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Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War — Complete (1614-23)

by John Lothrop Motley · English · Gutenberg #4898 · 803,691 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War — Complete (1614-23)

Author: John Lothrop Motley


        
Release date: November 9, 2004 [eBook #4898]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4898

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND : WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR — COMPLETE (1614-23) ***




Produced by David Widger





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


VOLUME II. 1614-23


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




CHAPTER XI. 1614-17

   The Advocate sounds the Alarm in Germany--His Instructions to
   Langerac and his Forethought--The Prince--Palatine and his Forces
   take Aachen, Mulheim, and other Towns--Supineness of the
   Protestants--Increased Activity of Austria and the League--Barneveld
   strives to obtain Help from England--Neuburg departs for Germany--
   Barneveld the Prime Minister of Protestantism--Ernest Mansfield
   takes service under Charles Emmanuel--Count John of Nassau goes to
   Savoy--Slippery Conduct of King James in regard to the New Treaty
   proposed--Barneveld's Influence greater in France than in England--
   Sequestration feared--The Elector of Brandenburg cited to appear
   before the Emperor at Prague--Murder of John van Wely--Uytenbogaert
   incurs Maurice's Displeasure--Marriage of the King of France with
   Anne of Austria--Conference between King James and Caron concerning
   Piracy, Cloth Trade and Treaty of Xanten--Barneveld's Survey of the
   Condition of Europe--His Efforts to avert the impending general War.

I have thus purposely sketched the leading features of a couple of
momentous, although not eventful, years--so far as the foreign policy of
the Republic is concerned--in order that the reader may better understand
the bearings and the value of the Advocate's actions and writings at that
period. This work aims at being a political study. I would attempt to
exemplify the influence of individual humours and passions--some of them
among the highest and others certainly the basest that agitate
humanity-upon the march of great events, upon general historical results
at certain epochs, and upon the destiny of eminent personages. It may
also be not uninteresting to venture a glance into the internal structure
and workings of a republican and federal system of government, then for
the first time reproduced almost spontaneously upon an extended scale.

Perhaps the revelation of some of its defects, in spite of the faculty
and vitality struggling against them, may not be without value for our
own country and epoch. The system of Switzerland was too limited and
homely, that of Venice too purely oligarchical, to have much moral for us
now, or to render a study of their pathological phenomena especially
instructive. The lessons taught us by the history of the Netherland
confederacy may have more permanent meaning.

Moreover, the character of a very considerable statesman at an
all-important epoch, and in a position of vast responsibility, is always
an historical possession of value to mankind. That of him who furnishes
the chief theme for these pages has been either overlooked and neglected
or perhaps misunderstood by posterity. History has not too many really
important and emblematic men on its records to dispense with the memory
of Barneveld, and the writer therefore makes no apology for dilating
somewhat fully upon his lifework by means of much of his entirely
unpublished and long forgotten utterances.

The Advocate had ceaselessly been sounding the alarm in Germany. For the
Protestant Union, fascinated, as it were, by the threatening look of the
Catholic League, seemed relapsing into a drowse.

"I believe," he said to one of his agents in that country, "that the
Evangelical electors and princes and the other estates are not alive to
the danger. I am sure that it is not apprehended in Great Britain. France
is threatened with troubles. These are the means to subjugate the
religion, the laws and liberties of Germany. Without an army the troops
now on foot in Italy cannot be kept out of Germany. Yet we do not hear
that the Evangelicals are making provision of troops, money, or any other
necessaries. In this country we have about one hundred places occupied
with our troops, among whom are many who could destroy a whole army. But
the maintenance of these places prevents our being very strong in the
field, especially outside our frontiers. But if in all Germany there be
many places held by the Evangelicals which would disperse a great army is
very doubtful. Keep a watchful eye. Economy is a good thing, but the
protection of a country and its inhabitants must be laid to heart. Watch
well if against these Provinces, and against Bohemia, Austria, and other
as it is pretended rebellious states, these plans are not directed. Look
out for the movements of the Italian and Bavarian troops against Germany.
You see how they are nursing the troubles and misunderstandings in
France, and turning them to account."

He instructed the new ambassador in Paris to urge upon the French
government the absolute necessity of punctuality in furnishing the
payment of their contingent in the Netherlands according to convention.
The States of Holland themselves had advanced the money during three
years' past, but this anticipation was becoming very onerous. It was
necessary to pay the troops every month regularly, but the funds from
Paris were always in arrear. England contributed about one-half as much
in subsidy, but these moneys went in paying the garrisons of Brielle,
Flushing, and Rammekens, fortresses pledged to that crown. The Ambassador
was shrewdly told not to enlarge on the special employment of the English
funds while holding up to the Queen's government that she was not the
only potentate who helped bear burthens for the Provinces, and insisted
on a continuation of this aid. "Remember and let them remember," said the
Advocate, "that the reforms which they are pretending to make there by
relieving the subjects of contributions tends to enervate the royal
authority and dignity both within and without, to diminish its lustre and
reputation, and in sum to make the King unable to gratify and assist his
subjects, friends, and allies. Make them understand that the taxation in
these Provinces is ten times higher than there, and that My Lords the
States hitherto by the grace of God and good administration have
contrived to maintain it in order to be useful to themselves and their
friends. Take great pains to have it well understood that this is even
more honourable and more necessary for a king of France, especially in
his minority, than for a republic 'hoc turbato seculo.' We all see
clearly how some potentates in Europe are keeping at all time under one
pretext or another strong forces well armed on a war footing. It
therefore behoves his Majesty to be likewise provided with troops, and at
least with a good exchequer and all the requirements of war, as well for
the security of his own state as for the maintenance of the grandeur and
laudable reputation left to him by the deceased king."

Truly here was sound and substantial advice, never and nowhere more
needed than in France. It was given too with such good effect as to bear
fruit even upon stoniest ground, and it is a refreshing spectacle to see
this plain Advocate of a republic, so lately sprung into existence out of
the depths of oppression and rebellion, calmly summoning great kings as
it were before him and instructing them in those vital duties of
government in discharge of which the country he administered already
furnished a model. Had England and France each possessed a Barneveld at
that epoch, they might well have given in exchange for him a wilderness
of Epernons and Sillerys, Bouillons and Conde's; of Winwoods, Lakes,
Carrs, and Villierses. But Elizabeth with her counsellors was gone, and
Henry was gone, and Richelieu had not come; while in England James and
his minions were diligently opening an abyss between government and
people which in less than half a lifetime more should engulph the
kingdom.

Two months later he informed the States' ambassador of the communications
made by the Prince of Conde and the Dukes of Nevers and Bouillon to the
government at the Hague now that they had effected a kind of
reconciliation with the Queen. Langerac was especially instructed to do
his best to assist in bringing about cordial relations, if that were
possible, between the crown and the rebels, and meantime he was
especially directed to defend du Maurier against the calumnious
accusations brought against him, of which Aerssens had been the secret
sower.

"You will do your best to manage," he said, "that no special ambassador
be sent hither, and that M. du Maurier may remain with us, he being a
very intelligent and moderate person now well instructed as to the state
of our affairs, a professor of the Reformed religion, and having many
other good qualities serviceable to their Majesties and to us.

