These various intrigues and projects show plainly enough however the

encouragement given to the enemies of the United Provinces and of

Protestantism everywhere by these disastrous internal dissensions. But

yesterday and the Republic led by Barneveld in council and Maurice of

Nassau in the field stood at the head of the great army of resistance to

the general crusade organized by Spain and Rome against all unbelievers.

And now that the war was absolutely beginning in Bohemia, the Republic

was falling upon its own sword instead of smiting with it the universal

foe.

It was not the King of Spain alone that cast longing eyes on the fair

territory of that commonwealth which the unparalleled tyranny of his

father had driven to renounce his sceptre. Both in the Netherlands and

France, among the extreme orthodox party, there were secret schemes, to

which Maurice was not privy, to raise Maurice to the sovereignty of the

Provinces. Other conspirators with a wider scope and more treasonable

design were disposed to surrender their country to the dominion of

France, stipulating of course large rewards and offices for themselves

and the vice-royalty of what should then be the French Netherlands to

Maurice.

The schemes were wild enough perhaps, but their very existence, which is

undoubted, is another proof, if more proof were wanted, of the lamentable

tendency, in times of civil and religious dissension, of political

passion to burn out the very first principles of patriotism.

It is also important, on account of the direct influence exerted by these

intrigues upon subsequent events of the gravest character, to throw a

beam of light on matters which were thought to have been shrouded for

ever in impenetrable darkness.

Langerac, the States' Ambassador in Paris, was the very reverse of his

predecessor, the wily, unscrupulous, and accomplished Francis Aerssens.

The envoys of the Republic were rarely dull, but Langerac was a

simpleton. They were renowned for political experience, skill,

familiarity with foreign languages, knowledge of literature, history, and

public law; but he was ignorant, spoke French very imperfectly, at a

court where not a human being could address him in his own tongue, had

never been employed in diplomacy or in high office of any kind, and could

carry but small personal weight at a post where of all others the

representative of the great republic should have commanded deference both

for his own qualities and for the majesty of his government. At a period

when France was left without a master or a guide the Dutch ambassador,

under a becoming show of profound respect, might really have governed the

country so far as regarded at least the all important relations which

bound the two nations together. But Langerac was a mere picker-up of

trifles, a newsmonger who wrote a despatch to-day with information which

a despatch was written on the morrow to contradict, while in itself

conveying additional intelligence absolutely certain to be falsified soon

afterwards. The Emperor of Germany had gone mad; Prince Maurice had been

assassinated in the Hague, a fact which his correspondents, the

States-General, might be supposed already to know, if it were one; there

had been a revolution in the royal bed-chamber; the Spanish cook of the

young queen had arrived from Madrid; the Duke of Nevers was behaving very

oddly at Vienna; such communications, and others equally startling, were

the staple of his correspondence.

Still he was honest enough, very mild, perfectly docile to Barneveld,

dependent upon his guidance, and fervently attached to that statesman so

long as his wheel was going up the hill. Moreover, his industry in

obtaining information and his passion for imparting it made it probable

that nothing very momentous would be neglected should it be laid before

him, but that his masters, and especially the Advocate, would be enabled

to judge for themselves as to the attention due to it.

"With this you will be apprised of some very high and weighty matters,"

he wrote privately and in cipher to Barneveld, "which you will make use

of according to your great wisdom and forethought for the country's

service."

He requested that the matter might also be confided to M. van der Myle,

that he might assist his father-in-law, so overburdened with business, in

the task of deciphering the communication. He then stated that he had

been "very earnestly informed three days before by M. du Agean"--member

of the privy council of France--"that it had recently come to the King's

ears, and his Majesty knew it to be authentic, that there was a secret

and very dangerous conspiracy in Holland of persons belonging to the

Reformed religion in which others were also mixed. This party held very

earnest and very secret correspondence with the factious portion of the

Contra-Remonstrants both in the Netherlands and France, seeking under

pretext of the religious dissensions or by means of them to confer the

sovereignty upon Prince Maurice by general consent of the

Contra-Remonstrants. Their object was also to strengthen and augment the

force of the same religious party in France, to which end the Duc de

Bouillon and M. de Chatillon were very earnestly co-operating. Langerac

had already been informed by Chatillon that the Contra-Remonstrants had

determined to make a public declaration against the Remonstrants, and

come to an open separation from them.

"Others propose however," said the Ambassador, "that the King himself

should use the occasion to seize the sovereignty of the United Provinces

for himself and to appoint Prince Maurice viceroy, giving him in marriage

Madame Henriette of France." The object of this movement would be to

frustrate the plots of the Contra-Remonstrants, who were known to be

passionately hostile to the King and to France, and who had been

constantly traversing the negotiations of M. du Maurier. There was a

disposition to send a special and solemn embassy to the States, but it

was feared that the British king would at once do the same, to the

immense disadvantage of the Remonstrants. "M. de Barneveld," said the

envoy, "is deeply sympathized with here and commiserated. The Chancellor

has repeatedly requested me to present to you his very sincere and very

hearty respects, exhorting you to continue in your manly steadfastness

and courage." He also assured the Advocate that the French ambassador, M.

du Maurier, enjoyed the entire confidence of his government, and of the

principal members of the council, and that the King, although

contemplating, as we have seen, the seizure of the sovereignty of the

country, was most amicably disposed towards it, and so soon as the peace

of Savoy was settled "had something very good for it in his mind."

Whether the something very good was this very design to deprive it of

independence, the Ambassador did not state. He however recommended the

use of sundry small presents at the French court--especially to Madame de

Luynes, wife of the new favourite of Lewis since the death of Concini, in

which he had aided, now rising rapidly to consideration, and to Madame du

Agean--and asked to be supplied with funds accordingly. By these means he

thought it probable that at least the payment to the States of the long

arrears of the French subsidy might be secured.

Three weeks later, returning to the subject, the Ambassador reported

another conversation with M. du Agean. That politician assured him, "with

high protestations," as a perfectly certain fact that a Frenchman duly

qualified had arrived in Paris from Holland who had been in communication

not only with him but with several of the most confidential members of

the privy council of France. This duly qualified gentleman had been

secretly commissioned to say that in opinion of the conspirators already

indicated the occasion was exactly offered by these religious dissensions

in the Netherlands for bringing the whole country under the obedience of

the King. This would be done with perfect ease if he would

only be willing to favour a little the one party, that of the

Contra-Remonstrants, and promise his Excellency "perfect and perpetual

authority in the government with other compensations."

The proposition, said du Agean, had been rejected by the privy

councillors with a declaration that they would not mix themselves up with

any factions, nor assist any party, but that they would gladly work with

the government for the accommodation of these difficulties and

differences in the Provinces.

"I send you all this nakedly," concluded Langerac, "exactly as it has

been communicated to me, having always answered according to my duty and

with a view by negotiating with these persons to discover the intentions

as well of one side as the other."

The Advocate was not profoundly impressed by these revelations. He was

too experienced a statesman to doubt that in times when civil and

religious passion was running high there was never lack of fishers in

troubled waters, and that if a body of conspirators could secure a

handsome compensation by selling their country to a foreign prince, they

would always be ready to do it.

But although believed by Maurice to be himself a stipendiary of Spain, he

was above suspecting the Prince of any share in the low and stupid

intrigue which du Agean had imagined or disclosed. That the Stadholder

was ambitious of greater power, he hardly doubted, but that he was

seeking to acquire it by such corrupt and circuitous means, he did not

dream. He confidentially communicated the plot as in duty bound to some

members of the States, and had the Prince been accused in any

conversation or statement of being privy to the scheme, he would have

thought himself bound to mention it to him. The story came to the ears of

Maurice however, and helped to feed his wrath against the Advocate, as if

he were responsible for a plot, if plot it were, which had been concocted

by his own deadliest enemies. The Prince wrote a letter alluding to this

communication of Langerac and giving much alarm to that functionary. He

thought his despatches must have been intercepted and proposed in future

to write always by special courier. Barneveld thought that unnecessary

except when there were more important matters than those appeared to him

to be and requiring more haste.

"The letter of his Excellency," said he to the Ambassador, "is caused in

my opinion by the fact that some of the deputies to this assembly to whom

I secretly imparted your letter or its substance did not rightly

comprehend or report it. You did not say that his Excellency had any such

design or project, but that it had been said that the Contra-Remonstrants

were entertaining such a scheme. I would have shown the letter to him

myself, but I thought it not fair, for good reasons, to make M. du Agean

known as the informant. I do not think it amiss for you to write yourself

to his Excellency and tell him what is said, but whether it would be

proper to give up the name of your author, I think doubtful. At all

events one must consult about it. We live in a strange world, and one

knows not whom to trust."

He instructed the Ambassador to enquire into the foundation of these

statements of du Agean and send advices by every occasion of this affair

and others of equal interest. He was however much more occupied with

securing the goodwill of the French government, which he no more

suspected of tampering in these schemes against the independence of the

Republic than he did Maurice himself. He relied and he had reason to rely

on their steady good offices in the cause of moderation and

reconciliation. "We are not yet brought to the necessary and much desired

unity," he said, "but we do not despair, hoping that his Majesty's

efforts through M. du Maurier, both privately and publicly, will do much

good. Be assured that they are very agreeable to all rightly disposed

people . . . . My trust is that God the Lord will give us a happy issue

and save this country from perdition." He approved of the presents to the

two ladies as suggested by Langerac if by so doing the payment of the

arrearages could be furthered. He was still hopeful and confident in the

justice of his cause and the purity of his conscience. "Aerssens is

crowing like a cock," he said, "but the truth will surely prevail."

CHAPTER XVII.

A Deputation from Utrecht to Maurice--The Fair at Utrecht--Maurice

and the States' Deputies at Utrecht--Ogle refuses to act in

Opposition to the States--The Stadholder disbands the Waartgelders--

The Prince appoints forty Magistrates--The States formally disband

the Waartgelders.

The eventful midsummer had arrived. The lime-tree blossoms were fragrant

in the leafy bowers overshadowing the beautiful little rural capital of

the Commonwealth. The anniversary of the Nieuwpoort victory, July 2, had

come and gone, and the Stadholder was known to be resolved that his

political campaign this year should be as victorious as that memorable

military one of eighteen years before.

Before the dog-days should begin to rage, the fierce heats of theological

and political passion were to wax daily more and more intense.

The party at Utrecht in favour of a compromise and in awe of the

Stadholder sent a deputation to the Hague with the express but secret

purpose of conferring with Maurice. They were eight in number, three of

whom, including Gillis van Ledenberg, lodged at the house of Daniel

Tressel, first clerk of the States-General.

The leaders of the Barneveld party, aware of the purport of this mission

and determined to frustrate it, contrived a meeting between the Utrecht

commissioners and Grotius, Hoogerbeets, de Haan, and de Lange at

Tressel's house.

