They were, in the first place, and ostensibly, to thank the

This eBook was produced by David Widger

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THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND

WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR

By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 88

The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v3, 1610

CHAPTER IV.

Difficult Position of Barneveld--Insurrection at Utrecht subdued by

the States' Army--Special Embassies to England and France--Anger of

the King with Spain and the Archdukes--Arrangements of Henry for the

coming War--Position of Spain--Anxiety of the King for the Presence

of Barneveld in Paris--Arrival of the Dutch Commissioners in France

and their brilliant Reception--Their Interview with the King and his

Ministers--Negotiations--Delicate Position of the Dutch Government--

India Trade--Simon Danzer, the Corsair--Conversations of Henry with

the Dutch Commissioners--Letter of the King to Archduke Albert--

Preparations for the Queen's Coronation, and of Henry to open the

Campaign in person--Perplexities of Henry--Forebodings and Warnings

--The Murder accomplished--Terrible Change in France--Triumph of

Concini and of Spain--Downfall of Sully--Disputes of the Grandees

among themselves--Special Mission of Condelence from the Republic--

Conference on the great Enterprise--Departure of van der Myle from

Paris.

There were reasons enough why the Advocate could not go to Paris at this

juncture. It was absurd in Henry to suppose it possible. Everything

rested on Barneveld's shoulders. During the year which had just passed

he had drawn almost every paper, every instruction in regard to the peace

negotiations, with his own hand, had assisted at every conference,

guided and mastered the whole course of a most difficult and intricate

negotiation, in which he had not only been obliged to make allowance

for the humbled pride and baffled ambition of the ancient foe of the

Netherlands, but to steer clear of the innumerable jealousies,

susceptibilities, cavillings, and insolences of their patronizing

friends.

It was his brain that worked, his tongue that spoke, his restless pen

that never paused. His was not one of those easy posts, not unknown in

the modern administration of great affairs, where the subordinate

furnishes the intellect, the industry, the experience, while the bland

superior, gratifying the world with his sign-manual, appropriates the

applause. So long as he lived and worked, the States-General and the

States of Holland were like a cunningly contrived machine, which seemed

to be alive because one invisible but mighty mind vitalized the whole.

And there had been enough to do. It was not until midsummer of 1609 that

the ratifications of the Treaty of Truce, one of the great triumphs in

the history of diplomacy, had been exchanged, and scarcely had this

period been put to the eternal clang of arms when the death of a lunatic

threw the world once more into confusion. It was obvious to Barneveld

that the issue of the Cleve-Julich affair, and of the tremendous

religious fermentation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, must sooner or

later lead to an immense war. It was inevitable that it would devolve

upon the States to sustain their great though vacillating, their generous

though encroaching, their sincere though most irritating, ally. And

yet, thoroughly as Barneveld had mastered all the complications and

perplexities of the religious and political question, carefully as he

had calculated the value of the opposing forces which were shaking

Christendom, deeply as he had studied the characters of Matthias and

Rudolph, of Charles of Denmark and Ferdinand of Graz, of Anhalt and

Maximilian, of Brandenburg and Neuburg, of James and Philip, of Paul V.

and Charles Emmanuel, of Sully and Yilleroy, of Salisbury and Bacon, of

Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all

these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the

attention of Europe--there was one factor with which it was difficult for

this austere republican, this cold, unsuseeptible statesman, to deal: the

intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman of sixteen.

For out of the cauldron where the miscellaneous elements of universal

war were bubbling rose perpetually the fantastic image of Margaret

Montmorency: the fatal beauty at whose caprice the heroic sword of Ivry

and Cahors was now uplifted and now sheathed.

Aerssens was baffled, and reported the humours of the court where he

resided as changing from hour to hour. To the last he reported that all

the mighty preparations then nearly completed "might evaporate in smoke"

if the Princess of Conde should come back. Every ambassador in Paris was

baffled. Peter Pecquius was as much in the dark as Don Inigo de

Cardenas, as Ubaldini or Edmonds. No one save Sully, Aerssens,

Barneveld, and the King knew the extensive arrangements and profound

combinations which had been made for the war. Yet not Sully, Aerssens,

Barneveld, or the King, knew whether or not the war would really be made.

Barneveld had to deal with this perplexing question day by day. His

correspondence with his ambassador at Henry's court was enormous, and we

have seen that the Ambassador was with the King almost daily; sleeping or

waking; at dinner or the chase; in the cabinet or the courtyard.

