A little later a more vehement reply was published anonymously in the

shape of a pamphlet called 'The Balance,' which much angered the

Ambassador and goaded his master almost to frenzy. It was deemed so

blasphemous, so insulting to the Majesty of England, so entirely

seditious, that James, not satisfied with inditing a rejoinder, insisted

through Carleton that a reward should be offered by the States for the

detection of the author, in order that he might be condignly punished.

This was done by a majority vote, 1000 florins being offered for the

discovery of the author and 600 for that of the printer.

Naturally the step was opposed in the States-General; two deputies in

particular making themselves conspicuous. One of them was an audacious

old gentleman named Brinius of Gelderland, "much corrupted with

Arminianism," so Carleton informed his sovereign. He appears to have

inherited his audacity through his pedigree, descending, as it was

ludicrously enough asserted he did, from a chief of the Caninefates, the

ancient inhabitants of Gelderland, called Brinio. And Brinio the

Caninefat had been as famous for his stolid audacity as for his

illustrious birth; "Erat in Caninefatibus stolidae audaciae Brinio

claritate natalium insigni."

The patronizing manner in which the Ambassador alluded to the other

member of the States-General who opposed the decree was still more

diverting. It was "Grotius, the Pensioner of Rotterdam, a young petulant

brain, not unknown to your Majesty," said Carleton.

Two centuries and a half have rolled away, and there are few majesties,

few nations, and few individuals to whom the name of that petulant youth

is unknown; but how many are familiar with the achievements of the able

representative of King James?

Nothing came of the measure, however, and the offer of course helped the

circulation of the pamphlet.

It is amusing to see the ferocity thus exhibited by the royal pamphleteer

against a rival; especially when one can find no crime in 'The Balance'

save a stinging and well-merited criticism of a very stupid oration.

Gillis van Ledenberg was generally supposed to be the author of it.

Carleton inclined, however, to suspect Grotius, "because," said he,

"having always before been a stranger to my house, he has made me the day

before the publication thereof a complimentary visit, although it was

Sunday and church time; whereby the Italian proverb, 'Chi ti caresse piu

che suole,' &c.,' is added to other likelihoods."

It was subsequently understood however that the pamphlet was written by a

Remonstrant preacher of Utrecht, named Jacobus Taurinus; one of those who

had been doomed to death by the mutinous government in that city seven

years before.

It was now sufficiently obvious that either the governments in the three

opposition provinces must be changed or that the National Synod must be

imposed by a strict majority vote in the teeth of the constitution and of

vigorous and eloquent protests drawn up by the best lawyers in the

country. The Advocate and Grotius recommended a provincial synod first

and, should that not succeed in adjusting the differences of church

government, then the convocation of a general or oecumenical synod. They

resisted the National Synod because, in their view, the Provinces were

not a nation. A league of seven sovereign and independent Mates was all

that legally existed in the Netherlands. It was accordingly determined

that the governments should be changed, and the Stadholder set himself to

prepare the way for a thorough and, if possible, a bloodless revolution.

He departed on the 27th November for a tour through the chief cities, and

before leaving the Hague addressed an earnest circular letter to the

various municipalities of Holland.

A more truly dignified, reasonable, right royal letter, from the

Stadholder's point of view, could not have been indited. The Imperial

"we" breathing like a morning breeze through the whole of it blew away

all legal and historical mistiness.

But the clouds returned again nevertheless. Unfortunately for Maurice it

could not be argued by the pen, however it might be proved by the sword,

that the Netherlands constituted a nation, and that a convocation of

doctors of divinity summoned by a body of envoys had the right to dictate

a creed to seven republics.

All parties were agreed on one point. There must be unity of divine

worship. The territory of the Netherlands was not big enough to hold two

systems of religion, two forms of Christianity, two sects of

Protestantism. It was big enough to hold seven independent and sovereign

states, but would be split into fragments--resolved into chaos--should

there be more than one Church or if once a schism were permitted in that

Church. Grotius was as much convinced of this as Gomarus. And yet the

13th Article of the Union stared them all in the face, forbidding the

hideous assumptions now made by the general government. Perhaps no man

living fully felt its import save Barneveld alone. For groping however

dimly and hesitatingly towards the idea of religious liberty, of general

toleration, he was denounced as a Papist, an atheist, a traitor, a

miscreant, by the fanatics for the sacerdotal and personal power. Yet it

was a pity that he could never contemplate the possibility of his

country's throwing off the swaddling clothes of provincialism which had

wrapped its infancy. Doubtless history, law, tradition, and usage pointed

to the independent sovereignty of each province. Yet the period of the

Truce was precisely the time when a more generous constitution, a

national incorporation might have been constructed to take the place of

the loose confederacy by which the gigantic war had been fought out.

After all, foreign powers had no connection with the States, and knew

only the Union with which and with which alone they made treaties, and

the reality of sovereignty in each province was as ridiculous as in

theory it was impregnable. But Barneveld, under the modest title of

Advocate of one province, had been in reality president and prime

minister of the whole commonwealth. He had himself been the union and the

sovereignty. It was not wonderful that so imperious a nature objected to

transfer its powers to the Church, to the States-General, or to Maurice.

Moreover, when nationality assumed the unlovely form of rigid religious

uniformity; when Union meant an exclusive self-governed Church enthroned

above the State, responsible to no civic authority and no human law, the

boldest patriot might shiver at emerging from provincialism.

CHAPTER XV.

The Commonwealth bent on Self-destruction--Evils of a Confederate

System of Government--Rem Bischop's House sacked--Aerssens'

unceasing Efforts against Barneveld--The Advocate's Interview with

Maurice--The States of Utrecht raise the Troops--The Advocate at

Utrecht--Barneveld urges mutual Toleration--Barneveld accused of

being Partisan of Spain--Carleton takes his Departure.

It is not cheerful after widely contemplating the aspect of Christendom

in the year of supreme preparation to examine with the minuteness

absolutely necessary the narrow theatre to which the political affairs of

the great republic had been reduced.

That powerful commonwealth, to which the great party of the Reformation

naturally looked for guidance in the coming conflict, seemed bent on

self-destruction. The microcosm of the Netherlands now represented, alas!

the war of elements going on without on a world-wide scale. As the

Calvinists and Lutherans of Germany were hotly attacking each other even

in sight of the embattled front of Spain and the League, so the Gomarites

and the Arminians by their mutual rancour were tearing the political

power of the Dutch Republic to shreds and preventing her from assuming a

great part in the crisis. The consummate soldier, the unrivalled

statesman, each superior in his sphere to any contemporary rival, each

supplementing the other, and making up together, could they have been

harmonized, a double head such as no political organism then existing

could boast, were now in hopeless antagonism to each other. A mass of

hatred had been accumulated against the Advocate with which he found it

daily more and more difficult to struggle. The imperious, rugged, and

suspicious nature of the Stadholder had been steadily wrought upon by the

almost devilish acts of Francis Aerssens until he had come to look upon

his father's most faithful adherent, his own early preceptor in

statesmanship and political supporter, as an antagonist, a conspirator,

and a tyrant.

The soldier whose unrivalled ability, experience, and courage in the

field should have placed him at the very head of the great European army

of defence against the general crusade upon Protestantism, so constantly

foretold by Barneveld, was now to be engaged in making bloodless but

mischievous warfare against an imaginary conspiracy and a patriot foe.

The Advocate, keeping steadily in view the great principles by which his

political life had been guided, the supremacy of the civil authority in

any properly organized commonwealth over the sacerdotal and military,

found himself gradually forced into mortal combat with both. To the

individual sovereignty of each province he held with the tenacity of a

lawyer and historian. In that he found the only clue through the

labyrinth which ecclesiastical and political affairs presented. So close

was the tangle, so confused the medley, that without this slender guide

all hope of legal issue seemed lost.

No doubt the difficulty of the doctrine of individual sovereignty was

great, some of the provinces being such slender morsels of territory,

with resources so trivial, as to make the name of sovereignty ludicrous.

Yet there could be as little doubt that no other theory was tenable. If

so powerful a mind as that of the Advocate was inclined to strain the

theory to its extreme limits, it was because in the overshadowing

superiority of the one province Holland had been found the practical

remedy for the imbecility otherwise sure to result from such provincial

and meagre federalism.

Moreover, to obtain Union by stretching all the ancient historical

privileges and liberties of the separate provinces upon the Procrustean

bed of a single dogma, to look for nationality only in common subjection

to an infallible priesthood, to accept a Catechism as the palladium upon

which the safety of the State was to depend for all time, and beyond

which there was to be no further message from Heaven--such was not

healthy constitutionalism in the eyes of a great statesman. No doubt that

without the fervent spirit of Calvinism it would have been difficult to

wage war with such immortal hate as the Netherlands had waged it, no

doubt the spirit of republican and even democratic liberty lay hidden

within that rigid husk, but it was dishonour to the martyrs who had died

by thousands at the stake and on the battle field for the rights of

conscience if the only result of their mighty warfare against wrong had

been to substitute a new dogma for an old one, to stifle for ever the

right of free enquiry, theological criticism, and the hope of further

light from on high, and to proclaim it a libel on the Republic that

within its borders all heretics, whether Arminian or Papist, were safe

from the death penalty or even from bodily punishment. A theological

union instead of a national one and obtained too at the sacrifice of

written law and immemorial tradition, a congress in which clerical

deputations from all the provinces and from foreign nations should

prescribe to all Netherlanders an immutable creed and a shadowy

constitution, were not the true remedies for the evils of confederacy,

nor, if they had been, was the time an appropriate one for their

application.

It was far too early in the world's history to hope for such

redistribution of powers and such a modification of the social compact as

would place in separate spheres the Church and the State, double the

sanctions and the consolations of religion by removing it from the

pollutions of political warfare, and give freedom to individual

conscience by securing it from the interference of government.

It is melancholy to see the Republic thus perversely occupying its

energies. It is melancholy to see the great soldier becoming gradually

more ardent for battle with Barneveld and Uytenbogaert than with Spinola

and Bucquoy, against whom he had won so many imperishable laurels. It is

still sadder to see the man who had been selected by Henry IV. as the one

statesman of Europe to whom he could confide his great projects for the

pacification of Christendom, and on whom he could depend for counsel and

support in schemes which, however fantastic in some of their details, had

for their object to prevent the very European war of religion against

which Barneveld had been struggling, now reduced to defend himself

against suspicion hourly darkening and hatred growing daily more insane.

The eagle glance and restless wing, which had swept the whole political

atmosphere, now caged within the stifling limits of theological casuistry

and personal rivalry were afflicting to contemplate.

The evils resulting from a confederate system of government, from a

league of petty sovereignties which dared not become a nation, were as

woefully exemplified in the United Provinces as they were destined to be

more than a century and a half later, and in another hemisphere, before

that most fortunate and sagacious of written political instruments, the

American Constitution of 1787, came to remedy the weakness of the old

articles of Union.

Meantime the Netherlands were a confederacy, not a nation. Their general

government was but a committee.

It could ask of, but not command, the separate provinces. It had no

dealings with nor power over the inhabitants of the country; it could say

"Thou shalt" neither to state nor citizen; it could consult only with

corporations--fictitious and many-headed personages--itself incorporate.

There was no first magistrate, no supreme court, no commander-in-chief,

no exclusive mint nor power of credit, no national taxation, no central

house of representation and legislation, no senate. Unfortunately it had

one church, and out of this single matrix of centralism was born more

discord than had been produced by all the centrifugal forces of

provincialism combined.