Grotius was spokesman. Maurice had accused the States of Holland of

mutiny and rebellion, and the distinguished Pensionary of Rotterdam now

retorted the charges of mutiny, disobedience, and mischief-making upon

those who, under the mask of religion, were attempting to violate the

sovereignty of the States, the privileges and laws of the province, the

authority of the, magistrates, and to subject them to the power of

others. To prevent such a catastrophe many cities had enlisted

Waartgelders. By this means they had held such mutineers to their duty,

as had been seen at Leyden, Haarlem, and other places. The States of

Utrecht had secured themselves in the same way. But the mischiefmakers

and the ill-disposed had been seeking everywhere to counteract these

wholesome measures and to bring about a general disbanding of these

troops. This it was necessary to resist with spirit. It was the very

foundation of the provinces' sovereignty, to maintain which the public

means must be employed. It was in vain to drive the foe out of the

country if one could not remain in safety within one's own doors. They

had heard with sorrow that Utrecht was thinking of cashiering its troops,

and the speaker proceeded therefore to urge with all the eloquence he was

master of the necessity of pausing before taking so fatal a step.

The deputies of Utrecht answered by pleading the great pecuniary burthen

which the maintenance of the mercenaries imposed upon that province, and

complained that there was no one to come to their assistance, exposed as

they were to a sudden and overwhelming attack from many quarters. The

States-General had not only written but sent commissioners to Utrecht

insisting on the disbandment. They could plainly see the displeasure of

the Prince. It was a very different affair in Holland, but the States of

Utrecht found it necessary of two evils to choose the least.

They had therefore instructed their commissioners to request the Prince

to remove the foreign garrison from their capital and to send the old

companies of native militia in their place, to be in the pay of the

episcopate. In this case the States would agree to disband the new

levies.

Grotius in reply again warned the commissioners against communicating

with Maurice according to their instructions, intimated that the native

militia on which they were proposing to rely might have been debauched,

and he held out hopes that perhaps the States of Utrecht might derive

some relief from certain financial measures now contemplated in Holland.

The Utrechters resolved to wait at least several days before opening the

subject of their mission to the Prince. Meantime Ledenberg made a rough

draft of a report of what had occurred between them and Grotius and his

colleagues which it was resolved to lay secretly before the States of

Utrecht. The Hollanders hoped that they had at last persuaded the

commissioners to maintain the Waartgelders.

The States of Holland now passed a solemn resolution to the effect that

these new levies had been made to secure municipal order and maintain the

laws from subversion by civil tumults. If this object could be obtained

by other means, if the Stadholder were willing to remove garrisons of

foreign mercenaries on whom there could be no reliance, and supply their

place with native troops both in Holland and Utrecht, an arrangement

could be made for disbanding the Waartgelders.

Barneveld, at the head of thirty deputies from the nobles and cities,

waited upon Maurice and verbally communicated to him this resolution. He

made a cold and unsatisfactory reply, although it seems to have been

understood that by according twenty companies of native troops he might

have contented both Holland and Utrecht.

Ledenberg and his colleagues took their departure from the Hague without

communicating their message to Maurice. Soon afterwards the

States-General appointed a commission to Utrecht with the Stadholder at

the head of it.

The States of Holland appointed another with Grotius as its chairman.

On the 25th July Grotius and Pensionary Hoogerbeets with two colleagues

arrived in Utrecht.

Gillis van Ledenberg was there to receive them. A tall, handsome,

bald-headed, well-featured, mild, gentlemanlike man was this secretary of

the Utrecht assembly, and certainly not aware, while passing to and fro

on such half diplomatic missions between two sovereign assemblies, that

he was committing high-treason. He might well imagine however, should

Maurice discover that it was he who had prevented the commissioners from

conferring with him as instructed, that it would go hard with him.

Ledenberg forthwith introduced Grotius and his committee to the Assembly

at Utrecht.

While these great personages were thus holding solemn and secret council,

another and still greater personage came upon the scene.

The Stadholder with the deputation from the States-General arrived at

Utrecht.

Evidently the threads of this political drama were converging to a

catastrophe, and it might prove a tragical one.

Meantime all looked merry enough in the old episcopal city. There were

few towns in Lower or in Upper Germany more elegant and imposing than

Utrecht. Situate on the slender and feeble channel of the ancient Rhine

as it falters languidly to the sea, surrounded by trim gardens and

orchards, and embowered in groves of beeches and limetrees, with busy

canals fringed with poplars, lined with solid quays, and crossed by

innumerable bridges; with the stately brick tower of St. Martin's rising

to a daring height above one of the most magnificent Gothic cathedrals in

the Netherlands; this seat of the Anglo-Saxon Willebrord, who eight

hundred years before had preached Christianity to the Frisians, and had

founded that long line of hard-fighting, indomitable bishops, obstinately

contesting for centuries the possession of the swamps and pastures about

them with counts, kings, and emperors, was still worthy of its history

and its position.

It was here too that sixty-one years before the famous Articles of Union

were signed. By that fundamental treaty of the Confederacy, the Provinces

agreed to remain eternally united as if they were but one province, to

make no war nor peace save by unanimous consent, while on lesser matters

a majority should rule; to admit both Catholics and Protestants to the

Union provided they obeyed its Articles and conducted themselves as good

patriots, and expressly declared that no province or city should

interfere with another in the matter of divine worship.

From this memorable compact, so enduring a landmark in the history of

human freedom, and distinguished by such breadth of view for the times

both in religion and politics, the city had gained the title of cradle of

liberty: 'Cunabula libertatis'.

Was it still to deserve the name? At that particular moment the mass of

the population was comparatively indifferent to the terrible questions

pending. It was the kermis or annual fair, and all the world was keeping

holiday in Utrecht. The pedlars and itinerant merchants from all the

cities and provinces had brought their wares jewellery and crockery,

ribbons and laces, ploughs and harrows, carriages and horses, cows and

sheep, cheeses and butter firkins, doublets and petticoats, guns and

pistols, everything that could serve the city and country-side for months

to come--and displayed them in temporary booths or on the ground, in

every street and along every canal. The town was one vast bazaar. The

peasant-women from the country, with their gold and silver tiaras and the

year's rent of a comfortable farm in their earrings and necklaces, and

the sturdy Frisian peasants, many of whom had borne their matchlocks in

the great wars which had lasted through their own and their fathers'

lifetime, trudged through the city, enjoying the blessings of peace.

Bands of music and merry-go-rounds in all the open places and squares;

open-air bakeries of pancakes and waffles; theatrical exhibitions,

raree-shows, jugglers, and mountebanks at every corner--all these

phenomena which had been at every kermis for centuries, and were to

repeat themselves for centuries afterwards, now enlivened the atmosphere

of the grey, episcopal city. Pasted against the walls of public edifices

were the most recent placards and counter-placards of the States-General

and the States of Utrecht on the great subject of religious schisms and

popular tumults. In the shop-windows and on the bookstalls of

Contra-Remonstrant tradesmen, now becoming more and more defiant as the

last allies of Holland, the States of Utrecht, were gradually losing

courage, were seen the freshest ballads and caricatures against the

Advocate. Here an engraving represented him seated at table with Grotius,

Hoogerbeets, and others, discussing the National Synod, while a flap of

the picture being lifted put the head of the Duke of Alva on the legs of

Barneveld, his companions being transformed in similar manner into

Spanish priests and cardinals assembled at the terrible Council of

Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the

distance. Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General

shaking the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve

through which came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate

and his abettors. Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen

cocks rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder--Arminians by a

detestable pun being converted into "Arme haenen" or "Poor cocks." One

represented the Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of

a golden bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his

official robes to receive them, or whole carriage-loads of Arminians

starting off bag and baggage on the road to Rome, with Lucifer in the

perspective waiting to give them a warm welcome in his own dominions; and

so on, and so on. Moving through the throng, with iron calque on their

heads and halberd in hand, were groups of Waartgelders scowling fiercely

at many popular demonstrations such as they had been enlisted to

suppress, but while off duty concealing outward symptoms of wrath which

in many instances perhaps would have been far from genuine.

For although these mercenaries knew that the States of Holland, who were

responsible for the pay of the regular troops then in Utrecht, authorized

them to obey no orders save from the local authorities, yet it was

becoming a grave question for the Waartgelders whether their own wages

were perfectly safe, a circumstance which made them susceptible to the

atmosphere of Contra-Remonstrantism which was steadily enwrapping the

whole country. A still graver question was whether such resistance as

they could offer to the renowned Stadholder, whose name was magic to

every soldier's heart not only in his own land but throughout

Christendom, would not be like parrying a lance's thrust with a bulrush.

In truth the senior captain of the Waartgelders, Harteveld by name, had

privately informed the leaders of the Barneveld party in Utrecht that he

would not draw his sword against Prince Maurice and the States-General.

"Who asks you to do so?" said some of the deputies, while Ledenberg on

the other hand flatly accused him of cowardice. For this affront the

Captain had vowed revenge.

And in the midst of this scene of jollity and confusion, that midsummer

night, entered the stern Stadholder with his fellow commissioners; the

feeble plans for shutting the gates upon him not having been carried into

effect.

"You hardly expected such a guest at your fair," said he to the

magistrates, with a grim smile on his face as who should say, "And what

do you think of me now I have came?"

Meantime the secret conference of Grotius and colleagues with the States

of Utrecht proceeded. As a provisional measure, Sir John Ogle, commander

of the forces paid by Holland, had been warned as to where his obedience

was due. It had likewise been intimated that the guard should be doubled

at the Amersfoort gate, and a watch set on the river Lek above and below

the city in order to prevent fresh troops of the States-General from

being introduced by surprise.

These precautions had been suggested a year before, as we have seen, in a

private autograph letter from Barneveld to Secretary Ledenberg.

Sir John Ogle had flatly refused to act in opposition to the Stadholder

and the States-General, whom he recognized as his lawful superiors and

masters, and he warned Ledenberg and his companions as to the perilous

nature of the course which they were pursuing. Great was the indignation

of the Utrechters and the Holland commissioners in consequence.

Grotius in his speech enlarged on the possibility of violence being used

by the Stadholder, while some of the members of the Assembly likewise

thought it likely that he would smite the gates open by force. Grotius,

when reproved afterwards for such strong language towards Prince Maurice,

said that true Hollanders were no courtiers, but were wont to call

everything by its right name.

He stated in strong language the regret felt by Holland that a majority

of the States of Utrecht had determined to disband the Waartgelders which

had been constitutionally enlisted according to the right of each

province under the 1st Article of the Union of Utrecht to protect itself

and its laws.

Next day there were conferences between Maurice and the States of Utrecht

and between him and the Holland deputies. The Stadholder calmly demanded

the disbandment and the Synod. The Hollanders spoke of securing first the

persons and rights of the magistracy.

"The magistrates are to be protected," said Maurice, "but we must first

know how they are going to govern. People have tried to introduce five

false points into the Divine worship. People have tried to turn me out of

the stadholdership and to drive me from the country. But I have taken my

measures. I know well what I am about. I have got five provinces on my

side, and six cities of Holland will send deputies to Utrecht to sustain

me here."

The Hollanders protested that there was no design whatever, so far as

they knew, against his princely dignity or person. All were ready to

recognize his rank and services by every means in their power. But it was

desirable by conciliation and compromise, not by stern decree, to arrange

these religious and political differences.

The Stadholder replied by again insisting on the Synod. "As for the

Waartgelders," he continued, "they are worse than Spanish fortresses.

They must away."

After a little further conversation in this vein the Prince grew more

excited.

"Everything is the fault of the Advocate," he cried.

