fugitive criminal. With the
+certainty of an ignominious death behind him, he shrank abjectly from the
+terrors of the sea, and, despite the honest fisherman's entreaties,
+refused to enter the boat and face the storm. He wandered feebly along
+the coast, still accompanied by his humble friend, to another little
+village, where the fisherman procured a waggon, which took them as far as
+Sandvoort. Thence he made his way through Egmond and Petten and across
+the Marsdiep to Tegel, where not deeming himself safe he had himself
+ferried over to the neighbouring island of Vlieland. Here amongst the
+quicksands, whirlpools, and shallows which mark the last verge of
+habitable Holland, the unhappy fugitive stood at bay.
+
+Meantime information had come to the authorities that a suspicious
+stranger had been seen at Scheveningen. The fisherman's wife was
+arrested. Threatened with torture she at last confessed with whom her
+husband had fled and whither. Information was sent to the bailiff of
+Vlieland, who with a party of followers made a strict search through his
+narrow precincts. A group of seamen seated on the sands was soon
+discovered, among whom, dressed in shaggy pea jacket with long
+fisherman's boots, was the Seigneur de Groeneveld, who, easily recognized
+through his disguise, submitted to his captors without a struggle. The
+Scheveningen fisherman, who had been so faithful to him, making a sudden
+spring, eluded his pursuers and disappeared; thus escaping the gibbet
+which would probably have been his doom instead of the reward of 4000
+golden guilders which he might have had for betraying him. Thus a sum
+more than double the amount originally furnished by Groeneveld, as the
+capital of the assassination company, had been rejected by the Rotterdam
+boatman who saved Stoutenburg, and by the Scheveningen fisherman who was
+ready to save Groeneveld. On the 19th February, within less than a
+fortnight from the explosion of the conspiracy, the eldest son of
+Barneveld was lodged in the Gevangen Poort or state prison of the Hague.
+
+The awful news of the 6th February had struck the widow of Barneveld as
+with a thunderbolt. Both her sons were proclaimed as murderers and
+suborners of assassins, and a price put upon their heads. She remained
+for days neither speaking nor weeping; scarcely eating, drinking, or
+sleeping. She seemed frozen to stone. Her daughters and friends could not
+tell whether she were dying or had lost her reason. At length the escape
+of Stoutenburg and the capture of Groeneveld seemed to rouse her from her
+trance. She then stooped to do what she had sternly refused to do when
+her husband was in the hands of the authorities. Accompanied by the wife
+and infant son of Groeneveld she obtained an audience of the stern
+Stadholder, fell on her knees before him, and implored mercy and pardon
+for her son.
+
+Maurice received her calmly and not discourteously, but held out no hopes
+of pardon. The criminal was in the hands of justice, he said, and he had
+no power to interfere. But there can scarcely be a doubt that he had
+power after the sentence to forgive or to commute, and it will be
+remembered that when Barneveld himself was about to suffer, the Prince
+had asked the clergyman Walaeus with much anxiety whether the prisoner in
+his message had said nothing of pardon.
+
+Referring to the bitter past, Maurice asked Madame de Barneveld why she
+not asked mercy for her son, having refused to do so for her husband.
+
+Her answer was simple and noble:
+
+"My husband was innocent of crime," she said; "my son is guilty."
+
+The idea of pardon in this case was of course preposterous. Certainly if
+Groeneveld had been forgiven, it would have been impossible to punish the
+thirteen less guilty conspirators, already in the hands of justice, whom
+he had hired to commit the assassination. The spectacle of the two
+cowardly ringleaders going free while the meaner criminals were gibbeted
+would have been a shock to the most rudimentary ideas of justice. It
+would have been an equal outrage to pardon the younger Barnevelds for
+intended murder, in which they had almost succeeded, when their great
+father had already suffered for a constructive lese-majesty, the guilt of
+which had been stoutly denied. Yet such is the dreary chain of cause and
+effect that it is certain, had pardon been nobly offered to the
+statesman, whose views of constitutional law varied from those of the
+dominant party, the later crime would never have been committed. But
+Francis Aerssens--considering his own and other partisans lives at stake
+if the States' right party did not fall--had been able to bear down all
+thoughts of mercy. He was successful, was called to the house of nobles,
+and regained the embassy of Paris, while the house of Barneveld was
+trodden into the dust of dishonour and ruin. Rarely has an offended
+politician's revenge been more thorough than his. Never did the mocking
+fiend betray his victims into the hands of the avenger more sardonically
+than was done in this sombre tragedy.