But the Advocate was also obliged to carry in his arms, as it were, the

brood of snarling, bickering, cross-grained German princes, to supply

them with money, with arms, with counsel, with brains; to keep them awake

when they went to sleep, to steady them in their track, to teach them to

go alone. He had the congress at Hall in Suabia to supervise and direct;

he had to see that the ambassadors of the new republic, upon which they

in reality were already half dependent and chafing at their dependence,

were treated with the consideration due to the proud position which the

Commonwealth had gained. Questions of etiquette were at that moment

questions of vitality. He instructed his ambassadors to leave the

congress on the spot if they were ranked after the envoys of princes who

were only feudatories of the Emperor. The Dutch ambassadors,

"recognising and relying upon no superiors but God and their sword,"

placed themselves according to seniority with the representatives of

proudest kings.

He had to extemporize a system of free international communication with

all the powers of the earth--with the Turk at Constantinople, with the

Czar of Muscovy; with the potentates of the Baltic, with both the Indies.

The routine of a long established and well organized foreign office in a

time-honoured state running in grooves; with well-balanced springs and

well oiled wheels, may be a luxury of civilization; but it was a more

arduous task to transact the greatest affairs of a state springing

suddenly into recognized existence and mainly dependent for its primary

construction and practical working on the hand of one man.

Worse than all, he had to deal on the most dangerous and delicate topics

of state with a prince who trembled at danger and was incapable of

delicacy; to show respect for a character that was despicable, to lean on

a royal word falser than water, to inhale almost daily the effluvia from

a court compared to which the harem of Henry was a temple of vestals.

The spectacle of the slobbering James among his Kars and Hays and

Villiers's and other minions is one at which history covers her eyes and

is dumb; but the republican envoys, with instructions from a Barneveld,

were obliged to face him daily, concealing their disgust, and bowing

reverentially before him as one of the arbiters of their destinies and

the Solomon of his epoch.

A special embassy was sent early in the year to England to convey the

solemn thanks of the Republic to the King for his assistance in the truce

negotiations, and to treat of the important matters then pressing on the

attention of both powers. Contemporaneously was to be despatched the

embassy for which Henry was waiting so impatiently at Paris.

Certainly the Advocate had enough with this and other, important business

already mentioned to detain him at his post. Moreover the first year of

peace had opened disastrously in the Netherlands. Tremendous tempests

such as had rarely been recorded even in that land of storms had raged

all the winter. The waters everywhere had burst their dykes and

inundations, which threatened to engulph the whole country, and which had

caused enormous loss of property and even of life, were alarming the most

courageous. It was difficult in many district to collect the taxes for

the every-day expenses of the community, and yet the Advocate knew that

the Republic would soon be forced to renew the war on a prodigious scale.

Still more to embarrass the action of the government and perplex its

statesmen, an alarming and dangerous insurrection broke out in Utrecht.

In that ancient seat of the hard-fighting, imperious, and opulent

sovereign archbishops of the ancient church an important portion of the

population had remained Catholic. Another portion complained of the

abolition of various privileges which they had formerly enjoyed; among

others that of a monopoly of beer-brewing for the province. All the

population, as is the case with all populations in all countries and all

epochs, complained of excessive taxation.

A clever politician, Dirk Kanter by name, a gentleman by birth, a scholar

and philosopher by pursuit and education, and a demagogue by profession,

saw an opportunity of taking an advantage of this state of things. More

than twenty years before he had been burgomaster of the city, and had

much enjoyed himself in that position. He was tired of the learned

leisure to which the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens had condemned

him. He seems to have been of easy virtue in the matter of religion, a

Catholic, an Arminian, an ultra orthodox Contra-Remonstrant by turns. He

now persuaded a number of determined partisans that the time had come for

securing a church for the public worship of the ancient faith, and at the

same time for restoring the beer brewery, reducing the taxes, recovering

lost privileges, and many other good things. Beneath the whole scheme

lay a deep design to effect the secession of the city and with it of the

opulent and important province of Utrecht from the Union. Kanter had

been heard openly to avow that after all the Netherlands had flourished

under the benign sway of the House of Burgundy, and that the time would

soon come for returning to that enviable condition.

By a concerted assault the city hall was taken possession of by main

force, the magistracy was overpowered, and a new board of senators and

common council-men appointed, Kanter and a devoted friend of his,

Heldingen by name, being elected burgomasters.