There had been working substitutes found, as we well know, for the

deficiencies of this constitution, but the Advocate felt himself bound to

obey and enforce obedience to the laws and privileges of his country so

long as they remained without authorized change. His country was the

Province of Holland, to which his allegiance was due and whose servant he

was. That there was but one church paid and sanctioned by law, he

admitted, but his efforts were directed to prevent discord within that

church, by counselling moderation, conciliation, mutual forbearance, and

abstention from irritating discussion of dogmas deemed by many thinkers

and better theologians than himself not essential to salvation. In this

he was much behind his age or before it. He certainly was not with the

majority.

And thus, while the election of Ferdinand had given the signal of war all

over Christendom, while from the demolished churches in Bohemia the

tocsin was still sounding, whose vibrations were destined to be heard a

generation long through the world, there was less sympathy felt with the

call within the territory of the great republic of Protestantism than

would have seemed imaginable a few short years before. The capture of the

Cloister Church at the Hague in the summer of 1617 seemed to minds

excited by personal rivalries and minute theological controversy a more

momentous event than the destruction of the churches in the Klostergrab

in the following December. The triumph of Gomarism in a single Dutch city

inspired more enthusiasm for the moment than the deadly buffet to

European Protestantism could inspire dismay.

The church had been carried and occupied, as it were, by force, as if an

enemy's citadel. It seemed necessary to associate the idea of practical

warfare with a movement which might have been a pacific clerical success.

Barneveld and those who acted with him, while deploring the intolerance

out of which the schism had now grown to maturity, had still hoped for

possible accommodation of the quarrel. They dreaded popular tumults

leading to oppression of the magistracy by the mob or the soldiery and

ending in civil war. But what was wanted by the extreme partisans on

either side was not accommodation but victory.

"Religious differences are causing much trouble and discontents in many

cities," he said. "At Amsterdam there were in the past week two

assemblages of boys and rabble which did not disperse without violence,

crime, and robbery. The brother of Professor Episcopius (Rem Bischop) was

damaged to the amount of several thousands. We are still hoping that some

better means of accommodation may be found."

The calmness with which the Advocate spoke of these exciting and painful

events is remarkable. It was exactly a week before the date of his letter

that this riot had taken place at Amsterdam; very significant in its

nature and nearly tragical in its results. There were no Remonstrant

preachers left in the city, and the people of that persuasion were

excluded from the Communion service. On Sunday morning, 17th February

(1617), a furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop, a highly

respectable and wealthy citizen, brother of the Remonstrant professor

Episcopius, of Leyden. The house, an elegant mansion in one of the

principal streets, was besieged and after an hour's resistance carried by

storm. The pretext of the assault was that Arminian preaching was going

on within its walls, which was not the fact. The mistress of the house,

half clad, attempted to make her escape by the rear of the building, was

pursued by the rabble with sticks and stones, and shrieks of "Kill the

Arminian harlot, strike her dead," until she fortunately found refuge in

the house of a neighbouring carpenter. There the hunted creature fell

insensible on the ground, the master of the house refusing to give her

up, though the maddened mob surged around it, swearing that if the

"Arminian harlot"--as respectable a matron as lived in the city--were not

delivered over to them, they would tear the house to pieces. The hope of

plunder and of killing Rem Bischop himself drew them at last back to his

mansion. It was thoroughly sacked; every portable article of value,

linen, plate, money, furniture, was carried off, the pictures and objects

of art destroyed, the house gutted from top to bottom. A thousand

spectators were looking on placidly at the work of destruction as they

returned from church, many of them with Bible and Psalm-book in their

hands. The master effected his escape over the roof into an adjoining

building. One of the ringleaders, a carpenter by trade, was arrested

carrying an armful of valuable plunder. He was asked by the magistrate

why he had entered the house. "Out of good zeal," he replied; "to help

beat and kill the Arminians who were holding conventicle there." He was

further asked why he hated the Arminians so much. "Are we to suffer such

folk here," he replied, "who preach the vile doctrine that God has

created one man for damnation and another for salvation?"--thus ascribing

the doctrine of the church of which he supposed himself a member to the

Arminians whom he had been plundering and wished to kill.

Rem Bischop received no compensation for the damage and danger; the

general cry in the town being that the money he was receiving from

Barneveld and the King of Spain would make him good even if not a stone

of the house had been left standing. On the following Thursday two elders

of the church council waited upon and informed him that he must in future

abstain from the Communion service.

It may well be supposed that the virtual head of the government liked not

the triumph of mob law, in the name of religion, over the civil

authority. The Advocate was neither democrat nor demagogue. A lawyer, a

magistrate, and a noble, he had but little sympathy with the humbler

classes, which he was far too much in the habit of designating as rabble

and populace. Yet his anger was less against them than against the

priests, the foreigners, the military and diplomatic mischief-makers, by

whom they were set upon to dangerous demonstrations. The old patrician

scorned the arts by which highborn demagogues in that as in every age

affect adulation for inferiors whom they despise. It was his instinct to

protect, and guide the people, in whom he recognized no chartered nor

inherent right to govern. It was his resolve, so long as breath was in

him, to prevent them from destroying life and property and subverting the

government under the leadership of an inflamed priesthood.

It was with this intention, as we have just seen, and in order to avoid

bloodshed, anarchy, and civil war in the streets of every town and

village, that a decisive but in the Advocate's opinion a perfectly legal

step had been taken by the States of Holland. It had become necessary to

empower the magistracies of towns to defend themselves by enrolled troops

against mob violence and against an enforced synod considered by great

lawyers as unconstitutional.

Aerssens resided in Zealand, and the efforts of that ex-ambassador were

unceasing to excite popular animosity against the man he hated and to

trouble the political waters in which no man knew better than he how to

cast the net.

"The States of Zealand," said the Advocate to the ambassador in London,

"have a deputation here about the religious differences, urging the

holding of a National Synod according to the King's letters, to which

some other provinces and some of the cities of Holland incline. The

questions have not yet been defined by a common synod, so that a national

one could make no definition, while the particular synods and clerical

personages are so filled with prejudices and so bound by mutual

engagements of long date as to make one fear an unfruitful issue. We are

occupied upon this point in our assembly of Holland to devise some

compromise and to discover by what means these difficulties may be

brought into a state of tranquillity."

It will be observed that in all these most private and confidential

utterances of the Advocate a tone of extreme moderation, an anxious wish

to save the Provinces from dissensions, dangers, and bloodshed, is

distinctly visible. Never is he betrayed into vindictive, ambitious, or

self-seeking expressions, while sometimes, although rarely, despondent in

mind. Nor was his opposition to a general synod absolute. He was probably

persuaded however, as we have just seen, that it should of necessity be

preceded by provincial ones, both in due regard to the laws of the land

and to the true definition of the points to be submitted to its decision.

He had small hope of a successful result from it.

The British king gave him infinite distress. As towards France so towards

England the Advocate kept steadily before him the necessity of deferring

to powerful sovereigns whose friendship was necessary to the republic he

served, however misguided, perverse, or incompetent those monarchs might

be.

"I had always hoped," he said, "that his Majesty would have adhered to

his original written advice, that such questions as these ought to be

quietly settled by authority of law and not by ecclesiastical persons,

and I still hope that his Majesty's intention is really to that effect,

although he speaks of synods."

A month later he felt even more encouraged. "The last letter of his

Majesty concerning our religious questions," he said, "has given rise to

various constructions, but the best advised, who have peace and unity at

heart, understand the King's intention to be to conserve the state of

these Provinces and the religion in its purity. My hope is that his

Majesty's good opinion will be followed and adopted according to the most

appropriate methods."

Can it be believed that the statesman whose upright patriotism,

moderation, and nobleness of purpose thus breathed through every word

spoken by him in public or whispered to friends was already held up by a

herd of ravening slanderers to obloquy as a traitor and a tyrant?

He was growing old and had suffered much from illness during this

eventful summer, but his anxiety for the Commonwealth, caused by these

distressing and superfluous squabbles, were wearing into him more deeply

than years or disease could do.

"Owing to my weakness and old age I can't go up-stairs as well as I

used," he said,--[Barneveld to Caron 31 July and 21 Aug. 1617. (H. Arch.

MS.)]--"and these religious dissensions cause me sometimes such

disturbance of mind as will ere long become intolerable, because of my

indisposition and because of the cry of my heart at the course people are

pursuing here. I reflect that at the time of Duke Casimir and the Prince

of Chimay exactly such a course was held in Flanders and in Lord

Leicester's time in the city of Utrecht, as is best known to yourself. My

hope is fixed on the Lord God Almighty, and that He will make those well

ashamed who are laying anything to heart save his honour and glory and

the welfare of our country with maintenance of its freedom and laws. I

mean unchangeably to live and die for them . . . . Believe firmly that

all representations to the contrary are vile calumnies."

Before leaving for Vianen in the middle of August of this year (1617) the

Advocate had an interview with the Prince. There had been no open rupture

between them, and Barneveld was most anxious to avoid a quarrel with one

to whose interests and honour he had always been devoted. He did not

cling to power nor office. On the contrary, he had repeatedly importuned

the States to accept his resignation, hoping that perhaps these unhappy

dissensions might be quieted by his removal from the scene. He now told

the Prince that the misunderstanding between them arising from these

religious disputes was so painful to his heart that he would make and had

made every possible effort towards conciliation and amicable settlement

of the controversy. He saw no means now, he said, of bringing about

unity, unless his Excellency were willing to make some proposition for

arrangement. This he earnestly implored the Prince to do, assuring him of

his sincere and upright affection for him and his wish to support such

measures to the best of his ability and to do everything for the

furtherance of his reputation and necessary authority. He was so desirous

of this result, he said, that he would propose now as he did at the time

of the Truce negotiations to lay down all his offices, leaving his

Excellency to guide the whole course of affairs according to his best

judgment. He had already taken a resolution, if no means of accommodation

were possible, to retire to his Gunterstein estate and there remain till

the next meeting of the assembly; when he would ask leave to retire for

at least a year; in order to occupy himself with a revision and collation

of the charters, laws, and other state papers of the country which were

in his keeping, and which it was needful to bring into an orderly

condition. Meantime some scheme might be found for arranging the

religious differences, more effective than any he had been able to

devise.

His appeal seems to have glanced powerlessly upon the iron reticence of

Maurice, and the Advocate took his departure disheartened. Later in the

autumn, so warm a remonstrance was made to him by the leading nobles and

deputies of Holland against his contemplated withdrawal from his post

that it seemed a dereliction of duty on his part to retire. He remained

to battle with the storm and to see "with anguish of heart," as he

expressed it, the course religious affairs were taking.

The States of Utrecht on the 26th August resolved that on account of the

gathering of large masses of troops in the countries immediately

adjoining their borders, especially in the Episcopate of Cologne, by aid

of Spanish money, it was expedient for them to enlist a protective force

of six companies of regular soldiers in order to save the city from

sudden and overwhelming attack by foreign troops.

Even if the danger from without were magnified in this preamble, which is

by no means certain, there seemed to be no doubt on the subject in the

minds of the magistrates. They believed that they had the right to

protect and that they were bound to protect their ancient city from

sudden assault, whether by Spanish soldiers or by organized mobs

attempting, as had been done in Rotterdam, Oudewater, and other towns, to

overawe the civil authority in the interest of the Contra-Remonstrants.

Six nobles of Utrecht were accordingly commissioned to raise the troops.