"If Barneveld were dead," replied Grotius, "all the rest of us would

still deem ourselves bound to maintain the laws. People seem to despise

Holland and to wish to subject it to the other provinces."

"On the contrary," cried the Prince, "it is the Advocate who wishes to

make Holland the States-General."

Maurice was tired of argument. There had been much ale-house talk some

three months before by a certain blusterous gentleman called van Ostrum

about the necessity of keeping the Stadholder in check. "If the Prince

should undertake," said this pot-valiant hero, "to attack any of the

cities of Utrecht or Holland with the hard hand, it is settled to station

8000 or 10,000 soldiers in convenient places. Then we shall say to the

Prince, if you don't leave us alone, we shall make an arrangement with

the Archduke of Austria and resume obedience to him. We can make such a

treaty with him as will give us religious freedom and save us from

tyranny of any kind. I don't say this for myself, but have heard it on

good authority from very eminent persons."

This talk had floated through the air to the Stadholder.

What evidence could be more conclusive of a deep design on the part of

Barneveld to sell the Republic to the Archduke and drive Maurice into

exile? Had not Esquire van Ostrum solemnly declared it at a tavern table?

And although he had mentioned no names, could the "eminent personages"

thus cited at second hand be anybody but the Advocate?

Three nights after his last conference with the Hollanders, Maurice

quietly ordered a force of regular troops in Utrecht to be under arms at

half past three o'clock next morning. About 1000 infantry, including

companies of Ernest of Nassau's command at Arnhem and of Brederode's from

Vianen, besides a portion of the regular garrison of the place, had

accordingly been assembled without beat of drum, before half past three

in the morning, and were now drawn up on the market-place or Neu. At

break of day the Prince himself appeared on horseback surrounded by his

staff on the Neu or Neude, a large, long, irregular square into which the

seven or eight principal streets and thoroughfares of the town emptied

themselves. It was adorned by public buildings and other handsome

edifices, and the tall steeple of St. Martin's with its beautiful

open-work spire, lighted with the first rays of the midsummer sun, looked

tranquilly down upon the scene.

Each of the entrances to the square had been securely guarded by

Maurice's orders, and cannon planted to command all the streets. A single

company of the famous Waartgelders was stationed in the Neu or near it.

The Prince rode calmly towards them and ordered them to lay down their

arms. They obeyed without a murmur. He then sent through the city to

summon all the other companies of Waartgelders to the Neu. This was done

with perfect promptness, and in a short space of time the whole body of

mercenaries, nearly 1000 in number, had laid down their arms at the feet

of the Prince.

The snaphances and halberds being then neatly stacked in the square, the

Stadholder went home to his early breakfast. There was an end to those

mercenaries thenceforth and for ever. The faint and sickly resistance to

the authority of Maurice offered at Utrecht was attempted nowhere else.

For days there had been vague but fearful expectations of a "blood bath,"

of street battles, rioting, and plunder. Yet the Stadholder with the

consummate art which characterized all his military manoeuvres had so

admirably carried out his measure that not a shot was fired, not a blow

given, not a single burgher disturbed in his peaceful slumbers. When the

population had taken off their nightcaps, they woke to find the awful

bugbear removed which had so long been appalling them. The Waartgelders

were numbered with the terrors of the past, and not a cat had mewed at

their disappearance.

Charter-books, parchments, 13th Articles, Barneveld's teeth, Arminian

forts, flowery orations of Grotius, tavern talk of van Ostrum, city

immunities, States' rights, provincial laws, Waartgelders and all--the

martial Stadholder, with the orange plume in his hat and the sword of

Nieuwpoort on his thigh, strode through them as easily as through the

whirligigs and mountebanks, the wades and fritters, encumbering the

streets of Utrecht on the night of his arrival.

Secretary Ledenberg and other leading members of the States had escaped

the night before. Grotius and his colleagues also took a precipitate

departure. As they drove out of town in the twilight, they met the

deputies of the six opposition cities of Holland just arriving in their

coach from the Hague. Had they tarried an hour longer, they would have

found themselves safely in prison.

Four days afterwards the Stadholder at the head of his body-guard

appeared at the town-house. His halberdmen tramped up the broad

staircase, heralding his arrival to the assembled magistracy. He

announced his intention of changing the whole board then and there. The

process was summary. The forty members were required to supply forty

other names, and the Prince added twenty more. From the hundred

candidates thus furnished the Prince appointed forty magistrates such as

suited himself. It is needless to say that but few of the old bench

remained, and that those few were devoted to the Synod, the

States-General, and the Stadholder. He furthermore announced that these

new magistrates were to hold office for life, whereas the board had

previously been changed every year. The cathedral church was at once

assigned for the use of the Contra-Remonstrants.

This process was soon to be repeated throughout the two insubordinate

provinces Utrecht and Holland.

The Prince was accused of aiming at the sovereignty of the whole country,

and one of his grief's against the Advocate was that he had begged the

Princess-Widow, Louise de Coligny, to warn her son-in-law of the dangers

of such ambition. But so long as an individual, sword in hand, could

exercise such unlimited sway over the whole municipal, and provincial

organization of the Commonwealth, it mattered but little whether he was

called King or Kaiser, Doge or Stadholder. Sovereign he was for the time

being at least, while courteously acknowledging the States-General as his

sovereign.

Less than three weeks afterwards the States-General issued a decree

formally disbanding the Waartgelders; an almost superfluous edict, as

they had almost ceased to exist, and there were none to resist the

measure. Grotius recommended complete acquiescence. Barneveld's soul

could no longer animate with courage a whole people.

The invitations which had already in the month of June been prepared for

the Synod to meet in the city of Dortor Dordtrecht-were now issued. The

States of Holland sent back the notification unopened, deeming it an

unwarrantable invasion of their rights that an assembly resisted by a

large majority of their body should be convoked in a city on their own

territory. But this was before the disbandment of the Waartgelders and

the general change of magistracies had been effected.

Earnest consultations were now held as to the possibility of devising

some means of compromise; of providing that the decisions of the Synod

should not be considered binding until after having been ratified by the

separate states. In the opinion of Barneveld they were within a few

hours' work of a favourable result when their deliberations were

interrupted by a startling event.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Fruitless Interview between Barneveld and Maurice--The Advocate,

warned of his Danger, resolves to remain at the Hague--Arrest of

Barneveld, of Qrotius, and of Hoogerbeets--The States-General assume

the Responsibility in a "Billet"--The States of Holland protest--

The Advocate's Letter to his Family--Audience of Boississe--

Mischief-making of Aerssens--The French Ambassadors intercede for

Barneveld--The King of England opposes their Efforts--Langerac's

Treachery to the Advocate--Maurice continues his Changes in the

Magistracy throughout the Country--Vote of Thanks by the States of

Holland.

The Advocate, having done what he believed to be his duty, and exhausted

himself in efforts to defend ancient law and to procure moderation and

mutual toleration in religion, was disposed to acquiesce in the

inevitable. His letters giving official and private information of those

grave events were neither vindictive nor vehement.

"I send you the last declaration of My Lords of Holland," he said to

Caron, "in regard to the National Synod, with the counter-declaration of

Dordtrecht and the other five cities. Yesterday was begun the debate

about cashiering the enrolled soldiers called Waartgelders. To-day the

late M. van Kereburg was buried."

Nothing could be calmer than his tone. After the Waartgelders had been

disbanded, Utrecht revolutionized by main force, the National Synod

decided upon, and the process of changing the municipal magistracies

everywhere in the interest of Contra-Remonstrants begun, he continued to

urge moderation and respect for law. Even now, although discouraged, he

was not despondent, and was disposed to make the best even of the Synod.

He wished at this supreme moment to have a personal interview with the

Prince in order to devise some means for calming the universal agitation

and effecting, if possible, a reconciliation among conflicting passions

and warring sects. He had stood at the side of Maurice and of Maurice's

great father in darker hours even than these. They had turned to him on

all trying and tragical occasions and had never found his courage

wavering or his judgment at fault. "Not a friend to the House of Nassau,

but a father," thus had Maurice with his own lips described the Advocate

to the widow of William the Silent. Incapable of an unpatriotic thought,

animated by sincere desire to avert evil and procure moderate action,

Barneveld saw no reason whatever why, despite all that had been said and

done, he should not once more hold council with the Prince. He had a

conversation accordingly with Count Lewis, who had always honoured the

Advocate while differing with him on the religious question. The

Stadholder of Friesland, one of the foremost men of his day in military

and scientific affairs, in administrative ability and philanthropic

instincts, and, in a family perhaps the most renowned in Europe for

heroic qualities and achievements, hardly second to any who had borne the

name, was in favour of the proposed interview, spoke immediately to

Prince Maurice about it, but was not hopeful as to its results. He knew

his cousin well and felt that he was at that moment resentful, perhaps

implacably so, against the whole Remonstrant party and especially against

their great leader.

Count Lewis was small of stature, but dignified, not to say pompous, in

demeanour. His style of writing to one of lower social rank than himself

was lofty, almost regal, and full of old world formality.

"Noble, severe, right worshipful, highly learned and discreet, special

good friend," he wrote to Barneveld; "we have spoken to his Excellency

concerning the expediency of what you requested of us this forenoon. We

find however that his Excellency is not to be moved to entertain any

other measure than the National Synod which he has himself proposed in

person to all the provinces, to the furtherance of which he has made so

many exertions, and which has already been announced by the

States-General.

"We will see by what opportunity his Excellency will appoint the

interview, and so far as lies in us you may rely on our good offices. We

could not answer sooner as the French ambassadors had audience of us this

forenoon and we were visiting his Excellency in the afternoon. Wishing

your worship good evening, we are your very good friend."

Next day Count William wrote again. "We have taken occasion," he said,

"to inform his Excellency that you were inclined to enter into

communication with him in regard to an accommodation of the religious

difficulties and to the cashiering of the Waartgelders. He answered that

he could accept no change in the matter of the National Synod, but

nevertheless would be at your disposal whenever your worship should be

pleased to come to him."

Two days afterwards Barneveld made his appearance at the apartments of

the Stadholder. The two great men on whom the fabric of the Republic had

so long rested stood face to face once more.

The Advocate, with long grey beard and stern blue eye, haggard with

illness and anxiety, tall but bent with age, leaning on his staff and

wrapped in black velvet cloak--an imposing magisterial figure; the

florid, plethoric Prince in brown doublet, big russet boots, narrow ruff,

and shabby felt hat with its string of diamonds, with hand clutched on

swordhilt, and eyes full of angry menace, the very type of the high-born,

imperious soldier--thus they surveyed each other as men, once friends,

between whom a gulf had opened.

Barneveld sought to convince the Prince that in the proceedings at

Utrecht, founded as they were on strict adherence to the laws and

traditions of the Provinces, no disrespect had been intended to him, no

invasion of his constitutional rights, and that on his part his lifelong

devotion to the House of Nassau had suffered no change. He repeated his

usual incontrovertible arguments against the Synod, as illegal and

directly tending to subject the magistracy to the priesthood, a course of

things which eight-and-twenty years before had nearly brought destruction

on the country and led both the Prince and himself to captivity in a

foreign land.