The States-Provincial of Utrecht, alarmed at these proceedings in the

city, appealed for protection against violence to the States-General

under the 3rd Article of the Union, the fundamental pact which bore the

name of Utrecht itself. Prince Maurice proceeded to the city at the head

of a detachment of troops to quell the tumults. Kanter and his friends

were plausible enough to persuade him of the legality and propriety of

the revolution which they had effected, and to procure his formal

confirmation of the new magistracy. Intending to turn his military

genius and the splendour of his name to account, they contrived to keep

him for a time at least in an amiable enthralment, and induced him to

contemplate in their interest the possibility of renouncing the oath

which subjected him to the authority of the States of Utrecht. But the

far-seeing eye of Barneveld could not be blind to the danger which at

this crisis beset the Stadholder and the whole republic. The Prince was

induced to return to the Hague, but the city continued by armed revolt to

maintain the new magistracy. They proceeded to reduce the taxes, and in

other respects to carry out the measures on the promise of which they had

come into power. Especially the Catholic party sustained Kanter and his

friends, and promised themselves from him and from his influence over

Prince Maurice to obtain a power of which they had long been deprived.

The States-General now held an assembly at Woerden, and summoned the

malcontents of Utrecht to bring before that body a statement of their

grievances. This was done, but there was no satisfactory arrangement

possible, and the deputation returned to Utrecht, the States-General to

the Hague. The States-Provincial of Utrecht urged more strongly than ever

upon the assembly of the Union to save the city from the hands of a

reckless and revolutionary government. The States-General resolved

accordingly to interfere by force. A considerable body of troops was

ordered to march at once upon Utrecht and besiege the city. Maurice, in

his capacity of captain-general and stadholder of the province, was

summoned to take charge of the army. He was indisposed to do so, and

pleaded sickness. The States, determined that the name of Nassau should

not be used as an encouragement to disobedience, and rebellion, then

directed the brother of Maurice, Frederic Henry, youngest son of William

the Silent, to assume the command. Maurice insisted that his brother was

too young, and that it was unjust to allow so grave a responsibility to

fall upon his shoulders. The States, not particularly pleased with the

Prince's attitude at this alarming juncture, and made anxious by the

glamour which seemed to possess him since his conferences with the

revolutionary party at Utrecht, determined not to yield.

The army marched forth and laid siege to the city, Prince Frederic Henry

at its head. He was sternly instructed by the States-General, under

whose orders he acted, to take possession of the city at all hazards.

He was to insist on placing there a garrison of 2000 foot and 300 horse,

and to permit not another armed man within the walls. The members of the

council of state and of the States of Utrecht accompanied the army. For

a moment the party in power was disposed to resist the forces of the

Union. Dick Kanter and his friends were resolute enough; the Catholic

priests turned out among the rest with their spades and worked on the

entrenchments. The impossibility of holding the city against the

overwhelming power of the States was soon obvious, and the next day the

gates were opened, and easy terms were granted. The new magistracy was

set aside, the old board that had been deposed by the rebels reinstated.

The revolution and the counterrevolution were alike bloodless, and it was

determined that the various grievances of which the discontented party

had complained should be referred to the States-General, to Prince

Maurice, to the council of state, and to the ambassadors of France and

England. Amnesty was likewise decreed on submission.

The restored government was Arminian in its inclinations, the

revolutionary one was singularly compounded both of Catholic and of

ultra-orthodox elements. Quiet was on the whole restored, but the

resources of the city were crippled. The event occurring exactly at the

crisis of the Clove and Julich expedition angered the King of France.

"The trouble of Utrecht," wrote Aerssens to Barneveld, "has been turned

to account here marvellously, the Archdukes and Spaniards boasting that

many more revolts like this may be at once expected. I have explained to

his Majesty, who has been very much alarmed about it, both its source and

the hopes that it will be appeased by the prudence of his Excellency

Prince Maurice and the deputies of the States. The King desires that

everything should be pacified as soon as possible, so that there may be

no embarrassment to the course of public affairs. But he fears, he tells

me, that this may create some new jealousy between Prince Maurice and

yourself. I don't comprehend what he means, although he held this

language to me very expressly and without reserve. I could only answer

that you were living on the best of terms together in perfect amity and

intelligence. If you know if this talk of his has any other root, please

to enlighten me, that I may put a stop to false reports, for I know

nothing of affairs except what you tell me."

King James, on the other hand, thoroughly approved the promptness of the

States-General in suppressing the tumult.

Nothing very serious of alike nature occurred in Utrecht until the end of

the year, when a determined and secret conspiracy was discovered, having

for its object to overpower the garrison and get bodily possession of

Colonel John Ogle, the military commander of the town. At the bottom of

the movement were the indefatigable Dirk Kanter and his friend Heldingen.

The attempt was easily suppressed, and the two were banished from the

town. Kanter died subsequently in North Holland, in the odour of ultra-

orthodoxy. Four of the conspirators--a post-master, two shoemakers, and

a sexton, who had bound themselves by oath to take the lives of two

eminent Arminian preachers, besides other desperate deeds--were condemned

to death, but pardoned on the scaffold. Thus ended the first revolution

at Utrecht.