A week later they had been enlisted, sworn to obey in all things the

States of Utrecht, and to take orders from no one else. Three days later

the States of Utrecht addressed a letter to their Mightinesses the

States-General and to his Excellency the Prince, notifying them that for

the reasons stated in the resolution cited the six companies had been

levied. There seemed in these proceedings to be no thought of mutiny or

rebellion, the province considering itself as acting within its

unquestionable rights as a sovereign state and without any exaggeration

of the imperious circumstances of the case.

Nor did the States-General and the Stadholder at that moment affect to

dispute the rights of Utrecht, nor raise a doubt as to the legality of

the proceedings. The committee sent thither by the States-General, the

Prince, and the council of state in their written answer to the letter of

the Utrecht government declared the reasons given for the enrolment of

the six companies to be insufficient and the measure itself highly

dangerous. They complained, but in very courteous language, that the

soldiers had been levied without giving the least notice thereof to the

general government, without asking its advice, or waiting for any

communication from it, and they reminded the States of Utrecht that they

might always rely upon the States-General and his Excellency, who were

still ready, as they had been seven years before (1610), to protect them

against every enemy and any danger.

The conflict between a single province of the confederacy and the

authority of the general government had thus been brought to a direct

issue; to the test of arms. For, notwithstanding the preamble to the

resolution of the Utrecht Assembly just cited, there could be little

question that the resolve itself was a natural corollary of the famous

"Sharp Resolution," passed by the States of Holland three weeks before.

Utrecht was in arms to prevent, among other things at least, the forcing

upon them by a majority of the States-General of the National Synod to

which they were opposed, the seizure of churches by the

Contra-Remonstrants, and the destruction of life and property by inflamed

mobs.

There is no doubt that Barneveld deeply deplored the issue, but that he

felt himself bound to accept it. The innate absurdity of a constitutional

system under which each of the seven members was sovereign and

independent and the head was at the mercy of the members could not be

more flagrantly illustrated. In the bloody battles which seemed impending

in the streets of Utrecht and in all the principal cities of the

Netherlands between the soldiers of sovereign states and soldiers of a

general government which was not sovereign, the letter of the law and the

records of history were unquestionably on the aide of the provincial and

against the general authority. Yet to nullify the authority of the

States-General by force of arms at this supreme moment was to stultify

all government whatever. It was an awful dilemma, and it is difficult

here fully to sympathize with the Advocate, for he it was who inspired,

without dictating, the course of the Utrecht proceedings.

With him patriotism seemed at this moment to dwindle into provincialism,

the statesman to shrink into the lawyer.

Certainly there was no guilt in the proceedings. There was no crime in

the heart of the Advocate. He had exhausted himself with appeals in

favour of moderation, conciliation, compromise. He had worked night and

day with all the energy of a pure soul and a great mind to assuage

religious hatreds and avert civil dissensions. He was overpowered. He had

frequently desired to be released from all his functions, but as dangers

thickened over the Provinces, he felt it his duty so long as he remained

at his post to abide by the law as the only anchor in the storm. Not

rising in his mind to the height of a national idea, and especially

averse from it when embodied in the repulsive form of religious

uniformity, he did not shrink from a contest which he had not provoked,

but had done his utmost to avert. But even then he did not anticipate

civil war. The enrolling of the Waartgelders was an armed protest, a

symbol of legal conviction rather than a serious effort to resist the

general government. And this is the chief justification of his course

from a political point of view. It was ridiculous to suppose that with a

few hundred soldiers hastily enlisted--and there were less than 1800

Waartgelders levied throughout the Provinces and under the orders of

civil magistrates--a serious contest was intended against a splendidly

disciplined army of veteran troops, commanded by the first general of the

age.

From a legal point of view Barneveld considered his position impregnable.

The controversy is curious, especially for Americans, and for all who are

interested in the analysis of federal institutions and of republican

principles, whether aristocratic or democratic. The States of Utrecht

replied in decorous but firm language to the committee of the

States-General that they had raised the six companies in accordance with

their sovereign right so to do, and that they were resolved to maintain

them. They could not wait as they had been obliged to do in the time of

the Earl of Leicester and more recently in 1610 until they had been

surprised and overwhelmed by the enemy before the States-General and his

Excellency the Prince could come to their rescue. They could not suffer

all the evils of tumults, conspiracies, and foreign invasion, without

defending themselves.

Making use, they said, of the right of sovereignty which in their

province belonged to them alone, they thought it better to prevent in

time and by convenient means such fire and mischief than to look on while

it kindled and spread into a conflagration, and to go about imploring aid

from their fellow confederates who, God better it, had enough in these

times to do at home. This would only be to bring them as well as this

province into trouble, disquiet, and expense. "My Lords the States of

Utrecht have conserved and continually exercised this right of

sovereignty in its entireness ever since renouncing the King of Spain.

Every contract, ordinance, and instruction of the States-General has been

in conformity with it, and the States of Utrecht are convinced that the

States of not one of their confederate provinces would yield an atom of

its sovereignty."

They reminded the general government that by the 1st article of the

"Closer Union" of Utrecht, on which that assembly was founded, it was

bound to support the States of the respective provinces and strengthen

them with counsel, treasure, and blood if their respective rights, more

especially their individual sovereignty, the most precious of all, should

be assailed. To refrain from so doing would be to violate a solemn

contract. They further reminded the council of state that by its

institution the States-Provincial had not abdicated their respective

sovereignties, but had reserved it in all matters not specifically

mentioned in the original instruction by which it was created.

Two days afterwards Arnold van Randwyck and three other commissioners

were instructed by the general government to confer with the States of

Utrecht, to tell them that their reply was deemed unsatisfactory, that

their reasons for levying soldiers in times when all good people should

be seeking to restore harmony and mitigate dissension were insufficient,

and to request them to disband those levies without prejudice in so doing

to the laws and liberties of the province and city of Utrecht.

Here was perhaps an opening for a compromise, the instruction being not

without ingenuity, and the word sovereignty in regard either to the

general government or the separate provinces being carefully omitted.

Soon afterwards, too, the States-General went many steps farther in the

path of concession, for they made another appeal to the government of

Utrecht to disband the Waartgelders on the ground of expediency, and in

so doing almost expressly admitted the doctrine of provincial

sovereignty. It is important in regard to subsequent events to observe

this virtual admission.

"Your Honours lay especial stress upon the right of sovereignty as

belonging to you alone in your province," they said, "and dispute

therefore at great length upon the power and authority of the Generality,

of his Excellency, and of the state council. But you will please to

consider that there is here no question of this, as our commissioners had

no instructions to bring this into dispute in the least, and most

certainly have not done so. We have only in effect questioned whether

that which one has an undoubted right to do can at all times be

appropriately and becomingly done, whether it was fitting that your

Honours, contrary to custom, should undertake these new levies upon a

special oath and commission, and effectively complete the measure without

giving the slightest notice thereof to the Generality."

It may fairly be said that the question in debate was entirely conceded

in this remarkable paper, which was addressed by the States-General, the

Prince-Stadholder, and the council of state to the government of Utrecht.

It should be observed, too, that while distinctly repudiating the

intention of disputing the sovereignty of that province, they carefully

abstain from using the word in relation to themselves, speaking only of

the might and authority of the Generality, the Prince, and the council.

There was now a pause in the public discussion. The soldiers were not

disbanded, as the States of Utrecht were less occupied with establishing

the soundness of their theory than with securing its practical results.

They knew very well, and the Advocate knew very well, that the intention

to force a national synod by a majority vote of the Assembly of the

States-General existed more strongly than ever, and they meant to resist

it to the last. The attempt was in their opinion an audacious violation

of the fundamental pact on which the Confederacy was founded. Its success

would be to establish the sacerdotal power in triumph over the civil

authority.

During this period the Advocate was resident in Utrecht. For change of

air, ostensibly at least, he had absented himself from the seat of

government, and was during several weeks under the hands of his old

friend and physician Dr. Saul. He was strictly advised to abstain

altogether from political business, but he might as well have attempted

to abstain from food and drink. Gillis van Ledenberg, secretary of the

States of Utrecht, visited him frequently. The proposition to enlist the

Waartgelders had been originally made in the Assembly by its president,

and warmly seconded by van Ledenberg, who doubtless conferred afterwards

with Barneveld in person, but informally and at his lodgings.

It was almost inevitable that this should be the case, nor did the

Advocate make much mystery as to the course of action which he deemed

indispensable at this period. Believing it possible that some sudden and

desperate attempt might be made by evil disposed people, he agreed with

the States of Utrecht in the propriety of taking measures of precaution.

They were resolved not to look quietly on while soldiers and rabble under

guidance perhaps of violent Contra-Remonstrant preachers took possession

of the churches and even of the city itself, as had already been done in

several towns.

The chief practical object of enlisting the six companies was that the

city might be armed against popular tumults, and they feared that the

ordinary military force might be withdrawn.

When Captain Hartvelt, in his own name and that of the other officers of

those companies, said that they were all resolved never to use their

weapons against the Stadholder or the States-General, he was answered

that they would never be required to do so. They, however, made oath to

serve against those who should seek to trouble the peace of the Province

of Utrecht in ecclesiastical or political matters, and further against

all enemies of the common country. At the same time it was deemed

expedient to guard against a surprise of any kind and to keep watch and

ward.

"I cannot quite believe in the French companies," said the Advocate in a

private billet to Ledenberg. "It would be extremely well that not only

good watch should be kept at the city gates, but also that one might from

above and below the river Lek be assuredly advised from the nearest

cities if any soldiers are coming up or down, and that the same might be

done in regard to Amersfoort." At the bottom of this letter, which was

destined to become historical and will be afterwards referred to, the

Advocate wrote, as he not unfrequently did, upon his private notes, "When

read, burn, and send me back the two enclosed letters."

The letter lies in the Archives unburned to this day, but, harmless as it

looked, it was to serve as a nail in more than one coffin.

In his confidential letters to trusted friends he complained of "great

physical debility growing out of heavy sorrow," and described himself as

entering upon his seventy-first year and no longer fit for hard political

labour. The sincere grief, profound love of country, and desire that some

remedy might be found for impending disaster, is stamped upon all his

utterances whether official or secret.

"The troubles growing out of the religious differences," he said, "are

running into all sorts of extremities. It is feared that an attempt will

be made against the laws of the land through extraordinary ways, and by

popular tumults to take from the supreme authority of the respective

provinces the right to govern clerical persons and regulate clerical

disputes, and to place it at the disposition of ecclesiastics and of a

National Synod.

"It is thought too that the soldiers will be forbidden to assist the

civil supreme power and the government of cities in defending themselves

from acts of violence which under pretext of religion will be attempted

against the law and the commands of the magistrates.

"This seems to conflict with the common law of the respective provinces,

each of which from all times had right of sovereignty and supreme

authority within its territory and specifically reserved it in all

treaties and especially in that of the Nearer Union . . . . The provinces

have always regulated clerical matters each for itself. The Province of

Utrecht, which under the pretext of religion is now most troubled, made

stipulations to this effect, when it took his Excellency for governor,

even more stringent than any others. As for Holland, she never imagined

that one could ever raise a question on the subject . . . . All good men

ought to do their best to prevent the enemies to the welfare of these

Provinces from making profit out of our troubles."

The whole matter he regarded as a struggle between the clergy and the

civil power for mastery over the state, as an attempt to subject

provincial autonomy to the central government purely in the interest of

the priesthood of a particular sect. The remedy he fondly hoped for was

moderation and union within the Church itself. He could never imagine the

necessity for this ferocious animosity not only between Christians but

between two branches of the Reformed Church. He could never be made to

believe that the Five Points of the Remonstrance had dug an abyss too

deep and wide ever to be bridged between brethren lately of one faith as

of one fatherland. He was unceasing in his prayers and appeals for

"mutual toleration on the subject of predestination." Perhaps the

bitterness, almost amounting to frenzy, with which abstruse points of

casuistry were then debated, and which converted differences of opinion

upon metaphysical divinity into deadly hatred and thirst for blood, is

already obsolete or on the road to become so. If so, then was Barneveld

in advance of his age, and it would have been better for the peace of the

world and the progress of Christianity if more of his contemporaries had

placed themselves on his level.

