CHAPTER XI.

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.