the House of Habsburg at the very moment in which Spain signed her peace
with the Netherlands, and exactly as the mad duke of Cleve was expiring
--with a dozen princes, Catholic and Protestant, to dispute his
inheritance--would be valuable just so long as they could be maintained
by the united forces of Protestantism and of national independence and no
longer. What had been extorted from the Catholic powers by force would
be retracted by force whenever that force could be concentrated. It had
been necessary for the Republic to accept a twelve years' truce with
Spain in default of a peace, while the death of John of Cleve, and
subsequently of Henry IV., had made the acquisition of a permanent
pacification between Catholicism and Protestantism, between the League
and the Union, more difficult than ever. The so-called Thirty Years'
War--rather to be called the concluding portion of the Eighty Years' War
--had opened in the debateable duchies exactly at the moment when its
forerunner, the forty years' war of the Netherlands, had been temporarily
and nominally suspended. Barneveld was perpetually baffled in his
efforts to obtain a favourable peace for Protestant Europe, less by the
open diplomacy and military force of the avowed enemies of Protestantism
than by the secret intrigues and faintheartedness of its nominal friends.
He was unwearied in his efforts simultaneously to arouse the courts of
England and France to the danger to Europe from the overshadowing power
of the House of Austria and the League, and he had less difficulty in
dealing with the Catholic Lewis and his mother than with Protestant
James. At the present moment his great designs were not yet openly
traversed by a strong Protestant party within the very republic which he
administered.
"Look to it with earnestness and grave deliberation," he said to
Langerac, "that they do not pursue us there with vain importunity to
accept something so notoriously inadmissible and detrimental to the
common weal. We know that from the enemy's side every kind of
unseemly trick is employed, with the single object of bringing about
misunderstanding between us and the King of France. A prompt and
vigorous resolution on the part of his Majesty, to see the treaty which
we made duly executed, would be to help the cause. Otherwise, not. We
cannot here believe that his Majesty, in this first year of his majority,
will submit to such a notorious and flagrant affront, or that he will
tolerate the oppression of the Duke of Savoy. Such an affair in the
beginning of his Majesty's reign cannot but have very great and
prejudicial consequences, nor can it be left to linger on in uncertainty
and delay. Let him be prompt in this. Let him also take a most
Christian--kingly, vigorous resolution against the great affront put upon
him in the failure to carry out the treaty. Such a resolve on the part
of the two kings would restore all things to tranquillity and bring the
Spaniard and his adherents 'in terminos modestiae. But so long as France
is keeping a suspicious eye upon England, and England upon France,
everything will run to combustion, detrimental to their Majesties and to
us, and ruinous to all the good inhabitants."
To the Treaty of Xanten faithfully executed he held as to an anchor in
the tempest until it was torn away, not by violence from without, but by
insidious mutiny within. At last the government of James proposed that
the pledges on leaving the territory should be made to the two allied
kings as mediators and umpires. This was better than the naked promises
originally suggested, but even in this there was neither heartiness nor
sincerity. Meantime the Prince of Neuburg, negotiations being broken
off, departed for Germany, a step which the Advocate considered ominous.
Soon afterwards that prince received a yearly pension of 24,000 crowns
from Spain, and for this stipend his claims on the sovereignty of the
duchies were supposed to be surrendered.
"If this be true," said Barneveld, "we have been served with covered
dishes."
The King of England wrote spirited and learned letters to the Elector-
Palatine, assuring him of his father-in-law's assistance in case he
should be attacked by the League. Sir Henry Wotton, then on special
mission at the Hague, showed these epistles to Barneveld.
"When I hear that Parliament has been assembled and has granted great
subsidies," was the Advocate's comment, "I shall believe that effects may
possibly follow from all these assurances."
It was wearisome for the Advocate thus ever to be foiled; by the
pettinesses and jealousies of those occupying the highest earthly
places, in his efforts to stem the rising tide of Spanish and Catholic
aggression, and to avert the outbreak of a devastating war to which he
saw Europe doomed. It may be wearisome to read the record. Yet it is
the chronicle of Christendom during one of the most important and fateful
epochs of modern history. No man can thoroughly understand the
complication and precession of phenomena attending the disastrous dawn of
the renewed war, on an even more awful scale than the original conflict
in the Netherlands, without studying the correspondence of Barneveld.