The Prince sternly replied in very few words that the National Synod was

a settled matter, that he would never draw back from his position, and

could not do so without singular disservice to the country and to his own

disreputation. He expressed his displeasure at the particular oath

exacted from the Waartgelders. It diminished his lawful authority and the

respect due to him, and might be used per indirectum to the oppression of

those of the religion which he had sworn to maintain. His brow grew black

when he spoke of the proceedings at Utrecht, which he denounced as a

conspiracy against his own person and the constitution of the country.

Barneveld used in vain the powers of argument by which he had guided

kings and republics, cabinets and assemblies, during so many years. His

eloquence fell powerless upon the iron taciturnity of the Stadholder.

Maurice had expressed his determination and had no other argument to

sustain it but his usual exasperating silence.

The interview ended as hopelessly as Count Lewis William had anticipated,

and the Prince and the Advocate separated to meet no more on earth.

"You have doubtless heard already," wrote Barneveld to the ambassador in

London, "of all that has been passing here and in Utrecht. One must pray

to God that everything may prosper to his honour and the welfare of the

country. They are resolved to go through with the National Synod, the

government of Utrecht after the change made in it having consented with

the rest. I hope that his Majesty, according to your statement, will send

some good, learned, and peace-loving personages here, giving them

wholesome instructions to help bring our affairs into Christian unity,

accommodation, and love, by which his Majesty and these Provinces would

be best served."

Were these the words of a baffled conspirator and traitor? Were they

uttered to produce an effect upon public opinion and avert a merited

condemnation by all good men? There is not in them a syllable of

reproach, of anger, of despair. And let it be remembered that they were

not written for the public at all. They were never known to the public,

hardly heard of either by the Advocate's enemies or friends, save the one

to whom they were addressed and the monarch to whom that friend was

accredited. They were not contained in official despatches, but in

private, confidential outpourings to a trusted political and personal

associate of many years. From the day they were written until this hour

they have never been printed, and for centuries perhaps not read.

He proceeded to explain what he considered to be the law in the

Netherlands with regard to military allegiance. It is not probable that

there was in the country a more competent expounder of it; and defective

and even absurd as such a system was, it had carried the Provinces

successfully through a great war, and a better method for changing it

might have been found among so law-loving and conservative a people as

the Netherlanders than brute force.

"Information has apparently been sent to England," he said, "that My

Lords of Holland through their commissioners in Utrecht dictated to the

soldiery standing at their charges something that was unreasonable. The

truth is that the States of Holland, as many of them as were assembled,

understanding that great haste was made to send his Excellency and some

deputies from the other provinces to Utrecht, while the members of the

Utrecht assembly were gone to report these difficulties to their

constituents and get fresh instructions from them, wishing that the

return of those members should be waited for and that the Assembly of

Holland might also be complete--a request which was refused--sent a

committee to Utrecht, as the matter brooked no delay, to give information

to the States of that province of what was passing here and to offer

their good offices.

"They sent letters also to his Excellency to move him to reasonable

accommodation without taking extreme measures in opposition to those

resolutions of the States of Utrecht which his Excellency had promised to

conform with and to cause to be maintained by all officers and soldiers.

Should his Excellency make difficulty in this, the commissioners were

instructed to declare to him that they were ordered to warn the colonels

and captains standing in the payment of Holland, by letter and word of

mouth, that they were bound by oath to obey the States of Holland as

their paymasters and likewise to carry out the orders of the provincial

and municipal magistrates in the places where they were employed. The

soldiery was not to act or permit anything to be done against those

resolutions, but help to carry them out, his Excellency himself and the

troops paid by the States of Holland being indisputably bound by oath and

duty so to do."

Doubtless a more convenient arrangement from a military point of view

might be imagined than a system of quotas by which each province in a

confederacy claimed allegiance and exacted obedience from the troops paid

by itself in what was after all a general army. Still this was the

logical and inevitable result of State rights pushed to the extreme and

indeed had been the indisputable theory and practice in the Netherlands

ever since their revolt from Spain. To pretend that the proceedings and

the oath were new because they were embarrassing was absurd. It was only

because the dominant party saw the extreme inconvenience of the system,

now that it was turned against itself, that individuals contemptuous of

law and ignorant of history denounced it as a novelty.

But the strong and beneficent principle that lay at the bottom of the

Advocate's conduct was his unflagging resolve to maintain the civil

authority over the military in time of peace. What liberal or healthy

government would be possible otherwise? Exactly as he opposed the

subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood or the mob, so he now

defended it against the power of the sword. There was no justification

whatever for a claim on the part of Maurice to exact obedience from all

the armies of the Republic, especially in time of peace. He was himself

by oath sworn to obey the States of Holland, of Utrecht, and of the three

other provinces of which he was governor. He was not commander-in-chief.

In two of the seven provinces he had no functions whatever, military or

civil. They had another governor.

Yet the exposition of the law, as it stood, by the Advocate and his claim

that both troops and Stadholder should be held to their oaths was

accounted a crime. He had invented a new oath--it was said--and sought to

diminish the power of the Prince. These were charges, unjust as they

were, which might one day be used with deadly effect.

"We live in a world where everything is interpreted to the worst," he

said. "My physical weakness continues and is increased by this

affliction. I place my trust in God the Lord and in my upright and

conscientious determination to serve the country, his Excellency, and the

religion in which through God's grace I hope to continue to the end."

On the 28th August of a warm afternoon, Barneveld was seated on a

porcelain seat in an arbor in his garden. Councillor Berkhout,

accompanied by a friend, called to see him, and after a brief

conversation gave him solemn warning that danger was impending, that

there was even a rumour of an intention to arrest him.

The Advocate answered gravely, "Yes, there are wicked men about."

Presently he lifted his hat courteously and said, "I thank you,

gentlemen, for the warning."

It seems scarcely to have occurred to him that he had been engaged in

anything beyond a constitutional party struggle in which he had defended

what in his view was the side of law and order. He never dreamt of

seeking safety in flight. Some weeks before, he had been warmly advised

to do as both he and Maurice had done in former times in order to escape

the stratagems of Leicester, to take refuge in some strong city devoted

to his interests rather than remain at the Hague. But he had declined the

counsel. "I will await the issue of this business," he said, "in the

Hague, where my home is, and where I have faithfully served my masters. I

had rather for the sake of the Fatherland suffer what God chooses to send

me for having served well than that through me and on my account any city

should fall into trouble and difficulties."

Next morning, Wednesday, at seven o'clock, Uytenbogaert paid him a visit.

He wished to consult him concerning a certain statement in regard to the

Synod which he desired him to lay before the States of Holland. The

preacher did not find his friend busily occupied at his desk, as usual,

with writing and other work. The Advocate had pushed his chair away from

the table encumbered with books and papers, and sat with his back leaning

against it, lost in thought. His stern, stoical face was like that of a

lion at bay.

Uytenbogaert tried to arouse him from his gloom, consoling him by

reflections on the innumerable instances, in all countries and ages, of

patriotic statesmen who for faithful service had reaped nothing but

ingratitude.

Soon afterwards he took his leave, feeling a presentiment of evil within

him which it was impossible for him to shake off as he pressed

Barneveld's hand at parting.

Two hours later, the Advocate went in his coach to the session of the

States of Holland. The place of the Assembly as well as that of the

States-General was within what was called the Binnenhof or Inner Court;

the large quadrangle enclosing the ancient hall once the residence of the

sovereign Counts of Holland. The apartments of the Stadholder composed

the south-western portion of the large series of buildings surrounding

this court. Passing by these lodgings on his way to the Assembly, he was

accosted by a chamberlain of the Prince and informed that his Highness

desired to speak with him. He followed him towards the room where such

interviews were usually held, but in the antechamber was met by

Lieutenant Nythof, of the Prince's bodyguard. This officer told him that

he had been ordered to arrest him in the name of the States-General. The

Advocate demanded an interview with the Prince. It was absolutely

refused. Physical resistance on the part of a man of seventy-two,

stooping with age and leaning on a staff, to military force, of which

Nythof was the representative, was impossible. Barneveld put a cheerful

face on the matter, and was even inclined to converse. He was at once

carried off a prisoner and locked up in a room belonging to Maurice's

apartments.

Soon afterwards, Grotius on his way to the States-General was invited in

precisely the same manner to go to the Prince, with whom, as he was

informed, the Advocate was at that moment conferring. As soon as he had

ascended the stairs however, he was arrested by Captain van der Meulen in

the name of the States-General, and taken to a chamber in the same

apartments, where he was guarded by two halberdmen. In the evening he was

removed to another chamber where the window shutters were barred, and

where he remained three days and nights. He was much cast down and

silent. Pensionary Hoogerbeets was made prisoner in precisely the same

manner. Thus the three statesmen--culprits as they were considered by

their enemies--were secured without noise or disturbance, each without

knowing the fate that had befallen the other. Nothing could have been

more neatly done. In the same quiet way orders were sent to secure

Secretary Ledenberg, who had returned to Utrecht, and who now after a

short confinement in that city was brought to the Hague and imprisoned in

the Hof.

At the very moment of the Advocate's arrest his son-in-law van der Myle

happened to be paying a visit to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had arrived

very late the night before from England. It was some hours before he or

any other member of the family learned what had befallen.

The Ambassador reported to his sovereign that the deed was highly

applauded by the well disposed as the only means left for the security of

the state. "The Arminians," he said, "condemn it as violent and

insufferable in a free republic."

Impartial persons, he thought, considered it a superfluous proceeding now

that the Synod had been voted and the Waartgelders disbanded.

While he was writing his despatch, the Stadholder came to call upon him,

attended by his cousin Count Lewis William. The crowd of citizens

following at a little distance, excited by the news with which the city

was now ringing, mingled with Maurice's gentlemen and bodyguards and

surged up almost into the Ambassador's doors.

Carleton informed his guests, in the course of conversation, as to the

general opinion of indifferent judges of these events. Maurice replied

that he had disbanded the Waartgelders, but it had now become necessary

to deal with their colonel and the chief captains, meaning thereby

Barneveld and the two other prisoners.

The news of this arrest was soon carried to the house of Barneveld, and

filled his aged wife, his son, and sons-in-law with grief and

indignation. His eldest son William, commonly called the Seignior van

Groeneveld, accompanied by his two brothers-in-law, Veenhuyzen, President

of the Upper Council, and van der Myle, obtained an interview with the

Stadholder that same afternoon.

They earnestly requested that the Advocate, in consideration of his

advanced age, might on giving proper bail be kept prisoner in his own

house.

The Prince received them at first with courtesy. "It is the work of the

States-General," he said, "no harm shall come to your father any more

than to myself."

Veenhuyzen sought to excuse the opposition which the Advocate had made to

the Cloister Church.

The word was scarcely out of his mouth when the Prince fiercely

interrupted him--"Any man who says a word against the Cloister Church,"

he cried in a rage, "his feet shall not carry him from this place."

The interview gave them on the whole but little satisfaction. Very soon

afterwards two gentlemen, Asperen and Schagen, belonging to the Chamber

of Nobles, and great adherents of Barneveld, who had procured their

enrolment in that branch, forced their way into the Stadholder's

apartments and penetrated to the door of the room where the Advocate was

imprisoned. According to Carleton they were filled with wine as well as

rage, and made a great disturbance, loudly demanding their patron's

liberation. Maurice came out of his own cabinet on hearing the noise in

the corridor, and ordered them to be disarmed and placed under arrest. In

the evening however they were released.