+
+The trials of the prisoners were rapidly conducted. Van Dyk, cruelly
+tortured, confessed on the rack all the details of the conspiracy as they
+were afterwards embodied in the sentences and have been stated in the
+preceding narrative. Groeneveld was not tortured. His answers to the
+interrogatories were so vague as to excite amazement at his general
+ignorance of the foul transaction or at the feebleness of his memory,
+while there was no attempt on his part to exculpate himself from the
+damning charge. That it was he who had furnished funds for the proposed
+murder and mutiny, knowing the purpose to which they were to be applied,
+was proved beyond all cavil and fully avowed by him.
+
+On the 28th May, he, Korenwinder, and van Dyk were notified that they
+were to appear next day in the courthouse to hear their sentence, which
+would immediately afterwards be executed.
+
+That night his mother, wife, and son paid him a long visit of farewell in
+his prison. The Gevangen Poort of the Hague, an antique but mean building
+of brown brick and commonplace aspect, still stands in one of the most
+public parts of the city. A gloomy archway, surmounted by windows grimly
+guarded by iron lattice-work, forms the general thoroughfare from the
+aristocratic Plaats and Kneuterdyk and Vyverberg to the inner court of
+the ancient palace. The cells within are dark, noisome, and dimly
+lighted, and even to this day the very instruments of torture, used in
+the trials of these and other prisoners, may be seen by the curious. Half
+a century later the brothers de Witt were dragged from this prison to be
+literally torn to pieces by an infuriated mob.
+
+The misery of that midnight interview between the widow of Barneveld, her
+daughter-in-law, and the condemned son and husband need not be described.
+As the morning approached, the gaoler warned the matrons to take their
+departure that the prisoner might sleep.
+
+"What a woful widow you will be," said Groeneveld to his wife, as she
+sank choking with tears upon the ground. The words suddenly aroused in
+her the sense of respect for their name.
+
+"At least for all this misery endured," she said firmly, "do me enough
+honour to die like a gentleman." He promised it. The mother then took
+leave of the son, and History drops a decorous veil henceforth over the
+grief-stricken form of Mary of Barneveld.
+
+Next morning the life-guards of the Stadholder and other troops were
+drawn up in battle-array in the outer and inner courtyard of the supreme
+tribunal and palace. At ten o'clock Groeneveld came forth from the
+prison. The Stadholder had granted as a boon to the family that he might
+be neither fettered nor guarded as he walked to the tribunal. The
+prisoner did not forget his parting promise to his wife. He appeared
+full-dressed in velvet cloak and plumed hat, with rapier by his side,
+walking calmly through the inner courtyard to the great hall. Observing
+the windows of the Stadholder's apartments crowded with spectators, among
+whom he seemed to recognize the Prince's face, he took off his hat and
+made a graceful and dignified salute. He greeted with courtesy many
+acquaintances among the crowd through which he passed. He entered the
+hall and listened in silence to the sentence condemning him to be
+immediately executed with the sword. Van Dyk and Korenwinder shared the
+same doom, but were provisionally taken back to prison.
+
+Groeneveld then walked calmly and gracefully as before from the hall to
+the scaffold, attended by his own valet, and preceded by the
+provost-marshal and assistants. He was to suffer, not where his father
+had been beheaded, but on the "Green Sod." This public place of execution
+for ordinary criminals was singularly enough in the most elegant and
+frequented quarter of the Hague. A few rods from the Gevangen Poort, at
+the western end of the Vyverberg, on the edge of the cheerful triangle
+called the Plaats, and looking directly down the broad and stately
+Kneuterdyk, at the end of which stood Aremberg House, lately the
+residence of the great Advocate, was the mean and sordid scaffold.
+
+Groeneveld ascended it with perfect composure. The man who had been
+browbeaten into crime by an overbearing and ferocious brother, who had
+quailed before the angry waves of the North Sea, which would have borne
+him to a place of entire security, now faced his fate with a smile upon
+his lips. He took off his hat, cloak, and sword, and handed them to his
+valet. He calmly undid his ruff and wristbands of pointlace, and tossed
+them on the ground. With his own hands and the assistance of his servant
+he unbuttoned his doublet, laying breast and neck open without suffering
+the headsman's hands to approach him.
+
+He then walked to the heap of sand and spoke a very few words to the vast
+throng of spectators.
+
+"Desire of vengeance and evil counsel," he said, "have brought me here.
+If I have wronged any man among you, I beg him for Christ's sake to
+forgive me."
+
+Kneeling on the sand with his face turned towards his father's house at
+the end of the Kneuterdyk, he said his prayers. Then putting a red velvet
+cap over his eyes, he was heard to mutter:
+
+"O God! what a man I was once, and what am I now?"
+
+Calmly folding his hands, he said, "Patience."
+
+The executioner then struck off his head at a blow. His body, wrapped in
+a black cloak, was sent to his house and buried in his father's tomb.
+
+Van Dyk and Korenwinder were executed immediately afterwards. They were
+quartered and their heads exposed on stakes. The joiner Gerritsen and the
+three sailors had already been beheaded. The Blansaerts and William
+Party, together with the grim Slatius, who was savage and turbulent to
+the last, had suffered on the 5th of May.
