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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 89
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v4, 1610-12
CHAPTER V.
Interviews between the Dutch Commissioners and King James--Prince
Maurice takes command of the Troops--Surrender of Julich--Matthias
crowned King of Bohemia--Death of Rudolph--James's Dream of a
Spanish Marriage--Appointment of Vorstius in place of Arminius at
Leyden--Interview between Maurice and Winwood--Increased Bitterness
between Barneveld and Maurice--Projects of Spanish Marriages in
France.
It is refreshing to escape from the atmosphere of self-seeking faction,
feverish intrigue, and murderous stratagem in which unhappy France was
stifling into the colder and calmer regions of Netherland policy.
No sooner had the tidings of Henry's murder reached the States than
they felt that an immense responsibility had fallen on their shoulders.
It is to the eternal honour of the Republic, of Barneveld, who directed
her councils, and of Prince Maurice, who wielded her sword, that she was
equal to the task imposed upon her.
There were open bets on the Exchange in Antwerp, after the death of
Henry, that Maurice would likewise be killed within the month. Nothing
seemed more probable, and the States implored the Stadholder to take
special heed to himself. But this was a kind of caution which the Prince
was not wont to regard. Nor was there faltering, distraction, cowardice,
or parsimony in Republican councils.
We have heard the strong words of encouragement and sympathy addressed by
the Advocate's instructions to the Queen-Regent and the leading statesmen
of France. We have seen their effects in that lingering sentiment of
shame which prevented the Spanish stipendiaries who governed the kingdom
from throwing down the mask as cynically as they were at first inclined
to do.
Not less manful and statesmanlike was the language held to the King of
Great Britain and his ministers by the Advocate's directions. The news
of the assassination reached the special ambassadors in London at three
o'clock of Monday, the 17th May. James returned to Whitehall from a
hunting expedition on the 21st, and immediately signified his intention
of celebrating the occasion by inviting the high commissioners of the
States to a banquet and festival at the palace.
Meantime they were instructed by Barneveld to communicate the results of
the special embassy of the States to the late king according to the
report just delivered to the Assembly. Thus James was to be informed of
the common resolution and engagement then taken to support the cause of
the princes. He was now seriously and explicitly to be summoned to
assist the princes not only with the stipulated 4000 men, but with a much
greater force, proportionate to the demands for the security and welfare
of Christendom, endangered by this extraordinary event. He was assured
that the States would exert themselves to the full measure of their
ability to fortify and maintain the high interests of France, of the
possessory princes, and of Christendom, so that the hopes of the
perpetrators of the foul deed would be confounded.
"They hold this to be the occasion," said the envoys, "to show to all the
world that it is within your power to rescue the affairs of France,
Germany, and of the United Provinces from the claws of those who imagine
for themselves universal monarchy."
They concluded by requesting the King to come to "a resolution on this
affair royally, liberally, and promptly, in order to take advantage of
the time, and not to allow the adversary to fortify himself in his
position"; and they pledged the States-General to stand by and second
him with all their power.
The commissioners, having read this letter to Lord Salisbury before
communicating it to the King, did not find the Lord Treasurer very prompt
or sympathetic in his reply. There had evidently been much jealousy at
the English court of the confidential and intimate relations recently
established with Henry, to which allusions were made in the documents
read at the present conference. Cecil, while expressing satisfaction in
formal terms at the friendly language of the States, and confidence in
the sincerity of their friendship for his sovereign, intimated very
plainly that more had passed between the late king and the authorities of
the Republic than had been revealed by either party to the King of Great
Britain, or than could be understood from the letters and papers now
communicated. He desired further information from the commissioners,
especially in regard to those articles of their instructions which
referred to a general rupture. They professed inability to give more
explanations than were contained in the documents themselves. If
suspicion was felt, they said, that the French King had been proposing
anything in regard to a general rupture, either on account of the retreat
of Conde, the affair of Savoy, or anything else, they would reply that
the ambassadors in France had been instructed to decline committing the
States until after full communication and advice and ripe deliberation
with his British Majesty and council, as well as the Assembly of the
States-General; and it had been the intention of the late king to have
conferred once more and very confidentially with Prince Maurice and Count
Lewis William before coming to a decisive resolution.
It was very obvious however to the commissioners that their statement
gave no thorough satisfaction, and that grave suspicions remained of
something important kept back by them. Cecil's manner was constrained
and cold, and certainly there were no evidences of profound sorrow at the
English court for the death of Henry.
"The King of France," said the High Treasurer, "meant to make a master-
stroke--a coup de maistre--but he who would have all may easily lose all.
Such projects as these should not have been formed or taken in hand
without previous communication with his Majesty of Great Britain."