Soon afterwards van der Myle fled to Paris, where he endeavoured to make

influence with the government in favour of the Advocate. His departure

without leave, being, as he was, a member of the Chamber of Nobles and of

the council of state, was accounted a great offence. Uytenbogaert also

made his escape, as did Taurinus, author of The Balance, van Moersbergen

of Utrecht, and many others more or less implicated in these commotions.

There was profound silence in the States of Holland when the arrest of

Barneveld was announced. The majority sat like men distraught. At last

Matenesse said, "You have taken from us our head, our tongue, and our

hand, henceforth we can only sit still and look on."

The States-General now took the responsibility of the arrest, which eight

individuals calling themselves the States-General had authorized by

secret resolution the day before (28th August). On the 29th accordingly,

the following "Billet," as it was entitled, was read to the Assembly and

ordered to be printed and circulated among the community. It was without

date or signature.

"Whereas in the course of the changes within the city of Utrecht and in

other places brought about by the high and mighty Lords the

States-General of the United Netherlands, through his Excellency and

their Lordships' committee to him adjoined, sundry things have been

discovered of which previously there had been great suspicion, tending to

the great prejudice of the Provinces in general and of each province in

particular, not without apparent danger to the state of the country, and

that thereby not only the city of Utrecht, but various other cities of

the United Provinces would have fallen into a blood bath; and whereas the

chief ringleaders in these things are considered to be John van

Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, Rombout Hoogerbeets, and Hugo Grotius,

whereof hereafter shall declaration and announcement be made, therefore

their High Mightinesses, in order to prevent these and similar

inconveniences, to place the country in security, and to bring the good

burghers of all the cities into friendly unity again, have resolved to

arrest those three persons, in order that out of their imprisonment they

may be held to answer duly for their actions and offences."

The deputies of Holland in the States-General protested on the same day

against the arrest, declaring themselves extraordinarily amazed at such

proceedings, without their knowledge, with usurpation of their

jurisdiction, and that they should refer to their principals for

instructions in the matter.

They reported accordingly at once to the States of Holland in session in

the same building. Soon afterwards however a committee of five from the

States-General appeared before the Assembly to justify the proceeding. On

their departure there arose a great debate, the six cities of course

taking part with Maurice and the general government. It was finally

resolved by the majority to send a committee to the Stadholder to

remonstrate with, and by the six opposition cities another committee to

congratulate him, on his recent performances.

His answer was to this effect:

"What had happened was not by his order, but had been done by the

States-General, who must be supposed not to have acted without good

cause. Touching the laws and jurisdiction of Holland he would not himself

dispute, but the States of Holland would know how to settle that matter

with the States-General."

Next day it was resolved in the Holland assembly to let the affair remain

as it was for the time being. Rapid changes were soon to be expected in

that body, hitherto so staunch for the cause of municipal laws and State

rights.

Meantime Barneveld sat closely guarded in the apartments of the

Stadholder, while the country and very soon all Europe were ringing with

the news of his downfall, imprisonment, and disgrace. The news was a

thunder-bolt to the lovers of religious liberty, a ray of dazzling

sunlight after a storm to the orthodox.

The showers of pamphlets, villanous lampoons, and libels began afresh.

The relatives of the fallen statesman could not appear in the streets

without being exposed to insult, and without hearing scurrilous and

obscene verses against their father and themselves, in which neither sex

nor age was spared, howled in their ears by all the ballad-mongers and

broadsheet vendors of the town. The unsigned publication of the

States-General, with its dark allusions to horrible discoveries and

promised revelations which were never made, but which reduced themselves

at last to the gibberish of a pot-house bully, the ingenious libels, the

powerfully concocted and poisonous calumnies, caricatures, and lampoons,

had done their work. People stared at each other in the streets with open

mouths as they heard how the Advocate had for years and years been the

hireling of Spain, whose government had bribed him largely to bring about

the Truce and kill the West India Company; how his pockets and his

coffers were running over with Spanish ducats; how his plot to sell the

whole country to the ancient tyrant, drive the Prince of Orange into

exile, and bring every city of the Netherlands into a "blood-bath," had,

just in time, been discovered.

And the people believed it and hated the man they had so lately honoured,

and were ready to tear him to pieces in the streets. Men feared to defend

him lest they too should be accused of being stipendiaries of Spain. It

was a piteous spectacle; not for the venerable statesman sitting alone

there in his prison, but for the Republic in its lunacy, for human nature

in its meanness and shame. He whom Count Lewis, although opposed to his

politics, had so lately called one of the two columns on which the whole

fabric of the States reposed, Prince Maurice being the other, now lay

prostrate in the dust and reviled of all men.

"Many who had been promoted by him to high places," said a contemporary,

"and were wont to worship him as a god, in hope that he would lift them

up still higher, now deserted him, and ridiculed him, and joined the rest

of the world in heaping dirt upon him."

On the third day of his imprisonment the Advocate wrote this letter to

his family:--

"My very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren,--I know

that you are sorrowful for the troubles which have come upon me, but I

beg you to seek consolation from God the Almighty and to comfort each

other. I know before the Lord God of having given no single lawful reason

for the misfortunes which have come upon me, and I will with patience

await from His Divine hand and from my lawful superiors a happy issue,

knowing well that you and my other well-wishers will with your prayers

and good offices do all that you can to that end.

"And so, very dear wife, children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, I

commend you to God's holy keeping.

"I have been thus far well and honourably treated and accommodated, for

which I thank his princely Excellency.

"From my chamber of arrest, last of August, anno 1618.

"Your dear husband, father, father-in-law, and grand father,

"JOHN OF BARNEVELD."

On the margin was written:

"From the first I have requested and have at last obtained materials for

writing."

A fortnight before the arrest, but while great troubles were known to be

impending, the French ambassador extraordinary, de Boississe, had

audience before the Assembly of the States-General. He entreated them to

maintain the cause of unity and peace as the foundation of their state;

"that state," he said, "which lifts its head so high that it equals or

surpasses the mightiest republics that ever existed, and which could not

have risen to such a height of honour and grandeur in so short a time,

but through harmony and union of all the provinces, through the valour of

his Excellency, and through your own wise counsels, both sustained by our

great king, whose aid is continued by his son."--"The King my master," he

continued, "knows not the cause of your disturbances. You have not

communicated them to him, but their most apparent cause is a difference

of opinion, born in the schools, thence brought before the public, upon a

point of theology. That point has long been deemed by many to be so hard

and so high that the best advice to give about it is to follow what God's

Word teaches touching God's secrets; to wit, that one should use

moderation and modesty therein and should not rashly press too far into

that which he wishes to be covered with the veil of reverence and wonder.

That is a wise ignorance to keep one's eyes from that which God chooses

to conceal. He calls us not to eternal life through subtle and perplexing

questions."

And further exhorting them to conciliation and compromise, he enlarged on

the effect of their internal dissensions on their exterior relations.

"What joy, what rapture you are preparing for your neighbours by your

quarrels! How they will scorn you! How they will laugh! What a hope do

you give them of revenging themselves upon you without danger to

themselves! Let me implore you to baffle their malice, to turn their joy

into mourning, to unite yourselves to confound them."

He spoke much more in the same vein, expressing wise and moderate

sentiments. He might as well have gone down to the neighbouring beach

when a south-west gale was blowing and talked of moderation to the waves

of the German Ocean. The tempest of passion and prejudice had risen in

its might and was sweeping all before it. Yet the speech, like other

speeches and intercessions made at this epoch by de Boississe and by the

regular French ambassador, du Maurier, was statesmanlike and reasonable.

It is superfluous to say that it was in unison with the opinions of

Barneveld, for Barneveld had probably furnished the text of the oration.

Even as he had a few years before supplied the letters which King James

had signed and subsequently had struggled so desperately to disavow, so

now the Advocate's imperious intellect had swayed the docile and amiable

minds of the royal envoys into complete sympathy with his policy. He

usually dictated their general instructions. But an end had come to such

triumphs. Dudley Carleton had returned from his leave of absence in

England, where he had found his sovereign hating the Advocate as doctors

hate who have been worsted in theological arguments and despots who have

been baffled in their imperious designs. Who shall measure the influence

on the destiny of this statesman caused by the French-Spanish marriages,

the sermons of James through the mouth of Carleton, and the mutual

jealousy of France and England?

But the Advocate was in prison, and the earth seemed to have closed over

him. Hardly a ripple of indignation was perceptible on the calm surface

of affairs, although in the States-General as in the States of Holland

his absence seemed to have reduced both bodies to paralysis.

They were the more easily handled by the prudent, skilful, and determined

Maurice.

The arrest of the four gentlemen had been communicated to the kings of

France and Great Britain and the Elector-Palatine in an identical letter

from the States-General. It is noticeable that on this occasion the

central government spoke of giving orders to the Prince of Orange, over

whom they would seem to have had no legitimate authority, while on the

other hand he had expressed indignation on more than one occasion that

the respective states of the five provinces where he was governor and to

whom he had sworn obedience should presume to issue commands to him.

In France, where the Advocate was honoured and beloved, the intelligence

excited profound sorrow. A few weeks previously the government of that

country had, as we have seen, sent a special ambassador to the States, M.

de Boississe, to aid the resident envoy, du Maurier, in his efforts to

bring about a reconciliation of parties and a termination of the

religious feud. Their exertions were sincere and unceasing. They were as

steadily countermined by Francis Aerssens, for the aim of that

diplomatist was to bring about a state of bad feeling, even at cost of

rupture, between the Republic and France, because France was friendly to

the man he most hated and whose ruin he had sworn.

During the summer a bitter personal controversy had been going on,

sufficiently vulgar in tone, between Aerssens and another diplomatist,

Barneveld's son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle. It related to the recall

of Aerssens from the French embassy of which enough has already been laid

before the reader. Van der Myle by the production of the secret letters

of the Queen-Dowager and her counsellors had proved beyond dispute that

it was at the express wish of the French government that the Ambassador

had retired, and that indeed they had distinctly refused to receive him,

should he return. Foul words resulting in propositions for a hostile

meeting on the frontier, which however came to nothing, were interchanged

and Aerssens in the course of his altercation with the son-inlaw had

found ample opportunity for venting his spleen upon his former patron the

now fallen statesman.

Four days after the arrest of Barneveld he brought the whole matter

before the States-General, and the intention with which he thus raked up

the old quarrel with France after the death of Henry, and his charges in

regard to the Spanish marriages, was as obvious as it was deliberate.

The French ambassadors were furious. Boississe had arrived not simply as

friend of the Advocate, but to assure the States of the strong desire

entertained by the French government to cultivate warmest relations with

them. It had been desired by the Contra-Remonstrant party that deputies

from the Protestant churches of France should participate in the Synod,

and the French king had been much assailed by the Catholic powers for

listening to those suggestions. The Papal nuncius, the Spanish

ambassador, the envoy of the Archduke, had made a great disturbance at

court concerning the mission of Boississe. They urged with earnestness

that his Majesty was acting against the sentiments of Spain, Rome, and

the whole Catholic Church, and that he ought not to assist with his

counsel those heretics who were quarrelling among themselves over points

in their heretical religion and wishing to destroy each other.

