THE POLICY OF THE PRINCE
Gaspard Fagel, Grand Pensionary of Holland, and M. Dyckfelt, entered the
little room where the Prince awaited them. They were both statesmen who
had been trained under the last Grand Pensionary, John de Witt, whose
Parliamentary Republic had kept the Prince twenty years out of his
hereditary offices, and both retained something of the simplicity and
sternness of their early life, especially M. Dyckfelt, who wore the
plain falling band of the Republican era and a suit old-fashioned in
primness and sombre colour.
He was a cleverer man than M. Fagel, who was utterly and entirely under
the dominion of the Stadtholder, and saw too clearly with his master's
eyes even to have an opinion of his own. His manner to the Prince was
the more humble, but both addressed him with that deep respect which
does not preclude perfect openness.
William looked at them both sharply, then down at the letters in his
hand.
"I have received the invitation from England for which I have been
waiting," he said.
M. Dyckfelt bowed, and M. Fagel answered--
"May I congratulate Your Highness----"
"Not yet," interrupted William. "Listen first to these letters--they
ask almost the impossible."
He made a little gesture to the straight chairs the other side of the
table, and the two seated themselves. M. Dyckfelt had flushed with
eagerness and excitement, M. Fagel looked tired and ill. They were both
considerably older than the Prince, both men of a fine type with honest,
shrewd faces.
William drew his chair nearer the table and held the letters under the
glow of the flame of the tall wax candles.
"These," he said, looking down at the flowing English writing, "were
brought me by Mr. Herbert, whom I suppose you met, M. Dyckfelt, in
England, and are written by Mr. Sidney."
He paused with a little cough; neither of the other two men spoke.
"In the preamble," continued William, "they say that they are pleased to
learn from M. Zuylestein that I will be of assistance to them, but they
fear the difficulties; and though every one is so dissatisfied with the
King his government it would not be safe to speak to them
beforehand--and though they might venture themselves on my landing they
will do nothing now." He smiled unpleasantly, and added, "In brief,
they are on the winning side, and I must go with strength enough to
defend myself until they can be gotten into some order. For the army,
they say the discontent is such that the King could not count on them,
and for the navy, they believe not one in ten would do him any service
in such a cause."
"Mine own observations confirm this advice," said M. Dyckfelt, with his
eyes fixed on the Prince. "And M. Zuylestein hath writ the same."
William made no comment on that.
"Now," he said, "we come to the gist of the business, which is, that
these gentlemen fear affairs will be worse next year, both by the
officering of the army with Irish Catholics, the calling of a packed
Parliament to pass the repeal of the Test Act, and the employment of
violent means against the remaining liberties of the Protestants."
He raised his brilliant eyes to the two intent faces opposite.
"Therefore they wish me to undertake this expedition this year."
A soft exclamation broke from Gaspard Fagel.
"Can it be done?"
"If it must be done it can be done," said the Prince firmly; "and I
think it is 'nunc aut nunquam,' M. Fagel."
M. Dyckfelt gave a movement of irrepressible excitement.
"Do they not recognise the difficulties of Your Highness?"
William looked again at the letter.
"These are their words, Mynheer: 'If the circumstances stand so with
Your Highness, that you believe you can get here time enough, in a
condition to give assistance this year sufficient for a relief under
these circumstances which have been so represented, we who subscribe
this will not fail to attend Your Highness upon your landing, and to do
all that lies in our power to prepare others to be in as much readiness
as such an action is capable of, where there is so much danger in
communicating an affair of such a nature, till it be near the time of
its being made public.' Then follow their difficulties: 'We know not
what alarm your preparations for this expedition may give, or what
notice it will be necessary for you to give the States beforehand, by
either of which means their intelligence or suspicions here may be such
as may cause us to be secured before your landing----'"
William laid the paper down.
"That is their main trouble--they doubt whether I can be so secret as
not to cause them and all like to support me to be clapt up before I
sail--and wish to know my opinion on it--further, they mislike my
compliment to the King on the birth of the Prince of Wales, which hath,
they say, done me injury among the Protestants, of whom not one in a
thousand believeth the child to be the Queen's--and for the rest--dare
I, will I, adventure on the attempt?"