All arguments on the part of the ambassadors to induce the Lord Treasurer
or other members of the government to enlarge the succour intended for
the Cleve affair were fruitless. The English troops regularly employed
in the States' service might be made use of with the forces sent by the
Republic itself. More assistance than this it was idle to expect, unless
after a satisfactory arrangement with the present regency of France. The
proposition, too, of the States for a close and general alliance was
coldly repulsed. "No resolution can be taken as to that," said Cecil;
"the death of the French king has very much altered such matters."
At a little later hour on the same day the commissioners, according to
previous invitation, dined with the King.
No one sat at the table but his Majesty and themselves, and they all kept
their hats on their heads. The King was hospitable, gracious,
discursive, loquacious, very theological.
He expressed regret for the death of the King of France, and said
that the pernicious doctrine out of which such vile crimes grew must be
uprooted. He asked many questions in regard to the United Netherlands,
enquiring especially as to the late commotions at Utrecht, and the
conduct of Prince Maurice on that occasion. He praised the resolute
conduct of the States-General in suppressing those tumults with force,
adding, however, that they should have proceeded with greater rigour
against the ringleaders of the riot. He warmly recommended the Union of
the Provinces.
He then led the conversation to the religious controversies in the
Netherlands, and in reply to his enquiries was informed that the points
in dispute related to predestination and its consequences.
"I have studied that subject," said James, "as well as anybody, and have
come to the conclusion that nothing certain can be laid down in regard to
it. I have myself not always been of one mind about it, but I will bet
that my opinion is the best of any, although I would not hang my
salvation upon it. My Lords the States would do well to order their
doctors and teachers to be silent on this topic. I have hardly ventured,
moreover, to touch upon the matter of justification in my own writings,
because that also seemed to hang upon predestination."
Thus having spoken with the air of a man who had left nothing further to
be said on predestination or justification, the King rose, took off his
hat, and drank a bumper to the health of the States-General and his
Excellency Prince Maurice, and success to the affair of Cleve.
After dinner there was a parting interview in the gallery. The King,
attended by many privy councillors and high functionaries of state,
bade the commissioners a cordial farewell, and, in order to show his
consideration for their government, performed the ceremony of knighthood
upon them, as was his custom in regard to the ambassadors of Venice. The
sword being presented to him by the Lord Chamberlain, James touched each
of the envoys on the shoulder as he dismissed him. "Out of respect to My
Lords the States," said they in their report, "we felt compelled to allow
ourselves to be burthened with this honour."
Thus it became obvious to the States-General that there was but little to
hope for from Great Britain or France. France, governed by Concini and
by Spain, was sure to do her best to traverse the designs of the
Republic, and, while perfunctorily and grudgingly complying with the
letter of the Hall treaty, was secretly neutralizing by intrigue the
slender military aid which de la Chatre was to bring to Prince Maurice.
The close alliance of France and Protestantism had melted into air. On
the other hand the new Catholic League sprang into full luxuriance out
of the grave of Henry, and both Spain and the Pope gave their hearty
adhesion to the combinations of Maximilian of Bavaria, now that the
mighty designs of the French king were buried with him. The Duke of
Savoy, caught in the trap of his own devising, was fain to send his son
to sue to Spain for pardon for the family upon his knees, and expiated
by draining a deep cup of humiliation his ambitious designs upon the
Milanese and the matrimonial alliance with France. Venice recoiled in
horror from the position she found herself in as soon as the glamour of
Henry's seductive policy was dispelled, while James of Great Britain,
rubbing his hands with great delight at the disappearance from the world
of the man he so admired, bewailed, and hated, had no comfort to impart
to the States-General thus left in virtual isolation. The barren burthen
of knighthood and a sermon on predestination were all he could bestow
upon the high commissioners in place of the alliance which he eluded,
and the military assistance which he point-blank refused. The possessory
princes, in whose cause the sword was drawn, were too quarrelsome and too
fainthearted to serve for much else than an incumbrance either in the
cabinet or the field.
And the States-General were equal to the immense responsibility.
Steadily, promptly, and sagaciously they confronted the wrath, the
policy, and the power of the Empire, of Spain, and of the Pope. Had the
Republic not existed, nothing could have prevented that debateable and
most important territory from becoming provinces of Spain, whose power
thus dilated to gigantic proportions in the very face of England would
have been more menacing than in the days of the Armada. Had the Republic
faltered, she would have soon ceased to exist. But the Republic did not
falter.