He was no theologian, but he believed himself to be a Christian, and he

certainly was a thoughtful and a humble one. He had not the arrogance to

pierce behind the veil and assume to read the inscrutable thoughts of the

Omnipotent. It was a cruel fate that his humility upon subjects which he

believed to be beyond the scope of human reason should have been tortured

by his enemies into a crime, and that because he hoped for religious

toleration he should be accused of treason to the Commonwealth.

"Believe and cause others to believe," he said, "that I am and with the

grace of God hope to continue an upright patriot as I have proved myself

to be in these last forty-two years spent in the public service. In the

matter of differential religious points I remain of the opinions which I

have held for more than fifty years, and in which I hope to live and die,

to wit, that a good Christian man ought to believe that he is predestined

to eternal salvation through God's grace, giving for reasons that he

through God's grace has a firm belief that his salvation is founded

purely on God's grace and the expiation of our sins through our Saviour

Jesus Christ, and that if he should fall into any sins his firm trust is

that God will not let him perish in them, but mercifully turn him to

repentance, so that he may continue in the same belief to the last."

These expressions were contained in a letter to Caron with the intention

doubtless that they should be communicated to the King of Great Britain,

and it is a curious illustration of the spirit of the age, this picture

of the leading statesman of a great republic unfolding his religious

convictions for private inspection by the monarch of an allied nation.

More than anything else it exemplifies the close commixture of theology,

politics, and diplomacy in that age, and especially in those two

countries.

Formerly, as we have seen, the King considered a too curious fathoming of

divine mysteries as highly reprehensible, particularly for the common

people. Although he knew more about them than any one else, he avowed

that even his knowledge in this respect was not perfect. It was matter of

deep regret with the Advocate that his Majesty had not held to his former

positions, and that he had disowned his original letters.

"I believe my sentiments thus expressed," he said, "to be in accordance

with Scripture, and I have always held to them without teasing my brains

with the precise decrees of reprobation, foreknowledge, or the like, as

matters above my comprehension. I have always counselled Christian

moderation. The States of Holland have followed the spirit of his

Majesty's letters, but our antagonists have rejected them and with

seditious talk, sermons, and the spreading of infamous libels have

brought matters to their present condition. There have been excesses on

the other side as well."

He then made a slight, somewhat shadowy allusion to schemes known to be

afloat for conferring the sovereignty upon Maurice. We have seen that at

former periods he had entertained this subject and discussed it privately

with those who were not only friendly but devoted to the Stadholder, and

that he had arrived at the conclusion that it would not be for the

interest of the Prince to encourage the project. Above all he was sternly

opposed to the idea of attempting to compass it by secret intrigue.

Should such an arrangement be publicly discussed and legally completed,

it would not meet with his unconditional opposition.

"The Lord God knows," he said, "whether underneath all these movements

does not lie the design of the year 1600, well known to you. As for me,

believe that I am and by God's grace hope to remain, what I always was,

an upright patriot, a defender of the true Christian religion, of the

public authority, and of all the power that has been and in future may be

legally conferred upon his Excellency. Believe that all things said,

written, or spread to the contrary are falsehoods and calumnies."

He was still in Utrecht, but about to leave for the Hague, with health

somewhat improved and in better spirits in regard to public matters.

"Although I have entered my seventy-first year," he said, "I trust still

to be of some service to the Commonwealth and to my friends . . . . Don't

consider an arrangement of our affairs desperate. I hope for better

things."

Soon after his return he was waited upon one Sunday evening, late in

October--being obliged to keep his house on account of continued

indisposition--by a certain solicitor named Nordlingen and informed that

the Prince was about to make a sudden visit to Leyden at four o'clock

next morning.

Barneveld knew that the burgomasters and regents were holding a great

banquet that night, and that many of them would probably have been

indulging in potations too deep to leave them fit for serious business.

The agitation of people's minds at that moment made the visit seem rather

a critical one, as there would probably be a mob collected to see the

Stadholder, and he was anxious both in the interest of the Prince and the

regents and of both religious denominations that no painful incidents

should occur if it was in his power to prevent them.

He was aware that his son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle, had been invited

to the banquet, and that he was wont to carry his wine discreetly. He

therefore requested Nordlingen to proceed to Leyden that night and seek

an interview with van der Myle without delay. By thus communicating the

intelligence of the expected visit to one who, he felt sure, would do his

best to provide for a respectful and suitable reception of the Prince,

notwithstanding the exhilarated condition in which the magistrates would

probably find themselves, the Advocate hoped to prevent any riot or

tumultuous demonstration of any kind. At least he would act conformably

to his duty and keep his conscience clear should disasters ensue.

Later in the night he learned that Maurice was going not to Leyden but to

Delft, and he accordingly despatched a special messenger to arrive before

dawn at Leyden in order to inform van der Myle of this change in the

Prince's movements. Nothing seemed simpler or more judicious than these

precautions on the part of Barneveld. They could not fail, however, to be

tortured into sedition, conspiracy, and treason.

Towards the end of the year a meeting of the nobles and knights of

Holland under the leadership of Barneveld was held to discuss the famous

Sharp Resolution of 4th August and the letters and arguments advanced

against it by the Stadholder and the council of state. It was unanimously

resolved by this body, in which they were subsequently followed by a

large majority of the States of Holland, to maintain that resolution and

its consequences and to oppose the National Synod. They further resolved

that a legal provincial synod should be convoked by the States of Holland

and under their authority and supervision. The object of such synod

should be to devise "some means of accommodation, mutual toleration, and

Christian settlement of differences in regard to the Five Points in

question."

In case such compromise should unfortunately not be arranged, then it was

resolved to invite to the assembly two or three persons from France, as

many from England, from Germany, and from Switzerland, to aid in the

consultations. Should a method of reconciliation and mutual toleration

still remain undiscovered, then, in consideration that the whole

Christian world was interested in composing these dissensions, it was

proposed that a "synodal assembly of all Christendom," a Protestant

oecumenical council, should in some solemn manner be convoked.

These resolutions and propositions were all brought forward by the

Advocate, and the draughts of them in his handwriting remain. They are

the unimpeachable evidences of his earnest desire to put an end to these

unhappy disputes and disorders in the only way which he considered

constitutional.

Before the close of the year the States of Holland, in accordance with

the foregoing advice of the nobles, passed a resolution, the minutes of

which were drawn up by the hand of the Advocate, and in which they

persisted in their opposition to the National Synod. They declared by a

large majority of votes that the Assembly of the States-General without

the unanimous consent of the Provincial States were not competent

according to the Union of Utrecht--the fundamental law of the General

Assembly--to regulate religious affairs, but that this right belonged to

the separate provinces, each within its own domain.

They further resolved that as they were bound by solemn oath to maintain

the laws and liberties of Holland, they could not surrender this right to

the Generality, nor allow it to be usurped by any one, but in order to

settle the question of the Five Points, the only cause known to them of

the present disturbances, they were content under: their own authority to

convoke a provincial synod within three months, at their own cost, and to

invite the respective provinces, as many of them as thought good, to send

to this meeting a certain number of pious and learned theologians.

It is difficult to see why the course thus unanimously proposed by the

nobles of Holland, under guidance of Barneveld, and subsequently by a

majority of the States of that province, would not have been as expedient

as it was legal. But we are less concerned with that point now than with

the illustrations afforded by these long buried documents of the

patriotism and sagacity of a man than whom no human creature was ever

more foully slandered.

It will be constantly borne in mind that he regarded this religious

controversy purely from a political, legal, and constitutional--and not

from a theological-point of view. He believed that grave danger to the

Fatherland was lurking under this attempt, by the general government, to

usurp the power of dictating the religious creed of all the provinces.

Especially he deplored the evil influence exerted by the King of England

since his abandonment of the principles announced in his famous letter to

the States in the year 1613. All that the Advocate struggled for was

moderation and mutual toleration within the Reformed Church. He felt that

a wider scheme of forbearance was impracticable. If a dream of general

religious equality had ever floated before him or before any one in that

age, he would have felt it to be a dream which would be a reality nowhere

until centuries should have passed away. Yet that moderation, patience,

tolerance, and respect for written law paved the road to that wider and

loftier region can scarcely be doubted.

Carleton, subservient to every changing theological whim of his master,

was as vehement and as insolent now in enforcing the intolerant views of

James as he had previously been in supporting the counsels to tolerance

contained in the original letters of that monarch.

The Ambassador was often at the Advocate's bed-side during his illness

that summer, enforcing, instructing, denouncing, contradicting. He was

never weary of fulfilling his duties of tuition, but the patient

Barneveld; haughty and overbearing as he was often described to be,

rarely used a harsh or vindictive word regarding him in his letters.

"The ambassador of France," he said, "has been heard before the Assembly

of the States-General, and has made warm appeals in favour of union and

mutual toleration as his Majesty of Great Britain so wisely did in his

letters of 1613 . . . . If his Majesty could only be induced to write

fresh letters in similar tone, I should venture to hope better fruits

from them than from this attempt to thrust a national synod upon our

necks, which many of us hold to be contrary to law, reason, and the Act

of Union."

So long as it was possible to hope that the action of the States of

Holland would prevent such a catastrophe, he worked hard to direct them

in what he deemed the right course.

"Our political and religious differences," he said, "stand between hope

and fear."

The hope was in the acceptance of the Provincial Synod--the fear lest the

National Synod should be carried by a minority of the cities of Holland

combining with a majority of the other Provincial States.

"This would be in violation," he said, "of the so-called Religious Peace,

the Act of Union, the treaty with the Duke of Anjou, the negotiations of

the States of Utrecht, and with Prince Maurice in 1590 with cognizance of

the States-General and those of Holland for, the governorship of that

province, the custom of the Generality for the last thirty years

according to which religious matters have always been left to the

disposition of the States of each province . . . . Carleton is

strenuously urging this course in his Majesty's name, and I fear that in

the present state of our humours great troubles will be the result."

The expulsion by an armed mob, in the past year, of a Remonstrant

preacher at Oudewater, the overpowering of the magistracy and the forcing

on of illegal elections in that and other cities, had given him and all

earnest patriots grave cause for apprehension. They were dreading, said

Barneveld, a course of crimes similar to those which under the Earl of

Leicester's government had afflicted Leyden and Utrecht.

"Efforts are incessant to make the Remonstrants hateful," he said to

Caron, "but go forward resolutely and firmly in the conviction that our

friends here are as animated in their opposition to the Spanish dominion

now and by God's grace will so remain as they have ever proved themselves

to be, not only by words, but works. I fear that Mr. Carleton gives too

much belief to the enviers of our peace and tranquillity under pretext of

religion, but it is more from ignorance than malice."

Those who have followed the course of the Advocate's correspondence,

conversation, and actions, as thus far detailed, can judge of the

gigantic nature of the calumny by which he was now assailed. That this

man, into every fibre of whose nature was woven undying hostility to

Spain, as the great foe to national independence and religious liberty

throughout the continent of Europe, whose every effort, as we have seen,

during all these years of nominal peace had been to organize a system of

general European defence against the war now actually begun upon

Protestantism, should be accused of being a partisan of Spain, a creature

of Spain, a pensioner of Spain, was enough to make honest men pray that

the earth might be swallowed up. If such idiotic calumnies could be

believed, what patriot in the world could not be doubted? Yet they were

believed. Barneveld was bought by Spanish gold. He had received whole

boxes full of Spanish pistoles, straight from Brussels! For his part in

the truce negotiations he had received 120,000 ducats in one lump.