"You will visit the Prince, and other princes and officers of the crown
who are coming to court again, and do all good offices as well for the
court as for M. du Maurier, in order that through evil plots and
slanderous reports no harm may come to him.

"Take great pains to find out all you can there as to the designs of the
King of Spain, the Archdukes, and the Emperor, in the affair of Julich.
You are also to let it be known that the change of religion on the part
of the Prince-Palatine of Neuburg will not change our good will and
affection for him, so far as his legal claims are concerned."

So long as it was possible for the States to retain their hold on both
the claimants, the Advocate, pursuant to his uniform policy of
moderation, was not disposed to help throw the Palatine into the hands of
the Spanish party. He was well aware, however, that Neuburg by his
marriage and his conversion was inevitably to become the instrument of
the League and to be made use of in the duchies at its pleasure, and that
he especially would be the first to submit with docility to the decree of
the Emperor. The right to issue such decree the States under guidance of
Barneveld were resolved to resist at all hazards.

"Work diligently, nevertheless," said he, "that they permit nothing there
directly or indirectly that may tend to the furtherance of the League, as
too prejudicial to us and to all our fellow religionists. Tell them too
that the late king, the King of Great Britain, the united electors and
princes of Germany, and ourselves, have always been resolutely opposed to
making the dispute about the succession in the duchies depend on the will
of the Emperor and his court. All our movements in the year 1610 against
the attempted sequestration under Leopold were to carry out that purpose.
Hold it for certain that our present proceedings for strengthening and
maintaining the city and fortress of Julich are considered serviceable
and indispensable by the British king and the German electors and
princes. Use your best efforts to induce the French government to pursue
the same policy--if it be not possible openly, then at least secretly. My
conviction is that, unless the Prince-Palatine is supported by, and his
whole designs founded upon, the general league against all our brethren
of the religion, affairs may be appeased."

The Envoy was likewise instructed to do his best to further the
matrimonial alliance which had begun to be discussed between the Prince
of Wales and the second daughter of France. Had it been possible at that
moment to bring the insane dream of James for a Spanish alliance to
naught, the States would have breathed more freely. He was also to urge
payment of the money for the French regiments, always in arrears since
Henry's death and Sully's dismissal, and always supplied by the exchequer
of Holland. He was informed that the Republic had been sending some war
ships to the Levant, to watch the armada recently sent thither by Spain,
and other armed vessels into the Baltic, to pursue the corsairs with whom
every sea was infested. In one year alone he estimated the loss to Dutch
merchants by these pirates at 800,000 florins. "We have just captured two
of the rovers, but the rascally scum is increasing," he said.

Again alluding to the resistance to be made by the States to the Imperial
pretensions, he observed, "The Emperor is about sending us a herald in
the Julich matter, but we know how to stand up to him."

And notwithstanding the bare possibility which he had admitted, that the
Prince of Neuburg might not yet have wholly sold himself, body and soul,
to the Papists, he gave warning a day or two afterwards in France that
all should be prepared for the worst.

"The Archdukes and the Prince of Neuburg appear to be taking the war
earnestly in hand," he said. "We believe that the Papistical League is
about to make a great effort against all the co-religionists. We are
watching closely their movements. Aachen is first threatened, and the
Elector-Palatine likewise. France surely, for reasons of state, cannot
permit that they should be attacked. She did, and helped us to do, too
much in the Julich campaign to suffer the Spaniards to make themselves
masters there now."

It has been seen that the part played by France in the memorable campaign
of 1610 was that of admiring auxiliary to the States' forces; Marshal de
la Chatre having in all things admitted the superiority of their army and
the magnificent generalship of Prince Maurice. But the government of the
Dowager had been committed by that enterprise to carry out the life-long
policy of Henry, and to maintain his firm alliance with the Republic.
Whether any of the great king's acuteness and vigour in countermining and
shattering the plans of the House of Austria was left in the French
court, time was to show. Meantime Barneveld was crying himself hoarse
with warnings into the dull ears of England and France.

A few weeks later the Prince of Neuburg had thrown off the mask. Twelve
thousand foot and 1500 horse had been raised in great haste, so the
Advocate informed the French court, by Spain and the Archdukes, for the
use of that pretender. Five or six thousand Spaniards were coming by sea
to Flanders, and as many Italians were crossing the mountains, besides a
great number mustering for the same purpose in Germany and Lorraine.
Barneveld was constantly receiving most important intelligence of
military plans and movements from Prague, which he placed daily before
the eyes of governments wilfully blind.

"I ponder well at this crisis," he said to his friend Caron, "the
intelligence I received some months back from Ratisbon, out of the
cabinet of the Jesuits, that the design of the Catholic or Roman League
is to bring this year a great army into the field, in order to make
Neuburg, who was even then said to be of the Roman profession and League,
master of Julich and the duchies; to execute the Imperial decree against
Aachen and Mulheim, preventing any aid from being sent into Germany by
these Provinces, or by Great Britain, and placing the Archduke and
Marquis Spinola in command of the forces; to put another army on the
frontiers of Austria, in order to prevent any succour coming from
Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, Moravia, and Silesia into Germany; to keep all
these disputed territories in subjection and devotion to the Emperor, and
to place the general conduct of all these affairs in the hands of
Archduke Leopold and other princes of the House of Austria. A third army
is to be brought into the Upper Palatinate, under command of the Duke of
Bavaria and others of the League, destined to thoroughly carry out its
designs against the Elector-Palatine, and the other electors, princes,
and estates belonging to the religion."

This intelligence, plucked by Barneveld out of the cabinet of the
Jesuits, had been duly communicated by him months before to those whom it
most concerned, and as usual it seemed to deepen the lethargy of the
destined victims and their friends. Not only the whole Spanish campaign
of the present year had thus been duly mapped out by the Advocate, long
before it occurred, but this long buried and forgotten correspondence of
the statesman seems rather like a chronicle of transactions already past,
so closely did the actual record, which posterity came to know too well,
resemble that which he saw, and was destined only to see, in prophetic
vision.

Could this political seer have cast his horoscope of the Thirty Years'
War at this hour of its nativity for the instruction of such men as
Walsingham or Burleigh, Henry of Navarre or Sully, Richelieu or Gustavus
Adolphus, would the course of events have been modified? These very
idlest of questions are precisely those which inevitably occur as one
ponders the seeming barrenness of an epoch in reality so pregnant.

"One would think," said Barneveld, comparing what was then the future
with the real past, "that these plans in Prague against the
Elector-Palatine are too gross for belief; but when I reflect on the
intense bitterness of these people, when I remember what was done within
living men's memory to the good elector Hans Frederic of Saxony for
exactly the same reasons, to wit, hatred of our religion, and
determination to establish Imperial authority, I have great apprehension.
I believe that the Roman League will use the present occasion to carry
out her great design; holding France incapable of opposition to her,
Germany in too great division, and imagining to themselves that neither
the King of Great Britain nor these States are willing or able to offer
effectual and forcible resistance. Yet his Majesty of Great Britain ought
to be able to imagine how greatly the religious matter in general
concerns himself and the electoral house of the Palatine, as principal
heads of the religion, and that these vast designs should be resisted
betimes, and with all possible means and might. My Lords the States have
good will, but not sufficient strength, to oppose these great forces
single-handed. One must not believe that without great and prompt
assistance in force from his Majesty and other fellow religionists My
Lords the States can undertake so vast an affair. Do your uttermost duty
there, in order that, ere it be too late, this matter be taken to heart
by his Majesty, and that his authority and credit be earnestly used with
other kings, electors, princes, and republics, that they do likewise. The
promptest energy, good will, and affection may be reckoned on from us."