On the 13th July, Prince Maurice took command of the States' forces,
13,000 foot and 3000 horse, with thirty pieces of cannon, assembled at
Schenkenschans. The July English and French regiments in the regular
service of the United Provinces were included in these armies, but there
were no additions to them: "The States did seven times as much,"
Barneveld justly averred, "as they had stipulated to do." Maurice,
moving with the precision and promptness which always marked his military
operations, marched straight upon Julich, and laid siege to that
important fortress. The Archdukes at Brussels, determined to keep out
of the fray as long as possible, offered no opposition to the passage of
his supplies up the Rhine, which might have been seriously impeded by
them at Rheinberg. The details of the siege, as of all the Prince's
sieges, possess no more interest to the general reader than the working
out of a geometrical problem. He was incapable of a flaw in his
calculations, but it was impossible for him quite to complete the
demonstration before the arrival of de la Chatre. Maurice received with
courtesy the Marshal, who arrived on the 18th August, at the head of his
contingent of 8000 foot and a few squadrons of cavalry, and there was
great show of harmony between them. For any practical purposes, de la
Chatre might as well have remained in France. For political ends his
absence would have been preferable to his presence.
Maurice would have rejoiced, had the Marshal blundered longer along the
road to the debateable land than he had done. He had almost brought
Julich to reduction. A fortnight later the place surrendered. The terms
granted by the conqueror were equitable. No change was to be made in the
liberty of Roman Catholic worship, nor in the city magistracy. The
citadel and its contents were to be handed over to the Princes of
Brandenburg and Neuburg. Archduke Leopold and his adherents departed to
Prague, to carry out as he best could his farther designs upon the crown
of Bohemia, this first portion of them having so lamentably failed, and
Sergeant-Major Frederick Pithan, of the regiment of Count Ernest Casimir
of Nassau, was appointed governor of Julich in the interest of the
possessory princes.
Thus without the loss of a single life, the Republic, guided by her
consummate statesman and unrivalled general, had gained an immense
victory, had installed the Protestant princes in the full possession of
those splendid and important provinces, and had dictated her decrees on
German soil to the Emperor of Germany, and had towed, as it were, Great
Britain and France along in her wake, instead of humbly following those
powers, and had accomplished all that she had ever proposed to do, even
in alliance with them both.
The King of England considered that quite enough had been done, and was
in great haste to patch up a reconciliation. He thought his ambassador
would soon "have as good occasion to employ his tongue and his pen as
General Cecil and his soldiers have done their swords and their
mattocks."
He had no sympathy with the cause of Protestantism, and steadily refused
to comprehend the meaning of the great movements in the duchies. "I only
wish that I may handsomely wind myself out of this quarrel, where the
principal parties do so little for themselves," he said.
De la Chatre returned with his troops to France within a fortnight after
his arrival on the scene. A mild proposition made by the French
government through the Marshal, that the provinces should be held in
seguestration by France until a decision as to the true sovereignty could
be reached, was promptly declined. Maurice of Nassau had hardly gained
so signal a triumph for the Republic and for the Protestant cause only to
hand it over to Concini and Villeroy for the benefit of Spain. Julich
was thought safer in the keeping of Sergeant Pithan.
By the end of September the States' troops had returned to their own
country.
Thus the Republic, with eminent success, had accomplished a brief and
brilliant campaign, but no statesman could suppose that the result was
more than a temporary one. These coveted provinces, most valuable in
themselves and from their important position, would probably not be
suffered peacefully to remain very long under the protection of the
heretic States-General and in the 'Condominium' of two Protestant
princes. There was fear among the Imperialists, Catholics, and
Spaniards, lest the baleful constellation of the Seven Provinces might be
increased by an eighth star. And this was a project not to be tolerated.
It was much already that the upstart confederacy had defied Pope,
Emperor, and King, as it were, on their own domains, had dictated
arrangements in Germany directly in the teeth of its emperor, using
France as her subordinate, and compelling the British king to acquiesce
in what he most hated.
But it was not merely to surprise Julich, and to get a foothold in the
duchies, that Leopold had gone forth on his adventure. His campaign, as
already intimated, was part of a wide scheme in which he had persuaded
his emperor-cousin to acquiesce. Poor Rudolph had been at last goaded
into a feeble attempt at revolt against his three brothers and his cousin
Ferdinand. Peace-loving, inert, fond of his dinner, fonder of his
magnificent collections of gems and intagli, liking to look out of window
at his splendid collection of horses, he was willing to pass a quiet
life, afar from the din of battles and the turmoil of affairs. As he
happened to be emperor of half Europe, these harmless tastes could not
well be indulged. Moon-faced and fat, silent and slow, he was not
imperial of aspect on canvas or coin, even when his brows were decorated
with the conventional laurel wreath. He had been stripped of his
authority and all but discrowned by his more bustling brothers Matthias
and Max, while the sombre figure of Styrian Ferdinand, pupil of the
Jesuits, and passionate admirer of Philip II., stood ever in the
background, casting a prophetic shadow over the throne and over Germany.