+
+Fourteen in all were executed for this crime, including an unfortunate
+tailor and two other mechanics of Leyden, who had heard something
+whispered about the conspiracy, had nothing whatever to do with it, but
+from ignorance, apathy, or timidity did not denounce it. The ringleader
+and the equally guilty van der Dussen had, as has been seen, effected
+their escape.
+
+Thus ended the long tragedy of the Barnevelds. The result of this foul
+conspiracy and its failure to effect the crime proposed strengthened
+immensely the power, popularity, and influence of the Stadholder, made
+the orthodox church triumphant, and nearly ruined the sect of the
+Remonstrants, the Arminians--most unjustly in reality, although with a
+pitiful show of reason--being held guilty of the crime of Stoutenburg and
+Slatius.
+
+The Republic--that magnificent commonwealth which in its infancy had
+confronted, single-handed, the greatest empire of the earth, and had
+wrested its independence from the ancient despot after a forty years'
+struggle--had now been rent in twain, although in very unequal portions,
+by the fiend of political and religious hatred. Thus crippled, she was to
+go forth and take her share in that awful conflict now in full blaze, and
+of which after-ages were to speak with a shudder as the Thirty Years'
+War.
+
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Argument in a circle
+     He that stands let him see that he does not fall
+     If he has deserved it, let them strike off his head
+     Misery had come not from their being enemies
+     O God! what does man come to!
+     Party hatred was not yet glutted with the blood it had drunk
+     Rose superior to his doom and took captivity captive
+     This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State
+     To milk, the cow as long as she would give milk
+
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1614-23:
+
+     Acts of violence which under pretext of religion
+     Adulation for inferiors whom they despise
+     Affection of his friends and the wrath of his enemies
+     And give advice. Of that, although always a spendthrift
+     Argument in a circle
+     Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs
+     Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received
+     Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain
+     Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
+     Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
+     Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
+     Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
+     Created one child for damnation and another for salvation
+     Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt
+     Denoungced as an obstacle to peace
+     Depths theological party spirit could descend
+     Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink
+     Devote himself to his gout and to his fair young wife
+     Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience
+     Extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence
+     France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
+     Furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop
+     Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
+     He that stands let him see that he does not fall
+     Heidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallible
+     Highborn demagogues in that as in every age affect adulation
+     History has not too many really important and emblematic men
+     Human nature in its meanness and shame
+     I hope and I fear
+     I know how to console myself
+     If he has deserved it, let them strike off his head
+     Implication there was much, of assertion very little
+     In this he was much behind his age or before it
+     It had not yet occurred to him that he was married
+     John Robinson
+     King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
+     Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves
+     Magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword
+     Make the very name of man a term of reproach
+     Misery had come not from their being enemies
+     Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
+     More apprehension of fraud than of force
+     Necessity of deferring to powerful sovereigns
+     Never lack of fishers in troubled waters
+     Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed
+     O God! what does man come to!
+     Only true religion
+     Opening an abyss between government and people
+     Opposed the subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood
+     Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory
+     Party hatred was not yet glutted with the blood it had drunk
+     Pot-valiant hero
+     Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England
+     Rather a wilderness to reign over than a single heretic
+     Resolve to maintain the civil authority over the military
+     Rose superior to his doom and took captivity captive
+     Seemed bent on self-destruction
+     Stand between hope and fear
+     Successful in this step, he is ready for greater ones
+     Tempest of passion and prejudice
+     That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice
+     The magnitude of this wonderful sovereign's littleness
+     The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny
+     The evils resulting from a confederate system of government
+     This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State
+     This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination
+     To milk, the cow as long as she would give milk
+     To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry
+     William Brewster
+     Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome
+     Yes, there are wicked men about
+     Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow
+
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE JOHN OF BARNEVELD 1609-1623:
+
+     Abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlour
+     Acts of violence which under pretext of religion
+     Adulation for inferiors whom they despise
+     Advanced orthodox party-Puritans
+     Affection of his friends and the wrath of his enemies
+     Allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body
+     Almost infinite power of the meanest of passions
+     And give advice. Of that, although always a spendthrift
+     And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
+     Argument in a circle
+     Aristocracy of God's elect
+     As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
+     At a blow decapitated France
+     Atheist, a tyrant, because he resisted dictation from the clergy
+     Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics
+     Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs
+     Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received
+     Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain
+     Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
+     Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
+     Christian sympathy and a small assistance not being sufficient
+     Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
+     Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
+     Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
+     Contained within itself the germs of a larger liberty
+     Could not be both judge and party in the suit
+     Covered now with the satirical dust of centuries
+     Created one child for damnation and another for salvation
+     Deadly hatred of Puritans in England and Holland
+     Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt
+     Denoungced as an obstacle to peace