Alas! it was easy for his Majesty to take to heart the matter of Conrad
Vorstius, to spend reams of diplomatic correspondence, to dictate whole
volumes for orations brimming over with theological wrath, for the
edification of the States-General, against that doctor of divinity. But
what were the special interests of his son-in-law, what the danger to all
the other Protestant electors and kings, princes and republics, what the
imperilled condition of the United Provinces, and, by necessary
consequence, the storm gathering over his own throne, what the whole fate
of Protestantism, from Friesland to Hungary, threatened by the
insatiable, all-devouring might of the double house of Austria, the
ancient church, and the Papistical League, what were hundred thousands of
men marching towards Bohemia, the Netherlands, and the duchies, with the
drum beating for mercenary recruits in half the villages of Spain, Italy,
and Catholic Germany, compared with the danger to Christendom from an
Arminian clergyman being appointed to the theological professorship at
Leyden?

The world was in a blaze, kings and princes were arming, and all the time
that the monarch of the powerful, adventurous, and heroic people of Great
Britain could spare from slobbering over his minions, and wasting the
treasures of the realm to supply their insatiate greed, was devoted to
polemical divinity, in which he displayed his learning, indeed, but
changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day. The magnitude
of this wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination.

Moreover, should he listen to the adjurations of the States and his
fellow religionists, should he allow himself to be impressed by the
eloquence of Barneveld and take a manly and royal decision in the great
emergency, it would be indispensable for him to come before that odious
body, the Parliament of Great Britain, and ask for money. It would be
perhaps necessary for him to take them into his confidence, to degrade
himself by speaking to them of the national affairs. They might not be
satisfied with the honour of voting the supplies at his demand, but were
capable of asking questions as to their appropriation. On the whole it
was more king-like and statesman-like to remain quiet, and give advice.
Of that, although always a spendthrift, he had an inexhaustible supply.

Barneveld had just hopes from the Commons of Great Britain, if the King
could be brought to appeal to Parliament. Once more he sounded the bugle
of alarm. "Day by day the Archdukes are making greater and greater
enrolments of riders and infantry in ever increasing mass," he cried,
"and therewith vast provision of artillery and all munitions of war.
Within ten or twelve days they will be before Julich in force. We are
sending great convoys to reinforce our army there. The Prince of Neuburg
is enrolling more and more troops every day. He will soon be master of
Mulheim. If the King of Great Britain will lay this matter earnestly to
heart for the preservation of the princes, electors, and estates of the
religion, I cannot doubt that Parliament would cooperate well with his
Majesty, and this occasion should be made use of to redress the whole
state of affairs."

It was not the Parliament nor the people of Great Britain that would be
in fault when the question arose of paying in money and in blood for the
defence of civil and religious liberty. But if James should venture
openly to oppose Spain, what would the Count of Gondemar say, and what
would become of the Infanta and the two millions of dowry?

It was not for want of some glimmering consciousness in the mind of James
of the impending dangers to Northern Europe and to Protestantism from the
insatiable ambition of Spain, and the unrelenting grasp of the Papacy
upon those portions of Christendom which were slipping from its control,
that his apathy to those perils was so marked. We have seen his leading
motives for inaction, and the world was long to feel its effects.

"His Majesty firmly believes," wrote Secretary Winwood, "that the
Papistical League is brewing great and dangerous plots. To obviate them
in everything that may depend upon him, My Lords the States will find him
prompt. The source of all these entanglements comes from Spain. We do not
think that the Archduke will attack Julich this year, but rather fear for
Mulheim and Aix-la-Chapelle."

But the Secretary of State, thus acknowledging the peril, chose to be
blind to its extent, while at the same time undervaluing the powers by
which it might be resisted. "To oppose the violence of the enemy," he
said, "if he does resort to violence, is entirely impossible. It would be
furious madness on our part to induce him to fall upon the
Elector-Palatine, for this would be attacking Great Britain and all her
friends and allies. Germany is a delicate morsel, but too much for the
throat of Spain to swallow all at once. Behold the evil which troubles
the conscience of the Papistical League. The Emperor and his brothers are
all on the brink of their sepulchre, and the Infants of Spain are too
young to succeed to the Empire. The Pope would more willingly permit its
dissolution than its falling into the hands of a prince not of his
profession. All that we have to do in this conjuncture is to attend the
best we can to our own affairs, and afterwards to strengthen the good
alliance existing among us, and not to let ourselves be separated by the
tricks and sleights of hand of our adversaries. The common cause can
reckon firmly upon the King of Great Britain, and will not find itself
deceived."

Excellent commonplaces, but not very safe ones. Unluckily for the allies,
to attend each to his own affairs when the enemy was upon them, and to
reckon firmly upon a king who thought it furious madness to resist the
enemy, was hardly the way to avert the danger. A fortnight later, the man
who thought it possible to resist, and time to resist, before the net was
over every head, replied to the Secretary by a picture of the Spaniards'
progress.

"Since your letter," he said, "you have seen the course of Spinola with
the army of the King and the Archdukes. You have seen the Prince-Palatine
of Neuburg with his forces maintained by the Pope and other members of
the Papistical League. On the 29th of August they forced Aachen, where
the magistrates and those of the Reformed religion have been extremely
maltreated. Twelve hundred soldiers are lodged in the houses there of
those who profess our religion. Mulheim is taken and dismantled, and the
very houses about to be torn down. Duren, Castre, Grevenborg, Orsoy,
Duisburg, Ruhrort, and many other towns, obliged to receive Spanish
garrisons. On the 4th of September they invested Wesel. On the 6th it was
held certain that the cities of Cleve, Emmerich, Rees, and others in that
quarter, had consented to be occupied. The States have put one hundred
and thirty-five companies of foot (about 14,000 men) and 4000 horse and a
good train of artillery in the field, and sent out some ships of war.
Prince Maurice left the Hague on the 4th of September to assist Wesel,
succour the Prince of Brandenburg, and oppose the hostile proceedings of
Spinola and the Palatine of Neuburg . . . . Consider, I pray you, this
state of things, and think how much heed they have paid to the demands of
the Kings of Great Britain and France to abstain from hostilities. Be
sure that without our strong garrison in Julich they would have snapped
up every city in Julich, Cleve, and Berg. But they will now try to make
use of their slippery tricks, their progress having been arrested by our
army. The Prince of Neuburg is sending his chancellor here 'cum mediis
componendae pacis,' in appearance good and reasonable, in reality
deceptive . . . . If their Majesties, My Lords the States, and the
princes of the Union, do not take an energetic resolution for making head
against their designs, behold their League in full vigour and ours
without soul. Neither the strength nor the wealth of the States are
sufficient of themselves to withstand their ambitious and dangerous
designs. We see the possessory princes treated as enemies upon their own
estates, and many thousand souls of the Reformed religion cruelly
oppressed by the Papistical League. For myself I am confirmed in my
apprehensions and believe that neither our religion nor our Union can
endure such indignities. The enemy is making use of the minority in
France and the divisions among the princes of Germany to their great
advantage . . . . I believe that the singular wisdom of his Majesty will
enable him to apply promptly the suitable remedies, and that your
Parliament will make no difficulty in acquitting itself well in repairing
those disorders."