Notwithstanding this outcry the weather was smooth enough until the

proceedings of Aerssens came to stir up a tempest at the French court. A

special courier came from Boississe, a meeting of the whole council,

although it was Sunday, was instantly called, and the reply of the

States-General to the remonstrance of the Ambassador in the Aerssens

affair was pronounced to be so great an affront to the King that, but for

overpowering reasons, diplomatic intercourse would have at once been

suspended. "Now instead of friendship there is great anger here," said

Langerac. The king forbade under vigorous penalties the departure of any

French theologians to take part in the Synod, although the royal consent

had nearly been given. The government complained that no justice was done

in the Netherlands to the French nation, that leading personages there

openly expressed contempt for the French alliance, denouncing the country

as "Hispaniolized," and declaring that all the council were regularly

pensioned by Spain for the express purpose of keeping up the civil

dissensions in the United Provinces.

Aerssens had publicly and officially declared that a majority of the

French council since the death of Henry had declared the crown in its

temporal as well as spiritual essence to be dependent on the Pope, and

that the Spanish marriages had been made under express condition of the

renunciation of the friendship and alliance of the States.

Such were among the first-fruits of the fall of Barneveld and the triumph

of Aerssens, for it was he in reality who had won the victory, and he had

gained it over both Stadholder and Advocate. Who was to profit by the

estrangement between the Republic and its powerful ally at a moment too

when that great kingdom was at last beginning to emerge from the darkness

and nothingness of many years, with the faint glimmering dawn of a new

great policy?

Barneveld, whose masterful statesmanship, following out the traditions of

William the Silent, had ever maintained through good and ill report

cordial and beneficent relations between the two countries, had always

comprehended, even as a great cardinal-minister was ere long to teach the

world, that the permanent identification of France with Spain and the

Roman League was unnatural and impossible.

Meantime Barneveld sat in his solitary prison, knowing not what was

passing on that great stage where he had so long been the chief actor,

while small intriguers now attempted to control events.

It was the intention of Aerssens to return to the embassy in Paris whence

he had been driven, in his own opinion, so unjustly. To render himself

indispensable, he had begun by making himself provisionally formidable to

the King's government. Later, there would be other deeds to do before the

prize was within his grasp.

Thus the very moment when France was disposed to cultivate the most

earnest friendship with the Republic had been seized for fastening an

insult upon her. The Twelve Years' Truce with Spain was running to its

close, the relations between France and Spain were unusually cold, and

her friendship therefore more valuable than ever.

On the other hand the British king was drawing closer his relations with

Spain, and his alliance was demonstrably of small account. The phantom of

the Spanish bride had become more real to his excited vision than ever,

so that early in the year, in order to please Gondemar, he had been

willing to offer an affront to the French ambassador.

The Prince of Wales had given a splendid masquerade at court, to which

the envoy of his Most Catholic Majesty was bidden. Much to his amazement

the representative of the Most Christian King received no invitation,

notwithstanding that he had taken great pains to procure one. M. de la

Boderie was very angry, and went about complaining to the States'

ambassador and his other colleagues of the slight, and darkened the lives

of the court functionaries having charge of such matters with his

vengeance and despair. It was represented to him that he had himself been

asked to a festival the year before when Count Gondemar was left out. It

was hinted to him that the King had good reasons for what he did, as the

marriage with the daughter of Spain was now in train, and it was

desirable that the Spanish ambassador should be able to observe the

Prince's disposition and make a more correct report of it to his

government. It was in vain. M. de la Boderie refused to be comforted, and

asserted that one had no right to leave the French ambassador uninvited

to any "festival or triumph" at court. There was an endless disturbance.

De la Boderie sent his secretary off to Paris to complain to the King

that his ambassador was of no account in London, while much favour was

heaped upon the Spaniard. The Secretary returned with instructions from

Lewis that the Ambassador was to come home immediately, and he went off

accordingly in dudgeon. "I could see that he was in the highest degree

indignant," said Caron, who saw him before he left, "and I doubt not that

his departure will increase and keep up the former jealousy between the

governments."

The ill-humor created by this event lasted a long time, serving to

neutralize or at least perceptibly diminish the Spanish influence

produced in France by the Spanish marriages. In the autumn, Secretary de

Puysieux by command of the King ordered every Spaniard to leave the

French court. All the "Spanish ladies and gentlemen, great and small,"

who had accompanied the Queen from Madrid were included in this expulsion

with the exception of four individuals, her Majesty's father confessor,

physician, apothecary, and cook.

The fair young queen was much vexed and shed bitter tears at this

calamity, which, as she spoke nothing but Spanish, left her isolated at

the court, but she was a little consoled by the promise that thenceforth

the King would share her couch. It had not yet occurred to him that he

was married.

The French envoys at the Hague exhausted themselves in efforts, both

private and public, in favour of the prisoners, but it was a thankless

task. Now that the great man and his chief pupils and adherents were out

of sight, a war of shameless calumny was began upon him, such as has

scarcely a parallel in political history.

It was as if a whole tribe of noxious and obscene reptiles were swarming

out of the earth which had suddenly swallowed him. But it was not alone

the obscure or the anonymous who now triumphantly vilified him. Men in

high places who had partaken of his patronage, who had caressed him and

grovelled before him, who had grown great through his tuition and rich

through his bounty, now rejoiced in his ruin or hastened at least to save

themselves from being involved in it. Not a man of them all but fell away

from him like water. Even the great soldier forgot whose respectful but

powerful hand it was which, at the most tragical moment, had lifted him

from the high school at Leyden into the post of greatest power and

responsibility, and had guided his first faltering footsteps by the light

of his genius and experience. Francis Aerssens, master of the field, had

now become the political tutor of the mature Stadholder. Step by step we

have been studying the inmost thoughts of the Advocate as revealed in his

secret and confidential correspondence, and the reader has been enabled

to judge of the wantonness of the calumny which converted the determined

antagonist into the secret friend of Spain. Yet it had produced its

effect upon Maurice.

He told the French ambassadors a month after the arrest that Barneveld

had been endeavouring, during and since the Truce negotiations, to bring

back the Provinces, especially Holland, if not under the dominion of, at

least under some kind of vassalage to Spain. Persons had been feeling the

public pulse as to the possibility of securing permanent peace by paying

tribute to Spain, and this secret plan of Barneveld had so alienated him

from the Prince as to cause him to attempt every possible means of

diminishing or destroying altogether his authority. He had spread through

many cities that Maurice wished to make himself master of the state by

using the religious dissensions to keep the people weakened and divided.

There is not a particle of evidence, and no attempt was ever made to

produce any, that the Advocate had such plan, but certainly, if ever, man

had made himself master of a state, that man was Maurice. He continued

however to place himself before the world as the servant of the

States-General, which he never was, either theoretically or in fact.

The French ambassadors became every day more indignant and more

discouraged. It was obvious that Aerssens, their avowed enemy, was

controlling the public policy of the government. Not only was there no

satisfaction to be had for the offensive manner in which he had filled

the country with his ancient grievances and his nearly forgotten charges

against the Queen-Dowager and those who had assisted her in the regency,

but they were repulsed at every turn when by order of their sovereign

they attempted to use his good offices in favour of the man who had ever

been the steady friend of France.

The Stadholder also professed friendship for that country, and referred

to Colonel-General Chatillon, who had for a long time commanded the

French regiments in the Netherlands, for confirmation of his uniform

affection for those troops and attachment to their sovereign.

He would do wonders, he said, if Lewis would declare war upon Spain by

land and sea.

"Such fruits are not ripe," said Boississe, "nor has your love for France

been very manifest in recent events."

"Barneveld," replied the Prince, "has personally offended me, and has

boasted that he would drive me out of the country like Leicester. He is

accused of having wished to trouble the country in order to bring it back

under the yoke of Spain. Justice will decide. The States only are

sovereign to judge this question. You must address yourself to them."

"The States," replied the ambassadors, "will require to be aided by your

counsels."

The Prince made no reply and remained chill and "impregnable." The

ambassadors continued their intercessions in behalf of the prisoners both

by public address to the Assembly and by private appeals to the

Stadholder and his influential friends. In virtue of the intimate

alliance and mutual guarantees existing between their government and the

Republic they claimed the acceptance of their good offices. They insisted

upon a regular trial of the prisoners according to the laws of the land,

that is to say, by the high court of Holland, which alone had

jurisdiction in the premises. If they had been guilty of high-treason,

they should be duly arraigned. In the name of the signal services of

Barneveld and of the constant friendship of that great magistrate for

France, the King demanded clemency or proof of his crimes. His Majesty

complained through his ambassadors of the little respect shown for his

counsels and for his friendship. "In times past you found ever prompt and

favourable action in your time of need."

"This discourse," said Maurice to Chatillon, "proceeds from evil

intention."

Thus the prisoners had disappeared from human sight, and their enemies

ran riot in slandering them. Yet thus far no public charges had been

made.

"Nothing appears against them," said du Maurier, "and people are

beginning to open their mouths with incredible freedom. While waiting for

the condemnation of the prisoners, one is determined to dishonour them."

The French ambassadors were instructed to intercede to the last, but they

were steadily repulsed--while the King of Great Britain, anxious to gain

favour with Spain by aiding in the ruin of one whom he knew and Spain

knew to be her determined foe, did all he could through his ambassador to

frustrate their efforts and bring on a catastrophe. The States-General

and Maurice were now on as confidential terms with Carleton as they were

cold and repellent to Boississe and du Maurier.

"To recall to them the benefits of the King," said du Maurier, "is to

beat the air. And then Aerssens bewitches them, and they imagine that

after having played runaway horses his Majesty will be only too happy to

receive them back, caress them, and, in order to have their friendship,

approve everything they have been doing right or wrong."

Aerssens had it all his own way, and the States-General had just paid him

12,000 francs in cash on the ground that Langerac's salary was larger

than his had been when at the head of the same embassy many years before.

His elevation into the body of nobles, which Maurice had just stocked

with five other of his partisans, was accounted an additional affront to

France, while on the other hand the Queen-Mother, having through

Epernon's assistance made her escape from Blois, where she had been kept

in durance since the death of Concini, now enumerated among other

grievances for which she was willing to take up arms against her son that

the King's government had favoured Barneveld.

It was strange that all the devotees of Spain--Mary de' Medici, and

Epernon, as well as James I. and his courtiers--should be thus embittered

against the man who had sold the Netherlands to Spain.

At last the Prince told the French ambassadors that the "people of the

Provinces considered their persistent intercessions an invasion of their

sovereignty." Few would have anything to say to them. "No one listens to

us, no one replies to us," said du Maurier, "everyone visiting us is

observed, and it is conceived a reproach here to speak to the ambassadors

of France."

Certainly the days were changed since Henry IV. leaned on the arm of

Barneveld, and consulted with him, and with him only, among all the

statesmen of Europe on his great schemes for regenerating Christendom and

averting that general war which, now that the great king had been

murdered and the Advocate imprisoned, had already begun to ravage Europe.

Van der Myle had gone to Paris to make such exertions as he could among

the leading members of the council in favour of his father-in-law.