"It was plain," said the greatest man in the country to another great

man, "that Barneveld and his party are on the road to Spain."

"Then it were well to have proof of it," said the great man.

"Not yet time," was the reply. "We must flatten out a few of them first."

Prince Maurice had told the Princess-Dowager the winter before (8th

December 1616) that those dissensions would never be decided except by

use of weapons; and he now mentioned to her that he had received

information from Brussels, which he in part believed, that the Advocate

was a stipendiary of Spain. Yet he had once said, to the same Princess

Louise, of this stipendiary that "the services which the Advocate had

rendered to the House of Nassau were so great that all the members of

that house might well look upon him not as their friend but their

father." Councillor van Maldere, President of the States of Zealand, and

a confidential friend of Maurice, was going about the Hague saying that

"one must string up seven or eight Remonstrants on the gallows; then

there might be some improvement."

As for Arminius and Uytenbogaert, people had long told each other and

firmly believed it, and were amazed when any incredulity was expressed in

regard to it, that they were in regular and intimate correspondence with

the Jesuits, that they had received large sums from Rome, and that both

had been promised cardinals' hats. That Barneveld and his friend

Uytenbogaert were regular pensioners of Spain admitted of no dispute

whatever. "It was as true as the Holy Evangel." The ludicrous chatter had

been passed over with absolute disdain by the persons attacked, but

calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain. It

proved to be in these cases.

"You have the plague mark on your flesh, oh pope, oh pensioner," said one

libeller. "There are letters safely preserved to make your process for

you. Look out for your head. Many have sworn your death, for it is more

than time that you were out of the world. We shall prove, oh great bribed

one, that you had the 120,000 little ducats." The preacher Uytenbogaert

was also said to have had 80,000 ducats for his share. "Go to Brussels,"

said the pamphleteer; "it all stands clearly written out on the register

with the names and surnames of all you great bribe-takers."

These were choice morsels from the lampoon of the notary Danckaerts.

"We are tortured more and more with religious differences," wrote

Barneveld; "with acts of popular violence growing out of them the more

continuously as they remain unpunished, and with ever increasing

jealousies and suspicions. The factious libels become daily more numerous

and more impudent, and no man comes undamaged from the field. I, as a

reward for all my troubles, labours, and sorrows, have three double

portions of them. I hope however to overcome all by God's grace and to

defend my actions with all honourable men so long as right and reason

have place in the world, as to which many begin to doubt. If his Majesty

had been pleased to stick to the letters of 1613, we should never have

got into these difficulties . . . . It were better in my opinion that

Carleton should be instructed to negotiate in the spirit of those

epistles rather than to torment us with the National Synod, which will do

more harm than good."

It is impossible not to notice the simplicity and patience with which the

Advocate, in the discharge of his duty as minister of foreign affairs,

kept the leading envoys of the Republic privately informed of events

which were becoming day by day more dangerous to the public interests and

his own safety. If ever a perfectly quiet conscience was revealed in the

correspondence of a statesman, it was to be found in these letters.

Calmly writing to thank Caron for some very satisfactory English beer

which the Ambassador had been sending him from London, he proceeded to

speak again of the religious dissensions and their consequences. He sent

him the letter and remonstrance which he had felt himself obliged to

make, and which he had been urged by his ever warm and constant friend

the widow of William the Silent to make on the subject of "the seditious

libels, full of lies and calumnies got up by conspiracy against him."

These letters were never published, however, until years after he had

been in his grave.

"I know that you are displeased with the injustice done me," he said,

"but I see no improvement. People are determined to force through the

National Synod. The two last ones did much harm. This will do ten times

more, so intensely embittered are men's tempers against each other."

Again he deplored the King's departure from his letters of 1613, by

adherence to which almost all the troubles would have been spared.

It is curious too to observe the contrast between public opinion in Great

Britain, including its government, in regard to the constitution of the

United Provinces at that period of domestic dissensions and incipient

civil war and the general impressions manifested in the same nation two

centuries and a half later, on the outbreak of the slavery rebellion, as

to the constitution of the United States.

The States in arms against the general government on the other side of

the Atlantic were strangely but not disingenuously assumed to be

sovereign and independent, and many statesmen and a leading portion of

the public justified them in their attempt to shake off the central

government as if it were but a board of agency established by treaty and

terminable at pleasure of any one of among sovereigns and terminable at

pleasure of any one of them.

Yet even a superficial glance at the written constitution of the Republic

showed that its main object was to convert what had been a confederacy

into an Incorporation; and that the very essence of its renewed political

existence was an organic law laid down by a whole people in their

primitive capacity in place of a league banding together a group of

independent little corporations. The chief attributes of sovereignty--the

rights of war and peace, of coinage, of holding armies and navies, of

issuing bills of credit, of foreign relations, of regulating and taxing

foreign commerce--having been taken from the separate States by the

united people thereof and bestowed upon a government provided with a

single executive head, with a supreme tribunal, with a popular house of

representatives and a senate, and with power to deal directly with the

life and property of every individual in the land, it was strange indeed

that the feudal, and in America utterly unmeaning, word Sovereign should

have been thought an appropriate term for the different States which had

fused themselves three-quarters of a century before into a Union.

When it is remembered too that the only dissolvent of this Union was the

intention to perpetuate human slavery, the logic seemed somewhat perverse

by which the separate sovereignty of the States was deduced from the

constitution of 1787.

On the other hand, the Union of Utrecht of 1579 was a league of petty

sovereignties; a compact less binding and more fragile than the Articles

of Union made almost exactly two hundred years later in America, and the

worthlessness of which, after the strain of war was over, had been

demonstrated in the dreary years immediately following the peace of 1783.

One after another certain Netherland provinces had abjured their

allegiance to Spain, some of them afterwards relapsing under it, some

having been conquered by the others, while one of them, Holland, had for

a long time borne the greater part of the expense and burthen of the war.

"Holland," said the Advocate, "has brought almost all the provinces to

their liberty. To receive laws from them or from their clerical people

now is what our State cannot endure. It is against her laws and customs,

in the enjoyment of which the other provinces and his Excellency as

Governor of Holland are bound to protect us."

And as the preservation of chattel slavery in the one case seemed a

legitimate ground for destroying a government which had as definite an

existence as any government known to mankind, so the resolve to impose a

single religious creed upon many millions of individuals was held by the

King and government of Great Britain to be a substantial reason for

imagining a central sovereignty which had never existed at all. This was

still more surprising as the right to dispose of ecclesiastical affairs

and persons had been expressly reserved by the separate provinces in

perfectly plain language in the Treaty of Union.

"If the King were better informed," said Barneveld, "of our system and

laws, we should have better hope than now. But one supposes through

notorious error in foreign countries that the sovereignty stands with the

States-General which is not the case, except in things which by the

Articles of Closer Union have been made common to all the provinces,

while in other matters, as religion, justice, and polity, the sovereignty

remains with each province, which foreigners seem unable to comprehend."

Early in June, Carleton took his departure for England on leave of

absence. He received a present from the States of 3000 florins, and went

over in very ill-humour with Barneveld. "Mr. Ambassador is much offended

and prejudiced," said the Advocate, "but I know that he will religiously

carry out the orders of his Majesty. I trust that his Majesty can admit

different sentiments on predestination and its consequences, and that in

a kingdom where the supreme civil authority defends religion the system

of the Puritans will have no foothold."

Certainly James could not be accused of allowing the system of the

Puritans much foothold in England, but he had made the ingenious

discovery that Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from

Puritanism in the Netherlands.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Acts of violence which under pretext of religion

Adulation for inferiors whom they despise

Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain

Created one child for damnation and another for salvation

Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink

Devote himself to his gout and to his fair young wife

Furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop

Highborn demagogues in that as in every age affect adulation

In this he was much behind his age or before it

Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves

Necessity of deferring to powerful sovereigns

Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed

Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory

Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England

Seemed bent on self-destruction

Stand between hope and fear

The evils resulting from a confederate system of government

To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry

THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND

WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR

By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.

Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v9, 1618

CHAPTER XVI.

Maurice revolutionizes the Provinces--Danckaert's libellous Pamphlet

--Barneveld's Appeal to the Prince--Barneveld'a Remonstrance to the

States--The Stadholder at Amsterdam--The Treaty of Truce nearly

expired--King of Spain and Archduke Albert--Scheme for recovering

the Provinces--Secret Plot to make Maurice Sovereign.

Early in the year (1618) Maurice set himself about revolutionizing the

provinces on which he could not yet thoroughly rely. The town of Nymegen

since its recovery from the Spaniards near the close of the preceding

century had held its municipal government, as it were, at the option of

the Prince. During the war he had been, by the terms of surrender,

empowered to appoint and to change its magistracy at will. No change had

occurred for many years, but as the government had of late fallen into

the hands of the Barneveldians, and as Maurice considered the Truce to be

a continuance of the war, he appeared suddenly, in the city at the head

of a body of troops and surrounded by his lifeguard. Summoning the whole

board of magistrates into the townhouse, he gave them all notice to quit,

disbanding them like a company of mutinous soldiery, and immediately

afterwards appointed a fresh list of functionaries in their stead.

This done, he proceeded to Arnhem, where the States of Gelderland were in

session, appeared before that body, and made a brief announcement of the

revolution which he had so succinctly effected in the most considerable

town of their province. The Assembly, which seems, like many other

assemblies at precisely this epoch, to have had an extraordinary capacity

for yielding to gentle violence, made but little resistance to the

extreme measures now undertaken by the Stadholder, and not only highly

applauded the subjugation of Nymegen, but listened with sympathy to his

arguments against the Waartgelders and in favour of the Synod.

Having accomplished so much by a very brief visit to Gelderland, the

Prince proceeded, to Overyssel, and had as little difficulty in bringing

over the wavering minds of that province into orthodoxy and obedience.

Thus there remained but two provinces out of seven that were still

"waartgeldered" and refused to be "synodized."

It was rebellion against rebellion. Maurice and his adherents accused the

States' right party of mutiny against himself and the States-General. The

States' right party accused the Contra-Remonstrants in the cities of

mutiny against the lawful sovereignty of each province.

The oath of the soldiery, since the foundation of the Republic, had been

to maintain obedience and fidelity to the States-General, the Stadholder,

and the province in which they were garrisoned, and at whose expense they

were paid. It was impossible to harmonize such conflicting duties and

doctrines. Theory had done its best and its worst. The time was fast

approaching, as it always must approach, when fact with its violent besom

would brush away the fine-spun cobwebs which had been so long

undisturbed.

"I will grind the Advocate and all his party into fine meal," said the

Prince on one occasion.

A clever caricature of the time represented a pair of scales hung up in a

great hall. In the one was a heap of parchments, gold chains, and

magisterial robes; the whole bundle being marked the "holy right of each

city." In the other lay a big square, solid, ironclasped volume, marked

"Institutes of Calvin." Each scale was respectively watched by Gomarus

and by Arminius. The judges, gowned, furred, and ruffed, were looking

decorously on, when suddenly the Stadholder, in full military attire, was

seen rushing into the apartment and flinging his sword into the scale

with the Institutes.

The civic and legal trumpery was of course made to kick the beam.