The history of Europe is there. The fate of Christendom is there.
The conflict of elements, the crash of contending forms of religion and
of nationalities, is pictured there in vivid if homely colours. The
Advocate, while acting only in the name of a slender confederacy, was
in truth, so long as he held his place, the prime minister of European
Protestantism. There was none other to rival him, few to comprehend him,
fewer still to sustain him. As Prince Maurice was at that moment the
great soldier of Protestantism without clearly scanning the grandeur of
the field in which he was a chief actor, or foreseeing the vastness of
its future, so the Advocate was its statesman and its prophet. Could the
two have worked together as harmoniously as they had done at an earlier
day, it would have been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But,
alas! the evil genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial
relations between soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the
distance, darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life
out in exertions for what he deemed the true cause of progress and
humanity.
Nor can the fate of the man himself, his genuine character, and the
extraordinary personal events towards which he was slowly advancing,
be accurately unfolded without an attempt by means of his letters to lay
bare his inmost thoughts. Especially it will be seen at a later moment
how much value was attached to this secret correspondence with the
ambassadors in London and Paris.
The Advocate trusted to the support of France, Papal and Medicean as the
court of the young king was, because the Protestant party throughout the
kingdom was too powerful, warlike, and numerous to be trifled with, and
because geographical considerations alone rendered a cordial alliance
between Spain and France very difficult. Notwithstanding the Spanish
marriages, which he opposed so long as opposition was possible, he knew
that so long as a statesman remained in the kingdom, or a bone for one
existed, the international policy of Henry, of Sully, and of Jeannin
could not be wholly abandoned.
He relied much on Villeroy, a political hack certainly, an ancient
Leaguer, and a Papist, but a man too cool, experienced, and wily to be
ignorant of the very hornbook of diplomacy, or open to the shallow
stratagems by which Spain found it so easy to purchase or to deceive. So
long as he had a voice in the council, it was certain that the Netherland
alliance would not be abandoned, nor the Duke of Savoy crushed. The old
secretary of state was not especially in favour at that moment, but
Barneveld could not doubt his permanent place in French affairs until
some man of real power should arise there. It was a dreary period of
barrenness and disintegration in that kingdom while France was mourning
Henry and waiting for Richelieu.
The Dutch ambassador at Paris was instructed accordingly to maintain.
good relations with Villeroy, who in Barneveld's opinion had been a
constant and sincere friend to the Netherlands. "Don't forget to caress
the old gentleman you wot of," said the Advocate frequently, but
suppressing his name, "without troubling yourself with the reasons
mentioned in your letter. I am firmly convinced that he will overcome
all difficulties. Don't believe either that France will let the Duke of
Savoy be ruined. It is against every reason of State." Yet there were
few to help Charles Emmanuel in this Montferrat war, which was destined
to drag feebly on, with certain interludes of negotiations, for two years
longer. The already notorious condottiere Ernest Mansfeld, natural son
of old prince Peter Ernest, who played so long and so high a part in
command of the Spanish armies in the Netherlands, had, to be sure, taken
service under the Duke. Thenceforth he was to be a leader and a master
in that wild business of plunder, burning, blackmailing, and murder,
which was opening upon Europe, and was to afford occupation for many
thousands of adventurers of high and low degree.