Its effect did not cease, however, with the tumults which were its

original manifestations. This earliest insurrection in organized shape

against the central authority of the States-General; this violent though

abortive effort to dissolve the Union and to nullify its laws; this

painful necessity for the first time imposed upon the federal government

to take up arms against misguided citizens of the Republic, in order to

save itself from disintegration and national death, were destined to be

followed by far graver convulsions on the self-same spot. Religious

differences and religious hatreds were to mingle their poison with

antagonistic political theories and personal ambitions, and to develop on

a wide scale the danger ever lurking in a constitution whose fundamental

law was unstable, ill defined, and liable to contradictory

interpretations. For the present it need only be noticed that the

States-General, guided by Barneveld, most vigorously suppressed the local

revolt and the incipient secession, while Prince Maurice, the right arm

of the executive, the stadholder of the province, and the representative

of the military power of the Commonwealth, was languid in the exertion of

that power, inclined to listen to the specious arguments of the Utrecht

rebels, and accused at least of tampering with the fell spirit which the

Advocate was resolute to destroy. Yet there was no suspicion of treason,

no taint of rebellion, no accusation of unpatriotic motives uttered

against the Stadholder.

There was a doubt as to the true maxims by which the Confederacy was to

be governed, and at this moment, certainly, the Prince and the Advocate

represented opposite ideas. There was a possibility, at a future day,

when the religious and political parties might develop themselves on a

wider scale and the struggles grow fiercer, that the two great champions

in the conflict might exchange swords and inflict mutual and poisoned

wounds. At present the party of the Union had triumphed, with Barneveld

at its head. At a later but not far distant day, similar scenes might be

enacted in the ancient city of Utrecht, but with a strange difference and

change in the cast of parts and with far more tragical results.

For the moment the moderate party in the Church, those more inclined to

Arminianism and the supremacy of the civil authority in religious

matters, had asserted their ascendency in the States-General, and had

prevented the threatened rupture.

Meantime it was doubly necessary to hasten the special embassies to

France and to England, in both which countries much anxiety as to the

political health and strength of the new republic had been excited by

these troubles in Utrecht. It was important for the States-General to

show that they were not crippled, and would not shrink from the coming

conflict, but would justify the reliance placed on them by their allies.

Thus there were reasons enough why Barneveld could not himself leave the

country in the eventful spring of 1610. It must be admitted, however,

that he was not backward in placing his nearest relatives in places of

honour, trust, and profit.

His eldest son Reinier, Seignior of Groeneveld, had been knighted by

Henry IV.; his youngest, William, afterwards called Seignior of

Stoutenburg, but at this moment bearing the not very mellifluous title of

Craimgepolder, was a gentleman-in-waiting at that king's court, with a

salary of 3000 crowns a year. He was rather a favourite with the easy-

going monarch, but he gave infinite trouble to the Dutch ambassador

Aerssens, who, feeling himself under immense obligations to the Advocate

and professing for him boundless gratitude, did his best to keep the

idle, turbulent, extravagant, and pleasure-loving youth up to the strict

line of his duties.

"Your son is in debt again," wrote Aerssens, on one occasion, "and

troubled for money. He is in danger of going to the usurers. He says he

cannot keep himself for less than 200 crowns a month. This is a large

allowance, but he has spent much more than that. His life is not

irregular nor his dress remarkably extravagant. His difficulty is that

he will not dine regularly with me nor at court. He will keep his own

table and have company to dinner. That is what is ruining him. He comes

sometimes to me, not for the dinner nor the company, but for tennis,

which he finds better in my faubourg than in town. His trouble comes

from the table, and I tell you frankly that you must regulate his

expenses or they will become very onerous to you. I am ashamed of them

and have told him so a hundred times, more than if he had been my own

brother. It is all for love of you . . . . I have been all to him

that could be expected of a man who is under such vast obligations to

you; and I so much esteem the honour of your friendship that I should

always neglect my private affairs in order to do everything for your

service and meet your desires . . . . . If M. de Craimgepolder comes

back from his visit home, you must restrict him in two things, the table

and tennis, and you can do this if you require him to follow the King

assiduously as his service requires."

Something at a future day was to be heard of William of Barneveld, as

well as of his elder brother Reinier, and it is good, therefore, to have

these occasional glimpses of him while in the service of the King and

under the supervision of one who was then his father's devoted friend,

Francis Aerssens. There were to be extraordinary and tragical changes in

the relations of parties and of individuals ere many years should go by.

