LOUIS XIV. AND THE UNITED PROVINCES
Humiliation of Spain and the Pope--Purchase of Dunkirk--The war
of devolution--Alarm of Europe--Opposition of the Dutch--The
Triple Alliance--The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle--Overthrow of
the Triple Alliance--Origin of the United Provinces--Their
constitution--Supremacy of the burghers--Unique position of
Holland--The House of Orange--Prosperity of the Dutch--Rivalry
between the republicans and the House of Orange--John Olden
Barneveldt--Attempted revolution of William II.--Supremacy
of the republican party--Character and policy of John de Witt--War
with England--The Act of Navigation--The Act of Exclusion--Second war
with England--The treaty of Breda--Danger from France--The perpetual
edict--Popular movement in favour of William III.--Murder of
de Witt.
[Sidenote: =Humiliation of Spain by Louis, 1661.=]
No sooner had Louis XIV. taken the management of affairs into
his own hands, than he began to let foreign countries understand that
France was now ruled by a sovereign who intended his will to be law,
and was not likely to abate one jot of the dignity which he thought
due to his crown. In the autumn of 1661, on the occasion of the solemn
entry of a Swedish envoy into London, the ambassadors of France and
Spain in their eagerness to gain precedence of each other came to
blows in the narrow streets. The carriage of d’Estrades, the French
ambassador, was overturned, his horse killed, and his suite forced
to take refuge in the adjacent houses wounded and beaten; while the
victorious Spaniard proudly took his place in the procession clothed
with all the insolent dignity of success. Louis took the matter up
fiercely, dismissed d’Estrades for having been beaten, recalled his own
ambassador from Madrid, and demanded and actually obtained from Philip
IV., under threat of war, the acknowledgment of the right of
the crown of France to precede that of Spain.
[Sidenote: =Humiliation of the Pope by Louis, 1662.=]
A few months later a tumult of a less honourable character brought
Louis into sharp antagonism to the Pope. The French ambassador at
Rome, the duc de Créqui, had made himself very unpopular by his
intolerable pride, and some of the Corsican guards of the Vatican,
urged on it is said by the brother of the Pope, and smarting under
the wrong of a personal insult rendered to their body by some of the
French suite, made themselves the organs of the general hatred and of
private revenge, by a gross attack upon the ambassador’s wife as she
was returning to her palace. A page was killed, many of the servants
wounded, and the duc de Créqui, leaving Rome in real or assumed fear
for his own life, demanded from Alexander VII. a reparation
which the Pope seemed very unwilling to give. Louis immediately seized
Avignon, assembled an army, appointed the maréchal du Plessis-Praslin
to the command, and ordered him to form the siege of Rome and force the
Pope to do justice to the outraged majesty of France. Alexander was
astonished at this unexpected display of energy, and sent his nephew
the cardinal Chigi in all haste to Paris to offer an humble apology and
obtain the best terms he could. He was the first legate say the French
historians ever sent by a Pope to ask for pardon. If so, the success
of the experiment hardly warranted its repetition. Louis remained for
some time obstinately irate, and was only pacified by imposing upon the
Pope the public humiliation of banishing his brother, disbanding his
Corsican guard, and erecting a pyramid in Rome as a perpetual memorial
of his disgrace.
[Sidenote: =Purchase of Dunkirk, 1662.=]
More substantial additions to the power of Louis than the precedence
of an ambassador or the disgrace of a Pope soon followed. In 1662 he
purchased the port of Dunkirk from England, and made it a harbour for
warships. In 1663 he sent the count of Schomberg, supported by French
officers and French money, secretly to the assistance of Portugal in
her war against Spain, and contributed materially to the gaining of the
victory of Villa Viciosa in 1665, which established the independence
of the country. [Sidenote: =Assistance given by Louis to Portugal,
and against the Turks, 1663–64.=] At the same time he proceeded
to read the Grand Vizier a lesson by breaking the ancient league of
friendship between France and the Sultan, in consequence of an insult
offered to the French ambassador in 1661, sent French troops to assist
in the defence of Candia, which was then being besieged by the Turks,
and supplied the Emperor with a large sum of money and a contingent of
6000 Frenchmen under La Feuillade and Coligny to resist the incursion
of the Ottoman armies into Hungary and Croatia in 1664. Chiefly owing
to the irresistible valour of the French troops, the imperial general,
Montecuculli, was enabled to inflict a crushing defeat upon the grand
vizier himself at the battle of S. Gothard on the Raab, and hurl the
invaders back behind their own frontiers.
[Sidenote: =The War of Devolution, 1667.=]
In 1667 broke out the first of the great wars of Louis XIV.,
the war of devolution. In September 1665 Philip IV. of Spain
died, leaving two daughters by his first marriage, of whom the queen of
France was the elder, and one son by his second marriage, who succeeded
to the crown of Spain under the name of Charles II. Louis
immediately laid claim to the Spanish Netherlands in virtue of what was
known as the law of devolution. This law was in fact a local custom of
the province of Brabant, by which private property in land passed to
the female children of the first marriage in preference to the male
children of the second marriage. If, therefore, Philip IV. had
in his private capacity bought a farm in Brabant, Louis would by the
law of devolution have become entitled to it in right of his wife; but
to assert that the sovereignty of the Low Countries followed the rule
of land tenure in Brabant was one of the most monstrous claims ever put
forward by hypocritical ambition. Nevertheless Louis played his part
well. The rights of his queen were dwelt upon with much argumentative
force by writers and diplomatists, while Turenne at the head of 35,000
men produced more convincing arguments. By August 1667 Charleroi,
Tournay and Lille were in his hands, and the whole of the Spanish
Netherlands lay open before him. Astonished Europe awoke to see the
once formidable power of Spain falling to pieces before its eyes, to
find itself threatened by the overweening ambition of a prince, whose
will was law from the Rhine to the ocean, and from the Scheldt to the
Pyrenees.