Maurice had organized his campaign this year against the Advocate and his

party as deliberately as he had ever arranged the details of a series of

battles and sieges against the Spaniard. And he was proving himself as

consummate master in political strife as in the great science of war.

He no longer made any secret of his conviction that Barneveld was a

traitor to his country, bought with Spanish gold. There was not the

slightest proof for these suspicions, but he asserted them roundly. "The

Advocate is travelling straight to Spain," he said to Count Cuylenborg.

"But we will see who has got the longest purse."

And as if it had been a part of the campaign, a prearranged diversion to

the more direct and general assault on the entrenchments of the States'

right party, a horrible personal onslaught was now made from many

quarters upon the Advocate. It was an age of pamphleteering, of venomous,

virulent, unscrupulous libels. And never even in that age had there been

anything to equal the savage attacks upon this great statesman. It moves

the gall of an honest man, even after the lapse of two centuries and a

half, to turn over those long forgotten pages and mark the depths to

which political and theological party spirit could descend. That human

creatures can assimilate themselves so closely to the reptile, and to the

subtle devil within the reptile, when a party end is to be gained is

enough to make the very name of man a term of reproach.

Day by day appeared pamphlets, each one more poisonous than its

predecessor. There was hardly a crime that was not laid at the door of

Barneveld and all his kindred. The man who had borne a matchlock in early

youth against the foreign tyrant in days when unsuccessful rebellion

meant martyrdom and torture; who had successfully guided the councils of

the infant commonwealth at a period when most of his accusers were in

their cradles, and when mistake was ruin to the republic; he on whose

strong arm the father of his country had leaned for support; the man who

had organized a political system out of chaos; who had laid down the

internal laws, negotiated the great indispensable alliances, directed the

complicated foreign policy, established the system of national defence,

presided over the successful financial administration of a state

struggling out of mutiny into national existence; who had rocked the

Republic in its cradle and ever borne her in his heart; who had made her

name beloved at home and honoured and dreaded abroad; who had been the

first, when the great Taciturn had at last fallen a victim to the

murderous tyrant of Spain, to place the youthful Maurice in his father's

place, and to inspire the whole country with sublime courage to persist

rather than falter in purpose after so deadly a blow; who was as truly

the founder of the Republic as William had been the author of its

independence,--was now denounced as a traitor, a pope, a tyrant, a venal

hucksterer of his country's liberties. His family name, which had long

been an ancient and knightly one, was defiled and its nobility disputed;

his father and mother, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, accused

of every imaginable and unimaginable crime, of murder, incest, robbery,

bastardy, fraud, forgery, blasphemy. He had received waggon-loads of

Spanish pistoles; he had been paid 120,000 ducats by Spain for

negotiating the Truce; he was in secret treaty with Archduke Albert to

bring 18,000 Spanish mercenaries across the border to defeat the

machinations of Prince Maurice, destroy his life, or drive him from the

country; all these foul and bitter charges and a thousand similar ones

were rained almost daily upon that grey head.

One day the loose sheets of a more than commonly libellous pamphlet were

picked up in the streets of the Hague and placed in the Advocate's hands.

It was the work of the drunken notary Danckaerts already mentioned, then

resident in Amsterdam, and among the papers thus found was a list of

wealthy merchants of that city who had contributed to the expense of its

publication. The opposition of Barneveld to the West India Corporation

could never be forgiven. The Advocate was notified in this production

that he was soon to be summoned to answer for his crimes. The country was

weary of him, he was told, and his life was forfeited.

Stung at last beyond endurance by the persistent malice of his enemies,

he came before the States of Holland for redress. Upon his remonstrance

the author of this vile libel was summoned to answer before the upper

tribunal at the Hague for his crime. The city of Amsterdam covered him

with the shield 'de non evocando,' which had so often in cases of less

consequence proved of no protective value, and the notary was never

punished, but on the contrary after a brief lapse of time rewarded as for

a meritorious action.

Meantime, the States of Holland, by formal act, took the name and honour

of Barneveld under their immediate protection as a treasure belonging

specially to themselves. Heavy penalties were denounced upon the authors

and printers of these libellous attacks, and large rewards offered for

their detection. Nothing came, however, of such measures.

On the 24th April the Advocate addressed a frank, dignified, and

conciliatory letter to the Prince. The rapid progress of calumny against

him had at last alarmed even his steadfast soul, and he thought it best

to make a last appeal to the justice and to the clear intellect of

William the Silent's son.

"Gracious Prince," he said, "I observe to my greatest sorrow an entire

estrangement of your Excellency from me, and I fear lest what was said

six months since by certain clerical persons and afterwards by some

politicians concerning your dissatisfaction with me, which until now I

have not been able to believe, must be true. I declare nevertheless with

a sincere heart to have never willingly given cause for any such feeling;

having always been your very faithful servant and with God's help hoping

as such to die. Ten years ago during the negotiations for the Truce I

clearly observed the beginning of this estrangement, but your Excellency

will be graciously pleased to remember that I declared to you at that

time my upright and sincere intention in these negotiations to promote

the service of the country and the interests of your Excellency, and that

I nevertheless offered at the time not only to resign all my functions

but to leave the country rather than remain in office and in the country

to the dissatisfaction of your Excellency."

He then rapidly reviewed the causes which had produced the alienation of

which he complained and the melancholy divisions caused by the want of

mutual religious toleration in the Provinces; spoke of his efforts to

foster a spirit of conciliation on the dread subject of predestination,

and referred to the letter of the King of Great Britain deprecating

discussion and schism on this subject, and urging that those favourable

to the views of the Remonstrants ought not to be persecuted. Referring to

the intimate relations which Uytenbogaert had so long enjoyed with the

Prince, the Advocate alluded to the difficulty he had in believing that

his Excellency intended to act in opposition to the efforts of the States

of Holland in the cause of mutual toleration, to the manifest detriment

of the country and of many of its best and truest patriots and the

greater number of the magistrates in all the cities.

He reminded the Prince that all attempts to accommodate these fearful

quarrels had been frustrated, and that on his departure the previous year

to Utrecht on account of his health he had again offered to resign all

his offices and to leave Holland altogether rather than find himself in

perpetual opposition to his Excellency.

"I begged you in such case," he said, "to lend your hand to the procuring

for me an honourable discharge from My Lords the States, but your

Excellency declared that you could in no wise approve such a step and

gave me hope that some means of accommodating the dissensions would yet

be proposed."

"I went then to Vianen, being much indisposed; thence I repaired to

Utrecht to consult my old friend Doctor Saulo Saul, in whose hands I

remained six weeks, not being able, as I hoped, to pass my seventieth

birthday on the 24th September last in my birthplace, the city of

Amersfoort. All this time I heard not one single word or proposal of

accommodation. On the contrary it was determined that by a majority vote,

a thing never heard of before, it was intended against the solemn

resolves of the States of Holland, of Utrecht, and of Overyssel to bring

these religious differences before the Assembly of My Lords the

States-General, a proceeding directly in the teeth of the Act of Union

and other treaties, and before a Synod which people called National, and

that meantime every effort was making to discredit all those who stood up

for the laws of these Provinces and to make them odious and despicable in

the eyes of the common people.

"Especially it was I that was thus made the object of hatred and contempt

in their eyes. Hundreds of lies and calumnies, circulated in the form of

libels, seditious pamphlets, and lampoons, compelled me to return from

Utrecht to the Hague. Since that time I have repeatedly offered my

services to your Excellency for the promotion of mutual accommodation and

reconciliation of differences, but without success."

He then alluded to the publication with which the country was ringing,

'The Necessary and Living Discourse of a Spanish Counsellor', and which

was attributed to his former confidential friend, now become his

deadliest foe, ex-Ambassador Francis Aerssens, and warned the Prince that

if he chose, which God forbid, to follow the advice of that seditious

libel, nothing but ruin to the beloved Fatherland and its lovers, to the

princely house of Orange-Nassau and to the Christian religion could be

the issue. "The Spanish government could desire no better counsel," he

said, "than this which these fellows give you; to encourage distrust and

estrangement between your Excellency and the nobles, the cities, and the

magistrates of the land and to propose high and haughty imaginings which

are easy enough to write, but most difficult to practise, and which can

only enure to the advantage of Spain. Therefore most respectfully I beg

your Excellency not to believe these fellows, but to reject their

counsels . . . . Among them are many malignant hypocrites and ambitious

men who are seeking their own profit in these changes of government--many

utterly ragged and beggarly fellows and many infamous traitors coming

from the provinces which have remained under the dominion of the

Spaniard, and who are filled with revenge, envy, and jealousy at the

greater prosperity and bloom of these independent States than they find

at home.

"I fear," he said in conclusion, "that I have troubled your Excellency

too long, but to the fulfilment of my duty and discharge of my conscience

I could not be more brief. It saddens me deeply that in recompense for my

long and manifold services I am attacked by so many calumnious, lying,

seditious, and fraudulent libels, and that these indecencies find their

pretext and their food in the evil disposition of your Excellency towards

me. And although for one-and-thirty years long I have been able to live

down such things with silence, well-doing, and truth, still do I now find

myself compelled in this my advanced old age and infirmity to make some

utterances in defence of myself and those belonging to me, however much

against my heart and inclinations."

He ended by enclosing a copy of the solemn state paper which he was about

to lay before the States of Holland in defence of his honour, and

subscribed himself the lifelong and faithful servant of the Prince.

The Remonstrance to the States contained a summary review of the

political events of his life, which was indeed nothing more nor less than

the history of his country and almost of Europe itself during that

period, broadly and vividly sketched with the hand of a master. It was

published at once and strengthened the affection of his friends and the

wrath of his enemies. It is not necessary to our purpose to reproduce or

even analyse the document, the main facts and opinions contained in it

being already familiar to the reader. The frankness however with which,

in reply to the charges so profusely brought against him of having grown

rich by extortion, treason, and corruption, of having gorged himself with

plunder at home and bribery from the enemy, of being the great pensioner

of Europe and the Marshal d'Ancre of the Netherlands--he alluded to the

exact condition of his private affairs and the growth and sources of his

revenue, giving, as it were, a kind of schedule of his property, has in

it something half humorous, half touching in its simplicity.

He set forth the very slender salaries attached to his high offices of

Advocate of Holland, Keeper of the Seals, and other functions. He

answered the charge that he always had at his disposition 120,000 florins

to bribe foreign agents withal by saying that his whole allowance for

extraordinary expenses and trouble in maintaining his diplomatic and

internal correspondence was exactly 500 florins yearly. He alluded to the

slanders circulated as to his wealth and its sources by those who envied

him for his position and hated him for his services.

"But I beg you to believe, My Lords," he continued, "that my property is

neither so great nor so small as some people represent it to be.

"In the year '75 I married my wife," he said. "I was pleased with her

person. I was likewise pleased with the dowry which was promptly paid

over to me, with firm expectation of increase and betterment . . . . I ac

knowledge that forty-three years ago my wife and myself had got together

so much of real and personal property that we could live honourably upon

it. I had at that time as good pay and practice as any advocate in the

courts which brought me in a good 4000 florins a year; there being but

eight advocates practising at the time, of whom I was certainly not the

one least employed. In the beginning of the year '77 I came into the

service of the city of Rotterdam as 'Pensionary. Upon my salary from that

town I was enabled to support my family, having then but two children.

