to communicate the news of the double marriage. He had fallen sick at
Rotterdam, and the nature of his instructions and of the message he
brought remained unknown, save from the previous despatches of Aerssens.
But reports were rife that he was about to propose new terms of alliance
to the States, founded on large concessions to the Roman Catholic
religion. Of course intense jealousy was excited at the English court,
and calumny plumed her wings for a fresh attack upon the Advocate. Of
course he was sold to Spain, the Reformed religion was to be trampled out
in the Provinces, and the Papacy and Holy Inquisition established on its
ruins. Nothing could be more diametrically the reverse of the fact than
such hysterical suspicions as to the instructions of the ambassador
extraordinary from France, and this has already appeared. The Vorstian
affair too was still in the same phase, the Advocate professing a
willingness that justice should be done in the matter, while courteously
but firmly resisting the arrogant pretensions of James to take the matter
out of the jurisdiction of the States.
"I stand amazed," he said, "at the partisanship and the calumnious
representations which you tell me of, and cannot imagine what is thought
nor what is proposed. Should M. de Refuge make any such propositions as
are feared, believe, and cause his Majesty and his counsellors to
believe, that they would be of no effect. Make assurances upon my word,
notwithstanding all advices to the contrary, that such things would be
flatly refused. If anything is published or proven to the discredit of
Vorstius, send it to me. Believe that we shall not defend heretics nor
schismatics against the pure Evangelical doctrine, but one cannot
conceive here that the knowledge and judicature of the matter belongs
anywhere else than to My Lords the States of Holland, in whose service he
has legally been during four months before his Majesty made the least
difficulty about it. Called hither legally a year before, with the
knowledge and by the order of his Excellency and the councillors of state
of Holland, he has been countermined by five or six Flemings and
Frisians, who, without recognizing the lawful authority of the
magistrates, have sought assistance in foreign countries--in Germany
and afterwards in England. Yes, they have been so presumptuous as to
designate one of their own men for the place. If such a proceeding
should be attempted in England, I leave it to those whose business it
would be to deal with it to say what would be done. I hope therefore
that one will leave the examination and judgment of this matter freely to
us, without attempting to make us--against the principles of the
Reformation and the liberties and laws of the land--executors of the
decrees of others, as the man here wishes to obtrude it upon us."
He alluded to the difficulty in raising the ways and means; saying that
the quota of Holland, as usual, which was more than half the whole, was
ready, while other provinces were in arrears. Yet they were protected,
while Holland was attacked.
"Methinks I am living in a strange world," he said, "when those who have
received great honour from Holland, and who in their conscience know that
they alone have conserved the Commonwealth, are now traduced with such
great calumnies. But God the Lord Almighty is just, and will in His own
time do chastisement."
The affair of Vorstius dragged its slow length along, and few things are
more astounding at this epoch than to see such a matter, interesting
enough certainly to theologians, to the University, and to the rising
generation of students, made the topic of unceasing and embittered
diplomatic controversy between two great nations, who had most pressing
and momentous business on their hands. But it was necessary to humour
the King, while going to the verge of imprudence in protecting the
Professor. In March he was heard, three or four hours long, before the
Assembly of Holland, in answer to various charges made against him, being
warned that "he stood before the Lord God and before the sovereign
authority of the States." Although thought by many to have made a
powerful defence, he was ordered to set it forth in writing, both in
Latin and in the vernacular. Furthermore it was ordained that he should
make a complete refutation of all the charges already made or that might
be made during the ensuing three months against him in speech, book, or
letter in England, Germany, the Netherlands, or anywhere else. He was
allowed one year and a half to accomplish this work, and meantime was to
reside not in Leyden, nor the Hague, but in some other town of Holland,
not delivering lectures or practising his profession in any way. It
might be supposed that sufficient work had been thus laid out for the
unfortunate doctor of divinity without lecturing or preaching. The
question of jurisdiction was saved. The independence of the civil
authority over the extreme pretensions of the clergy had been vindicated
by the firmness of the Advocate. James had been treated with overflowing
demonstrations of respect, but his claim to expel a Dutch professor from
his chair and country by a royal fiat had been signally rebuked.