The year dragged on to its close. The supineness of the Protestants
deepened in direct proportion to the feverish increase of activity on the
part of Austria and the League. The mockery of negotiation in which
nothing could be negotiated, the parade of conciliation when war of
extermination was intended, continued on the part of Spain and Austria.
Barneveld was doing his best to settle all minor differences between the
States and Great Britain, that these two bulwarks of Protestantism might
stand firmly together against the rising tide. He instructed the
Ambassador to exhaust every pacific means of arrangement in regard to the
Greenland fishery disputes, the dyed cloth question, and like causes of
ill feeling. He held it more than necessary, he said, that the
inhabitants of the two countries should now be on the very best terms
with each other. Above all, he implored the King through the Ambassador
to summon Parliament in order that the kingdom might be placed in
position to face the gathering danger.

"I am amazed and distressed," he said, "that the statesmen of England do
not comprehend the perils with which their fellow religionists are
everywhere threatened, especially in Germany and in these States. To
assist us with bare advice and sometimes with traducing our actions,
while leaving us to bear alone the burthens, costs, and dangers, is not
serviceable to us." Referring to the information and advice which he had
sent to England and to France fifteen months before, he now gave
assurance that the Prince of Neuburg and Spinola were now in such force,
both foot and cavalry, with all necessary munitions, as to hold these
most important territories as a perpetual "sedem bedli," out of which to
attack Germany at their pleasure and to cut off all possibility of aid
from England and the States. He informed the court of St. James that
besides the forces of the Emperor and the House of Austria, the Duke of
Bavaria and Spanish Italy, there were now several thousand horse and foot
under the Bishop of Wurzburg, 8000 or 9000 under the Bishop-Elector of
Mayence, and strong bodies of cavalry under Count Vaudemont in Lorraine,
all mustering for the war. The pretext seems merely to reduce Frankfurt
to obedience, even as Donauworth had previously been used as a colour for
vast designs. The real purpose was to bring the Elector-Palatine and the
whole Protestant party in Germany to submission. "His Majesty," said the
Advocate, "has now a very great and good subject upon which to convoke
Parliament and ask for a large grant. This would be doubtless consented
to if Parliament receives the assurance that the money thus accorded
shall be applied to so wholesome a purpose. You will do your best to
further this great end. We are waiting daily to hear if the Xanten
negotiation is broken off or not. I hope and I fear. Meantime we bear as
heavy burthens as if we were actually at war."

He added once more the warning, which it would seem superfluous to repeat
even to schoolboys in diplomacy, that this Xanten treaty, as proposed by
the enemy, was a mere trap.

Spinola and Neuburg, in case of the mutual disbanding, stood ready at an
instant's warning to re-enlist for the League not only all the troops
that the Catholic army should nominally discharge, but those which would
be let loose from the States' army and that of Brandenburg as well. They
would hold Rheinberg, Groll, Lingen, Oldenzaal, Wachtendonk, Maestricht,
Aachen, and Mulheim with a permanent force of more than 20,000 men. And
they could do all this in four days' time.

A week or two later all his prophesies had been fulfilled. "The Prince of
Neuburg," he said, "and Marquis Spinola have made game of us most
impudently in the matter of the treaty. This is an indignity for us,
their Majesties, and the electors and princes. We regard it as
intolerable. A despatch came from Spain forbidding a further step in the
negotiation without express order from the King. The Prince and Spinola
are gone to Brussels, the ambassadors have returned to the Hague, the
armies are established in winter-quarters. The cavalry are ravaging the
debateable land and living upon the inhabitants at their discretion. M.
de Refuge is gone to complain to the Archdukes of the insult thus put
upon his sovereign. Sir Henry Wotton is still here. We have been plunged
into an immensity of extraordinary expense, and are amazed that at this
very moment England should demand money from us when we ought to be
assisted by a large subsidy by her. We hope that now at least his Majesty
will take a vigorous resolution and not suffer his grandeur and dignity
to be vilipended longer. If the Spaniard is successful in this step, he
is ready for greater ones, and will believe that mankind is ready to bear
and submit to everything. His Majesty is the first king of the religion.
He bears the title of Defender of the Faith. His religion, his only
daughter, his son-in-law, his grandson are all especially interested
besides his own dignity, besides the common weal."

He then adverted to the large subsidies from Queen Elizabeth many years
before, guaranteed, it was true, by the cautionary towns, and to the
gallant English regiments, sent by that great sovereign, which had been
fighting so long and so splendidly in the Netherlands for the common
cause of Protestantism and liberty. Yet England was far weaker then, for
she had always her northern frontier to defend against Scotland, ever
ready to strike her in the back. "But now his Majesty," said Barneveld,
"is King of England and Scotland both. His frontier is free. Ireland is
at peace. He possesses quietly twice as much as the Queen ever did. He is
a king. Her Majesty was a woman. The King has children and heirs. His
nearest blood is engaged in this issue. His grandeur and dignity have
been wronged. Each one of these considerations demands of itself a manly
resolution. You will do your best to further it."

The almost ubiquitous power of Spain, gaining after its exhaustion new
life through the strongly developed organization of the League, and the
energy breathed into that mighty conspiracy against human liberty by the
infinite genius of the "cabinet of Jesuits," was not content with
overshadowing Germany, the Netherlands, and England, but was threatening
Savoy with 40,000 men, determined to bring Charles Emmanuel either to
perdition or submission.

Like England, France was spell-bound by the prospect of Spanish
marriages, which for her at least were not a chimera, and looked on
composedly while Savoy was on point of being sacrificed by the common
invader of independent nationality whether Protestant or Catholic.
Nothing ever showed more strikingly the force residing in singleness of
purpose with breadth and unity of design than all these primary movements
of the great war now beginning. The chances superficially considered were
vastly in favour of the Protestant cause. In the chief lands, under the
sceptre of the younger branch of Austria, the Protestants outnumbered the
Catholics by nearly ten to one. Bohemia, the Austrias, Moravia, Silesia,
Hungary were filled full of the spirit of Huss, of Luther, and even of
Calvin. If Spain was a unit, now that the Moors and Jews had been
expelled, and the heretics of Castille and Aragon burnt into submission,
she had a most lukewarm ally in Venice, whose policy was never controlled
by the Church, and a dangerous neighbour in the warlike, restless, and
adventurous House of Savoy, to whom geographical considerations were ever
more vital than religious scruples. A sincere alliance of France, the
very flower of whose nobility and people inclined to the Reformed
religion, was impossible, even if there had been fifty infantes to
espouse fifty daughters of France. Great Britain, the Netherlands, and
the united princes of Germany seemed a solid and serried phalanx of
Protestantism, to break through which should be hopeless. Yet at that
moment, so pregnant with a monstrous future, there was hardly a sound
Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland. How long would that policy
remain sound and united? How long would the Republic speak through the
imperial voice of Barneveld? Time was to show and to teach many lessons.
The united princes of Germany were walking, talking, quarrelling in their
sleep; England and France distracted and bedrugged, while Maximilian of
Bavaria and Ferdinand of Gratz, the cabinets of Madrid and the Vatican,
were moving forward to their aims slowly, steadily, relentlessly as Fate.
And Spain was more powerful than she had been since the Truce began. In
five years she had become much more capable of aggression. She had
strengthened her positions in the Mediterranean by the acquisition and
enlargement of considerable fortresses in Barbary and along a large sweep
of the African coast, so as to be almost supreme in Africa. It was
necessary for the States, the only power save Turkey that could face her
in those waters, to maintain a perpetual squadron of war ships there to
defend their commerce against attack from the Spaniard and from the
corsairs, both Mahometan and Christian, who infested every sea. Spain was
redoubtable everywhere, and the Turk, engaged in Persian campaigns, was
offering no diversion against Hungary and Vienna.