Mansfeld, reckless and profligate, had already changed his banner more
than once. Commanding a company under Leopold in the duchies, he had
been captured by the forces of the Union, and, after waiting in vain to
be ransomed by the Archduke, had gone secretly over to the enemy. Thus
recovering his liberty, he had enlisted a regiment under Leopold's name
to fight the Union, and had then, according to contract, transferred
himself and most of his adventurers to the flag of the Union. The
military operations fading away in the duchies without being succeeded by
permanent peace, the Count, as he was called, with no particular claim to
such title, had accepted a thousand florins a year as retainer from the
Union and had found occupation under Charles Emmanuel. Here the Spanish
soldier of a year or two before found much satisfaction and some profit
in fighting Spanish soldiers. He was destined to reappear in the
Netherlands, in France, in Bohemia, in many places where there were
villages to be burned, churches to be plundered, cities to be sacked,
nuns and other women to be outraged, dangerous political intrigues to
be managed. A man in the prime of his age, fair-haired, prematurely
wrinkled, battered, and hideous of visage, with a hare-lip and a
humpback; slovenly of dress, and always wearing an old grey hat without a
band to it; audacious, cruel, crafty, and licentious--such was Ernest
Mansfeld, whom some of his contemporaries spoke of as Ulysses Germanicus,
others as the new Attila, all as a scourge to the human race. The
cockneys of Paris called him "Machefer," and nurses long kept children
quiet by threatening them with that word. He was now enrolled on the
Protestant side, although at the moment serving Savoy against Spain in a
question purely personal. His armies, whether in Italy or in Germany,
were a miscellaneous collection of adventurers of high and low degree, of
all religions, of all countries, unfrocked priests and students, ruined
nobles, bankrupt citizens, street vagabonds--earliest type perhaps of the
horrible military vermin which were destined to feed so many years long
on the unfortunate dismembered carcass of Germany.
Many demands had been made upon the States for assistance to Savoy,--as
if they and they alone were to bear the brunt and pay the expense of all
the initiatory campaigns against Spain.
"We are much importuned," said the Advocate, "to do something for the
help of Savoy . . . . We wish and we implore that France, Great
Britain, the German princes, the Venetians, and the Swiss would join us
in some scheme of effective assistance. But we have enough on our
shoulders at this moment."
They had hardly money enough in their exchequer, admirably ordered as it
was, for enterprises so far from home when great Spanish armies were
permanently encamped on their border.
Partly to humour King James and partly from love of adventure, Count John
of Nassau had gone to Savoy at the head of a small well disciplined body
of troops furnished by the States.
"Make use of this piece of news," said Barneveld, communicating the fact
to Langerac, "opportunely and with discretion. Besides the wish to
give some contentment to the King of Great Britain, we consider it
inconsistent with good conscience and reasons of state to refuse help to
a great prince against oppression by those who mean to give the law to
everybody; especially as we have been so earnestly and frequently
importuned to do so."
And still the Spaniards and the League kept their hold on the duchies,
while their forces, their munitions, their accumulation of funds waged
hourly. The war of chicane was even more deadly than an actual campaign,
for when there was no positive fighting the whole world seemed against
the Republic. And the chicane was colossal.
"We cannot understand," said Barneveld, "why M. de Prevaulx is coming
here on special mission. When a treaty is signed and sealed, it only
remains to execute it. The Archduke says he is himself not known in the
treaty, and that nothing can be demanded of him in relation to it. This
he says in his letters to the King of Great Britain. M. de Refuge knows
best whether or not Marquis Spinola, Ottavio Visconti, Chancellor
Pecquius, and others, were employed in the negotiation by the Archduke.
We know very well here that the whole business was conducted by them.
The Archduke is willing to give a clean and sincere promise not to re-
occupy, and asks the same from the States. If he were empowered by the
Emperor, the King of Spain, and the League, and acted in such quality,
something might be done for the tranquillity of Germany. But he promises
for himself only, and Emperor, King, or League, may send any general to
do what they like to-morrow. What is to prevent it?
"And so My Lords the States, the Elector of Brandenburg, and others
interested are cheated and made fools of. And we are as much troubled by
these tricks as by armed force. Yes, more; for we know that great
enterprises are preparing this year against Germany and ourselves, that
all Neuburg's troops have been disbanded and re-enlisted under the
Spanish commanders, and that forces are levying not only in Italy and
Spain, but in Germany, Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Upper Burgundy, and that
Wesel has been stuffed full of gunpowder and other munitions, and very
strongly fortified."