[Sidenote: =Alarm of Europe.=]
It was the first time that European statesmen realised the true nature
of the danger from France, the first time they understood the real bent
of French policy. Hitherto the shade of Philip II. had pressed
upon Europe like a nightmare. Hardly ten years had elapsed since
Cromwell had declared war against Spain in the spirit of Sir Walter
Raleigh, had actually allied himself with France, had called in the aid
of the lion to make sure work of the dying elephant. But five years ago
Clarendon had made over Dunkirk to Louis, never dreaming that France,
and not Spain, was to be the commercial and naval rival of England in
the years which were close at hand. The war of devolution shattered
these illusions somewhat rudely. It was a war of pure ambition, of
undisguised rapacity. It disclosed Louis to the world as absolutely
unscrupulous and alarmingly strong. If Spain thus crumbled to dust at
his feet, what power in Europe could dare to withstand him? Suddenly,
from out the calm which had pervaded all Europe since the treaties of
1660, there loomed in terrific proportions the black shadow of the old
world-wide tyranny, which, so far from having been crushed to death in
the wars of religion, had merely shifted the centre of its power from
Madrid to Paris.
[Sidenote: =Opposition of the Dutch to Louis’s schemes.=]
The burden of organising the opposition to France fell naturally
upon the Dutch. If the French once became masters of Antwerp and the
Scheldt, the pre-eminence of Amsterdam, and the prosperity, if not the
independence, of the United Provinces was gone. The Spanish Netherlands
formed a barrier to the advances of France which was absolutely
necessary to the existence of the Dutch as a nation. It had always been
an important part of their settled policy ever since they had gained
their independence to keep the French frontier away from the Scheldt.
De Witt, the grand pensionary of Holland, who was at that time the
political chief of the republic, was fully alive to the danger. Before
Louis had crossed the frontier he was deep in negotiations with the
Emperor and the princes of Germany, as well as with Sweden and England,
to put limits to the aggression of the French. But Louis’s diplomacy
had been too much for him. By the bribe of a partition treaty for
dividing the Spanish dominions between France and the Empire on the
death of the weakly king of Spain, Leopold was persuaded to remain
neutral while Louis was eating up his leaf of the artichoke. The German
princes were secured at heavy cost in October 1667 and Sweden was
terrified into inaction by threats. [Sidenote: =Negotiations with
England.=] England alone remained dangerous. The fall of Clarendon
in November 1667 had put the chief direction of foreign affairs into
the hands of Arlington who was in favour of a Dutch alliance. Sir
William Temple, the ablest of English diplomatists and a sturdy friend
to the Dutch, was sent as English envoy to the Hague. Charles himself,
though he never intended to break with Louis and lose the French
subsidies, was not averse to an occasional display of independence.
With an impartiality more creditable to his cleverness than his
honesty, he kept on foot negotiations for an alliance with Spain,
France and the Dutch at the same time, waiting to see which side would
offer him most. By December 1667, however, it became abundantly clear
that the English people would not tolerate an alliance with France,
or permit Louis to make himself master of the Low Countries. Charles
accordingly took the line of the least resistance, authorised Temple to
conclude a treaty with the Dutch, and wrote to Louis to explain that he
had been obliged to act against his own wishes.
[Sidenote: =Formation of the Triple Alliance, 1668.=]
The treaty was signed at the Hague on the 13th of January 1668, and on
May 15th Sweden, angered by the threats of Louis, joined the alliance
in order to secure the payment of some old-standing claims upon Spain
which were guaranteed by the English and Dutch governments. The Triple
Alliance, as the treaty was then called, bound the allies to help each
other if attacked, and to endeavour to restore peace between France and
Spain, on the terms of the surrender to Louis, either of the districts
in the Low Countries which he had conquered, or of Franche-Comté and
a few specified frontier towns in the Netherlands. By a secret clause
they further bound themselves to compel peace on these terms, and, if
France refused, they agreed to make war upon her until she was reduced
to the boundaries fixed by the treaty of the Pyrenees.
[Sidenote: =Louis outwitted.=]
This was the first serious rebuff which the diplomacy of Louis had
sustained. His minister at the Hague, d’Estrades, had assured him again
and again that he need not be under any apprehensions of the formation
of a confederation contrary to his interests under the leadership of
the Dutch, because by the constitution of the United Provinces every
treaty required the sanction of the estates of the different provinces,
and it would be quite easy to ensure its publication, and bring about
its defeat, when it was proposed for their acceptance. He overlooked
the fact that during the war with England the provincial estates, in
order to prevent unnecessary delays, had delegated their powers to
a small commission of eight members, and had never resumed them. So
while d’Estrades was awaiting in confidence the publication of the full
text of the proposed treaty before the provincial estates, de Witt
quietly procured the consent of the commission of delegates, and the
treaty was signed and ratified before the French knew that it had been
even discussed. Louis only heard of the secret article from Charles
II. himself. He at once saw the gravity of the crisis, and
determined to put himself in the best possible position for subsequent
action. Though it was the middle of winter Condé received orders to
advance into Franche-Comté at the head of 15,000 men. On the 1st of
February his soldiers crossed the frontier. In a fortnight the whole
country was at his feet, and Louis went in person to Besançon to
receive its submission. _Beati possidentes_ is a diplomatic truth
which was just as thoroughly understood by Louis XIV. as by
Napoleon.
[Sidenote: =The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668.=]
But unlike Napoleon, Louis knew when he had gone far enough. He was not
going to stake everything on the chance of success in a war against a
combination of European powers, which was certain to grow larger as
time went on. He had already a securer foundation on which ultimately
to raise the edifice of French domination over the Spanish Netherlands
in his secret partition treaty with the Emperor. The terms of the
Triple Alliance guaranteed to him the possession of Lille, Tournai, and
Charleroi, the three fortresses which would make France impregnable on
her north-eastern frontier and open to her the gate of the Netherlands.
The show of moderation at this juncture would do much to disarm the
suspicion of Europe, would give him time to mature his plans for the
future, and enable him to make very substantial additions to his power
in the present. So Louis declared himself willing to negotiate for
peace, and on May 29th, 1668, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed
between France and Spain. By it France gave back Franche Comté, having
dismantled the fortresses, and received Charleroi, Binch, Ath, Douai,
Tournai, Oudenarde, Lille, Armentiéres, Courtrai, Bergues and Furnes,
with their districts. Some of these towns, such as Courtrai, Oudenarde
and Ath lay within the Netherlands, but in the line of fortresses
which stretched, roughly speaking, along the frontier from Dunkirk
to Charleroi, and included Lille, France had now an adequate defence
for her capital. Paris was safe and the invasions of the years of the
_Fronde_ could never again recur.