Besides the sons of the Advocate, his two sons-in-law, Brederode,

Seignior of Veenhuizep, and Cornelis van der Myle, were constantly

employed? in important embassies. Van der Myle had been the first

ambassador to the great Venetian republic, and was now placed at the

head of the embassy to France, an office which it was impossible at that

moment for the Advocate to discharge. At the same critical moment

Barneveld's brother Elias, Pensionary of Rotterdam, was appointed

one of the special high commissioners to the King of Great Britain.

It is necessary to give an account of this embassy.

They were provided with luminous and minute instructions from the hand of

the Advocate.

They were, in the first place, and ostensibly, to thank the King for his

services in bringing about the truce, which, truly, had been of the

slightest, as was very well known. They were to explain, on the part of

the States, their delay in sending this solemn commission, caused by the

tardiness of the King of Spain in sending his ratification to the treaty,

and by the many disputations caused by the irresolutions of the Archdukes

and the obstinacy of their commissioners in regard to their many

contraventions of the treaty. After those commissioners had gone,

further hindrances had been found in the "extraordinary tempests, high

floods, rising of the waters, both of the ocean and the rivers, and the

very disastrous inundations throughout nearly all the United Provinces,

with the immense and exorbitant damage thus inflicted, both on the public

and on many individuals; in addition to all which were to be mentioned

the troubles in the city of Utrecht."

They were, in almost hyperbolical language, directed to express the

eternal gratitude of the States for the constant favours received by

them from the crown of England, and their readiness to stand forth at

any moment with sincere affection and to the utmost of their power,

at all times and seasons, in resistance of any attempts against his

Majesty's person or crown, or against the Prince of Wales or the royal

family. They were to thank him for his "prudent, heroic, and courageous

resolve to suffer nothing to be done under colour of justice, authority,

or any other pretext, to the hindrance of the Elector of Brandenburg and

Palatine of Neuburg, in the maintenance of their lawful rights and

possession of the principalities of Julich, Cleve, and Berg, and other

provinces."

By this course his Majesty, so the commissioners were to state, would put

an end to the imaginations of those who thought they could give the law

to everybody according to their pleasure.

They were to assure the King that the States-General would exert

themselves to the utmost to second his heroic resolution, notwithstanding

the enormous burthens of their everlasting war, the very exorbitant

damage caused by the inundations, and the sensible diminution in the

contributions and other embarrassments then existing in the country.

They were to offer 2000 foot and 500 horse for the general purpose under

Prince Henry of Nassau, besides the succours furnished by the King of

France and the electors and princes of Germany. Further assistance in

men, artillery, and supplies were promised under certain contingencies,

and the plan of the campaign on the Meuse in conjunction with the King of

France was duly mapped.

They were to request a corresponding promise of men and money from the

King of Great Britain, and they were to propose for his approval a closer

convention for mutual assistance between his Majesty, the United

Netherlands, the King of France, the electors and princes and other

powers of Germany; as such close union would be very beneficial to all

Christendom. It would put a stop to all unjust occupations, attempts,

and intrigues, and if the King was thereto inclined, he was requested to

indicate time and place for making such a convention.

The commissioners were further to point out the various contraventions

on the part of the Archdukes of the Treaty of Truce, and were to give

an exposition of the manner in which the States-General had quelled the

tumults at Utrecht, and reasons why such a course had of necessity been

adopted.

They were instructed to state that, "over and above the great expenses of

the late war and the necessary maintenance of military forces to protect

their frontiers against their suspected new friends or old enemies, the

Provinces were burthened with the cost of the succour to the Elector of

Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg, and would be therefore incapable of

furnishing the payments coming due to his Majesty. They were accordingly

to sound his Majesty as to whether a good part of the debt might not be

remitted or at least an arrangement made by which the terms should begin

to run only after a certain number of years."

They were also directed to open the subject of the fisheries on the

coasts of Great Britain, and to remonstrate against the order lately

published by the King forbidding all foreigners from fishing on those

coasts. This was to be set forth as an infringement both of natural law

and of ancient treaties, and as a source of infinite danger to the

inhabitants of the United Provinces.

The Seignior of Warmond, chief of the commission, died on the 15th April.

His colleagues met at Brielle on the 16th, ready to take passage to

England in the ship of war, the Hound. They were, however, detained

there six days by head winds and great storms, and it was not until the

22nd that they were able to put to sea. The following evening their ship

cast anchor in Gravesend. Half an hour before, the Duke of Wurtemberg

had arrived from Flushing in a ship of war brought from France by the

Prince of Anhalt.

Sir Lewis Lewkener, master of ceremonies, had been waiting for the

ambassadors at Gravesend, and informed them that the royal barges were to

come next morning from London to take them to town. They remained that

night on board the Hound, and next morning, the wind blowing up the

river, they proceeded in their ship as far as Blackwall, where they were

formally received and bade welcome in the name of the King by Sir Thomas

Cornwallis and Sir George Carew, late ambassador in France. Escorted by

them and Sir Lewis, they were brought in the court barges to Tower Wharf.