For the States to agree to a treaty by which the disputed duchies should
be held jointly by the Princes of Neuburg and of Brandenburg, and the
territory be evacuated by all foreign troops; to look quietly on while
Neuburg converted himself to Catholicism, espoused the sister of
Maximilian of Bavaria, took a pension from Spain, resigned his claims in
favour of Spain, and transferred his army to Spain; and to expect that
Brandenburg and all interested in Brandenburg, that is to say, every
Protestant in Europe, should feel perfectly easy under such arrangement
and perfectly protected by the simple promise of a soldier of fortune
against Catholic aggression, was a fantastic folly hardly worthy of a
child. Yet the States were asked to accept this position, Brandenburg
and all Protestant Germany were asked to accept it, and Barneveld was
howled at by his allies as a marplot and mischief-maker, and denounced
and insulted by diplomatists daily, because he mercilessly tore away the
sophistries of the League and of the League's secret friend, James
Stuart.
The King of Spain had more than 100,000 men under arms, and was enlisting
more soldiers everywhere and every day, had just deposited 4,000,000
crowns with his Antwerp bankers for a secret purpose, and all the time
was exuberant in his assurances of peace. One would have thought that
there had never been negotiations in Bourbourg, that the Spanish Armada
had never sailed from Coruna.
"You are wise and prudent in France," said the Advocate, "but we are used
to Spanish proceedings, and from much disaster sustained are filled with
distrust. The King of England seems now to wish that the Archduke should
draw up a document according to his good pleasure, and that the States
should make an explanatory deed, which the King should sign also and ask
the King of France to do the same. But this is very hazardous.
"We do not mean to receive laws from the King of Spain, nor the Archduke
. . . . The Spanish proceedings do not indicate peace but war.
One must not take it ill of us that we think these matters of grave
importance to our friends and ourselves. Affairs have changed very much
in the last four months. The murder of the first vizier of the Turkish
emperor and his designs against Persia leave the Spanish king and the
Emperor free from attack in that quarter, and their armaments are far
greater than last year . . . . I cannot understand why the treaty of
Xanten, formerly so highly applauded, should now be so much disapproved.
. . . The King of Spain and the Emperor with their party have a vast
design to give the law to all Christendom, to choose a Roman king
according to their will, to reduce the Evangelical electors, princes,
and estates of Germany to obedience, to subject all Italy, and, having
accomplished this, to proceed to triumph over us and our allies, and by
necessary consequence over France and England. They say they have
established the Emperor's authority by means of Aachen and Mulheim,
will soon have driven us out of Julich, and have thus arranged matters
entirely to their heart's content. They can then, in name of the
Emperor, the League, the Prince of Neuburg, or any one else, make
themselves in eight days masters of the places which they are now
imaginarily to leave as well as of those which we are actually to
surrender, and by possession of which we could hold out a long time
against all their power."
Those very places held by the States--Julich, Emmerich, and others--had
recently been fortified at much expense, under the superintendence of
Prince Maurice, and by advice of the Advocate. It would certainly be an
act of madness to surrender them on the terms proposed. These warnings
and forebodings of Barneveld sound in our ears like recorded history,
yet they were far earlier than the actual facts. And now to please the
English king, the States had listened to his suggestion that his name
and that of the King of France should be signed as mediators to a new
arrangement proposed in lieu of the Xanten treaty. James had suggested
this, Lewis had agreed to it. Yet before the ink had dried in James's
pen, he was proposing that the names of the mediating sovereigns should
be omitted from the document? And why? Because Gondemar was again
whispering in his ear. "They are renewing the negotiations in England,"
said the Advocate, "about the alliance between the Prince of Wales and
the second daughter of Spain; and the King of Great Britain is seriously
importuning us that the Archdukes and My Lords the States should make
their pledges 'impersonaliter' and not to the kings." James was also
willing that the name of the Emperor should appear upon it. To prevent
this, Barneveld would have had himself burned at the stake. It would be
an ignominious and unconditional surrender of the whole cause.
"The Archduke will never be contented," said the Advocate, "unless his
Majesty of Great Britain takes a royal resolution to bring him to reason.