He drew a deep breath as he finished this speech, and fixed his eyes on
the dark, uncurtained square of the window as if he pictured something
in his mind too vast, too confined, for the narrow room, and must
imagine it filling the silent night without.
M. Fagel spoke, very low.
"Your Highness doth not hesitate?"
"I cannot," answered the Prince simply; "for it is the only way to gain
England from France."
In those plain words lay the whole policy of his life--to gain England
from France, to weigh the balance of Europe against Louis by throwing
into the scale against him a nation so powerful, so wealthy, and
anciently so glorious as England; for ten years he had been at the
hopeless task of gaining England through her King, now he was going to
ignore the King and go straight to the people; but confident as he was
in his destiny, the difficulties of the project seemed overwhelming.
He turned again to the letter.
"This is signed by seven great lords," he said, "but I do not know that
they are any of them great Politics--Mr. Russell and Mr. Sidney are the
most knowing in affairs, and the last sendeth me words of no great
encouragement----"
He picked up the other letter.
"There is advice here that I should take M. de Schomberg for the second
in command, for he is beloved in England."
"Hath he not been too long in the service of France?" asked M. Fagel.
"Yet he resigned all his posts when the Edict of Nantes was revoked,"
said M. Dyckfelt. "And being so staunch a Protestant, and so famous a
captain, it would be well if Your Highness could borrow him, as Mr.
Sidney saith."
"He is very knowing in his profession," said William, without
enthusiasm; "but I doubt he will be too dear--apart from his age, and,
God forgive me, I do not relish a lieutenant of eighty."
He leant forward with one arm resting on the dark table. Behind him was
the shadowed mantelshelf and the dark picture of a storm that occupied
the whole width of the chimney shaft, obscured in gloom and touched only
vaguely now and then with passing glimmers of candlelight. The Prince's
face, which wore an extraordinary expression of concentration and
resolve, was thrown out clearly against this darkness, for the lights
stood directly before him, and the two men watching him, almost with
suspended breath, were (though so familiar with his features) powerfully
impressed by this intent look of unconscious strength in the mobile
mouth and glowing eyes.
There was the same spirit of enthusiastic energy in his words, though
his utterance was laboured and his voice husky from so much speaking.
"Those are the difficulties of the English," he said. "Mine, you
know,"--he brought his fine hand down lightly on the table,--"after all
they are--as always--summed up in one word--France."
The manner in which he stressed that name was almost startling in its
bitterness, hatred, and challenge.
"Is it possible," asked M. Fagel, who was always at first afraid of the
daring schemes of the Prince, "for you to deceive the French?"
"M. D'Avaux is a clever man," answered William grimly, "but Albeville
and Sunderland will lull King James, and even I think M. Barillon. My
Lord Sunderland," he added, with some admiration, "is the finest, most
bewitching knave I have ever met----"
"Then," said M. Dyckfelt, "there are a many at the Court whose interest
it is to keep the King deceived--namely, those nobles whose letters of
service I brought to Your Highness--and from what I observed of His
Majesty he was so infatuate with his own conceptions of affairs as to
give scant hearing to good advice."
"That may be," answered M. Fagel. "But will France be so easily
beguiled? M. D'Avaux at The Hague itself must suspect."
"He doth already," said William, in a kind of flashing shortness; "but
he cannot prove his suspicions."
"Your Highness," asked M. Fagel, still anxious, "must take an army and a
fleet with you----"
"You do not think," answered the Stadtholder, "that I would go with a
handful of adventurers, like my poor Lord Monmouth?"
"Then," urged the Grand Pensionary, "what is to become of the States
with all their defences beyond the seas and you absent?"
An expression of pain crossed William's face.
"It must be risked," he said, in his hoarse, tired voice. "Do you not
suppose I have counted these risks?" he added half fiercely.
M. Fagel looked at him straightly.
"Will the States permit Your Highness to take these risks?" he asked.
"I must hope to God that the States will trust me as they have done
before," answered William, with dignity.
"Your Highness must lay down new ships, raise new companies, and under
what pretence?"
"It can be done," said William. "Have not Algerine corsairs shown
themselves in the North Sea? There is one excuse."