+     Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink
+     Depths theological party spirit could descend
+     Determined to bring the very name of liberty into contempt
+     Devote himself to his gout and to his fair young wife
+     Disputing the eternal damnation of young children
+     Doctrine of predestination in its sternest and strictest sense
+     Emperor of Japan addressed him as his brother monarch
+     Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience
+     Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
+     Estimating his character and judging his judges
+     Everybody should mind his own business
+     Extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence
+     Fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge
+     Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
+     France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
+     Furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop
+     Give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
+     Great war of religion and politics was postponed
+     Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
+     He was not imperial of aspect on canvas or coin
+     He who would have all may easily lose all
+     He who spreads the snare always tumbles into the ditch himself
+     He was a sincere bigot
+     He that stands let him see that he does not fall
+     Heidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallible
+     Highborn demagogues in that as in every age affect adulation
+     History has not too many really important and emblematic men
+     Human nature in its meanness and shame
+     I know how to console myself
+     I hope and I fear
+     If he has deserved it, let them strike off his head
+     Impatience is often on the part of the non-combatants
+     Implication there was much, of assertion very little
+     In this he was much behind his age or before it
+     Intense bigotry of conviction
+     International friendship, the self-interest of each
+     It had not yet occurred to him that he was married
+     It was the true religion, and there was none other
+     James of England, who admired, envied, and hated Henry
+     Jealousy, that potent principle
+     Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
+     John Robinson
+     King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
+     King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day
+     Language which is ever living because it is dead
+     Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves
+     Louis XIII.
+     Ludicrous gravity
+     Magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword
+     Make the very name of man a term of reproach
+     Misery had come not from their being enemies
+     Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
+     More apprehension of fraud than of force
+     More fiercely opposed to each other than to Papists
+     Most detestable verses that even he had ever composed
+     Necessity of deferring to powerful sovereigns
+     Neither kings nor governments are apt to value logic
+     Never lack of fishers in troubled waters
+     No man pretended to think of the State
+     No man can be neutral in civil contentions
+     No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves
+     None but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say
+     Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed
+     O God! what does man come to!
+     Only true religion
+     Opening an abyss between government and people
+     Opposed the subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood
+     Outdoing himself in dogmatism and inconsistency
+     Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory
+     Party hatred was not yet glutted with the blood it had drunk
+     Philip IV.
+     Pot-valiant hero
+     Power the poison of which it is so difficult to resist
+     Practised successfully the talent of silence
+     Presents of considerable sums of money to the negotiators made
+     Priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests
+     Princes show what they have in them at twenty-five or never
+     Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England
+     Putting the cart before the oxen
+     Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests
+     Rather a wilderness to reign over than a single heretic
+     Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition
+     Religious toleration, which is a phrase of insult
+     Resolve to maintain the civil authority over the military
+     Rose superior to his doom and took captivity captive
+     Safest citadel against an invader and a tyrant is distrust
+     Schism in the Church had become a public fact
+     Secure the prizes of war without the troubles and dangers
+     Seemed bent on self-destruction
+     Senectus edam maorbus est
+     She declined to be his procuress
+     Small matter which human folly had dilated into a great one
+     Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial
+     So much in advance of his time as to favor religious equality
+     Stand between hope and fear
+     Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel
+     Successful in this step, he is ready for greater ones
+     Tempest of passion and prejudice
+     That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice
+     That cynical commerce in human lives
+     The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny
+     The evils resulting from a confederate system of government
+     The vehicle is often prized more than the freight
+     The voice of slanderers
+     The truth in shortest about matters of importance
+     The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses
+     The defence of the civil authority against the priesthood
+     The magnitude of this wonderful sovereign's littleness
+     The Catholic League and the Protestant Union
+     Their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze
+     Theological hatred was in full blaze throughout the country
+     Theology and politics were one
+     There was no use in holding language of authority to him
+     There was but one king in Europe, Henry the Bearnese
+     Therefore now denounced the man whom he had injured
+     They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini
+     Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful
+     Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of the forty years
+     This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination
+     This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State
+     To milk, the cow as long as she would give milk
+     To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry
+     To look down upon their inferior and lost fellow creatures
+     Uncouple the dogs and let them run
+     Unimaginable outrage as the most legitimate industry
+     Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration
+     What could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy
+     Whether repentance could effect salvation
+     Whether dead infants were hopelessly damned
+     Whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed by partisans
+     William Brewster
+     Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome
+     Wish to appear learned in matters of which they are ignorant
+     Work of the aforesaid Puritans and a few Jesuits
+     Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal authority
+     Yes, there are wicked men about
+     Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of John of Barneveld,
+1614-23, Volume II., by John Lothrop Motley
+
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