The brothers were endeavouring to persuade Rudolph that he would find
more comfort in Innsbruck than in Prague; that he required repose after
the strenuous labours of government. They told him, too, that it would
be wise to confer the royal crown of Bohemia upon Matthias, lest, being
elective and also an electorate, the crown and vote of that country might
pass out of the family, and so both Bohemia and the Empire be lost to the
Habsburgs. The kingdom being thus secured to Matthias and his heirs, the
next step, of course, was to proclaim him King of the Romans. Otherwise
there would be great danger and detriment to Hungary, and other
hereditary states of that conglomerate and anonymous monarchy which owned
the sway of the great Habsburg family.
The unhappy emperor was much piqued. He had been deprived by his brother
of Hungary, Moravia, and Austria, while Matthias was now at Prague with
an army, ostensibly to obtain ratification of the peace with Turkey, but
in reality to force the solemn transfer of those realms and extort the
promise of Bohemia. Could there be a better illustration of the
absurdities of such a system of Imperialism?
And now poor Rudolph was to be turned out of the Hradschin, and sent
packing with or without his collections to the Tyrol.
The bellicose bishop of Strassburg and Passau, brother of Ferdinand, had
little difficulty in persuading the downtrodden man to rise to vengeance.
It had been secretly agreed between the two that Leopold, at the head of
a considerable army of mercenaries which he had contrived to levy, should
dart into Julich as the Emperor's representative, seize the debateable
duchies, and hold them in sequestration until the Emperor should decide
to whom they belonged, and, then, rushing back to Bohemia, should
annihilate Matthias, seize Prague, and deliver Rudolph from bondage. It
was further agreed that Leopold, in requital of these services, should
receive the crown of Bohemia, be elected King of the Romans, and declared
heir to the Emperor, so far as Rudolph could make him his heir.
The first point in the program he had only in part accomplished. He had
taken Julich, proclaimed the intentions of the Emperor, and then been
driven out of his strong position by the wise policy of the States under
the guidance of Barneveld and by the consummate strategy of Maurice. It
will be seen therefore that the Republic was playing a world's game at
this moment, and doing it with skill and courage. On the issue of the
conflict which had been begun and was to be long protracted in the
duchies, and to spread over nearly all Christendom besides, would depend
the existence of the United Netherlands and the fate of Protestantism.
The discomfited Leopold swept back at the head of his mercenaries, 9000
foot and 3000 horse, through Alsace and along the Danube to Linz and so
to Prague, marauding, harrying, and black-mailing the country as he went.
He entered the city on the 15th of February 1611, fighting his way
through crowds of exasperated burghers. Sitting in full harness on
horseback in the great square before the cathedral, the warlike bishop
compelled the population to make oath to him as the Emperor's commissary.
The street fighting went on however day by day, poor Rudolph meantime
cowering in the Hradschin. On the third day, Leopold, driven out of the
town, took up a position on the heights, from which he commanded it with
his artillery. Then came a feeble voice from the Hradschin, telling all
men that these Passau marauders and their episcopal chief were there by
the Emperor's orders. The triune city--the old, the new, and the Jew--
was bidden to send deputies to the palace and accept the Imperial
decrees. No deputies came at the bidding. The Bohemians, especially the
Praguers, being in great majority Protestants knew very well that Leopold
was fighting the cause of the Papacy and Spain in Bohemia as well as in
the duchies.
And now Matthias appeared upon the scene. The Estates had already been
in communication with him, better hopes, for the time at least, being
entertained from him than from the flaccid Rudolph. Moreover a kind of
compromise had been made in the autumn between Matthias and the Emperor
after the defeat of Leopold in the duchies. The real king had fallen at
the feet of the nominal one by proxy of his brother Maximilian. Seven
thousand men of the army of Matthias now came before Prague under command
of Colonitz. The Passauers, receiving three months pay from the Emperor,
marched quietly off. Leopold disappeared for the time. His chancellor
and counsellor in the duchies, Francis Teynagel, a Geldrian noble, taken
prisoner and put to the torture, revealed the little plot of the Emperor
in favour of the Bishop, and it was believed that the Pope, the King of
Spain, and Maximilian of Bavaria were friendly to the scheme. This was
probable, for Leopold at last made no mystery of his resolve to fight
Protestantism to the death, and to hold the duchies, if he could, for the
cause of Rome and Austria.
Both Rudolph and Matthias had committed themselves to the toleration of
the Reformed religion. The famous "Majesty-Letter," freshly granted by
the Emperor (1609), and the Compromise between the Catholic and
Protestant Estates had become the law of the land. Those of the Bohemian
confession, a creed commingled of Hussism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism,
had obtained toleration. In a country where nine-tenths of the
population were Protestants it was permitted to Protestants to build
churches and to worship God in them unmolested. But these privileges
had been extorted by force, and there was a sullen, dogged determination
which might be easily guessed at to revoke them should it ever become
possible. The House of Austria, reigning in Spain, Italy, and Germany,
was bound by the very law of their being to the Roman religion.