Certainly if the Provinces were dependent upon the British king in
regard to such a matter, it was the merest imbecility for them to affect
independence. Barneveld had carried his point and served his country
strenuously and well in this apparently small matter which human folly
had dilated into a great one. But deep was the wrath treasured against
him in consequence in clerical and royal minds.
Returning from Wesel after the negotiations, Sir Ralph Winwood had
an important interview at Arnheim with Prince Maurice, in which they
confidentially exchanged their opinions in regard to the Advocate,
and mutually confirmed their suspicions and their jealousies in
regard to that statesman.
The Ambassador earnestly thanked the Prince in the King's name for his
"careful and industrious endeavours for the maintenance of the truth of
religion, lively expressed in prosecuting the cause against Vorstius and
his adherents."
He then said:
"I am expressly commanded that his Majesty conferring the present
condition of affairs of this quarter of the world with those
advertisements he daily receives from his ministers abroad, together
with the nature and disposition of those men who have in their hands
the managing of all business in these foreign parts, can make no other
judgment than this.
"There is a general ligue and confederation complotted for the subversion
and ruin of religion upon the subsistence whereof his Majesty doth judge
the main welfare of your realms and of these Provinces solely to consist.
"Therefore his Majesty has given me charge out of the knowledge he
has of your great worth and sufficiency," continued Winwood," and the
confidence he reposes in your faith and affection, freely to treat with
you on these points, and withal to pray you to deliver your opinion what
way would be the most compendious and the most assured to contrequarr
these complots, and to frustrate the malice of these mischievous
designs."
The Prince replied by acknowledging the honour the King had vouchsafed to
do him in holding so gracious an opinion of him, wherein his Majesty
should never be deceived.
"I concur in judgment with his Majesty," continued the Prince, "that the
main scope at which these plots and practices do aim, for instance, the
alliance between France and Spain, is this, to root out religion, and by
consequence to bring under their yoke all those countries in which
religion is professed.
"The first attempt," continued the Prince, "is doubtless intended against
these Provinces. The means to countermine and defeat these projected
designs I take to be these: the continuance of his Majesty's constant
resolution for the protection of religion, and then that the King would
be pleased to procure a general confederation between the kings, princes,
and commonwealths professing religion, namely, Denmark, Sweden, the
German princes, the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, and our United
Provinces.
"Of this confederation, his Majesty must be not only the director, but
the head and protector.
"Lastly, the Protestants of France should be, if not supported, at least
relieved from that oppression which the alliance of Spain doth threaten
upon them. This, I insist," repeated Maurice with great fervour, "is
the only coupegorge of all plots whatever between France and Spain."
He enlarged at great length on these points, which he considered so
vital.
"And what appearance can there be," asked Winwood insidiously and
maliciously, "of this general confederation now that these Provinces,
which heretofore have been accounted a principal member of the Reformed
Church, begin to falter in the truth of religion?
"He who solely governs the metropolitan province of Holland," continued
the Ambassador, with a direct stab in the back at Barneveld, "is reputed
generally, as your Excellency best knows, to be the only patron of
Vorstius, and the protector of the schisms of Arminius. And likewise,
what possibility is there that the Protestants of France can expect
favour from these Provinces when the same man is known to depend at the
devotion of France?"
The international, theological, and personal jealousy of the King against
Holland's Advocate having been thus plainly developed, the Ambassador
proceeded to pour into the Prince's ear the venom of suspicion, and to
inflame his jealousy against his great rival. The secret conversation
showed how deeply laid was the foundation of the political hatred, both
of James and of Maurice, against the Advocate, and certainly nothing
could be more preposterous than to imagine the King as the director and
head of the great Protestant League. We have but lately seen him
confidentially assuring his minister that his only aim was "to wind
himself handsomely out of the whole business." Maurice must have found
it difficult to preserve his gravity when assigning such a part to
"Master Jacques."