"Reasons of state worthy of his Majesty's consideration and wisdom," said
Barneveld, "forbid the King of Great Britain from permitting the Spaniard
to give the law in Italy. He is about to extort obedience and humiliation
from the Duke of Savoy, or else with 40,000 men to mortify and ruin him,
while entirely assuring himself of France by the double marriages. Then
comes the attack on these Provinces, on Protestant Germany, and all other
states and realms of the religion."

With the turn of the year, affairs were growing darker and darker. The
League was rolling up its forces in all directions; its chiefs proposed
absurd conditions of pacification, while war was already raging, and yet
scarcely any government but that of the Netherlands paid heed to the
rising storm. James, fatuous as ever, listened to Gondemar, and wrote
admonitory letters to the Archduke. It was still gravely proposed by the
Catholic party that there should be mutual disbanding in the duchies,
with a guarantee from Marquis Spinola that there should be no more
invasion of those territories. But powers and pledges from the King of
Spain were what he needed.

To suppose that the Republic and her allies would wait quietly, and not
lift a finger until blows were actually struck against the Protestant
electors or cities of Germany, was expecting too much ingenuousness on
the part of statesmen who had the interests of Protestantism at heart.
What they wanted was the signed, sealed, ratified treaty faithfully
carried out. Then if the King of Spain and the Archdukes were willing to
contract with the States never to make an attempt against the Holy German
Empire, but to leave everything to take its course according to the
constitutions, liberties, and traditions and laws of that empire, under
guidance of its electors, princes, estates, and cities, the United
Provinces were ready, under mediation of the two kings, their allies and
friends, to join in such an arrangement. Thus there might still be peace
in Germany, and religious equality as guaranteed by the "Majesty-Letter,"
and the "Compromise" between the two great churches, Roman and Reformed,
be maintained. To bring about this result was the sincere endeavour of
Barneveld, hoping against hope. For he knew that all was hollowness and
sham on the part of the great enemy. Even as Walsingham almost alone had
suspected and denounced the delusive negotiations by which Spain
continued to deceive Elizabeth and her diplomatists until the Armada was
upon her coasts, and denounced them to ears that were deafened and souls
that were stupified by the frauds practised upon them, so did Barneveld,
who had witnessed all that stupendous trickery of a generation before,
now utter his cries of warning that Germany might escape in time from her
impending doom.

"Nothing but deceit is lurking in the Spanish proposals," he said. "Every
man here wonders that the English government does not comprehend these
malversations. Truly the affair is not to be made straight by new
propositions, but by a vigorous resolution of his Majesty. It is in the
highest degree necessary to the salvation of Christendom, to the
conservation of his Majesty's dignity and greatness, to the service of
the princes and provinces, and of all Germany, nor can this vigorous
resolution be longer delayed without enormous disaster to the common weal
. . . . . I have the deepest affection for the cause of the Duke of
Savoy, but I cannot further it so long as I cannot tell what his Majesty
specifically is resolved to do, and what hope is held out from Venice,
Germany, and other quarters. Our taxes are prodigious, the ordinary and
extraordinary, and we have a Spanish army at our front door."

The armaments, already so great, had been enlarged during the last month
of the year. Vaudemont was at the head of a further force of 2000 cavalry
and 8000 foot, paid for by Spain and the Pope; 24,000 additional
soldiers, riders and infantry together, had been gathered by Maximilian
of Bavaria at the expense of the League. Even if the reports were
exaggerated, the Advocate thought it better to be too credulous than as
apathetic as the rest of the Protestants.

"We receive advices every day," he wrote to Caron, "that the Spaniards
and the Roman League are going forward with their design. They are trying
to amuse the British king and to gain time, in order to be able to deal
the heavier blows. Do all possible duty to procure a timely and vigorous
resolution there. To wait again until we are anticipated will be fatal to
the cause of the Evangelical electors and princes of Germany and
especially of his Electoral Highness of Brandenburg. We likewise should
almost certainly suffer irreparable damage, and should again bear our
cross, as men said last year in regard to Aachen, Wesel, and so many
other places. The Spaniard is sly, and has had a long time to contrive
how he can throw the net over the heads of all our religious allies.
Remember all the warnings sent from here last year, and how they were all
tossed to the winds, to the ruin of so many of our co-religionists. If it
is now intended over there to keep the Spaniards in check merely by
speeches or letters, it would be better to say so clearly to our friends.
So long as Parliament is not convoked in order to obtain consents and
subsidies for this most necessary purpose, so long I fail to believe that
this great common cause of Christendom, and especially of Germany, is
taken to heart by England."

He adverted with respectfully subdued scorn to King James's proposition
that Spinola should give a guarantee. "I doubt if he accepts the
suggestion," said Barneveld, "unless as a notorious trick, and if he did,
what good would the promise of Spinola do us? We consider Spinola a great
commander having the purses and forces of the Spaniards and the Leaguers
in his control; but should they come into other hands, he would not be a
very considerable personage for us. And that may happen any day. They
don't seem in England to understand the difference between Prince Maurice
in his relations to our state and that of Marquis Spinola to his
superiors. Try to make them comprehend it. A promise from the Emperor,
King of Spain, and the princes of the League, such as his Majesty in his
wisdom has proposed to Spinola, would be most tranquillizing for all the
Protestant princes and estates of the Empire, especially for the Elector
and Electress Palatine, and for ourselves. In such a case no difficulty
would be made on our side."

After expressing his mind thus freely in regard to James and his policy,
he then gave the Ambassador a word of caution in characteristic fashion.
"Cogita," he said, "but beware of censuring his Majesty's projects. I do
not myself mean to censure them, nor are they publicly laughed at here,
but look closely at everything that comes from Brussels, and let me know
with diligence."

And even as the Advocate was endeavouring with every effort of his skill
and reason to stir the sluggish James into vigorous resolution in behalf
of his own children, as well as of the great cause of Protestantism and
national liberty, so was he striving to bear up on his strenuous
shoulders the youthful king of France, and save him from the swollen
tides of court intrigue and Jesuitical influence fast sweeping him to
destruction.