Toleration of other worship signified in their eyes both a defeat and a
crime.
Thus the great conflict, to be afterwards known as the Thirty Years' War,
had in reality begun already, and the Netherlands, in spite of the truce,
were half unconsciously taking a leading part in it. The odds at that
moment in Germany seemed desperately against the House of Austria, so
deep and wide was the abyss between throne and subjects which religious
difference had created. But the reserved power in Spain, Italy, and
Southern Germany was sure enough to make itself felt sooner or later on
the Catholic side.
Meantime the Estates of Bohemia knew well enough that the Imperial house
was bent on destroying the elective principle of the Empire, and on
keeping the crown of Bohemia in perpetuity. They had also discovered
that Bishop-Archduke Leopold had been selected by Rudolph as chief of the
reactionary movement against Protestantism. They could not know at that
moment whether his plans were likely to prove fantastic or dangerous.
So Matthias came to Prague at the invitation of the Estates, entering the
city with all the airs of a conqueror. Rudolph received his brother with
enforced politeness, and invited him to reside in the Hradschin. This
proposal was declined by Matthias, who sent a colonel however, with six
pieces of artillery, to guard and occupy that palace. The Passau
prisoners were pardoned and released, and there was a general
reconciliation. A month later, Matthias went in pomp to the chapel
of the holy Wenceslaus, that beautiful and barbarous piece of mediaeval,
Sclavonic architecture, with its sombre arches, and its walls encrusted
with huge precious stones. The Estates of Bohemia, arrayed in splendid
Zchech costume, and kneeling on the pavement, were asked whether they
accepted Matthias, King of Hungary, as their lawful king. Thrice they
answered Aye. Cardinal Dietrichstein then put the historic crown of St.
Wenceslaus on the King's head, and Matthias swore to maintain the laws
and privileges of Bohemia, including the recent charters granting liberty
of religion to Protestants. Thus there was temporary, if hollow, truce
between the religious parties, and a sham reconciliation between the
Emperor and his brethren. The forlorn Rudolph moped away the few months
of life left to him in the Hradschin, and died 1612 soon after the new
year. The House of Austria had not been divided, Matthias succeeded his
brother, Leopold's visions melted into air, and it was for the future to
reveal whether the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise had been written on
very durable material.
And while such was the condition of affairs in Germany immediately
following the Cleve and Julich campaign, the relations of the Republic
both to England and France were become rapidly more dangerous than they
ever had been. It was a severe task for Barneveld, and enough to overtax
the energies of any statesman, to maintain his hold on two such slippery
governments as both had become since the death of their great monarchs.
It had been an easier task for William the Silent to steer his course,
notwithstanding all the perversities, short-comings, brow-beatings, and
inconsistencies that he had been obliged to endure from Elizabeth and
Henry. Genius, however capricious and erratic at times, has at least
vision, and it needed no elaborate arguments to prove to both those
sovereigns that the severance of their policy from that of the
Netherlands was impossible without ruin to the Republic and
incalculable danger themselves.
But now France and England were both tending towards Spain through a
stupidity on the part of their rulers such as the gods are said to
contend against in vain. Barneveld was not a god nor a hero, but a
courageous and wide-seeing statesman, and he did his best. Obliged by
his position to affect admiration, or at least respect, where no emotion
but contempt was possible, his daily bread was bitter enough. It was
absolutely necessary to humour those whom knew to be traversing his
policy and desiring his ruin, for there was no other way to serve his
country and save it from impending danger. So long as he was faithfully
served by his subordinates, and not betrayed by those to whom he gave his
heart, he could confront external enemies and mould the policy of
wavering allies.
Few things in history are more pitiable than the position of James in
regard to Spain. For seven long years he was as one entranced, the slave
to one idea, a Spanish marriage for his son. It was in vain that his
counsellors argued, Parliament protested, allies implored. Parliament
was told that a royal family matter regarded himself alone, and that
interference on their part was an impertinence. Parliament's duty was a
simple one, to give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
it, without asking for reasons. It was already a great concession that
he should ask for it in person. They had nothing to do with his affairs
nor with general politics. The mystery of government was a science
beyond their reach, and with which they were not to meddle. "Ne sutor
ultra crepidam," said the pedant.
Upon that one point his policy was made to turn. Spain held him in the
hollow of her hand. The Infanta, with two million crowns in dowry, was
promised, withheld, brought forward again like a puppet to please or
irritate a froward child. Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, held him
spellbound. Did he falter in his opposition to the States--did he cease
to goad them for their policy in the duchies--did he express sympathy
with Bohemian Protestantism, or, as time went on, did he dare to lift a
finger or touch his pocket in behalf of his daughter and the unlucky
Elector-Palatine; did he, in short, move a step in the road which England
had ever trod and was bound to tread--the road of determined resistance
to Spanish ambition--instantaneously the Infanta withheld, and James was
on his knees again. A few years later, when the great Raleigh returned
from his trans-Alantic expedition, Gondemar fiercely denounced him to the
King as the worst enemy of Spain. The usual threat was made, the wand
was waved, and the noblest head in England fell upon the block, in
pursuance of an obsolete sentence fourteen years old.