Here the royal coaches were waiting, in which they were taken to lodgings

provided for them in the city at the house of a Dutch merchant. Noel de

Caron, Seignior of Schonewal, resident ambassador of the States in

London, was likewise there to greet them. This was Saturday night: On

the following Tuesday they went by appointment to the Palace of Whitehall

in royal carriages for their first audience. Manifestations of as entire

respect and courtesy had thus been made to the Republican envoys as could

be shown to the ambassadors of the greatest sovereigns. They found the

King seated on his throne in the audience chamber, accompanied by the

Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Lord High Treasurer and Lord High

Admiral, the Duke of Lenox, the Earls of Arundel and Northampton, and

many other great nobles and dignitaries. James rose from his seat, took

off his hat, and advanced several paces to meet the ambassadors, and bade

them courteously and respectfully welcome. He then expressed his regret

at the death of the Seignior of Warmond, and after the exchange of a few

commonplaces listened, still with uncovered head, to the opening address.

The spokesman, after thanking the King for his condolences on the death

of the chief commissioner, whom, as was stated with whimsical simplicity,

"the good God had called to Himself after all his luggage had been put on

board ship," proceeded in the French language to give a somewhat

abbreviated paraphrase of Barneveld's instructions.

When this was done and intimation made that they would confer more fully

with his Majesty's council on the subjects committed to their charge,

the ambassadors were conducted home with the same ceremonies as had

accompanied their arrival. They received the same day the first visit

from the ambassadors of France and Venice, Boderie and Carrero, and had a

long conference a few days afterwards with the High Treasurer, Lord

Salisbury.

On the 3rd May they were invited to attend the pompous celebration of the

festival of St. George in the palace at Westminster, where they were

placed together with the French ambassador in the King's oratorium; the

Dukes of Wurtemberg and Brunswick being in that of the Queen.

These details are especially to be noted, and were at the moment of

considerable importance, for this was the first solemn and extraordinary

embassy sent by the rebel Netherlanders, since their independent national

existence had been formally vindicated, to Great Britain, a power which a

quarter of a century before had refused the proffered sovereignty over

them. Placed now on exactly the same level with the representatives of

emperors and kings, the Republican envoys found themselves looked upon

by the world with different eyes from those which had regarded their

predecessors askance, and almost with derision, only seven years before.

At that epoch the States' commissioners, Barneveld himself at the head of

them, had gone solemnly to congratulate King James on his accession, had

scarcely been admitted to audience by king or minister, and had found

themselves on great festivals unsprinkled with the holy water of the

court, and of no more account than the crowd of citizens and spectators

who thronged the streets, gazing with awe at the distant radiance of the

throne.

But although the ambassadors were treated with every external

consideration befitting their official rank, they were not likely to

find themselves in the most genial atmosphere when they should come to

business details. If there was one thing in the world that James did not

intend to do, it was to get himself entangled in war with Spain, the

power of all others which he most revered and loved. His "heroic and

courageous resolve" to defend the princes, on which the commissioners by

instructions of the Advocate had so highly complimented him, was not

strong enough to carry him much beyond a vigorous phraseology. He had

not awoke from the delusive dream of the Spanish marriage which had

dexterously been made to flit before him, and he was not inclined, for

the sake of the Republic which he hated the more because obliged to be

one of its sponsors, to risk the animosity of a great power which

entertained the most profound contempt for him. He was destined to find

himself involved more closely than he liked, and through family ties,

with the great Protestant movement in Germany, and the unfortunate

"Winter King" might one day find his father-in-law as unstable a reed to

lean upon as the States had found their godfather, or the Brandenburgs

and Neuburgs at the present juncture their great ally. Meantime, as the

Bohemian troubles had not yet reached the period of actual explosion, and

as Henry's wide-reaching plan against the House of Austria had been

strangely enough kept an inviolable secret by the few statesmen, like

Sully and Barneveld, to whom they had been confided, it was necessary for

the King and his ministers to deal cautiously and plausibly with the

Dutch ambassadors. Their conferences were mere dancing among eggs, and

if no actual mischief were done, it was the best result that could be

expected.

On the 8th of May, the commissioners met in the council chamber at

Westminster, and discussed all the matters contained in their

instructions with the members of the council; the Lord Treasurer

Salisbury, Earl of Northampton, Privy Seal and Warden of the Cinque

Ports, Lord Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, Earl of

Suffolk, Earls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and several others being

present.