He had denounced the recent and paltry proposition made on the part of
the League, and originally suggested by James, as a most open and
transparent trap, into which none but the blind would thrust themselves.
The Treaty of Xanten, carried out as it had been signed and guaranteed by
the great Catholic powers, would have brought peace to Christendom. To
accept in place of such guarantee the pledge of a simple soldier, who
to-morrow might be nothing, was almost too ridiculous a proposal to be
answered gravely. Yet Barneveld through the machinations of the Catholic
party was denounced both at the English and French courts as an obstacle
to peace, when in reality his powerful mind and his immense industry were
steadily directed to the noblest possible end--to bring about a solemn
engagement on the part of Spain, the Emperor, and the princes of the
League, to attack none of the Protestant powers of Germany, especially
the Elector-Palatine, but to leave the laws, liberties, and privileges of
the States within the Empire in their original condition. And among those
laws were the great statutes of 1609 and 1610, the "Majesty-Letter" and
the "Compromise," granting full right of religious worship to the
Protestants of the Kingdom of Bohemia. If ever a policy deserved to be
called truly liberal and truly conservative, it was the policy thus
steadily maintained by Barneveld.

Adverting to the subterfuge by which the Catholic party had sought to set
aside the treaty of Xanten, he instructed Langerac, the States'
ambassador in Paris, and his own pupils to make it clear to the French
government that it was impossible that in such arrangements the Spanish
armies would not be back again in the duchies at a moment's notice. It
could not be imagined even that they were acting sincerely.

"If their upright intention," he said, "is that no actual, hostile,
violent attack shall be made upon the duchies, or upon any of the
princes, estates, or cities of the Holy Empire, as is required for the
peace and tranquillity of Christendom, and if all the powers interested
therein will come into a good and solid convention to that effect. My
Lords the States will gladly join in such undertaking and bind themselves
as firmly as the other powers. If no infraction of the laws and liberties
of the Holy Empire be attempted, there will be peace for Germany and its
neighbours. But the present extravagant proposition can only lead to
chicane and quarrels. To press such a measure is merely to inflict a
disgrace upon us. It is an attempt to prevent us from helping the
Elector-Palatine and the other Protestant princes of Germany and
coreligionists everywhere against hostile violence. For the
Elector-Palatine can receive aid from us and from Great Britain through
the duchies only. It is plainly the object of the enemy to seclude us
from the Palatine and the rest of Protestant Germany. It is very
suspicious that the proposition of Prince Maurice, supported by the two
kings and the united princes of Germany, has been rejected."

The Advocate knew well enough that the religious franchises granted by
the House of Habsburg at the very moment in which Spain signed her peace
with the Netherlands, and exactly as the mad duke of Cleve was
expiring--with a dozen princes, Catholic and Protestant, to dispute his
inheritance--would be valuable just so long as they could be maintained
by the united forces of Protestantism and of national independence and no
longer. What had been extorted from the Catholic powers by force would be
retracted by force whenever that force could be concentrated. It had been
necessary for the Republic to accept a twelve years' truce with Spain in
default of a peace, while the death of John of Cleve, and subsequently of
Henry IV., had made the acquisition of a permanent pacification between
Catholicism and Protestantism, between the League and the Union, more
difficult than ever. The so-called Thirty Years' War--rather to be called
the concluding portion of the Eighty Years' War--had opened in the
debateable duchies exactly at the moment when its forerunner, the forty
years' war of the Netherlands, had been temporarily and nominally
suspended. Barneveld was perpetually baffled in his efforts to obtain a
favourable peace for Protestant Europe, less by the open diplomacy and
military force of the avowed enemies of Protestantism than by the secret
intrigues and faintheartedness of its nominal friends. He was unwearied
in his efforts simultaneously to arouse the courts of England and France
to the danger to Europe from the overshadowing power of the House of
Austria and the League, and he had less difficulty in dealing with the
Catholic Lewis and his mother than with Protestant James. At the present
moment his great designs were not yet openly traversed by a strong
Protestant party within the very republic which he administered.

"Look to it with earnestness and grave deliberation," he said to
Langerac, "that they do not pursue us there with vain importunity to
accept something so notoriously inadmissible and detrimental to the
common weal. We know that from the enemy's side every kind of unseemly
trick is employed, with the single object of bringing about
misunderstanding between us and the King of France. A prompt and vigorous
resolution on the part of his Majesty, to see the treaty which we made
duly executed, would be to help the cause. Otherwise, not. We cannot here
believe that his Majesty, in this first year of his majority, will submit
to such a notorious and flagrant affront, or that he will tolerate the
oppression of the Duke of Savoy. Such an affair in the beginning of his
Majesty's reign cannot but have very great and prejudicial consequences,
nor can it be left to linger on in uncertainty and delay. Let him be
prompt in this. Let him also take a most Christian--kingly, vigorous
resolution against the great affront put upon him in the failure to carry
out the treaty. Such a resolve on the part of the two kings would restore
all things to tranquillity and bring the Spaniard and his adherents 'in
terminos modestiae. But so long as France is keeping a suspicious eye
upon England, and England upon France, everything will run to combustion,
detrimental to their Majesties and to us, and ruinous to all the good
inhabitants."

To the Treaty of Xanten faithfully executed he held as to an anchor in
the tempest until it was torn away, not by violence from without, but by
insidious mutiny within. At last the government of James proposed that
the pledges on leaving the territory should be made to the two allied
kings as mediators and umpires. This was better than the naked promises
originally suggested, but even in this there was neither heartiness nor
sincerity. Meantime the Prince of Neuburg, negotiations being broken off,
departed for Germany, a step which the Advocate considered ominous. Soon
afterwards that prince received a yearly pension of 24,000 crowns from
Spain, and for this stipend his claims on the sovereignty of the duchies
were supposed to be surrendered.

"If this be true," said Barneveld, "we have been served with covered
dishes."

The King of England wrote spirited and learned letters to the
Elector-Palatine, assuring him of his father-in-law's assistance in case
he should be attacked by the League. Sir Henry Wotton, then on special
mission at the Hague, showed these epistles to Barneveld.

"When I hear that Parliament has been assembled and has granted great
subsidies," was the Advocate's comment, "I shall believe that effects may
possibly follow from all these assurances."

It was wearisome for the Advocate thus ever to be foiled; by the
pettinesses and jealousies of those occupying the highest earthly places,
in his efforts to stem the rising tide of Spanish and Catholic
aggression, and to avert the outbreak of a devastating war to which he
saw Europe doomed. It may be wearisome to read the record. Yet it is the
chronicle of Christendom during one of the most important and fateful
epochs of modern history. No man can thoroughly understand the
complication and precession of phenomena attending the disastrous dawn of
the renewed war, on an even more awful scale than the original conflict
in the Netherlands, without studying the correspondence of Barneveld. The
history of Europe is there. The fate of Christendom is there. The
conflict of elements, the crash of contending forms of religion and of
nationalities, is pictured there in vivid if homely colours. The
Advocate, while acting only in the name of a slender confederacy, was in
truth, so long as he held his place, the prime minister of European
Protestantism. There was none other to rival him, few to comprehend him,
fewer still to sustain him. As Prince Maurice was at that moment the
great soldier of Protestantism without clearly scanning the grandeur of
the field in which he was a chief actor, or foreseeing the vastness of
its future, so the Advocate was its statesman and its prophet. Could the
two have worked together as harmoniously as they had done at an earlier
day, it would have been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But,
alas! the evil genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial
relations between soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the
distance, darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life
out in exertions for what he deemed the true cause of progress and
humanity.