"Although Monsieur Barneveld has cast off all care of religion," said
Maurice, "and although some towns in Holland, wherein his power doth
reign, are infected with the like neglect, yet so long as so many good
towns in Holland stand sound, and all the other provinces of this
confederacy, the proposition would at the first motion be cheerfully
accepted.
"I confess I find difficulty in satisfying your second question,"
continued the Prince, "for I acknowledge that Barneveld is wholly devoted
to the service of France. During the truce negotiations, when some
difference arose between him and myself, President Jeannin came to me,
requiring me in the French king's name to treat Monsieur Barneveld well,
whom the King had received into his protection. The letters which the
States' ambassador in France wrote to Barneveld (and to him all
ambassadors address their despatches of importance), the very autographs
themselves, he sent back into the hands of Villeroy."
Here the Prince did not scruple to accuse the Advocate of doing the base
and treacherous trick against Aerssens which he had expressly denied
doing, and which had been done during his illness, as he solemnly avowed,
by a subordinate probably for the sake of making mischief.
Maurice then discoursed largely and vehemently of the suspicious
proceedings of Barneveld, and denounced him as dangerous to the State.
"When one man who has the conduct of all affairs in his sole power," he
said, "shall hold underhand intelligence with the ministers of Spain and
the Archduke, and that without warrant, thereby he may have the means so
to carry the course of affairs that, do what they will, these Provinces
must fall or stand at the mercy and discretion of Spain. Therefore some
good resolutions must be taken in time to hold up this State from a
sudden downfall, but in this much moderation and discretion must be
used."
The Prince added that he had invited his cousin Lewis William to appear
at the Hague at May day, in order to consult as to the proper means to
preserve the Provinces from confusion under his Majesty's safeguard, and
with the aid of the Englishmen in the States' service whom Maurice
pronounced to be "the strength and flower of his army."
Thus the Prince developed his ideas at great length, and accused the
Advocate behind his back, and without the faintest shadow of proof, of
base treachery to his friends and of high-treason. Surely Barneveld was
in danger, and was walking among pitfalls. Most powerful and deadly
enemies were silently banding themselves together against him. Could he
long maintain his hold on the slippery heights of power, where he was so
consciously serving his country, but where he became day by day a mere
shining mark for calumny and hatred?
The Ambassador then signified to the Prince that he had been instructed
to carry to him the King's purpose to confer on him the Order of the
Garter.
"If his Majesty holds me worthy of so great honour," said the Prince, "I
and my family shall ever remain bound to his service and that of his
royal posterity.
"That the States should be offended I see no cause, but holding the
charge I do in their service, I could not accept the honour without first
acquainting them and receiving their approbation."
Winwood replied that, as the King knew the terms on which the Prince
lived with the States, he doubted not his Majesty would first notify them
and say that he honoured the mutual amity between his realms and these
Provinces by honouring the virtues of their general, whose services, as
they had been most faithful and affectionate, so had they been
accompanied with the blessings of happiness and prosperous success.
Thus said Winwood to the King: "Your Majesty may plaster two walls with
one trowel ('una fidelia duos dealbare parietes'), reverse the designs of
them who to facilitate their own practices do endeavour to alienate your
affections from the good of these Provinces, and oblige to your service
the well-affected people, who know that there is no surety for
themselves, their wives and children, but under the protection of your
Majesty's favour. Perhaps, however, the favourers of Vorstius and
Arminius will buzz into the ears of their associates that your Majesty
would make a party in these Provinces by maintaining the truth of
religion and also by gaining unto you the affections of their chief
commander. But your Majesty will be pleased to pass forth whose worthy
ends will take their place, which is to honour virtue where you find it,
and the suspicious surmises of malice and envy in one instant will vanish
into smoke."