That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice. We have been ready
and are still ready to execute the treaty of Xanten. The Archduke is the
cause of the dispute concerning the act. We approved the formularies of
their Majesties, and have changed them three times to suit the King of
Great Britain. Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter,
so that we can no longer digest the Spanish impudence, and are amazed
that his Majesty can listen any more to the Spanish ministers. We fear
that those ministers are working through many hands, in order by one
means or another to excite quarrels between his Majesty, us, and the
respective inhabitants of the two countries . . . . . Take every
precaution that no attempt be made there to bring the name of the
Emperor into the act. This would be contrary to their Majesties' first
resolution, very prejudicial to the Elector of Brandenburg, to the
duchies, and to ourselves. And it is indispensable that the promise be
made to the two kings as mediators, as much for their reputation and
dignity as for the interests of the Elector, the territories, and
ourselves. Otherwise too the Spaniards will triumph over us as
if they had driven us by force of arms into this promise."
The seat of war, at the opening of the apparently inevitable conflict
between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union, would be those
debateable duchies, those border provinces, the possession of which was
of such vital importance to each of the great contending parties, and
the populations of which, although much divided, were on the whole more
inclined to the League than to the Union. It was natural enough that the
Dutch statesman should chafe at the possibility of their being lost to
the Union through the adroitness of the Catholic managers and the
supineness of the great allies of the Republic.
Three weeks later than these last utterances of the Advocate, he was
given to understand that King James was preparing to slide away from the
position which had been three times changed to make it suitable for him.
His indignation was hot.
"Sir Henry Wotton," he said, "has communicated to me his last despatches
from Newmarket. I am in the highest degree amazed that after all our
efforts at accommodation, with so much sacrifice to the electors, the
provinces, and ourselves, they are trying to urge us there to consent
that the promise be not made to the Kings of France and Great Britain as
mediators, although the proposition came from the Spanish side. After we
had renounced, by desire of his Majesty, the right to refer the promise
to the Treaty of Xanten, it was judged by both kings to be needful and
substantial that the promise be made to their Majesties. To change this
now would be prejudicial to the kings, to the electors, the duchies, and
to our commonwealth; to do us a wrong and to leave us naked. France
maintains her position as becoming and necessary. That Great Britain
should swerve from it is not to be digested here. You will do your
utmost according to my previous instructions to prevent any pressure to
this end. You will also see that the name of the Emperor is mentioned
neither in the preamble nor the articles of the treaty. It would be
contrary to all our policy since 1610. You may be firmly convinced that
malice is lurking under the Emperor's name, and that he and the King of
Spain and their adherents, now as before, are attempting a sequestration.
This is simply a pretext to bring those principalities and provinces into
the hands of the Spaniards, for which they have been labouring these
thirty years. We are constantly cheated by these Spanish tricks. Their
intention is to hold Wesel and all the other places until the conclusion
of the Italian affair, and then to strike a great blow."
Certainly were never words more full of sound statesmanship, and of
prophecy too soon to be fulfilled, than these simple but pregnant
warnings. They awakened but little response from the English government
save cavils and teasing reminders that Wesel had been the cradle of
German Calvinism, the Rhenish Geneva, and that it was sinful to leave
it longer in the hands of Spain. As if the Advocate had not proved to
demonstration that to stock hands for a new deal at that moment was to
give up the game altogether.
His influence in France was always greater than in England, and this had
likewise been the case with William the Silent. And even now that the
Spanish matrimonial alliance was almost a settled matter at the French
court, while with the English king it was but a perpetual will-o'the-wisp
conducting to quagmires ineffable, the government at Paris sustained the
policy of the Advocate with tolerable fidelity, while it was constantly
and most capriciously traversed by James.
Barneveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet
despair. "We hope that the Spanish-French marriages," he said, "may be
broken up of themselves; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay
or prevent them authoritatively, or in conjunction with others, the
effort would have the contrary effect."
In this certainly he was doomed to disappointment.
He had already notified the French court of the absolute necessity of the
great points to be insisted upon in the treaty, and there he found more
docility than in London or Newmarket.