Nor can the fate of the man himself, his genuine character, and the
extraordinary personal events towards which he was slowly advancing, be
accurately unfolded without an attempt by means of his letters to lay
bare his inmost thoughts. Especially it will be seen at a later moment
how much value was attached to this secret correspondence with the
ambassadors in London and Paris.

The Advocate trusted to the support of France, Papal and Medicean as the
court of the young king was, because the Protestant party throughout the
kingdom was too powerful, warlike, and numerous to be trifled with, and
because geographical considerations alone rendered a cordial alliance
between Spain and France very difficult. Notwithstanding the Spanish
marriages, which he opposed so long as opposition was possible, he knew
that so long as a statesman remained in the kingdom, or a bone for one
existed, the international policy of Henry, of Sully, and of Jeannin
could not be wholly abandoned.

He relied much on Villeroy, a political hack certainly, an ancient
Leaguer, and a Papist, but a man too cool, experienced, and wily to be
ignorant of the very hornbook of diplomacy, or open to the shallow
stratagems by which Spain found it so easy to purchase or to deceive. So
long as he had a voice in the council, it was certain that the Netherland
alliance would not be abandoned, nor the Duke of Savoy crushed. The old
secretary of state was not especially in favour at that moment, but
Barneveld could not doubt his permanent place in French affairs until
some man of real power should arise there. It was a dreary period of
barrenness and disintegration in that kingdom while France was mourning
Henry and waiting for Richelieu.

The Dutch ambassador at Paris was instructed accordingly to maintain.
good relations with Villeroy, who in Barneveld's opinion had been a
constant and sincere friend to the Netherlands. "Don't forget to caress
the old gentleman you wot of," said the Advocate frequently, but
suppressing his name, "without troubling yourself with the reasons
mentioned in your letter. I am firmly convinced that he will overcome all
difficulties. Don't believe either that France will let the Duke of Savoy
be ruined. It is against every reason of State." Yet there were few to
help Charles Emmanuel in this Montferrat war, which was destined to drag
feebly on, with certain interludes of negotiations, for two years longer.
The already notorious condottiere Ernest Mansfeld, natural son of old
prince Peter Ernest, who played so long and so high a part in command of
the Spanish armies in the Netherlands, had, to be sure, taken service
under the Duke. Thenceforth he was to be a leader and a master in that
wild business of plunder, burning, blackmailing, and murder, which was
opening upon Europe, and was to afford occupation for many thousands of
adventurers of high and low degree.

Mansfeld, reckless and profligate, had already changed his banner more
than once. Commanding a company under Leopold in the duchies, he had been
captured by the forces of the Union, and, after waiting in vain to be
ransomed by the Archduke, had gone secretly over to the enemy. Thus
recovering his liberty, he had enlisted a regiment under Leopold's name
to fight the Union, and had then, according to contract, transferred
himself and most of his adventurers to the flag of the Union. The
military operations fading away in the duchies without being succeeded by
permanent peace, the Count, as he was called, with no particular claim to
such title, had accepted a thousand florins a year as retainer from the
Union and had found occupation under Charles Emmanuel. Here the Spanish
soldier of a year or two before found much satisfaction and some profit
in fighting Spanish soldiers. He was destined to reappear in the
Netherlands, in France, in Bohemia, in many places where there were
villages to be burned, churches to be plundered, cities to be sacked,
nuns and other women to be outraged, dangerous political intrigues to be
managed. A man in the prime of his age, fair-haired, prematurely
wrinkled, battered, and hideous of visage, with a hare-lip and a
humpback; slovenly of dress, and always wearing an old grey hat without a
band to it; audacious, cruel, crafty, and licentious--such was Ernest
Mansfeld, whom some of his contemporaries spoke of as Ulysses Germanicus,
others as the new Attila, all as a scourge to the human race. The
cockneys of Paris called him "Machefer," and nurses long kept children
quiet by threatening them with that word. He was now enrolled on the
Protestant side, although at the moment serving Savoy against Spain in a
question purely personal. His armies, whether in Italy or in Germany,
were a miscellaneous collection of adventurers of high and low degree, of
all religions, of all countries, unfrocked priests and students, ruined
nobles, bankrupt citizens, street vagabonds--earliest type perhaps of the
horrible military vermin which were destined to feed so many years long
on the unfortunate dismembered carcass of Germany.

Many demands had been made upon the States for assistance to Savoy,--as
if they and they alone were to bear the brunt and pay the expense of all
the initiatory campaigns against Spain.

"We are much importuned," said the Advocate, "to do something for the
help of Savoy . . . . We wish and we implore that France, Great Britain,
the German princes, the Venetians, and the Swiss would join us in some
scheme of effective assistance. But we have enough on our shoulders at
this moment."

They had hardly money enough in their exchequer, admirably ordered as it
was, for enterprises so far from home when great Spanish armies were
permanently encamped on their border.

Partly to humour King James and partly from love of adventure, Count John
of Nassau had gone to Savoy at the head of a small well disciplined body
of troops furnished by the States.

"Make use of this piece of news," said Barneveld, communicating the fact
to Langerac, "opportunely and with discretion. Besides the wish to give
some contentment to the King of Great Britain, we consider it
inconsistent with good conscience and reasons of state to refuse help to
a great prince against oppression by those who mean to give the law to
everybody; especially as we have been so earnestly and frequently
importuned to do so."

And still the Spaniards and the League kept their hold on the duchies,
while their forces, their munitions, their accumulation of funds waged
hourly. The war of chicane was even more deadly than an actual campaign,
for when there was no positive fighting the whole world seemed against
the Republic. And the chicane was colossal.

"We cannot understand," said Barneveld, "why M. de Prevaulx is coming
here on special mission. When a treaty is signed and sealed, it only
remains to execute it. The Archduke says he is himself not known in the
treaty, and that nothing can be demanded of him in relation to it. This
he says in his letters to the King of Great Britain. M. de Refuge knows
best whether or not Marquis Spinola, Ottavio Visconti, Chancellor
Pecquius, and others, were employed in the negotiation by the Archduke.
We know very well here that the whole business was conducted by them. The
Archduke is willing to give a clean and sincere promise not to re-occupy,
and asks the same from the States. If he were empowered by the Emperor,
the King of Spain, and the League, and acted in such quality, something
might be done for the tranquillity of Germany. But he promises for
himself only, and Emperor, King, or League, may send any general to do
what they like to-morrow. What is to prevent it?

"And so My Lords the States, the Elector of Brandenburg, and others
interested are cheated and made fools of. And we are as much troubled by
these tricks as by armed force. Yes, more; for we know that great
enterprises are preparing this year against Germany and ourselves, that
all Neuburg's troops have been disbanded and re-enlisted under the
Spanish commanders, and that forces are levying not only in Italy and
Spain, but in Germany, Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Upper Burgundy, and that
Wesel has been stuffed full of gunpowder and other munitions, and very
strongly fortified."