Winwood made no scruple in directly stating to the English government
that Barneveld's purpose was to "cause a divorce between the King's
realms and the Provinces, the more easily to precipitate them into the
arms of Spain." He added that the negotiation with Count Maurice then on
foot was to be followed, but with much secrecy, on account of the place
he held in the State.
Soon after the Ambassador's secret conversation with Maurice he had an
interview with Barneveld. He assured the Advocate that no contentment
could be given to his Majesty but by the banishment of Vorstius. "If the
town of Leyden should understand so much," replied Barneveld, "I fear the
magistrates would retain him still in their town."
"If the town of Leyden should retain Vorstius," answered Winwood, "to
brave or despight his Majesty, the King has the means, if it pleases him
to use them, and that without drawing sword, to range them to reason, and
to make the magistrates on their knees demand his pardon, and I say as
much of Rotterdam."
Such insolence on the part of an ambassador to the first minister of a
great republic was hard to bear. Barneveld was not the man to brook it.
He replied with great indignation. "I was born in liberty," he said with
rising choler, "I cannot digest this kind of language. The King of Spain
himself never dared to speak in so high a style."
"I well understand that logic," returned the Ambassador with continued
insolence. "You hold your argument to be drawn 'a majori ad minus;' but
I pray you to believe that the King of Great Britain is peer and
companion to the King of Spain, and that his motto is, 'Nemo me impune
lacessit.'"
And so they parted in a mutual rage; Winwood adding on going out of the
room, "Whatsoever I propose to you in his Majesty's name can find with
you neither goust nor grace."
He then informed Lord Rochester that "the man was extremely distempered
and extremely distasted with his Majesty.
"Some say," he added, "that on being in England when his Majesty first
came to the throne he conceived some offence, which ever since hath
rankled in his heart, and now doth burst forth with more violent malice."
Nor was the matter so small as it superficially appeared. Dependence of
one nation upon the dictation of another can never be considered
otherwise than grave. The subjection of all citizens, clerical or lay,
to the laws of the land, the supremacy of the State over the Church,
were equally grave subjects. And the question of sovereignty now raised
for the first time, not academically merely, but practically, was the
gravest one of all. It was soon to be mooted vigorously and passionately
whether the United Provinces were a confederacy or a union; a league of
sovereign and independent states bound together by treaty for certain
specified purposes or an incorporated whole. The Advocate and all the
principal lawyers in the country had scarcely a doubt on the subject.
Whether it were a reasonable system or an absurd one, a vigorous or an
imbecile form of government, they were confident that the Union of
Utrecht, made about a generation of mankind before, and the only tie by
which the Provinces were bound together at all, was a compact between
sovereigns.
Barneveld styled himself always the servant and officer of the States of
Holland. To them was his allegiance, for them he spoke, wrought, and
thought, by them his meagre salary was paid. At the congress of the
States-General, the scene of his most important functions, he was the
ambassador of Holland, acting nominally according to their instructions,
and exercising the powers of minister of foreign affairs and, as it were,
prime minister for the other confederates by their common consent. The
system would have been intolerable, the great affairs of war and peace
could never have been carried on so triumphantly, had not the
preponderance of the one province Holland, richer, more powerful,
more important in every way than the other six provinces combined,
given to the confederacy illegally, but virtually, many of the attributes
of union. Rather by usucaption than usurpation Holland had in many
regards come to consider herself and be considered as the Republic
itself. And Barneveld, acting always in the name of Holland and with the
most modest of titles and appointments, was for a long time in all civil
matters the chief of the whole country. This had been convenient during
the war, still more convenient during negotiations for peace, but it was
inevitable that there should be murmurs now that the cessation from
military operations on a large scale had given men time to look more
deeply into the nature of a constitution partly inherited and partly
improvised, and having many of the defects usually incident to both
sources of government.
The military interest, the ecclesiastical power, and the influence of
foreign nations exerted through diplomatic intrigue, were rapidly
arraying themselves in determined hostility to Barneveld and to what was
deemed his tyrannous usurpation. A little later the national spirit, as
opposed to provincial and municipal patriotism, was to be aroused against
him, and was likely to prove the most formidable of all the elements of
antagonism.