The war of devolution added to the ambition of Louis XIV.
the passion of revenge. It ministered to his pride by showing him
the immense superiority of his armies, and the predominance almost
unchallenged of his diplomacy. [Sidenote: =Hatred of Louis for
the Dutch.=] No soldier had been found to face his troops in the
field, no fortress had dared to resist his attack, the success of
his diplomacy had even broken the traditional alliance between the
Emperor and Spain. Germany had remained unconcerned while Spain was
being devoured. There was but one blot on this fair picture. One power
had dared to enter the lists with the all-powerful Louis and had
given him a fall. The Dutch had been the heart and soul of the Triple
Alliance. Without them it would never have been called into existence.
The assistance of England and Sweden was merely fortuitous. It was
the Dutch who were organising a policy and laying down principles of
action. It was galling enough to think that they had ventured to break
away from their condition of humble tutelage. To the Huguenots of
France and to Henry IV. the Dutch owed their very existence,
so every Frenchman believed. That they should be permitted to thwart
the cherished schemes of the king of France unpunished, to show to
Europe the way by which it could successfully resist French ambition,
and yet go scot-free, was impossible. From the day of the signing
of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis set himself to prepare a
deadly punishment for the insolent republicans who had dared to
thwart his will. Europe should learn by a terrible object-lesson that
the vengeance of the king of France was as swift as his spirit was
magnanimous.
[Sidenote: =An additional incentive to the claim of European
supremacy.=]
This determination to punish the Dutch meant for France and for Louis
the deliberate adoption of a policy which had for its object supremacy
over Europe. After the success of the Triple Alliance Louis could not
conceal from himself the probability that an attack upon the Protestant
maritime and republican power of the United Provinces would almost
certainly lead to a coalition of European powers against him. Germany
would never stand aside to permit the destruction of the Dutch. It was
more than doubtful if the careless Charles would have the inclination
or the firmness to keep England neutral. Every hour that Charles of
Spain lived diminished the value of the partition treaty as a bribe to
the Emperor. Louis could only wipe the United Provinces from out the
map of Europe by making himself the master of Europe. For four years
he hesitated before striking the final blow. But everything led him in
that direction. In his own court, besides the fulsome atmosphere of
adulation in which he lived, which must have weakened his judgment,
many influences were urging him on. Lionne, the cautious and trusted
minister of foreign affairs, was dead. Louvois, the indefatigable
minister of war, had raised the army to a pitch of perfection hitherto
unknown, and was anxious to prove its powers. The very success of
Colbert’s finance made Louis too easily forget the real limits of the
resources upon which he was drawing so lavishly. The nobles, ousted by
design from politics, now found their only sphere of activity in the
army, and were eager for war and for glory. Abroad diplomatic success
contributed its spur to his ambition. [Sidenote: =The Triple Alliance
overthrown, 1670–1672.=] The Triple Alliance was already a thing
of the past. In May 1670 the secret treaty of Dover bound Charles
II. hand and foot to France. In November 1671 the Emperor
agreed not to assist the enemies of France. In April 1672 Sweden
returned to her old alliance, and undertook to attack the Empire if the
Emperor helped the Dutch. Finally the bishop of Münster and most of the
smaller princes of Germany promised either assistance or neutrality.
The Great Elector alone remained stubbornly aloof. These astonishing
results of his diplomacy, added to the ceaseless importunities of his
court, fired Louis’s ambition and overcame his prudence. Forgetting
that promises so easily made can be still more easily revoked, he gave
the signal for a war of aggression pure and simple, which brought its
appropriate and ultimate reward in the wreck of his ambition and the
exhaustion of France.
[Sidenote: =The United Provinces.=]
Europe must have been craven-hearted indeed if it had stood tamely by,
wrapped in the cloak of its own selfishness, to watch the death-throes
of the United Provinces. The history of their war of independence was
sufficient to stir the emotions of every generous soul, the use which
they had made of the liberty which they had won such as to guarantee
its continuance in the mind of every prudent statesman. Trained to a
rough and hard life by a constant struggle with nature, consecrated
to a sturdy individualism of character by the religion of Calvin in
its most uncompromising and fatalistic form, the peasants from the
marshes of Holland and the fishermen from the sand-banks of Zealand
had found in the breath of liberty the elixir of a national life.
Under the leadership of the burghers of Amsterdam and Dordrecht, at
the initiative of the nobility of Zealand and Guelderland, with the
support of the scholars of Leyden, the union of Utrecht, formed in
1579, gave to Europe a new nationality, and planted in the very midst
of the great monarchies a confederation of tiny republics. [Sidenote:
=Reasons for the success of the war of independence.=] Nothing
could have preserved their independence at first except a strange
combination of national virtues, natural advantages, and political
fortune. Persecution had fanned the flame of patriotism till it burned
at a white heat. Under the pressure of a long struggle with a superior
power even vices turned into virtues. Slowness and obstinacy became
refined into patience and endurance, dulness into obedience, sloth
into fidelity. Never did men fight with greater heroism, with more
complete self-forgetfulness, than these rude sailors and fishermen who
wrested their liberty and their religion at the edge of the sword from
the pride of Spain. The physical characteristics of the country aided
them. Campaigns were difficult in a land which at any moment might be
restored to the sea by the cutting of a dyke. Sieges of towns open
to the sea by a power which had no navy were fore-doomed to failure.