Now I can clearly prove that between the years 1577 and 1616 inclusive I

have inherited in my own right or that of my wife, from our relatives,

for ourselves and our children by lawful succession, more than 400

Holland morgens of land (about 800 acres), more than 2000 florins yearly

of redeemable rents, a good house in the city of Delft, some houses in

the open country, and several thousand florins in ready money. I have

likewise reclaimed in the course of the past forty years out of the water

and swamps by dyking more than an equal number of acres to those

inherited, and have bought and sold property during the same period to

the value of 800,000 florins; having sometimes bought 100,000 florins'

worth and sold 60,000 of it for 160,000, and so on."

It was evident that the thrifty Advocate during his long life had

understood how to turn over his money, and it was not necessary to

imagine "waggon-loads of Spanish pistoles" and bribes on a gigantic scale

from the hereditary enemy in order to account for a reasonable opulence

on his part.

"I have had nothing to do with trade," he continued, "it having been the

custom of my ancestors to risk no money except where the plough goes. In

the great East India Company however, which with four years of hard work,

public and private, I have helped establish, in order to inflict damage

on the Spaniards and Portuguese, I have adventured somewhat more than

5000 florins . . . . Now even if my condition be reasonably good, I think

no one has reason to envy me. Nevertheless I have said it in your

Lordships' Assembly, and I repeat it solemnly on this occasion, that I

have pondered the state of my affairs during my recent illness and found

that in order to leave my children unencumbered estates I must sell

property to the value of 60,000 or 70,000 florins. This I would rather do

than leave the charge to my children. That I should have got thus

behindhand through bad management, I beg your Highnesses not to believe.

But I have inherited, with the succession of four persons whose only heir

I was and with that of others to whom I was co-heir, many burthens as

well. I have bought property with encumbrances, and I have dyked and

bettered several estates with borrowed money. Now should it please your

Lordships to institute a census and valuation of the property of your

subjects, I for one should be very well pleased. For I know full well

that those who in the estimates of capital in the year 1599 rated

themselves at 50,000 or 60,000 florins now may boast of having twice as

much property as I have. Yet in that year out of patriotism I placed

myself on the list of those liable for the very highest contributions,

being assessed on a property of 200,000 florins."

The Advocate alluded with haughty contempt to the notorious lies

circulated by his libellers in regard to his lineage, as if the vast

services and unquestioned abilities of such a statesman would not have

illustrated the obscurest origin. But as he happened to be of ancient and

honourable descent, he chose to vindicate his position in that regard.

"I was born in the city of Amersfoort," he said, "by the father's side an

Oldenbarneveld; an old and noble race, from generation to generation

steadfast and true; who have been duly summoned for many hundred years to

the assembly of the nobles of their province as they are to this day. By

my mother's side I am sprung from the ancient and knightly family of

Amersfoort, which for three or four hundred years has been known as

foremost among the nobles of Utrecht in all state affairs and as landed

proprietors."

It is only for the sake of opening these domestic and private lights upon

an historical character whose life was so pre-eminently and almost

exclusively a public one that we have drawn some attention to this

stately defence made by the Advocate of his birth, life, and services to

the State. The public portions of the state paper belong exclusively to

history, and have already been sufficiently detailed.

The letter to Prince Maurice was delivered into his hands by Cornelis van

der Myle, son-in-law of Barneveld.

No reply to it was ever sent, but several days afterwards the Stadholder

called from his open window to van der Myle, who happened to be passing

by. He then informed him that he neither admitted the premises nor the

conclusion of the Advocate's letter, saying that many things set down in

it were false. He furthermore told him a story of a certain old man who,

having in his youth invented many things and told them often for truth,

believed them when he came to old age to be actually true and was ever

ready to stake his salvation upon them. Whereupon he shut the window and

left van der Myle to make such application of the parable as he thought

proper, vouchsafing no further answer to Barneveld's communication.

Dudley Carleton related the anecdote to his government with much glee,

but it may be doubted whether this bold way of giving the lie to a

venerable statesman through his son-in-law would have been accounted as

triumphant argumentation anywhere out of a barrack.

As for the Remonstrance to the States of Holland, although most

respectfully received in that assembly except by the five opposition

cities, its immediate effect on the public was to bring down a fresh

"snow storm"--to use the expression of a contemporary--of pamphlets,

libels, caricatures, and broadsheets upon the head of the Advocate. In

every bookseller's and print shop window in all the cities of the

country, the fallen statesman was represented in all possible ludicrous,

contemptible, and hateful shapes, while hags and blind beggars about the

streets screeched filthy and cursing ballads against him, even at his

very doors.

The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny has rarely been more

strikingly illustrated than in the case of this statesman. Blackened

daily all over by a thousand trowels, the purest and noblest character

must have been defiled, and it is no wonder that the incrustation upon

the Advocate's fame should have lasted for two centuries and a half. It

may perhaps endure for as many more: Not even the vile Marshal d'Ancre,

who had so recently perished, was more the mark of obloquy in a country

which he had dishonoured, flouted, and picked to the bone than was

Barneveld in a commonwealth which he had almost created and had served

faithfully from youth to old age. It was even the fashion to compare him

with Concini in order to heighten the wrath of the public, as if any

parallel between the ignoble, foreign paramour of a stupid and sensual

queen, and the great statesman, patriot, and jurist of whom civilization

will be always proud, could ever enter any but an idiot's brain.

Meantime the Stadholder, who had so successfully handled the Assembly of

Gelderland and Overyssel, now sailed across the Zuiderzee from Kampen to

Amsterdam. On his approach to the stately northern Venice, standing full

of life and commercial bustle upon its vast submerged forest of Norwegian

pines, he was met by a fleet of yachts and escorted through the water

gates of the into the city.

Here an immense assemblage of vessels of every class, from the humble

gondola to the bulky East Indianian and the first-rate ship of war, gaily

bannered with the Orange colours and thronged from deck to topmast by

enthusiastic multitudes, was waiting to receive their beloved stadholder.

A deafening cannonade saluted him on his approach. The Prince was

escorted to the Square or Dam, where on a high scaffolding covered with

blue velvet in front of the stately mediaeval town-hall the burgomasters

and board of magistrates in their robes of office were waiting to receive

him. The strains of that most inspiriting and suggestive of national

melodies, the 'Wilhelmus van Nassouwen,' rang through the air, and when

they were silent, the chief magistrate poured forth a very eloquent and

tedious oration, and concluded by presenting him with a large orange in

solid gold; Maurice having succeeded to the principality a few months

before on the death of his half-brother Philip William.

The "Blooming in Love," as one of the Chambers of "Rhetoric" in which

the hard-handed but half-artistic mechanics and shopkeepers of the

Netherlands loved to disport themselves was called, then exhibited upon

an opposite scaffold a magnificent representation of Jupiter astride upon

an eagle and banding down to the Stadholder as if from the clouds that

same principality. Nothing could be neater or more mythological.

The Prince and his escort, sitting in the windows of the town-hall, the

square beneath being covered with 3000 or 4000 burgher militia in full

uniform, with orange plumes in their hats and orange scarves on their

breasts, saw still other sights. A gorgeous procession set forth by the

"Netherlandish Academy," another chamber of rhetoric, and filled with

those emblematic impersonations so dear to the hearts of Netherlanders,

had been sweeping through all the canals and along the splendid quays of

the city. The Maid of Holland, twenty feet high, led the van, followed by

the counterfeit presentment of each of her six sisters. An orange tree

full of flowers and fruit was conspicuous in one barge, while in another,

strangely and lugubriously enough, lay the murdered William the Silent in

the arms of his wife and surrounded by his weeping sons and daughters all

attired in white satin.

In the evening the Netherland Academy, to improve the general hilarity,

and as if believing exhibitions of murder the most appropriate means of

welcoming the Prince, invited him to a scenic representation of the

assassination of Count Florence V. of Holland by Gerrit van Velsen and

other nobles. There seemed no especial reason for the selection, unless

perhaps the local one; one of the perpetrators of this crime against an

ancient predecessor of William the Silent in the sovereignty of Holland

having been a former lord proprietor of Amsterdam and the adjacent

territories, Gysbrecht van Amatel.

Maurice returned to the Hague. Five of the seven provinces were entirely

his own. Utrecht too was already wavering, while there could be no doubt

of the warm allegiance to himself of the important commercial metropolis

of Holland, the only province in which Barneveld's influence was still

paramount.

Owing to the watchfulness and distrust of Barneveld, which had never

faltered, Spain had not secured the entire control of the disputed

duchies, but she had at least secured the head of a venerated saint. "The

bargain is completed for the head of the glorious Saint Lawrence, which

you know I so much desire," wrote Philip triumphantly to the Archduke

Albert. He had, however, not got it for nothing.

The Abbot of Glamart in Julich, then in possession of that treasure, had

stipulated before delivering it that if at any time the heretics or other

enemies should destroy the monastery his Majesty would establish them in

Spanish Flanders and give them the same revenues as they now enjoyed in

Julich. Count Herman van den Berg was to give a guarantee to that effect.

Meantime the long controversy in the duchies having tacitly come to a

standstill upon the basis of 'uti possidetis,' the Spanish government had

leisure in the midst of their preparation for the general crusade upon

European heresy to observe and enjoy the internal religious dissensions

in their revolted provinces. Although they had concluded the convention

with them as with countries over which they had no pretensions, they had

never at heart allowed more virtue to the conjunction "as," which really

contained the essence of the treaty, than grammatically belonged to it.

Spain still chose to regard the independence of the Seven Provinces as a

pleasant fiction to be dispelled when, the truce having expired by its

own limitation, she should resume, as she fully meant to do, her

sovereignty over all the seventeen Netherlands, the United as well as the

obedient. Thus at any rate the question of state rights or central

sovereignty would be settled by a very summary process. The Spanish

ambassador was wroth, as may well be supposed, when the agent of the

rebel provinces received in London the rank, title, and recognition of

ambassador. Gondemar at least refused to acknowledge Noel de Caron as his

diplomatic equal or even as his colleague, and was vehement in his

protestations on the subject. But James, much as he dreaded the Spanish

envoy and fawned upon his master, was not besotted enough to comply with

these demands at the expense of his most powerful ally, the Republic of

the Netherlands. The Spanish king however declared his ambassador's

proceedings to be in exact accordance with his instructions. He was

sorry, he said, if the affair had caused discontent to the King of Great

Britain; he intended in all respects to maintain the Treaty of Truce of

which his Majesty had been one of the guarantors, but as that treaty had

but a few more years to run, after which he should be reinstated in his

former right of sovereignty over all the Netherlands, he entirely

justified the conduct of Count Gondemar.

It may well be conceived that, as the years passed by, as the period of

the Truce grew nearer and the religious disputes became every day more

envenomed, the government at Madrid should look on the tumultuous scene

with saturnine satisfaction. There was little doubt now, they thought,

that the Provinces, sick of their rebellion and that fancied independence

which had led them into a whirlpool of political and religious misery,

and convinced of their incompetence to govern themselves, would be only

too happy to seek the forgiving arms of their lawful sovereign. Above all

they must have learned that their great heresy had carried its

chastisement with it, that within something they called a Reformed Church

other heresies had been developed which demanded condign punishment at

the hands of that new Church, and that there could be neither rest for

them in this world nor salvation in the next except by returning to the

bosom of their ancient mother.

Now was the time, so it was thought, to throw forward a strong force of

Jesuits as skirmishers into the Provinces by whom the way would be opened

for the reconquest of the whole territory.

"By the advices coming to us continually from thence," wrote the King of

Spain to Archduke Albert, "we understand that the disquiets and

differences continue in Holland on matters relating to their sects, and

that from this has resulted the conversion of many to the Catholic

religion. So it has been taken into consideration whether it would not be

expedient that some fathers of the company of Jesuits be sent secretly

from Rome to Holland, who should negotiate concerning the conversion of

that people. Before taking a resolution, I have thought best to give an

account of this matter to your Highness. I should be glad if you would

inform me what priests are going to Holland, what fruits they yield, and

what can be done for the continuance of their labours. Please to advise

me very particularly together with any suggestions that may occur to you

in this matter."