It is necessary to hold fast this single clue to the crooked and amazing
entanglements of the policy of James. The insolence, the meanness, and
the prevarications of this royal toad-eater are only thus explained.
Yet Philip III. declared on his death-bed that he had never had a
serious intention of bestowing his daughter on the Prince.
The vanity and the hatreds of theology furnished the chief additional
material in the policy of James towards the Provinces. The diplomacy of
his reign so far as the Republic was concerned is often a mere mass of
controversial divinity, and gloomy enough of its kind. Exactly at this
moment Conrad Vorstius had been called by the University of Leyden to the
professorship vacant by the death of Arminius, and the wrath of Peter
Plancius and the whole orthodox party knew no bounds. Born in Cologne,
Vorstius had been a lecturer in Geneva, and beloved by Beza. He had
written a book against the Jesuit Belarmino, which he had dedicated to
the States-General. But he was now accused of Arminianism, Socianism,
Pelagianism, Atheism--one knew not what. He defended himself in writing
against these various charges, and declared himself a believer in the
Trinity, in the Divinity of Christ, in the Atonement. But he had written
a book on the Nature of God, and the wrath of Gomarus and Plancius and
Bogerman was as nothing to the ire of James when that treatise was one
day handed to him on returning from hunting. He had scarcely looked into
it before he was horror-struck, and instantly wrote to Sir Ralph Winwood,
his ambassador at the Hague, ordering him to insist that this blasphemous
monster should at once be removed from the country. Who but James knew
anything of the Nature of God, for had he not written a work in Latin
explaining it all, so that humbler beings might read and be instructed.
Sir Ralph accordingly delivered a long sermon to the States on the brief
supplied by his Majesty, told them that to have Vorstius as successor to
Arminius was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, and handed them
a "catalogue" prepared by the King of the blasphemies, heresies, and
atheisms of the Professor. "Notwithstanding that the man in full
assembly of the States of Holland," said the Ambassador with headlong and
confused rhetoric, "had found the means to palliate and plaster the dung
of his heresies, and thus to dazzle the eyes of good people," yet it was
necessary to protest most vigorously against such an appointment, and to
advise that "his works should be publicly burned in the open places of
all the cities."
The Professor never was admitted to perform his functions of theology,
but he remained at Leyden, so Winwood complained, "honoured, recognized
as a singularity and ornament to the Academy in place of the late Joseph
Scaliger."--"The friendship of the King and the heresy of Vorstius are
quite incompatible," said the Envoy.
Meantime the Advocate, much distressed at the animosity of England
bursting forth so violently on occasion of the appointment of a divinity
professor at Leyden, and at the very instant too when all the acuteness
of his intellect was taxed to keep on good or even safe terms with
France, did his best to stem these opposing currents. His private
letters to his old and confidential friend, Noel de Carom, States'
ambassador in London, reveal the perplexities of his soul and the upright
patriotism by which he was guided in these gathering storms. And this
correspondence, as well as that maintained by him at a little later
period with the successor of Aerssens at Paris, will be seen subsequently
to have had a direct and most important bearing upon the policy of the
Republic and upon his own fate. It is necessary therefore that the
reader, interested in these complicated affairs which were soon to bring
on a sanguinary war on a scale even vaster than the one which had been
temporarily suspended, should give close attention to papers never before
exhumed from the musty sepulchre of national archives, although
constantly alluded to in the records of important state trials. It is
strange enough to observe the apparent triviality of the circumstances
out of which gravest events seem to follow. But the circumstances were
in reality threads of iron which led down to the very foundations of the
earth.
"I wish to know," wrote the Advocate to Caron, "from whom the Archbishop
of Canterbury received the advices concerning Vorstius in order to find
out what is meant by all this."
It will be remembered that Whitgift was of opinion that James was
directly inspired by the Holy Ghost, and that as he affected to deem him
the anointed High-priest of England, it was natural that he should
encourage the King in his claims to be 'Pontifex maximus' for the
Netherlands likewise.
"We are busy here," continued Barneveld, "in examining all things for the
best interests of the country and the churches. I find the nobles and
cities here well resolved in this regard, although there be some
disagreements 'in modo.' Vorstius, having been for many years professor
and minister of theology at Steinfurt, having manifested his learning in
many books written against the Jesuits, and proved himself pure and
moderate in doctrine, has been called to the vacant professorship at
Leyden. This appointment is now countermined by various means.