Political complications aided them also. The opposition of France and
the jealousy of England made the task of Spain far more difficult. But
neither the sympathy of the Huguenots, nor the gold of Elizabeth,
nor the marshes of Holland, nor the defeat of the Armada, would have
availed one jot to save the confederation from ultimate ruin had it
not been for the tenacity, the patriotism, and the self-sacrifice of
the nation itself. Never since the days of Miltiades and Themistocles
did a people better deserve their freedom than did the patient Dutch
under their silent prince when the dagger of the assassin laid him
low in 1584. They had not long to wait, for although the formal
independence of the United Provinces was not acknowledged by Spain
until the peace of Westphalia in 1648, they had ceased to be under any
fear of subjugation since the death of Philip II. in 1598,
and had been able since the beginning of the century to transfer their
attention from the preservation of their liberty to the development of
their power.
[Sidenote: =Constitution of the United Provinces.=]
The confederation formed by the Union of Utrecht in 1579 was an example
of a kind of government seldom found in history to be permanent,
namely a loose confederation of sovereign states. The confederated
states were seven in number, Holland, Friesland, Zealand, Utrecht,
Guelderland, Overyssel, and Gröningen, and a Federal Constitution
was gradually developed. Each of these independent provinces had its
own government vested in its provincial estates and its stadtholder;
but the common affairs of the whole confederation were transacted in
the estates general, which was a representative body consisting of
delegates from the provincial estates. To them appertained the right
of appointing the captain general and the admiral general, who were
the heads of the military and naval forces of the confederation. With
them was associated a council of state in whom the executive was
vested. The stadtholder, for the chief provinces usually elected the
same stadtholder, in virtue of his office, was a member of the council
of state and of the provincial estates as well as of the estates
general. He appointed the burgomasters of the towns, and the principal
magistrates, and had the right of acting as arbiter in any matters of
difference which arose between the provinces. In theory therefore the
constitution of the provinces was that of a confederation of sovereign
states, which had intrusted certain functions of government, such as
the organisation of defence, to a representative body of delegates
and an elective chief magistrate; but had retained to themselves
certain others, such as finance and foreign affairs. But in practice
the influences which made for unity were very much stronger than the
disintegrating forces. The independence of the separate provinces was
much more apparent than real, and served rather to increase delay
and multiply difficulties than to preserve any real independence of
action. This came about from various causes. [Sidenote: =Supremacy
of the burgher aristocracy.=] Owing to the spirit of republicanism
engendered by the war of independence, and the secularisation of
Church property and the overthrow of the Church system brought about
by the Reformation, the two orders of the nobles and of the clergy
lost all share in the government. Political power fell completely into
the hands of the citizens of the towns, and was exercised through the
municipal councils, which were in fact in each town the nominees of
a small burgher aristocracy. Each province therefore was in reality,
as far as politics were concerned, nothing more than a federation of
towns, and the provincial estates but the delegates of the municipal
councils. This limitation of all political power to one class, that of
the burgher aristocracy, did much to secure a unity of interest among
the different provinces. [Sidenote: =Unique position of Holland.=
This was still further developed by the unique position of the province
of Holland in the confederation. It was so far superior to the other
provinces in wealth, in population and in dignity, that in common talk
it has given its name to the whole republic. It contained within its
borders the great trading towns of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft and
Dordrecht, Leyden the seat of the university, and the Hague the centre
of the government. It alone had the right of being represented at the
courts of Paris and Vienna. It paid in taxes almost as much as all the
other provinces put together. From its ports issued year by year the
merchant ships which had acquired for the United Provinces the carrying
trade of the world, the navy which at the beginning of the century was
the undisputed mistress of the ocean, and the bands of hardy colonists
who had planted the Dutch flag in every quarter of the globe. The
great city of Amsterdam itself, with its banks, its docks, and its
thousands of fishermen and artisans, founded, as it was said, on the
carcases of herrings, was the centre of the commerce and the opulence
of northern Europe. The Venice of the North, alike in her commercial
prosperity and her close oligarchical government, she so far dominated
over all her colleagues that in the days of her greatness the United
Provinces were little less than Amsterdam writ large. Shorn of the
province of Holland, the country certainly could not have maintained
its independence for a moment.
[Sidenote: =Leadership of the House of Orange.=]
To the unity of interest thus secured by the ascendency of the burgher
aristocracy, and the unquestioned leadership of Holland in all national
concerns, the House of Orange added a continuity of government. If
the United Provinces owed their prosperity to Holland, they owed
their very existence to the House of Orange. Had it not been for the
statesmanship of William the Silent they would never have won their
independence, had it not been for the generalship of Maurice they
would never have maintained it. Had it not been for the patriotism and
moderation of both they would have lost their republicanism as soon as
they had gained it. But fortunately for the Dutch republic the princes
of the House of Orange preferred to exercise most of the powers of
limited kingship under the guise of an elective magistracy. The head
of the House of Orange combined in his person by elections, which
were never questioned for seventy years, the offices of stadtholder
of five provinces, of captain general and of admiral general of the
republic. For the first and most critical half century in the history
of the nation the supreme management of the civil, military and naval
affairs of the country were in the hands of one family, not indeed by
hereditary right, but by an elective custom which had grown at least
strong enough to be described as an hereditary right to election. Under
their wise government the prosperity of the United Provinces had grown
by leaps and bounds. The destruction of the Armada in 1588 removed from
the northern seas all enemies to Dutch trade. France, torn by civil
and foreign war, could not man a warship or despatch a merchant fleet.
England was a more serious rival, but political friendship kept for a
time commercial enmities in check. The world was found large enough
for both countries, and while English enterprise tended to flow in the
direction of America and the West, the Dutch pursued their conquests in
Africa and the East. In the East Indies alone, the famous Spice Islands
of romance, the two nations found themselves in acute and deadly
rivalry, and for some years a war raged on the other side of the globe
between the servants of the two East India companies, which was only
taken notice of by the home governments when some serious breach of
international rights, such as the massacre of Amboyna, forced them to
open their eyes and lazily demand compensation.
[Sidenote: =Prosperity of the Dutch, 1600–1650.=]
With the dawn of the seventeenth century everything seemed to be
conspiring to promote the prosperity of the country. England became
more and more entangled in complications at home, and under a weak and
vain king gave less and less assistance to her traders. In the north,
Sweden and Denmark, engaged first in war among themselves and then
in the Thirty Years’ War, easily let the Baltic trade imperceptibly
glide into the hands of the Dutch. Neither Germany nor France were
in a position to enter the lists with the republic, and the decaying
power of the Hansa fell completely before the blast of the great war.