Langerac, the States' ambassador there, who but yesterday had been

turning at every moment to the Advocate for light and warmth as to the

sun, now hastened to disavow all respect or regard for him. He scoffed at

the slender sympathy van der Myle was finding in the bleak political

atmosphere. He had done his best to find out what he had been negotiating

with the members of the council and was glad to say that it was so

inconsiderable as to be not worth reporting. He had not spoken with or

seen the King. Jeannin, his own and his father-in-law's principal and

most confidential friend, had only spoken with him half an hour and then

departed for Burgundy, although promising to confer with him

sympathetically on his return. "I am very displeased at his coming here,"

said Langerac, ". . . . but he has found little friendship or

confidence, and is full of woe and apprehension."

The Ambassador's labours were now confined to personally soliciting the

King's permission for deputations from the Reformed churches of France to

go to the Synod, now opened (13th November) at Dordtrecht, and to

clearing his own skirts with the Prince and States-General of any

suspicion of sympathy with Barneveld.

In the first object he was unsuccessful, the King telling him at last

"with clear and significant words that this was impossible, on account of

his conscience, his respect for the Catholic religion, and many other

reasons."

In regard to the second point he acted with great promptness.

He received a summons in January 1619 from the States-General and the

Prince to send them all letters that he had ever received from Barneveld.

He crawled at once to Maurice on his knees, with the letters in his hand.

"Most illustrious, high-born Prince, most gracious Lord," he said;

"obeying the commands which it has pleased the States and your princely

Grace to give me, I send back the letters of Advocate Barneveld. If your

princely Grace should find anything in them showing that the said

Advocate had any confidence in me, I most humbly beg your princely Grace

to believe that I never entertained any affection for, him, except only

in respect to and so far as he was in credit and good authority with the

government, and according to the upright zeal which I thought I could see

in him for the service of My high and puissant Lords the States-General

and of your princely Grace."

Greater humbleness could be expected of no ambassador. Most nobly did the

devoted friend and pupil of the great statesman remember his duty to the

illustrious Prince and their High Mightinesses. Most promptly did he

abjure his patron now that he had fallen into the abyss.

"Nor will it be found," he continued, "that I have had any sympathy or

communication with the said Advocate except alone in things concerning my

service. The great trust I had in him as the foremost and oldest

counsellor of the state, as the one who so confidentially instructed me

on my departure for France, and who had obtained for himself so great

authority that all the most important affairs of the country were

entrusted to him, was the cause that I simply and sincerely wrote to him

all that people were in the habit of saying at this court.

"If I had known in the least or suspected that he was not what he ought

to be in the service of My Lords the States and of your princely Grace

and for the welfare and tranquillity of the land, I should have been well

on my guard against letting myself in the least into any kind of

communication with him whatever."

The reader has seen how steadily and frankly the Advocate had kept

Langerac as well as Caron informed of passing events, and how little

concealment he made of his views in regard to the Synod, the

Waartgelders, and the respective authority of the States-General and

States-Provincial. Not only had Langerac no reason to suspect that

Barneveld was not what he ought to be, but he absolutely knew the

contrary from that most confidential correspondence with him which he was

now so abjectly repudiating. The Advocate, in a protracted constitutional

controversy, had made no secret of his views either officially or

privately. Whether his positions were tenable or flimsy, they had been

openly taken.

"What is more," proceeded the Ambassador, "had I thought that any account

ought to be made of what I wrote to him concerning the sovereignty of the

Provinces, I should for a certainty not have failed to advise your Grace

of it above all."

He then, after profuse and maudlin protestations of his most dutiful zeal

all the days of his life for "the service, honour, reputation, and

contentment of your princely Grace," observed that he had not thought it

necessary to give him notice of such idle and unfounded matters, as being

likely to give the Prince annoyance and displeasure. He had however

always kept within himself the resolution duly to notify him in case he

found that any belief was attached to the reports in Paris. "But the

reports," he said, "were popular and calumnious inventions of which no

man had ever been willing or able to name to him the authors."

The Ambassador's memory was treacherous, and he had doubtless neglected

to read over the minutes, if he had kept them, of his wonderful

disclosures on the subject of the sovereignty before thus exculpating

himself. It will be remembered that he had narrated the story of the plot

for conferring sovereignty upon Maurice not as a popular calumny flying

about Paris with no man to father it, but he had given it to Barneveld on

the authority of a privy councillor of France and of the King himself.

"His Majesty knows it to be authentic," he had said in his letter. That

letter was a pompous one, full of mystery and so secretly ciphered that

he had desired that his friend van der Myle, whom he was now deriding for

his efforts in Paris to save his father-inlaw from his fate, might assist

the Advocate in unravelling its contents. He had now discovered that it

had been idle gossip not worthy of a moment's attention.

The reader will remember too that Barneveld, without attaching much

importance to the tale, had distinctly pointed out to Langerac that the

Prince himself was not implicated in the plot and had instructed the

Ambassador to communicate the story to Maurice. This advice had not been

taken, but he had kept the perilous stuff upon his breast. He now sought

to lay the blame, if it were possible to do so, upon the man to whom he

had communicated it and who had not believed it.

The business of the States-General, led by the Advocate's enemies this

winter, was to accumulate all kind of tales, reports, and accusations to

his discredit on which to form something like a bill of indictment. They

had demanded all his private and confidential correspondence with Caron

and Langerae. The ambassador in Paris had been served, moreover, with a

string of nine interrogatories which he was ordered to answer on oath and

honour. This he did and appended the reply to his letter.

The nine questions had simply for their object to discover what Barneveld

had been secretly writing to the Ambassador concerning the Synod, the

enlisted troops, and the supposed projects of Maurice concerning the

sovereignty. Langerac was obliged to admit in his replies that nothing

had been written except the regular correspondence which he endorsed, and

of which the reader has been able to see the sum and substance in the

copious extracts which have been given.

He stated also that he had never received any secret instructions save

the marginal notes to the list of questions addressed by him, when about

leaving for Paris in 1614, to Barneveld. Most of these were of a trivial

and commonplace nature.

They had however a direct bearing on the process to be instituted against

the Advocate, and the letter too which we have been examining will prove

to be of much importance. Certainly pains enough were taken to detect the

least trace of treason in a very loyal correspondence. Langerac concluded

by enclosing the Barneveld correspondence since the beginning of the year

1614, protesting that not a single letter had been kept back or

destroyed. "Once more I recommend myself to mercy, if not to favour," he

added, "as the most faithful, most obedient, most zealous servant of

their High Mightinesses and your princely Grace, to whom I have devoted

and sacrificed my honour and life in most humble service; and am now and

forever the most humble, most obedient, most faithful servant of my most

serene, most illustrious, most highly born Prince, most gracious Lord and

princeliest Grace."

The former adherent of plain Advocate Barneveld could hardly find

superlatives enough to bestow upon the man whose displeasure that

prisoner had incurred.

Directly after the arrest the Stadholder had resumed his tour through the

Provinces in order to change the governments. Sliding over any opposition

which recent events had rendered idle, his course in every city was

nearly the same. A regiment or two and a train of eighty or a hundred

waggons coming through the city-gate preceded by the Prince and his

body-guard of 300, a tramp of halberdmen up the great staircase of the

town-hall, a jingle of spurs in the assembly-room, and the whole board of

magistrates were summoned into the presence of the Stadholder. They were

then informed that the world had no further need of their services, and

were allowed to bow themselves out of the presence. A new list was then

announced, prepared beforehand by Maurice on the suggestion of those on

whom he could rely. A faint resistance was here and there attempted by

magistrates and burghers who could not forget in a moment the rights of

self-government and the code of laws which had been enjoyed for

centuries. At Hoorn, for instance, there was deep indignation among the

citizens. An imprudent word or two from the authorities might have

brought about a "blood-bath."

The burgomaster ventured indeed to expostulate. They requested the Prince

not to change the magistracy. "This is against our privileges," they

said, "which it is our duty to uphold. You will see what deep displeasure

will seize the burghers, and how much disturbance and tumult will follow.

If any faults have been committed by any member of the government, let

him be accused and let him answer for them. Let your Excellency not only

dismiss but punish such as cannot properly justify themselves."

But his Excellency summoned them all to the town-house and as usual

deposed them all. A regiment was drawn up in half-moon on the square

beneath the windows. To the magistrates asking why they were deposed, he

briefly replied, "The quiet of the land requires it. It is necessary to

have unanimous resolutions in the States-General at the Hague. This

cannot be accomplished without these preliminary changes. I believe that

you had good intentions and have been faithful servants of the

Fatherland. But this time it must be so."

And so the faithful servants of the Fatherland were dismissed into space.

Otherwise how could there be unanimous voting in parliament? It must be

regarded perhaps as fortunate that the force of character, undaunted

courage, and quiet decision of Maurice enabled him to effect this violent

series of revolutions with such masterly simplicity. It is questionable

whether the Stadholder's commission technically empowered him thus to

trample on municipal law; it is certain that, if it did, the boasted

liberties of the Netherlands were a dream; but it is equally true that,

in the circumstances then existing, a vulgar, cowardly, or incompetent

personage might have marked his pathway with massacres without restoring

tranquillity.

Sometimes there was even a comic aspect to these strokes of state. The

lists of new magistrates being hurriedly furnished by the Prince's

adherents to supply the place of those evicted, it often happened that

men not quahified by property, residence, or other attributes were

appointed to the government, so that many became magistrates before they

were citizens.

On being respectfully asked sometimes who such a magistrate might be

whose face and name were equally unknown to his colleagues and to the

townsmen in general; "Do I know the fellows?" he would say with a

cheerful laugh. And indeed they might have all been dead men, those new

functionaries, for aught he did know. And so on through Medemblik and

Alkmaar, Brielle, Delft, Monnikendam, and many other cities progressed

the Prince, sowing new municipalities broadcast as he passed along. At

the Hague on his return a vote of thanks to the Prince was passed by the

nobles and most of the cities for the trouble he had taken in this

reforming process. But the unanimous vote had not yet been secured, the

strongholds of Arminianism, as it was the fashion to call them, not being

yet reduced.

The Prince, in reply to the vote of thanks, said that "in what he had

done and was going to do his intention sincerely and uprightly had been

no other than to promote the interests and tranquillity of the country,

without admixture of anything personal and without prejudice to the

general commonwealth or the laws and privileges of the cities." He

desired further that "note might be taken of this declaration as record

of his good and upright intentions."

But the sincerest and most upright intentions may be refracted by party

atmosphere from their aim, and the purest gold from the mint elude the

direct grasp through the clearest fluid in existence. At any rate it

would have been difficult to convince the host of deposed magistrates

hurled from office, although recognized as faithful servants of the

Fatherland, that such violent removal had taken place without detriment

to the laws and privileges.

And the Stadholder went to the few cities where some of the leaven still

lingered.

He arrived at Leyden on the 22nd October, "accompanied by a great suite

of colonels, ritmeesters, and captains," having sent on his body-guard to

the town strengthened by other troops. He was received by the magistrates

at the "Prince's Court" with great reverence and entertained by them in

the evening at a magnificent banquet.

Next morning he summoned the whole forty of them to the town-house,

disbanded them all, and appointed new ones in their stead; some of the

old members however who could be relied upon being admitted to the

revolutionized board.