We are doing our best to arrange everything for the highest good of the
Provinces and the churches. Believe this and believe nothing else. Pay
heed to no other information. Remember what took place in Flanders,
events so well known to you. It is not for me to pass judgment in these
matters. Do you, too, suspend your judgment."
The Advocate's allusion was to the memorable course of affairs in
Flanders at an epoch when many of the most inflammatory preachers and
politicians of the Reformed religion, men who refused to employ a footman
or a housemaid not certified to be thoroughly orthodox, subsequently
after much sedition and disturbance went over to Spain and the Catholic
religion.
A few weeks later Barneveld sent copies to Caron of the latest harangues
of Winwood in the Assembly and the reply of My Lords on the Vorstian
business; that is to say, the freshest dialogue on predestination between
the King and the Advocate. For as James always dictated word for word
the orations of his envoy, so had their Mightinesses at this period no
head and no mouthpiece save Barneveld alone. Nothing could be drearier
than these controversies, and the reader shall be spared as much, as
possible the infliction of reading them. It will be necessary, however,
for the proper understanding of subsequent events that he should be
familiar with portions of the Advocate's confidential letters.
"Sound well the gentleman you wot of," said Barneveld, "and other
personages as to the conclusive opinions over there. The course of the
propositions does not harmonize with what I have myself heard out of the
King's mouth at other times, nor with the reports of former ambassadors.
I cannot well understand that the King should, with such preciseness,
condemn all other opinions save those of Calvin and Beza. It is
important to the service of this country that one should know the
final intention of his Majesty."
And this was the misery of the position. For it was soon to appear that
the King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day. It was
almost humorous to find him at that moment condemning all opinions but
those of Calvin and Beza in Holland, while his course to the strictest
confessors of that creed in England was so ferocious.
But Vorstius was a rival author to his Majesty on subjects treated of by
both, so that literary spite of the most venomous kind, stirred into
theological hatred, was making a dangerous mixture. Had a man with the
soul and sense of the Advocate sat on the throne which James was
regarding at that moment as a professor's chair, the world's history
would have been changed.
"I fear," continued Barneveld, "that some of our own precisians have been
spinning this coil for us over there, and if the civil authority can be
thus countermined, things will go as in Flanders in your time. Pray
continue to be observant, discreet, and moderate."
The Advocate continued to use his best efforts to smooth the rising
waves. He humoured and even flattered the King, although perpetually
denounced by Winwood in his letters to his sovereign as tyrannical,
over-bearing, malignant, and treacherous. He did his best to counsel
moderation and mutual toleration, for he felt that these needless
theological disputes about an abstract and insoluble problem of casuistry
were digging an abyss in which the Republic might be swallowed up for
ever. If ever man worked steadily with the best lights of experience
and inborn sagacity for the good of his country and in defence of a
constitutional government, horribly defective certainly, but the only
legal one, and on the whole a more liberal polity than any then existing,
it was Barneveld. Courageously, steadily, but most patiently, he stood
upon that position so vital and daily so madly assailed; the defence of
the civil authority against the priesthood. He felt instinctively and
keenly that where any portion of the subjects or citizens of a country
can escape from the control of government and obey other head than the
lawful sovereignty, whether monarchical or republican, social disorder
and anarchy must be ever impending.
"We are still tortured by ecclesiastical disputes," he wrote a few weeks
later to Caron. "Besides many libels which have appeared in print, the
letters of his Majesty and the harangues of Winwood have been published;
to what end you who know these things by experience can judge. The truth
of the matter of Vorstius is that he was legally called in July 1610,
that he was heard last May before My Lords the States with six preachers
to oppose him, and in the same month duly accepted and placed in office.
He has given no public lectures as yet. You will cause this to be known
on fitting opportunity. Believe and cause to be believed that his
Majesty's letters and Sir R. Winwood's propositions have been and shall
be well considered, and that I am working with all my strength to that
end. You know the constitution of our country, and can explain
everything for the best. Many pious and intelligent people in this State
hold themselves assured that his Majesty according to his royal exceeding
great wisdom, foresight, and affection for the welfare of this land will
not approve that his letters and Winwood's propositions should be
scattered by the press among the common people. Believe and cause to
be believed, to your best ability, that My Lords the States of Holland
desire to maintain the true Christian, Reformed religion as well in the
University of Leyden as in all their cities and villages. The only
dispute is on the high points of predestination and its adjuncts,
concerning which moderation and a more temperate teaching is furthered
by some amongst us. Many think that such is the edifying practice in
England. Pray have the kindness to send me the English Confession of
the year 1572, with the corrections and alterations up to this year."
But the fires were growing hotter, fanned especially by Flemish
ministers, a brotherhood of whom Barneveld had an especial distrust, and
who certainly felt great animosity to him. His moderate counsels were
but oil to the flames. He was already depicted by zealots and
calumniators as false to the Reformed creed.