The United Provinces, it is true, were forced to take their part in
the struggle, but under the cautious and talented Frederick Henry,
the younger son of William the Silent, who had succeeded his brother
Maurice in 1625, the Dutch contingent did little more than garrison
the duchy of Cleves, and keep the Low Countries quiet. Meanwhile the
whole world was open to their enterprise. There was literally not a
country to compete with them, even feebly, as the troubles in England
thickened. They took part of Brazil from Spain, and founded on the
coast of North America the colonies of New Holland and New Jersey,
settled in Africa, in Ceylon, and on the mainland of India, planted
themselves on the rich island of Java, and finally in 1630 made
themselves masters of the Cape of Good Hope. In the first half of the
seventeenth century they enjoyed a colonial empire larger than that of
Venice in its palmy days. They were undisputed masters of the seas,
they had almost the monopoly of the carrying trade of the world.
[Sidenote: =Rivalry between the republican party and the House of
Orange.=]
But in this very prosperity lay the germs of future trouble both
abroad and at home. The frog might swell itself even to bursting
point but it could not rival the dimensions of the ox. The wonderful
maritime success of the Dutch was due largely to the fact that its
two great neighbours of England and France, who were better situated
geographically for the development of trade, were in the throes
of foreign and domestic war. When peace was restored, and men had
leisure once more to attend to the affairs of commerce, it was not
likely that the hardy sailors of Brittany and Devonshire would long
lag behind the fishermen of Zealand or the traders of Amsterdam in
the race for wealth. It was not possible that the Dutch however high
their courage, however great their skill, however tough their pride,
could long compete on equal terms with either monarchy. They could
not pretend to do so even if they were united among themselves, but
that was not the case. The great increase of wealth and prosperity
intensified instead of diminishing their internal jealousies. Ever
since the Union of Utrecht there had been two distinct parties in
the state, the partisans of the House of Orange and the republicans
pure and simple, the former representing the political principles of
a limited monarchy, the latter those of a burgher oligarchy. In the
civil and military authority enjoyed by the princes of the House of
Orange, through their quasi-hereditary tenure of the stadtholderate
and of the supreme military and naval command, their adherents saw
the only guarantee which their country possessed against the dangers
of internal discord. They looked upon this concentration of authority
in the hands of one family as essential to the solidarity of the
state, and valued it all the more because they believed it to be the
only effective counterpoise to the overweening pride and political
domination of Amsterdam. Their weakness lay in the fact that their
adherents were mainly drawn from the classes of the nobles, the clergy
and the peasantry, who had very little political power. Only in the
province of Zealand, where the House of Orange had large possessions,
were the majority of the town councils in their favour. But the very
fact of their political weakness as compared with their numerical
strength inspired them with a jealousy all the more intense of their
more fortunate republican neighbours of the towns. These latter were
imbued with the narrowest spirit of burgher exclusiveness. They feared
alike the democratic tendencies of the populace and the monarchical
instincts of the House of Orange. Within a small circle of capitalist
families the functions of government were divided pretty equally. Any
member of these privileged families, if his capacities were equal to
the charge, had the opportunity of being trained in the public service
from his earliest years. He succeeded as naturally to the diplomatic
or administrative business of his father or his uncle in the political
family party, as he did to the management of the family business or the
ownership of the family ships.
During the first few years of the history of the republic, while
the issue of the war with Spain was still doubtful, the military
necessities of the country forced the House of Orange into prominence,
and kept the republican spirit in check. [Sidenote: =Growth of the
Republican Party.=] But as political dangers from outside grew less
serious, and the wealth and importance of the citizen traders became
by far the most important factors of the national life, the political
preponderance of the republican party, who drew their strength from
the merchant class, soon threatened to be decisive. The province of
Holland, which was republican to a man, assumed an unquestioned lead
in the national councils. It alone had the right of appointing a
representative at the courts of Paris and Vienna. It alone paid more
than half the national taxes. It alone provided nearly the whole of
the national fleet. [Sidenote: =Olden Barneveldt.=]Partly owing
to these circumstances, partly to his own abilities, as early as the
beginning of the century the Advocate of the province of Holland, John
Olden Barneveldt, had insensibly become the foremost statesman of the
republic. In theory he was only the spokesman or first minister of
the provincial estates of Holland, in fact he was the leader of the
republican party and for a few years virtual ruler of the republic. He
it was who negotiated with foreign states and determined the national
policy. Already then it seemed as if the supreme power in the republic
had shifted from the stadtholder and the House of Orange to the
representative of the republican merchants of Amsterdam. But Maurice,
prince of Orange, the second son of William the Silent, was not going
to let power slip out of his hands so easily. Taking advantage of a
quarrel between Barneveldt and his staunch ally and protector Henry
IV., he very skilfully managed to direct upon him, left thus
defenceless, the whole weight of the cruelty and fanaticism of the
Calvinistic clergy. [Sidenote: =Execution of Barneveldt brought about
by Maurice of Nassau, 1610.=] By a crime, more atrocious than that
of the assassination of his own father, because of the hypocrisy which
accompanied it, he brought Barneveldt to the scaffold in 1610 by a
sentence of judicial murder.