The result was not entirely satisfactory. In regard to the succour

demanded for the possessory princes, the commissioners were told that

they seemed to come with a long narrative of their great burthens during

the war, damage from inundations, and the like, to excuse themselves from

doing their share in the succour, and thus the more to overload his

Majesty, who was not much interested in the matter, and was likewise

greatly encumbered by various expenses. The King had already frankly

declared his intention to assist the princes with the payment of 4000

men, and to send proportionate artillery and powder from England. As the

States had supplies in their magazines enough to move 12,000 men, he

proposed to draw upon those, reimbursing the States for what was thus

consumed by his contingent.

With regard to the treaty of close alliance between France, Great

Britain, the princes, and the Republic, which the ambassadors had

proposed, the--Lord Treasurer and his colleagues gave a reply far from

gratifying. His Majesty had not yet decided on this point, they said.

The King of France had already proposed to treat for such an alliance,

but it did not at present seem worth while for all to negotiate together.

This was a not over-courteous hint that the Republic was after all not

expected to place herself at the council-board of kings on even terms of

intimacy and fraternal alliance.

What followed was even less flattering. If his Majesty, it was

intimated, should decide to treat with the King of France, he would not

shut the door on their High Mightinesses; but his Majesty was not yet

exactly informed whether his Majesty had not certain rights over the

provinces 'in petitorio.'

This was a scarcely veiled insinuation against the sovereignty of the

States, a sufficiently broad hint that they were to be considered in a

certain degree as British provinces. To a soldier like Maurice, to a

statesman like Barneveld, whose sympathies already were on the side of

France, such rebuffs and taunts were likely to prove unpalatable. The

restiveness of the States at the continual possession by Great Britain of

those important sea-ports the cautionary towns, a fact which gave colour

to these innuendoes, was sure to be increased by arrogant language on the

part of the English ministers. The determination to be rid of their debt

to so overbearing an ally, and to shake off the shackles imposed by the

costly mortgages, grew in strength from that hour.

In regard to the fisheries, the Lord Treasurer and his colleagues

expressed amazement that the ambassadors should consider the subjects

of their High Mightinesses to be so much beloved by his Majesty. Why

should they of all other people be made an exception of, and be exempt

from, the action of a general edict? The reasons for these orders in

council ought to be closely examined. It would be very difficult to

bring the opinions of the English jurists into harmony with those of the

States. Meantime it would be well to look up such treaties as might be

in existence, and have a special joint commission to confer together on

the subject. It was very plain, from the course of the conversation,

that the Netherland fishermen were not to be allowed, without paying

roundly for a license, to catch herrings on the British coasts as they

had heretofore done.

Not much more of importance was transacted at this first interview

between the ambassadors and the Ding's ministers. Certainly they had

not yet succeeded in attaining their great object, the formation of an

alliance offensive and defensive between Great Britain and the Republic

in accordance with the plan concerted between Henry and Barneveld. They

could find but slender encouragement for the warlike plans to which

France and the States were secretly committed; nor could they obtain

satisfactory adjustment of affairs more pacific and commercial in their

tendencies. The English ministers rather petulantly remarked that, while

last year everybody was talking of a general peace, and in the present

conjuncture all seemed to think, or at least to speak, of nothing but a

general war, they thought best to defer consideration of the various

subjects connected with duties on the manufactures and products of the

respective countries, the navigation laws, the "entrecours," and other

matters of ancient agreement and controversy, until a more convenient

season.

After the termination of the verbal conference, the ambassadors delivered

to the King's government, in writing, to be pondered by the council and

recorded in the archives, a summary of the statements which had been thus

orally treated. The document was in French, and in the main a paraphrase

of the Advocate's instructions, the substance of which has been already

indicated. In regard, however, to the far-reaching designs of Spain, and

the corresponding attitude which it would seem fitting for Great Britain

to assume, and especially the necessity of that alliance the proposal for

which had in the conference been received so haughtily, their language

was far plainer, bolder, and more vehement than that of the instructions.

"Considering that the effects show," they said, "that those who claim

the monarchy of Christendom, and indeed of the whole world, let slip no

opportunity which could in any way serve their designs, it is suitable to

the grandeur of his Majesty the King, and to the station in which by the

grace of the good God he is placed, to oppose himself thereto for the

sake of the common liberty of Christendom, to which end, and in order the

better to prevent all unjust usurpatiops, there could be no better means

devised than a closer alliance between his Majesty and the Most Christian

King, My Lords the States-General, and the electors, princes, and states

of Germany. Their High Mightinesses would therefore be most glad to

learn that his Majesty was inclined to such a course, and would be glad

to discuss the subject when and wherever his Majesty should appoint, or

would readily enter into such an alliance on reasonable conditions."