M. Dyckfelt spoke now.
"I see other difficulties. I do not think that Your Highness need fear
the loyalty of the States, but what of your Romanist allies, the Pope
himself?"
"The Pope," said William calmly, "is on the verge of war with Louis over
the Cologne affair, and as long as I stand against France I am assured
of his secret support--and as for England, I have it from a sure hand
that His Holiness was so offended by the sending of Lord Castlemaine as
envoy that all King James his compliments to his nuncio have had no
effect."
He could not forbear a smile, for in truth the sending of a man who owed
his very title to an infamous wife to the court of the saintly Pontiff
was one of those almost incredible blunders it is difficult to believe
even of a stupid man.
"I have good hopes from that incident," continued the Prince. "The King
who made that mistake may make others."
"Ah! Highness," said M. Dyckfelt, "the mistakes of King James will not
help you so much as your own wisdom."
William glanced at the speaker. In the faith and trust of such lay his
surest strength. These men, incorruptible, clever, industrious,
devoted, and patriotic, such as the two now facing him, were the bulwark
of the position he had held fifteen years, the instruments of all his
projects. These thoughts so moved in his mind that he was constrained
to speak warmly.
"Mynheer, neither on my own understanding nor on the mistakes of my
enemies do I rely, but on the services of such as you and M. Fagel."
Praise was rare from the Prince they served, and at the sound of it the
two grave diplomats coloured.
M. Dyckfelt answered.
"Where should Your Highness find perfect loyalty if not in us?"
"God be thanked," said William, with a contained passion, "I have no
cause to doubt my own people. But here," he added frankly, "we have to
deal with foreigners, and those a nation of all others light and
changeable in politics, arrogant and wilful. At present every noble out
of office for not attending Mass, and every officer removed to give
place to an Irish Papist, is for me; every courtier who thinketh the
King insecure is my very good friend, and every country gentleman
deprived of his vote raileth against King James--it will take some
diplomacy, gentlemen, to combine these into a firm support for my
design, and at the same time to conciliate the Catholics."
"There is a great body of fanatics very eager to call Your Highness
their champion," said M. Dyckfelt.
"The Hague is full of them," replied the Prince; "but as each man
spendeth all his energies in advancing his own grievances and his own
schemes there is not much use in them. Methinks the Tories are a surer
strength, but they love me not--only use me to save their liberties.
The Whigs shout for me, but know me not----"
"They are a corrupt and shallow people," said M. Fagel.
M. Dyckfelt, who had spent several months in England marshalling the
discontented factions, and putting them under the leadership of the
Prince, answered this statement of the Grand Pensionary.
"There are many able, knowing, and patriotic men among them, though,
being out of office, they are not so commonly heard of as the knaves who
make the ministry."
William spoke with some impatience.
"Heaven help me, I would never trust an Englishman, unless it were Mr.
Sidney; for when they are honest they are lazy, as Lord Halifax and Sir
William Temple, and too indifferent to business to be stirred; and when
they are dishonest, which I ever found the great majority, they are the
most shameless creatures in the world."
"Yet in the present instant Your Highness must trust them."
William smiled grimly.
"Their heads are on their secrecy this time, Mynheer. Besides, I think
these men are spirited enough if I can use them before their indignation
cools."
There was a second's pause of silence, then M. Fagel spoke.
"Your Highness will require a vast deal of money."
"Yes," said the Prince dryly; "but I believe that it can be raised.'
"In England?" inquired M. Dyckfelt.
"--and among the French refugees here--and from my own fortune, Mynheer,
which hath ever exceeded my wants--also, Mynheer, I hope the States will
help."
"How great a sum would it be, Highness?"
William, who had the whole project already clear in his head, and had
made careful calculations as to the cost, answered at once.
"About three hundred thousand pounds."
M. Fagel was silent. His secret thought was, that to raise this money,
overcome all opposition, and complete every preparation by the autumn
was impossible.
The Prince was quick to divine his doubt.
"You think I cannot do it?" he asked, with that breathlessness that was
a sign of his rare excitement.
"No, Highness. I think of France."
"France!" cried William. "I think of France also."