The villainy was eminently successful. For forty years the republican
party suppressed itself, and the government of the republic remained
without question in the hands of the stadtholders of the House
of Orange: Maurice, Frederick Henry, and William II. [Sidenote:
=Government of Maurice, Frederick Henry, and William II., 1610–1650.=]
Indeed, when this halcyon period came to an end, it was the ambition
of the stadtholder, not the pride of the republicans, which was at
fault. William II. had married a daughter of Charles I. of England,
and undeterred by the fate of his father-in-law and the outbreak
of the _Fronde_ he determined to effect a _coup d’état_ and turn
the stadtholderate into a monarchy. Just before his death Frederick
Henry had negotiated with Spain a treaty at Münster, finally ratified
in January 1648, by which Spain and the United Provinces agreed to
unite together in defence of the Spanish Netherlands against French
aggression, on condition that Spain closed the Scheldt to trading
vessels and acknowledged the independence of the republic. A more
favourable treaty to the United Provinces cannot be imagined, for by
it they obtained a barrier between their own territories and those of
France, and secured the trade monopoly of Amsterdam. Yet William II. in
his insensate ambition actually agreed to throw all these advantages
away, and allow France to seize the Spanish Netherlands, in return
for the consent of Mazarin to his projected revolution. [Sidenote:
=Attempted coup d’état of William II., 1650.=] Having thus secured the
neutrality of France he proceeded to put his scheme into execution. He
was sure of the support of the army and of Zealand, and need not fear
the opposition of any of the other provinces except Holland. His first
business accordingly was to get up a quarrel between the states-general
and the provincial estates of Holland about the disbandment of some
troops, then, posing as the champion of the states-general, obtained
from them authority to take measures for the preservation of the union,
and to put pressure upon the estates of Holland. This was sufficient
for him. After some negotiation, on the 30th of July 1650 he suddenly
arrested six of the leading deputies of Holland, and directed his
troops to march during the night upon Amsterdam. The city was saved by
the merest accident. The night was dark and rainy, the troops lost
their way. When day broke they were still outside the town. The alarm
was given. Only one magistrate Cornelius Bicker von Swieten happened to
be in the city, but it was enough. [Sidenote: =Death of William II.,
1650.=] The gates were closed, the drawbridges raised, the militia
called out, and Amsterdam was safe, and with Amsterdam the republic.
A _coup d’état_ was now impossible. William saw he could only succeed
by civil war and he did not dare to give the signal for that. For five
months both sides eyed each other suspiciously, but neither dared to
move. Suddenly, in November 1650, William was seized with a violent
fever, and died in a few days.
[Sidenote: =Supremacy of the republican party.=]
The tragic death of William II. decided the crisis in favour
of the republican party. Some weeks after the death of the stadtholder
his wife gave birth to a son, the future William III. of
England. It was obviously impossible to appoint an infant in his
cradle to the supreme command of the civil and military affairs of the
country. It was undesirable to ignore the seriousness of the danger
from which the republic had accidentally been saved. The republican
party at once seized the opportunity and asserted their superiority.
A grand assembly was held at the Hague in January 1651 to decide the
constitutional points which had arisen, and it was agreed that the
stadtholderate should remain vacant, and the functions of the office
devolve upon the provincial estates; while the supreme military
and naval command was divided between the estates general and the
provincial estates. The real gainers by this arrangement were the
provincial estates of Holland. Freed from the rights of the stadtholder
political power naturally gravitated to the centre of the wealth and
intelligence of the nation. In the provincial estates of Holland
it found a body of men thoroughly capable of using it, and a chief
admirably adapted to the task of working its delicate machinery. In
John de Witt, grand pensionary of Dordrecht, elected grand pensionary
of Holland in 1653, the republican party found a champion, and the
United Provinces a minister, second to none in Europe for skill,
honesty and acumen.
[Sidenote: =John de Witt.=]
Called at the age of twenty-eight to the post of first minister of
Holland, John de Witt brought to his task qualities of mind and
character singularly fitted to the part he had to play. In him the
virtues of Dutch republicanism shone pre-eminent. Homely and frugal
in life, straightforward in policy, patient in temper, dignified in
manner, persevering in action, no reverse could daunt his spirit, no
success destroy his self-control. To the somewhat phlegmatic temper
of the Dutch character de Witt added also the finer qualities of the
Latin races. Shrewd foresight, quick inventiveness, ready adaptation
of means to the end marked his management of foreign affairs. He was
the only diplomatist of Europe whose fertility of resource completely
out-generalled Louis XIV., whose steadfastness of purpose
completely baffled the shiftiness of Charles II. Winning
persuasiveness of speech adorned with rich eloquence of phrase gave
him perfect mastery over the assemblies whom it was his business to
lead. But the dominant note in his character and policy was his staunch
almost fanatical belief in republican principles. Republicanism to
him was the whole of patriotism, and almost half of religion. His own
father, Jacob de Witt, had been one of the deputies imprisoned by
William II. during his abortive attempt to make himself king.
[Sidenote: =His opposition to the House of Orange.=] John de Witt
never forgot the dull horror of those anxious days, when each hour as
it sped seemed to be tolling the knell at once of his father’s life
and of his country’s liberty. From that moment the ambition of the
House of Orange seemed to him to be as great a danger to his country as
the aggressiveness of France or the rivalry of England. To keep down
the national sentiment in favour of the young prince, to resist his
hereditary claim to the stadtholderate and the command of the forces,
to strengthen the hold of the estates of Holland over the government
became the keynotes of his home policy, measures which he considered
as essential to the well-being of his country as the maintenance of a
barrier between France and the Scheldt.
The infancy of the young prince, and the consequent victory of
republican principles in the great assembly of 1651, made the danger
from the House of Orange for the time imperceptible. When John de Witt
became Grand Pensionary of Holland in 1653, the safety of the republic
was threatened not by civil dissension but by foreign conquest.
[Sidenote: =Quarrel between the United Provinces and England.=]
With the restoration of order in England by the defeat of the king in
the civil war had naturally come a considerable increase in commercial
enterprise, and the Dutch traders became once more sensible of English
rivalry and opposition in every part of the globe. To this natural
rivalry gradually became added special causes of disagreement. During
the interval between the defeat of the king and the reduction of the
English possessions in the West Indies by the Parliament, the loyal
colonists had preferred to trade with a foreign power whose chief was
closely related to their king, rather than with the rebels of their own
country who had imprisoned him. Consequently the Dutch had succeeded in
withdrawing from English merchants the bulk of their American trade. To
settle this matter and some others the Parliament sent to the Hague in
May 1649 an envoy, Dr. Dorislaus, who had been one of the late king’s
judges. While he was at the Hague in the character of ambassador, he
was murdered by some of Montrose’s men by way of reprisal for the death
of Charles I. In extreme anger at this insult St. John was
sent in 1651 to demand from the estates general the expulsion of prince
Charles and his adherents, and their consent to the union of the two
republics under a common government, which should have its seat in
England. [Sidenote: =The Act of Navigation, 1651.=] The estates
general naturally refused to surrender on demand the independence
which they had fought so hard to win, and in August 1651 the English
Parliament passed the Act of Navigation which was in reality the signal
for war. By this famous act the policy was first enunciated which was
to govern the relations of the great maritime powers to their colonies
for a century and a half, the policy namely which regarded colonies as
the mere feeders of the mother country. It enacted that foreign ships
might only import into England the products of the countries to which
they belonged. [Sidenote: =War with England, 1651–1654.=] It was
directed obviously against the Dutch, who were at that time the great
carriers of the world, and was intended not only to destroy the trade
of the Dutch with the English colonies, but also to enable the English
ships to wrest the bulk of the carrying trade from their hands. War at
once broke out, in which the genius of Blake and the superior guns of
the English fleets triumphed over the tenacity of Tromp and the valour
of Opdam. The Dutch merchant shipping was shut up behind the Texel.