The populace, mainly of the Stadholder's party, made themselves merry

over the discomfited "Arminians". They hung wisps of straw as derisive

wreaths of triumph over the dismantled palisade lately encircling the

town-hall, disposed of the famous "Oldenbarneveld's teeth" at auction in

the public square, and chased many a poor cock and hen, with their

feathers completely plucked from their bodies, about the street, crying

"Arme haenen, arme haenen"--Arminians or poor fowls--according to the

practical witticism much esteemed at that period. Certainly the

unfortunate Barneveldians or Arminians, or however the Remonstrants might

be designated, had been sufficiently stripped of their plumes.

The Prince, after having made proclamation from the town-house enjoining

"modesty upon the mob" and a general abstention from "perverseness and

petulance," went his way to Haarlem, where he dismissed the magistrates

and appointed new ones, and then proceeded to Rotterdam, to Gouda, and to

Amsterdam.

It seemed scarcely necessary to carry, out the process in the commercial

capital, the abode of Peter Plancius, the seat of the West India Company,

the head-quarters of all most opposed to the Advocate, most devoted to

the Stadholder. But although the majority of the city government was an

overwhelming one, there was still a respectable minority who, it was

thought possible, might under a change of circumstances effect much

mischief and even grow into a majority.

The Prince therefore summoned the board before him according to his usual

style of proceeding and dismissed them all. They submitted without a word

of remonstrance.

Ex-Burgomaster Hooft, a man of seventy-two-father of the illustrious

Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, one of the greatest historians of the

Netherlands or of any country, then a man of thirty-seven-shocked at the

humiliating silence, asked his colleagues if they had none of them a word

to say in defence of their laws and privileges.

They answered with one accord "No."

The old man, a personal friend of Barneveld and born the same year, then

got on his feet and addressed the Stadholder. He spoke manfully and well,

characterizing the summary deposition of the magistracy as illegal and

unnecessary, recalling to the memory of those who heard him that he had

been thirty-six years long a member of the government and always a warm

friend of the House of Nassau, and respectfully submitting that the small

minority in the municipal government, while differing from their

colleagues and from the greater number of the States-General, had limited

their opposition to strictly constitutional means, never resorting to

acts of violence or to secret conspiracy.

Nothing could be more truly respectable than the appearance of this

ancient magistrate, in long black robe with fur edgings, high ruff around

his thin, pointed face, and decent skull-cap covering his bald old head,

quavering forth to unsympathetic ears a temperate and unanswerable

defence of things which in all ages the noblest minds have deemed most

valuable.

His harangue was not very long. Maurice's reply was very short.

"Grandpapa," he said, "it must be so this time. Necessity and the service

of the country require it."

With that he dismissed the thirty-six magistrates and next day appointed

a new board, who were duly sworn to fidelity to the States-General. Of

course a large proportion of the old members were renominated.

Scarcely had the echo of the Prince's footsteps ceased to resound through

the country as he tramped from one city to another, moulding each to his

will, when the States of Holland, now thoroughly reorganized, passed a

solemn vote of thanks to him for all that he had done. The six cities of

the minority had now become the majority, and there was unanimity at the

Hague. The Seven Provinces, States-General and States-Provincial, were as

one, and the Synod was secured. Whether the prize was worth the

sacrifices which it had cost and was still to cost might at least be

considered doubtful.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Affection of his friends and the wrath of his enemies

Depths theological party spirit could descend

Extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence

Human nature in its meanness and shame

It had not yet occurred to him that he was married

Make the very name of man a term of reproach

Never lack of fishers in troubled waters

Opposed the subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood

Pot-valiant hero

Resolve to maintain the civil authority over the military

Tempest of passion and prejudice

The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny

Yes, there are wicked men about

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, v10, 1618-19

CHAPTER XIX.

Rancour between the Politico-Religious Parties--Spanish Intrigues

Inconsistency of James--Brewster and Robinson's Congregation at

Leyden--They decide to leave for America--Robinson's Farewell Sermon

and Prayer at Parting.

During this dark and mournful winter the internal dissensions and, as a

matter of course, the foreign intrigues had become more dangerous than

ever. While the man who for a whole generation had guided the policy of

the Republic and had been its virtual chief magistrate lay hidden from

all men's sight, the troubles which he had sought to avert were not

diminished by his removal from the scene. The extreme or Gomarist party

which had taken a pride in secret conventicles where they were in a

minority, determined, as they said, to separate Christ from Belial and,

meditating the triumph which they had at last secured, now drove the

Arminians from the great churches. Very soon it was impossible for these

heretics to enjoy the rights of public worship anywhere. But they were

not dismayed. The canons of Dordtrecht had not yet been fulminated. They

avowed themselves ready to sacrifice worldly goods and life itself in

defence of the Five Points. In Rotterdam, notwithstanding a garrison of

fifteen companies, more than a thousand Remonstrants assembled on

Christmas-day in the Exchange for want of a more appropriate place of

meeting and sang the 112th Psalm in mighty chorus. A clergyman of their

persuasion accidentally passing through the street was forcibly laid

hands upon and obliged to preach to them, which he did with great

unction. The magistracy, where now the Contra-Remonstrants had the

control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes. It

was impossible not to be reminded of the days half a century before, when

the early Reformers had met in the open fields or among the dunes, armed

to the teeth, and with outlying pickets to warn the congregation of the

approach of Red Rod and the functionaries of the Holy Inquisition.

In Schoonhoven the authorities attempted one Sunday by main force to

induct a Contra-Remonstrant into the pulpit from which a Remonstrant had

just been expelled. The women of the place turned out with their distaffs

and beat them from the field. The garrison was called out, and there was

a pitched battle in the streets between soldiers, police officers, and

women, not much to the edification certainly of the Sabbath-loving

community on either side, the victory remaining with the ladies.

In short it would be impossible to exaggerate the rancour felt between

the different politico-religious parties. All heed for the great war now

raging in the outside world between the hostile elements of Catholicism

and Protestantism, embattled over an enormous space, was lost in the din

of conflict among the respective supporters of conditional and

unconditional damnation within the pale of the Reformed Church. The

earthquake shaking Europe rolled unheeded, as it was of old said to have

done at Cannae, amid the fierce shock of mortal foes in that narrow

field.

The respect for authority which had so long been the distinguishing

characteristic of the Netherlanders seemed to have disappeared. It was

difficult--now that the time-honoured laws and privileges in defence of

which, and of liberty of worship included in them, the Provinces had made

war forty years long had been trampled upon by military force--for those

not warmed by the fire of Gomarus to feel their ancient respect for the

magistracy. The magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword.

The Spanish government was inevitably encouraged by the spectacle thus

presented. We have seen the strong hopes entertained by the council at

Madrid, two years before the crisis now existing had occurred. We have

witnessed the eagerness with which the King indulged the dream of

recovering the sovereignty which his father had lost, and the vast

schemes which he nourished towards that purpose, founded on the internal

divisions which were reducing the Republic to impotence. Subsequent

events had naturally made him more sanguine than ever. There was now a

web of intrigue stretching through the Provinces to bring them all back

under the sceptre of Spain. The imprisonment of the great stipendiary,

the great conspirator, the man who had sold himself and was on the point

of selling his country, had not terminated those plots. Where was the

supposed centre of that intrigue? In the council of state of the

Netherlands, ever fiercely opposed to Barneveld and stuffed full of his

mortal enemies. Whose name was most familiar on the lips of the Spanish

partisans engaged in these secret schemes? That of Adrian Manmaker,

President of the Council, representative of Prince Maurice as first noble

of Zealand in the States-General, chairman of the committee sent by that

body to Utrecht to frustrate the designs of the Advocate, and one of the

twenty-four commissioners soon to be appointed to sit in judgment upon

him.

The tale seems too monstrous for belief, nor is it to be admitted with

certainty, that Manmaker and the other councillors implicated had

actually given their adhesion to the plot, because the Spanish emissaries

in their correspondence with the King assured him of the fact. But if

such a foundation for suspicion could have been found against Barneveld

and his friends, the world would not have heard the last of it from that

hour to this.

It is superfluous to say that the Prince was entirely foreign to these

plans. He had never been mentioned as privy to the little arrangements of

Councillor du Agean and others, although he was to benefit by them. In

the Spanish schemes he seems to have been considered as an impediment,

although indirectly they might tend to advance him.

"We have managed now, I hope, that his Majesty will be recognized as

sovereign of the country," wrote the confidential agent of the King of

Spain in the Netherlands, Emmanuel Sueyro, to the government of Madrid.

"The English will oppose it with all their strength. But they can do

nothing except by making Count Maurice sovereign of Holland and duke of

Julich and Cleve. Maurice will also contrive to make himself master of

Wesel, so it is necessary for the Archduke to be beforehand with him and

make sure of the place. It is also needful that his Majesty should induce

the French government to talk with the Netherlanders and convince them

that it is time to prolong the Truce."

This was soon afterwards accomplished. The French minister at Brussels

informed Archduke Albert that du Maurier had been instructed to propose

the prolongation, and that he had been conferring with the Prince of

Orange and the States-General on the subject. At first the Prince had

expressed disinclination, but at the last interview both he and the

States had shown a desire for it, and the French King had requested from

the Archduke a declaration whether the Spanish government would be

willing to treat for it. In such case Lewis would offer himself as

mediator and do his best to bring about a successful result.

But it was not the intention of the conspirators in the Netherlands that

the Truce should be prolonged. On the contrary the negotiation for it was

merely to furnish the occasion for fully developing their plot. "The

States and especially those of Zealand will reply that they no longer

wish the Truce," continued Sueyro, "and that they would prefer war to

such a truce. They desire to put ships on the coast of Flanders, to which

the Hollanders are opposed because it would be disagreeable to the

French. So the Zealanders will be the first to say that the Netherlanders

must come back to his Majesty. This their President Hanmaker has sworn.

The States of Overyssel will likewise give their hand to this because

they say they will be the first to feel the shock of the war. Thus we

shall very easily carry out our design, and as we shall concede to the

Zealanders their demands in regard to the navigation they at least will

place themselves under the dominion of his Majesty as will be the case

with Friesland as well as Overyssel."

It will be observed that in this secret arrangement for selling the

Republic to its ancient master it was precisely the Provinces and the

politicians most steadily opposed to Barneveld that took the lead.

Zealand, Friesland, Overyssel were in the plot, but not a word was said

of Utrecht. As for Holland itself, hopes were founded on the places where

hatred to the Advocate was fiercest.

"Between ourselves," continued the agent, "we are ten here in the

government of Holland to support the plan, but we must not discover

ourselves for fear of suffering what has happened to Barneveld."

He added that the time for action had not yet come, and that if movements

were made before the Synod had finished its labours, "The Gomarists would

say that they were all sold." He implored the government at Madrid to

keep the whole matter for the present profoundly secret because "Prince

Maurice and the Gomarists had the forces of the country at their

disposition." In case the plot was sprung too suddenly therefore, he

feared that with the assistance of England Maurice might, at the head of

the Gomarists and the army, make himself sovereign of Holland and Duke of

Cleve, while he and the rest of the Spanish partisans might be in prison

with Barneveld for trying to accomplish what Barneveld had been trying to

prevent.