"Be assured and assure others," he wrote again to Caron, "that in the
matter of religion I am, and by God's grace shall remain, what I ever
have been. Make the same assurances as to my son-in-law and brother.
We are not a little amazed that a few extraordinary Puritans, mostly
Flemings and Frisians, who but a short time ago had neither property nor
kindred in the country, and have now very little of either, and who have
given but slender proofs of constancy or service to the fatherland, could
through pretended zeal gain credit over there against men well proved in
all respects. We wonder the more because they are endeavouring, in
ecclesiastical matters at least, to usurp an extraordinary authority,
against which his Majesty, with very weighty reasons, has so many times
declared his opinion founded upon God's Word and upon all laws and
principles of justice."
It was Barneveld's practice on this as on subsequent occasions very
courteously to confute the King out of his own writings and speeches,
and by so doing to be unconsciously accumulating an undying hatred
against himself in the royal breast. Certainly nothing could be easier
than to show that James, while encouraging in so reckless a manner the
emancipation of the ministers of an advanced sect in the Reformed Church
from control of government, and their usurpation of supreme authority
which had been destroyed in England, was outdoing himself in dogmatism
and inconsistency. A king-highpriest, who dictated his supreme will to
bishops and ministers as well as to courts and parliaments, was
ludicrously employed in a foreign country in enforcing the superiority
of the Church to the State.
"You will give good assurances," said the Advocate, "upon my word, that
the conservation of the true Reformed religion is as warmly cherished
here, especially by me, as at any time during the war."
He next alluded to the charges then considered very grave against certain
writings of Vorstius, and with equal fairness to his accusers as he had
been to the Professor gave a pledge that the subject should be examined.
"If the man in question," he said, "be the author, as perhaps falsely
imputed, of the work 'De Filiatione Christi' or things of that sort, you
may be sure that he shall have no furtherance here." He complained,
however, that before proof the cause was much prejudiced by the
circulation through the press of letters on the subject from important
personages in England. His own efforts to do justice in the matter were
traversed by such machinations. If the Professor proved to be guilty of
publications fairly to be deemed atheistical and blasphemous, he should
be debarred from his functions, but the outcry from England was doing
more harm than good.
"The published extract from the letter of the Archbishop," he wrote,
"to the effect that the King will declare My Lords the States to be his
enemies if they are not willing to send the man away is doing much harm."
Truly, if it had come to this--that a King of England was to go to war
with a neighbouring and friendly republic because an obnoxious professor
of theology was not instantly hurled from a university of which his
Majesty was not one of the overseers--it was time to look a little
closely into the functions of governments and the nature of public and
international law. Not that the sword of James was in reality very
likely to be unsheathed, but his shriekings and his scribblings, pacific
as he was himself, were likely to arouse passions which torrents of blood
alone could satiate.
"The publishing and spreading among the community," continued Barneveld,
"of M. Winwood's protestations and of many indecent libels are also doing
much mischief, for the nature of this people does not tolerate such
things. I hope, however, to obtain the removal according to his
Majesty's desire. Keep me well informed, and send me word what is
thought in England by the four divines of the book of Vorstius, 'De Deo,'
and of his declarations on the points sent here by his Majesty. Let me
know, too, if there has been any later confession published in England
than that of the year 1562, and whether the nine points pressed in the
year 1595 were accepted and published in 1603. If so, pray send them,
as they maybe made use of in settling our differences here."
Thus it will be seen that the spirit of conciliation, of a calm but
earnest desire to obtain a firm grasp of the most reasonable relations
between Church and State through patient study of the phenomena exhibited
in other countries, were the leading motives of the man. Yet he was
perpetually denounced in private as an unbeliever, an atheist, a tyrant,
because he resisted dictation from the clergy within the Provinces and
from kings outside them.
"It was always held here to be one of the chief infractions of the laws
and privileges of this country," he said, "that former princes had placed
themselves in matter of religion in the tutelage of the Pope and the
Spanish Inquisition, and that they therefore on complaint of their good
subjects could take no orders on that subject. Therefore it cannot be
considered strange that we are not willing here to fall into the same
obloquy. That one should now choose to turn the magistrates, who were
once so seriously summoned on their conscience and their office to adopt
the Reformation and to take the matter of religion to heart, into
ignorants, to deprive them of knowledge, and to cause them to see with
other eyes than their own, cannot by many be considered right and
reasonable. 'Intelligenti pauca.'"
[The interesting letter from which I have given these copious
extracts was ordered by its writer to be burned. "Lecta vulcano"
was noted at the end of it, as was not unfrequently the case with
the Advocate. It never was burned; but, innocent and reasonable as
it seems, was made use of by Barneveld's enemies with deadly effect.
J.L.M.]