The English remained masters of the sea. Even the Portuguese dared to
seize Brazil, while at home the people, deprived of their trade, and
unable to fish, were beginning to suffer severely. De Witt saw the
necessity of making peace. Cromwell, who had now succeeded to the chief
power in England, proved an easier taskmaster than the Parliament had
been. He was willing to leave the United Provinces their independence,
but he exacted their consent to the Act of Navigation, and their
acknowledgment of the superiority of the English flag. [Sidenote:
=The Act of Exclusion, 1654.=] Sharing with de Witt his dislike to
the House of Orange, whom he looked upon as the chief supporters of the
Stuart cause in Europe, he insisted on the perpetual exclusion of that
house from the stadtholderate by the estates of Holland, as a necessary
preliminary to peace. After protracted negotiations a treaty was at
last signed on this basis in 1654.
[Sidenote: =Continued rivalry with England, 1654–1665.=]
John de Witt had thus succeeded in saving his country from destruction
and in dealing his chief enemy a serious blow at the same time. To do
away with the rivalry of the two nations, and to make the Dutch forget
that a foreign power had compelled them to do injustice to a family
which had served them with singular loyalty was beyond his power. The
war ceased but the causes of the war remained. Each country was ready
to continue the struggle when a fitting opportunity presented itself,
but as long as the Commonwealth existed in England an identity of
interest between the two governments served to keep things quiet. The
English Restoration in May 1660 altered these relations, and so far
strengthened the partisans of the House of Orange as to enable them to
demand and gain the revocation of the Act of Exclusion by the estates
of Holland in September 1660. The accession of Louis XIV. to
power in 1661 further weakened the republican party by placing at the
head of the councils of Europe one who regarded all republics with
aversion, and looked upon ‘messieurs les marchands’ his neighbours with
a contempt which was born of envy. Every month tidings came to the
English government of some fresh defeat of the East India Company by
its Dutch rival, of some new indignity inflicted on English sailors.
Even the slave trade to Barbadoes had passed into Dutch hands. The
time seemed to have arrived when it was necessary to make reprisals.
In 1664 a piratical fleet was sent with the cognisance of the English
government to the Guinea coast, which captured several Dutch ships
and drove out the Dutch settlers from Goree and other places. In the
same year a similar expedition to America seized New Amsterdam, which
Charles unblushingly accepted and made over to his brother James, from
whom it took its better known name of New York. [Sidenote: =Second
war with England, 1665–1667.=] After this war was inevitable, and
in March 1665 it was formally declared. The Dutch had profited by the
experience of the late struggle; their ships were now better manned
and their guns of heavier calibre. Only in seamanship did the English
have the superiority, but that sovereign quality could not fail to make
itself felt. Gradually, after heroic struggles, the Dutch were beaten
back. On June 3d, 1665, Opdam was defeated and killed off Lowestoft. A
year later in the terrible four days’ battle in the Downs Ruyter and
Tromp were driven back to the Texel. In August Ruyter was forced by
Monk to take refuge in the shallows of Zealand, and the Dutch merchant
fleet was burned in the harbours of Flie. The misfortunes of the war
renewed civil dissensions. Again was heard in louder accents the cry
for the restoration of the House of Orange, and de Witt found himself
obliged at least to accept the young prince as the child of the state
and educate him in the affairs of government.
[Sidenote: =Energy of de Witt.=]
Neither foreign war nor civil disturbance could damp the energy of de
Witt. He ceaselessly endeavoured to repair by diplomacy what he had
lost by arms, and he partly succeeded. Louis was bound by treaty to
help the Dutch, and, although it was not possible to induce him to give
active assistance of any value to a nation whom he hated and intended
to ruin, de Witt did succeed for some time in preventing him from
making common cause with the English. With other nations he was more
fortunate. Denmark and the Great Elector openly allied themselves with
the Dutch in 1666, and compelled the warlike bishop of Münster to make
peace, who had invaded Overyssel in the interests of England the year
before. The Quadruple Alliance signed later in the year 1666 between
the United Provinces, Brandenburg, Denmark and Brunswick-Lüneburg,
secured to de Witt help in the case of French aggression. But the
most effective allies of the Dutch came from the enemies’ camp. The
recklessness of Charles’s extravagance made it impossible properly
to repair the necessary ravages of even victorious war. The great
plague which devastated London and its neighbourhood in 1665, and the
great fire which destroyed half the city in 1666, made the raising
of supplies more difficult still. At the beginning of 1667 England
though victorious was exhausted and almost bankrupt. Charles in his
isolation had recourse to Louis. By a secret engagement negotiated
through the queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, Charles threw himself into
the arms of Louis, and promised him a free hand in the Low Countries in
return for Louis’s support to his crown. At the instigation of France
negotiations for peace were begun at Breda in May 1667, but Charles,
sure of Louis’s secret help, was in no hurry to come to terms. De Witt
determined to read him a lesson. Quietly on the 6th of June the Dutch
fleet under Ruyter and Cornelius de Witt left the Texel. Next morning
they were sailing up the Thames in triumphal procession. They seized
Sheerness, sailed up the Medway to Rochester, captured the _Royal
Charles_, burned three other ships of war, and were only checked on
their route to London by the sinking of boats across the river above
Chatham. This unpleasant reminder of his impotence brought Charles
quickly to terms. [Sidenote: =Treaty of Breda, 1667.=] The Act of
Navigation was relaxed so as to permit the Dutch to carry to England
German and Flemish goods. England retained New York and the Dutch the
port of Poleroon in the East Indies. Other conquests were restored.