"If they should attack us while you were absent--or even before you were
ready----"
William lifted his hand gravely and let it fall lightly on the smooth
surface of the table.
"Ah, _if_--M. Fagel," he said solemnly; "but that is in God His keeping,
where all our destinies be--and we can but fulfil them."
He smiled a little as if he thought of other things, and his bright gaze
again sought the window, but instantly he recalled himself.
"I need detain you no more to-night--I shall need to see the States
separately and the Amsterdamers--everything must be put in train
immediately."
All three rose. The two older men were much moved; before the mind of
each were pictures of ten years ago when with the same deliberate
courage and heroic fatalism the Prince had pitted himself against France
and been forced by the treachery of Charles Stewart into the peace of
Nymwegen.
Ten years ago, and ever since William had been working for and planning
a renewal of the war he had then been forced to conclude; now it seemed
that he had accomplished his desire, and that his re-entry into the
combat would be in a manner to take the breath of Europe.
Grave men as these two were, and well used to the spectacle of high
policies, they felt that extraordinary thrill which shakes those about
to watch the curtain draw up on tremendous events.
They knew that in that quiet little room actions were being resolved and
put in train that would stir every court in Europe and make all the pomp
of Versailles show hollow if successful; and looking on the Prince, they
could not think of failure.
When they had taken their leave, William locked the two letters in a
Chinese escritoire. Mr. Sidney had requested that they, being in his
known hand, might be destroyed, but the Prince considered his desk as
safe as the fire, and was always loath to burn papers of importance.
In that same inner drawer where these letters now lay were offers of
services from many famous English names, and that correspondence with
Henry Sidney which had prepared the way for the invitation received
to-night; also all the letters from King James written since the
marriage of Mary, which the Prince had carefully kept.
As he turned the little gold key in the smooth lock he thought of his
father-in-law and of the personal aspect of his undertaking. Though he
would very willingly have avoided the odium and scandal that he must
incur by a break with so near a relation, he had no feelings of
affection or even respect for King James. They were antagonistic in
religion, character, aims, and policy. James had opposed the Prince's
marriage, and ever since he had come to power opposed his every wish and
desire. The withdrawal of Sidney from The Hague, the sending of Skelton
in his stead, the attempt to recall and place at the disposal of France
the English troops in the service of the State, his refusal to interfere
with Louis' insulting seizure of Orange, his constant spyings in the
household of the Princess, his endeavour to convert her to his own
faith, had been all so many widenings of a breach that had never been
completely closed; and, on the other hand, the Prince knew that the King
had never forgiven him three things--the League of Augsburg (which
confederacy of the German Princes against France was known to be his
work, though his name did not appear in it), the refusal really his,
though nominally the State's, to return the English troops or to put
Skelton at the head of them, and his refusal to countenance the
Declaration of Indulgence, even when accompanied by the tempting bribe
of alliance against France.
They were, and always had been, natural enemies, despite the accident of
the double tie of blood and marriage, and even the conventional
compliments of their rank had long since been worn thin between them.
William was indebted to his uncle for nothing. James did not even give
his eldest daughter an allowance, while his youngest received a princely
income; but the Prince, faithful to his unchanging policy, would have
passed all this, would James have but done what Charles had always been
pressed to do by his nephew, namely, join the States in an alliance
against France. The Prince had, indeed, with this end in view,
endeavoured to please the King on his first accession, and would have
worked with him loyally as an ally.
But for the last year he had seen clearly, and with mingled wrath and
pity, that James was bent on the old dishonest policy of packed
parliaments, French money, and corrupt ministers, added to which was an
intolerant, almost insane, bigotry which, discountenanced by the Pope
himself and displeasing to all moderate Catholics, was an impossible
scheme of government, and in William's eyes, all religious
considerations apart, the act of a madman or a fool.
And it did not suit his statecraft to have either on the throne of
England. He had waited a long time for this country, which he had seen
from boyhood was essential to his schemes for the balance of power and
the liberty of Europe, and now was his moment.
As he walked up and down the plain little room he vowed that the
difficulties should be conquered, and that even if the Bourbon lilies
were flying over Brussels he would lead an armament to England that
year.