The Archduke, who was nearer the scene, was not so sure that the old

religion was making such progress as his royal nephew or those who spoke

in his name believed. At any rate, if it were not rapidly gaining ground,

it would be neither for want of discord among the Protestants nor for

lack of Jesuits to profit by it.

"I do not understand," said he in reply, "nor is it generally considered

certain that from the differences and disturbances that the Hollanders

are having among themselves there has resulted the conversion of any of

them to our blessed Catholic faith, because their disputes are of certain

points concerning which there are different opinions within their sect.

There has always been a goodly number of priests here, the greater part

of whom belong to the Company. They are very diligent and fervent, and

the Catholics derive much comfort from them. To send more of them would

do more harm than good. It might be found out, and then they would

perhaps be driven out of Holland or even chastised. So it seems better to

leave things as they are for the present."

The Spanish government was not discouraged however, but was pricking up

its ears anew at strange communications it was receiving from the very

bosom of the council of state in the Netherlands. This body, as will be

remembered, had been much opposed to Barneveld and to the policy pursued

under his leadership by the States of Holland. Some of its members were

secretly Catholic and still more secretly disposed to effect a revolution

in the government, the object of which should be to fuse the United

Provinces with the obedient Netherlands in a single independent monarchy

to be placed under the sceptre of the son of Philip III.

A paper containing the outlines of this scheme had been sent to Spain,

and the King at once forwarded it in cipher to the Archduke at Brussels

for his opinion and co-operation.

"You will see," he said, "the plan which a certain person zealous for the

public good has proposed for reducing the Netherlanders to my obedience.

. . . . You will please advise with Count Frederic van den Berg and let

me know with much particularity and profound secrecy what is thought,

what is occurring, and the form in which this matter ought to be

negotiated, and the proper way to make it march."

Unquestionably the paper was of grave importance. It informed the King of

Spain that some principal personages in the United Netherlands, members

of the council of state, were of opinion that if his Majesty or Archduke

Albert should propose peace, it could be accomplished at that moment more

easily than ever before. They had arrived at the conviction that no

assistance was to be obtained from the King of France, who was too much

weakened by tumults and sedition at home, while nothing good could be

expected from the King of England. The greater part of the Province of

Gelderland, they said, with all Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, and

Overyssel were inclined to a permanent peace. Being all of them frontier

provinces, they were constantly exposed to the brunt of hostilities.

Besides this, the war expenses alone would now be more than 3,000,000

florins a year. Thus the people were kept perpetually harassed, and

although evil-intentioned persons approved these burthens under the

pretence that such heavy taxation served to free them from the tyranny of

Spain, those of sense and quality reproved them and knew the contrary to

be true. "Many here know," continued these traitors in the heart of the

state council, "how good it would be for the people of the Netherlands to

have a prince, and those having this desire being on the frontier are

determined to accept the son of your Majesty for their ruler." The

conditions of the proposed arrangement were to be that the Prince with

his successors who were thus to possess all the Netherlands were to be

independent sovereigns not subject in any way to the crown of Spain, and

that the great governments and dignities of the country were to remain in

the hands then holding them.

This last condition was obviously inserted in the plan for the special

benefit of Prince Maurice and Count Lewis, although there is not an atom

of evidence that they had ever heard of the intrigue or doubt that, if

they had, they would have signally chastised its guilty authors.

It was further stated that the Catholics having in each town a church and

free exercise of their religion would soon be in a great majority. Thus

the political and religious counter-revolution would be triumphantly

accomplished.

It was proposed that the management of the business should be entrusted

to some gentleman of the country possessing property there who "under

pretext of the public good should make people comprehend what a great

thing it would be if they could obtain this favour from the Spanish King,

thus extricating themselves from so many calamities and miseries, and

obtaining free traffic and a prince of their own." It would be necessary

for the King and Archduke to write many letters and promise great rewards

to persons who might otherwise embarrass the good work.

The plot was an ingenious one. There seemed in the opinion of these

conspirators in the state council but one great obstacle to its success.

It should be kept absolutely concealed from the States of Holland. The

great stipendiary of Spain, John of Barneveld, whose coffers were filled

with Spanish pistoles, whose name and surname might be read by all men in

the account-books at Brussels heading the register of mighty

bribe-takers, the man who was howled at in a thousand lampoons as a

traitor ever ready to sell his country, whom even Prince Maurice "partly

believed" to be the pensionary of Philip, must not hear a whisper of this

scheme to restore the Republic to Spanish control and place it under the

sceptre of a Spanish prince.

The States of Holland at that moment and so long as he was a member of

the body were Barneveld and Barneveld only; thinking his thoughts,

speaking with his tongue, writing with his pen. Of this neither friend

nor foe ever expressed a doubt. Indeed it was one of the staple

accusations against him.

Yet this paper in which the Spanish king in confidential cipher and

profound secrecy communicated to Archduke Albert his hopes and his

schemes for recovering the revolted provinces as a kingdom for his son

contained these words of caution.

"The States of Holland and Zealand will be opposed to the plan," it said.

"If the treaty come to the knowledge of the States and Council of Holland

before it has been acted upon by the five frontier provinces the whole

plan will be demolished."

Such was the opinion entertained by Philip himself of the man who was

supposed to be his stipendiary. I am not aware that this paper has ever

been alluded to in any document or treatise private or public from the

day of its date to this hour. It certainly has never been published, but

it lies deciphered in the Archives of the Kingdom at Brussels, and is

alone sufficient to put to shame the slanderers of the Advocate's

loyalty.

Yet let it be remembered that in this very summer exactly at the moment

when these intrigues were going on between the King of Spain and the

class of men most opposed to Barneveld, the accusations against his

fidelity were loudest and rifest.

Before the Stadholder had so suddenly slipped down to Brielle in order to

secure that important stronghold for the Contra-Remonstrant party,

reports had been carefully strewn among the people that the Advocate was

about to deliver that place and other fortresses to Spain.

Brielle, Flushing, Rammekens, the very cautionary towns and keys to the

country which he had so recently and in such masterly manner delivered

from the grasp of the hereditary ally he was now about to surrender to

the ancient enemy.

The Spaniards were already on the sea, it was said. Had it not been for

his Excellency's watchfulness and promptitude, they would already under

guidance of Barneveld and his crew have mastered the city of Brielle.

Flushing too through Barneveld's advice and connivance was open at a

particular point, in order that the Spaniards, who had their eye upon it,

might conveniently enter and take possession of the place. The air was

full of wild rumours to this effect, and already the humbler classes who

sided with the Stadholder saw in him the saviour of the country from the

treason of the Advocate and the renewed tyranny of Spain.

The Prince made no such pretence, but simply took possession of the

fortress in order to be beforehand with the Waartgelders. The

Contra-Remonstrants in Brielle had desired that "men should see who had

the hardest fists," and it would certainly have been difficult to find

harder ones than those of the hero of Nieuwpoort.

Besides the Jesuits coming in so skilfully to triumph over the warring

sects of Calvinists, there were other engineers on whom the Spanish

government relied to effect the reconquest of the Netherlands. Especially

it was an object to wreak vengeance on Holland, that head and front of

the revolt, both for its persistence in rebellion and for the immense

prosperity and progress by which that rebellion had been rewarded.

Holland had grown fat and strong, while the obedient Netherlands were

withered to the marrow of their bones. But there was a practical person

then resident in Spain to whom the Netherlands were well known, to whom

indeed everything was well known, who had laid before the King a

magnificent scheme for destroying the commerce and with it the very

existence of Holland to the great advantage of the Spanish finances and

of the Spanish Netherlands. Philip of course laid it before the Archduke

as usual, that he might ponder it well and afterwards, if approved,

direct its execution.

The practical person set forth in an elaborate memoir that the Hollanders

were making rapid progress in commerce, arts, and manufactures, while the

obedient provinces were sinking as swiftly into decay. The Spanish

Netherlands were almost entirely shut off from the sea, the rivers

Scheldt and Meuse being hardly navigable for them on account of the

control of those waters by Holland. The Dutch were attracting to their

dominions all artisans, navigators, and traders. Despising all other

nations and giving them the law, they had ruined the obedient provinces.

Ostend, Nieuwpoort, Dunkerk were wasting away, and ought to be restored.

"I have profoundly studied forty years long the subjects of commerce and

navigation," said the practical person, "and I have succeeded in

penetrating the secrets and acquiring, as it were, universal

knowledge--let me not be suspected of boasting--of the whole discovered

world and of the ocean. I have been assisted by study of the best works

of geography and history, by my own labours, and by those of my late

father, a man of illustrious genius and heroical conceptions and very

zealous in the Catholic faith."

The modest and practical son of an illustrious but anonymous father, then

coming to the point, said it would be the easiest thing in the world to

direct the course of the Scheldt into an entirely new channel through

Spanish Flanders to the sea. Thus the Dutch ports and forts which had

been constructed with such magnificence and at such vast expense would be

left high and dry; the Spaniards would build new ones in Flanders, and

thus control the whole navigation and deprive the Hollanders of that

empire of the sea which they now so proudly arrogated. This scheme was

much simpler to carry out than the vulgar might suppose, and, when.

accomplished, it would destroy the commerce, navigation, and fisheries of

the Hollanders, throwing it all into the hands of the Archdukes. This

would cause such ruin, poverty, and tumults everywhere that all would be

changed. The Republic of the United States would annihilate itself and

fall to pieces; the religious dissensions, the war of one sect with

another, and the jealousy of the House of Nassau, suspected of plans

hostile to popular liberties, finishing the work of destruction. "Then

the Republic," said the man of universal science, warming at sight of the

picture he was painting, "laden with debt and steeped in poverty, will

fall to the ground of its own weight, and thus debilitated will crawl

humbly to place itself in the paternal hands of the illustrious house of

Austria."

It would be better, he thought, to set about the work, before the

expiration of the Truce. At any rate, the preparation for it, or the mere

threat of it, would ensure a renewal of that treaty on juster terms. It

was most important too to begin at once the construction of a port on the

coast of Flanders, looking to the north.

There was a position, he said, without naming it, in which whole navies

could ride in safety, secure from all tempests, beyond the reach of the

Hollanders, open at all times to traffic to and from England, France,

Spain, Norway, Sweden, Russia--a perfectly free commerce, beyond the

reach of any rights or duties claimed or levied by the insolent republic.

In this port would assemble all the navigators of the country, and it

would become in time of war a terror to the Hollanders, English, and all

northern peoples. In order to attract, protect, and preserve these

navigators and this commerce, many great public edifices must be built,

together with splendid streets of houses and impregnable fortifications.

It should be a walled and stately city, and its name should be

Philipopolis. If these simple projects, so easy of execution, pleased his

Majesty, the practical person was ready to explain them in all their

details.

His Majesty was enchanted with the glowing picture, but before quite

deciding on carrying the scheme into execution thought it best to consult

the Archduke.

The reply of Albert has not been preserved. It was probably not

enthusiastic, and the man who without boasting had declared himself to

know everything was never commissioned to convert his schemes into

realities. That magnificent walled city, Philipopolis, with its gorgeous

streets and bristling fortresses, remained unbuilt, the Scheldt has

placidly flowed through its old channel to the sea from that day to this,

and the Republic remained in possession of the unexampled foreign trade

with which rebellion had enriched it.