Once more war had proved but a sorry engine for putting an end to
national rivalry. The success of the Dutch in 1667 no more gave to
the United Provinces the monopoly of the trade of the world, than
their defeat in 1654 had deprived them of their share in it. ‘Must we
then,’ said the Dutch envoy to Monk before the beginning of the war,
‘sacrifice our commerce to yours?’ ‘Whatever happens,’ bluntly replied
the rough soldier, ‘we must have our part.’ And so it happened. The
protracted and stubborn duel between the two greatest maritime powers
of Europe only enforced the truth that the world was wide enough
for both. Upon the two principal combatants it had more serious and
wide-reaching results. It taught Charles II. that he could
not enjoy life and indulge his political ambition as he liked without
the assistance of France. It taught John de Witt the importance of the
friendship of England in face of the ambition of Louis XIV. It
thus led directly to the Triple Alliance, and helped to blind de Witt’s
eyes to the fact, that that alliance had not clipped Louis’s wings,
because for the time in deference to it he had consented to fold them.
The whirligig of fortune had in fact made the worthless Charles II. of
England the arbiter of Europe, while both Louis XIV. and John de Witt
believed that the decisive voice was with them. [Sidenote: =Dangers
from France.=] Louis had determined on the ruin of the Dutch, but
he did not dare to face the united fleets of England and the United
Provinces. John de Witt was under no illusions as to the dangers which
were threatening him from France. He knew quite well that the old
relations of friendship and dependence had passed away with the treaty
of Münster and the development of Dutch trade. Ever since the treaty
of Münster it had been the cardinal point in Dutch foreign policy to
support the Spanish government in the Netherlands, in order to keep
the French away from Antwerp and the Scheldt. Ever since the peace of
the Pyrenees it had been the main object of French foreign policy to
gain the fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands as an adequate defence
to Paris. Ever since the war of devolution it had been the undisguised
ambition of Louis XIV. to seize the whole of the Spanish Netherlands as
the first instalment of his inheritance in the Spanish empire. French
and Dutch interests were sharply antagonistic on this essential point
of policy. Commercial differences were no less pressing. Colbert had
so arranged his protective system as to injure Dutch trade as much as
possible, and the Amsterdam traders were furious at this unneighbourly
treatment. Louis himself never affected to conceal his personal dislike
to the rich and Protestant republic, which dared to run athwart his
designs. [Sidenote: =Blindness of de Witt.=] Yet in spite of all
this, in spite of the continued war preparations of Louis, in spite
of his ceaseless diplomatic activity, in spite of the withdrawal of
Sweden from the Triple Alliance, in spite of the ominous sleepiness of
Leopold, and nonchalance of Charles, de Witt could not bring himself
to believe that Louis would ever be able to turn his threats into
action. The success of the Triple Alliance had been so commanding, its
effect so instantaneous. The temper of the English people had been so
thoroughly roused against Louis. Europe had shown itself so sensitive
of his aggressive policy. As long as the ascendency of the republican
party in the United Provinces was secure, as long as no civil
dissensions interfered to weaken their action, John de Witt believed
himself safe and Europe at his command. He did not know that Charles
had sealed his destruction in the secret treaty of Dover. He had no
suspicions of the partition treaty between Louis and the Emperor.
Deceived by the two powers he most trusted, secure in the results of
his own diplomacy as he saw them, he did not even think it necessary
to take ordinary precautions. [Sidenote: =The Perpetual Edict, 1668.=]
By the Perpetual Edict, as modified by the Project of Harmony accepted
by the republic in 1668, he flattered himself he had secured internal
peace without sacrificing the republican ascendency. By those acts it
was declared that the same person could not be at once stadtholder
and captain and admiral general, and it was provided that the young
prince should be intrusted with the command of the army at the age of
twenty-two. By this division of the civil and military powers de Witt
thought he had secured the republic against a renewal of the _coup
d’état_, and guaranteed the political ascendency of Holland. Yet, so
jealous was he of the prince and his party, that even then he did not
dare to strengthen the army. While Louis was forming vast magazines,
and massing thousands of men on the frontier, the Dutch fortresses
were being allowed to perish and the Dutch army was being deliberately
starved in men and munitions lest the republican supremacy should be
endangered. The state was being sacrificed to the government.
[Sidenote: =Popular movement in favour of William III.=]
Retribution was not long in coming. Directly the thunder cloud burst,
and the French armies were in full march on Amsterdam, the nation awoke
to the fact that it had been betrayed. William was at once declared
captain general. A reaction set in, wild and unreasoning as such
popular movements usually are. A scapegoat was required. The popular
vengeance demanded a victim. The faithful and glorious service of
twenty years was forgotten, and a blunder magnified into treachery.
For the moment the selfish burgher governors of Holland trembled under
the terror of a popular outbreak. They were relieved to find the fury
of the populace directed against de Witt alone. On June 21st 1673,
John de Witt was attacked by ruffians in the streets of the Hague,
who fled for refuge to William’s camp leaving their victim half dead.
In August his brother Cornelius was arrested and put to the torture.
[Sidenote: =Murder of de Witt, 1673.=] On the 20th John de Witt
was induced to visit his brother in the prison. They were caught like
rats in a trap. An infuriated mob surrounded the prison, broke open the
gates, dragged the victims forth, and beat their brains out, while the
Calvinistic clergy hounded them on to their butcher’s work. William
himself, cruel, callous, and calculating in 1673, as he afterwards
showed himself to be in 1692, took care to know nothing and to do
nothing which could stop the impending outrage. As in the massacre of
Glencoe, he looked the other way at the time and tried to screen the
perpetrators from justice afterwards. An accessory before the fact, and
an accessory after the fact, all that his apologists can say for him is
that his ambition necessitated the sacrifice of his humanity.