It is not necessary to anticipate here what must be developed on a
subsequent page. This much, however, it is well to indicate for the
correct understanding of passing events. Barneveld did not consider
himself the officer or servant of their High Mightinesses the States-
General, while in reality often acting as their master, but the vassal
and obedient functionary of their Great Mightinesses the States of
Holland, whom he almost absolutely controlled.
His present most pressing business was to resist the encroachments of the
sacerdotal power and to defend the magistracy. The casuistical questions
which were fast maddening the public mind seemed of importance to him
only as enclosing within them a more vital and practical question of
civil government.
But the anger of his opponents, secret and open, was rapidly increasing.
Envy, jealousy, political and clerical hate, above all, that deadliest
and basest of malignant spirits which in partisan warfare is bred out of
subserviency to rising and rival power, were swarming about him and
stinging him at every step. No parasite of Maurice could more
effectively pay his court and more confidently hope for promotion or
reward than by vilipending Barneveld. It would be difficult to
comprehend the infinite extent and power of slander without a study of
the career of the Advocate of Holland.
"I thank you for your advices," he wrote to Carom' "and I wish from my
heart that his Majesty, according to his royal wisdom and clemency
towards the condition of this country, would listen only to My Lords the
States or their ministers, and not to his own or other passionate persons
who, through misunderstanding or malice, furnish him with information and
so frequently flatter him. I have tried these twenty years to deserve
his Majesty's confidence, and have many letters from him reaching through
twelve or fifteen years, in which he does me honour and promises his
royal favour. I am the more chagrined that through false and passionate
reports and information--because I am resolved to remain good and true to
My Lords the States, to the fatherland, and to the true Christian
religion--I and mine should now be so traduced. I hope that God Almighty
will second my upright conscience, and cause his Majesty soon to see the
injustice done to me and mine. To defend the resolutions of My Lords the
States of Holland is my office, duty, and oath, and I assure you that
those resolutions are taken with wider vision and scope than his Majesty
can believe. Let this serve for My Lords' defence and my own against
indecent calumny, for my duty allows me to pursue no other course."
He again alluded to the dreary affair of Vorstius, and told the Envoy
that the venation caused by it was incredible. "That men unjustly defame
our cities and their regents is nothing new," he said; "but I assure you
that it is far more damaging to the common weal than the defamers
imagine."
Some of the private admirers of Arminius who were deeply grieved at
so often hearing him "publicly decried as the enemy of God" had been
defending the great heretic to James, and by so doing had excited the
royal wrath not only against the deceased doctor and themselves, but
against the States of Holland who had given them no commission.
On the other hand the advanced orthodox party, most bitter haters of
Barneveld, and whom in his correspondence with England he uniformly and
perhaps designedly called the Puritans, knowing that the very word was a
scarlet rag to James, were growing louder and louder in their demands.
"Some thirty of these Puritans," said he, "of whom at least twenty are
Flemings or other foreigners equally violent, proclaim that they and the
like of them mean alone to govern the Church. Let his Majesty compare
this proposal with his Royal Present, with his salutary declaration at
London in the year 1603 to Doctor Reynolds and his associates, and with
his admonition delivered to the Emperor, kings, sovereigns, and
republics, and he will best understand the mischievous principles of
these people, who are now gaining credit with him to the detriment of the
freedom and laws of these Provinces."
A less enlightened statesman than Barneveld would have found it easy
enough to demonstrate the inconsistency of the King in thus preaching
subserviency of government to church and favouring the rule of Puritans
over both. It needed but slender logic to reduce such a policy on his
part to absurdity, but neither kings nor governments are apt to value
themselves on their logic. So long as James could play the pedagogue to
emperors, kings, and republics, it mattered little to him that the
doctrines which he preached in one place he had pronounced flat
blasphemy in another.