This language and the position taken up by the ambassadors were highly

approved by their government, but it was fated that no very great result

was to be achieved by this embassy. Very elaborate documents, exhaustive

in legal lore, on the subject of the herring fisheries, and of the right

to fish in the ocean and on foreign coasts, fortified by copious

citations from the 'Pandects' and 'Institutes' of Justinian, were

presented for the consideration of the British government, and were

answered as learnedly, exhaustively, and ponderously. The English

ministers were also reminded that the curing of herrings had been

invented in the fifteenth century by a citizen of Biervliet, the

inscription on whose tombstone recording that faces might still be

read in the church of that town.

All this did not prevent, however, the Dutch herring fishermen from being

excluded from the British waters unless they chose to pay for licenses.

The conferences were however for a season interrupted, and a new aspect

was given to affairs by an unforeseen and terrible event.

Meanwhile it is necessary to glance for a moment at the doings of the

special embassy to France, the instructions for which were prepared by

Barneveld almost at the same moment at which he furnished those for the

commission to England.

The ambassadors were Walraven, Seignior of Brederode, Cornelis van der

Myle, son-in-law of the Advocate, and Jacob van Maldere. Remembering how

impatient the King of France had long been for their coming, and that all

the preparations and decisions for a great war were kept in suspense

until the final secret conferences could be held with the representatives

of the States-General, it seems strange enough to us to observe the

extreme deliberation with which great affairs of state were then

conducted and the vast amount of time consumed in movements and

communications which modern science has either annihilated or abridged

from days to hours. While Henry was chafing with anxiety in Paris, the

ambassadors, having received Barneveld's instructions dated 31st March,

set forth on the 8th April from the Hague, reached Rotterdam at noon, and

slept at Dordrecht. Newt day they went to Breda, where the Prince of

Orange insisted upon their passing a couple of days with him in his

castle, Easter-day being 11th April. He then provided them with a couple

of coaches and pair in which they set forth on their journey, going by

way of Antwerp, Ghent, Courtray, Ryssel, to Arras, making easy stages,

stopping in the middle of the day to bait, and sleeping at each of the

cities thus mentioned, where they duly received the congratulatory visit

and hospitalities of their respective magistracies.

While all this time had been leisurely employed in the Netherlands in

preparing, instructing, and despatching the commissioners, affairs were

reaching a feverish crisis in France.

The States' ambassador resident thought that it would have been better

not to take such public offence at the retreat of the Prince of Conde.

The King had enough of life and vigour in him; he could afford to leave

the Dauphin to grow up, and when he should one day be established on the

throne, he would be able to maintain his heritage. "But," said Aerssens,

"I fear that our trouble is not where we say it is, and we don't dare to

say where it is." Writing to Carew, former English ambassador in Paris,

whom we have just seen in attendance on the States' commissioners in

London, he said: "People think that the Princess is wearying herself much

under the protection of the Infanta, and very impatient at not obtaining

the dissolution of her marriage, which the Duchess of Angouleme is to go

to Brussels to facilitate. This is not our business, but I mention it

only as the continuation of the Tragedy which you saw begin. Nevertheless

I don't know if the greater part of our deliberations is not founded on

this matter."

It had been decided to cause the Queen to be solemnly crowned after

Easter. She had set her heart with singular persistency upon the

ceremony, and it was thought that so public a sacrament would annihilate

all the wild projects attributed to Spain through the instrumentality of

Conde to cast doubts on the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy

of the Dauphin. The King from the first felt and expressed a singular

repugnance, a boding apprehension in regard to the coronation, but had

almost yielded to the Queen's importunity. He told her he would give his

consent provided she sent Concini to Brussels to invite in her own name

the Princess of Conde to be present on the occasion. Otherwise he

declared that at least the festival should be postponed till September.

The Marquis de Coeuvres remained in disgrace after the failure of his

mission, Henry believing that like all the world he had fallen in love

with the Princess, and had only sought to recommend himself, not to

further the suit of his sovereign.

Meanwhile Henry had instructed his ambassador in Spain, M. de Vaucelas,

to tell the King that his reception of Conde within his dominions would

be considered an infraction of the treaty of Vervins and a direct act of

hostility. The Duke of Lerma answered with a sneer that the Most

Christian King had too greatly obliged his Most Catholic Majesty by

sustaining his subjects in their rebellion and by aiding them to make

their truce to hope now that Conde would be sent back. France had ever

been the receptacle of Spanish traitors and rebels from Antonio Perez

down, and the King of Spain would always protect wronged and oppressed

princes like Conde. France had just been breaking up the friendly

relations between Savoy and Spain and goading the Duke into hostilities.