For the States to agree to a treaty by which the disputed duchies should
be held jointly by the Princes of Neuburg and of Brandenburg, and the
territory be evacuated by all foreign troops; to look quietly on while
Neuburg converted himself to Catholicism, espoused the sister of
Maximilian of Bavaria, took a pension from Spain, resigned his claims in
favour of Spain, and transferred his army to Spain; and to expect that
Brandenburg and all interested in Brandenburg, that is to say, every
Protestant in Europe, should feel perfectly easy under such arrangement
and perfectly protected by the simple promise of a soldier of fortune
against Catholic aggression, was a fantastic folly hardly worthy of a
child. Yet the States were asked to accept this position, Brandenburg and
all Protestant Germany were asked to accept it, and Barneveld was howled
at by his allies as a marplot and mischief-maker, and denounced and
insulted by diplomatists daily, because he mercilessly tore away the
sophistries of the League and of the League's secret friend, James
Stuart.

The King of Spain had more than 100,000 men under arms, and was enlisting
more soldiers everywhere and every day, had just deposited 4,000,000
crowns with his Antwerp bankers for a secret purpose, and all the time
was exuberant in his assurances of peace. One would have thought that
there had never been negotiations in Bourbourg, that the Spanish Armada
had never sailed from Coruna.

"You are wise and prudent in France," said the Advocate, "but we are used
to Spanish proceedings, and from much disaster sustained are filled with
distrust. The King of England seems now to wish that the Archduke should
draw up a document according to his good pleasure, and that the States
should make an explanatory deed, which the King should sign also and ask
the King of France to do the same. But this is very hazardous.

"We do not mean to receive laws from the King of Spain, nor the Archduke
. . . . The Spanish proceedings do not indicate peace but war. One must
not take it ill of us that we think these matters of grave importance to
our friends and ourselves. Affairs have changed very much in the last
four months. The murder of the first vizier of the Turkish emperor and
his designs against Persia leave the Spanish king and the Emperor free
from attack in that quarter, and their armaments are far greater than
last year . . . . I cannot understand why the treaty of Xanten, formerly
so highly applauded, should now be so much disapproved. . . . The King of
Spain and the Emperor with their party have a vast design to give the law
to all Christendom, to choose a Roman king according to their will, to
reduce the Evangelical electors, princes, and estates of Germany to
obedience, to subject all Italy, and, having accomplished this, to
proceed to triumph over us and our allies, and by necessary consequence
over France and England. They say they have established the Emperor's
authority by means of Aachen and Mulheim, will soon have driven us out of
Julich, and have thus arranged matters entirely to their heart's content.
They can then, in name of the Emperor, the League, the Prince of Neuburg,
or any one else, make themselves in eight days masters of the places
which they are now imaginarily to leave as well as of those which we are
actually to surrender, and by possession of which we could hold out a
long time against all their power."

Those very places held by the States--Julich, Emmerich, and others--had
recently been fortified at much expense, under the superintendence of
Prince Maurice, and by advice of the Advocate. It would certainly be an
act of madness to surrender them on the terms proposed. These warnings
and forebodings of Barneveld sound in our ears like recorded history, yet
they were far earlier than the actual facts. And now to please the
English king, the States had listened to his suggestion that his name and
that of the King of France should be signed as mediators to a new
arrangement proposed in lieu of the Xanten treaty. James had suggested
this, Lewis had agreed to it. Yet before the ink had dried in James's
pen, he was proposing that the names of the mediating sovereigns should
be omitted from the document? And why? Because Gondemar was again
whispering in his ear. "They are renewing the negotiations in England,"
said the Advocate, "about the alliance between the Prince of Wales and
the second daughter of Spain; and the King of Great Britain is seriously
importuning us that the Archdukes and My Lords the States should make
their pledges 'impersonaliter' and not to the kings." James was also
willing that the name of the Emperor should appear upon it. To prevent
this, Barneveld would have had himself burned at the stake. It would be
an ignominious and unconditional surrender of the whole cause.

"The Archduke will never be contented," said the Advocate, "unless his
Majesty of Great Britain takes a royal resolution to bring him to reason.
That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice. We have been ready
and are still ready to execute the treaty of Xanten. The Archduke is the
cause of the dispute concerning the act. We approved the formularies of
their Majesties, and have changed them three times to suit the King of
Great Britain. Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter, so
that we can no longer digest the Spanish impudence, and are amazed that
his Majesty can listen any more to the Spanish ministers. We fear that
those ministers are working through many hands, in order by one means or
another to excite quarrels between his Majesty, us, and the respective
inhabitants of the two countries . . . . . Take every precaution that no
attempt be made there to bring the name of the Emperor into the act. This
would be contrary to their Majesties' first resolution, very prejudicial
to the Elector of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to ourselves. And it
is indispensable that the promise be made to the two kings as mediators,
as much for their reputation and dignity as for the interests of the
Elector, the territories, and ourselves. Otherwise too the Spaniards will
triumph over us as if they had driven us by force of arms into this
promise."

The seat of war, at the opening of the apparently inevitable conflict
between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union, would be those
debateable duchies, those border provinces, the possession of which was
of such vital importance to each of the great contending parties, and the
populations of which, although much divided, were on the whole more
inclined to the League than to the Union. It was natural enough that the
Dutch statesman should chafe at the possibility of their being lost to
the Union through the adroitness of the Catholic managers and the
supineness of the great allies of the Republic.

Three weeks later than these last utterances of the Advocate, he was
given to understand that King James was preparing to slide away from the
position which had been three times changed to make it suitable for him.
His indignation was hot.

"Sir Henry Wotton," he said, "has communicated to me his last despatches
from Newmarket. I am in the highest degree amazed that after all our
efforts at accommodation, with so much sacrifice to the electors, the
provinces, and ourselves, they are trying to urge us there to consent
that the promise be not made to the Kings of France and Great Britain as
mediators, although the proposition came from the Spanish side. After we
had renounced, by desire of his Majesty, the right to refer the promise
to the Treaty of Xanten, it was judged by both kings to be needful and
substantial that the promise be made to their Majesties. To change this
now would be prejudicial to the kings, to the electors, the duchies, and
to our commonwealth; to do us a wrong and to leave us naked. France
maintains her position as becoming and necessary. That Great Britain
should swerve from it is not to be digested here. You will do your utmost
according to my previous instructions to prevent any pressure to this
end. You will also see that the name of the Emperor is mentioned neither
in the preamble nor the articles of the treaty. It would be contrary to
all our policy since 1610. You may be firmly convinced that malice is
lurking under the Emperor's name, and that he and the King of Spain and
their adherents, now as before, are attempting a sequestration. This is
simply a pretext to bring those principalities and provinces into the
hands of the Spaniards, for which they have been labouring these thirty
years. We are constantly cheated by these Spanish tricks. Their intention
is to hold Wesel and all the other places until the conclusion of the
Italian affair, and then to strike a great blow."

Certainly were never words more full of sound statesmanship, and of
prophecy too soon to be fulfilled, than these simple but pregnant
warnings. They awakened but little response from the English government
save cavils and teasing reminders that Wesel had been the cradle of
German Calvinism, the Rhenish Geneva, and that it was sinful to leave it
longer in the hands of Spain. As if the Advocate had not proved to
demonstration that to stock hands for a new deal at that moment was to
give up the game altogether.

His influence in France was always greater than in England, and this had
likewise been the case with William the Silent. And even now that the
Spanish matrimonial alliance was almost a settled matter at the French
court, while with the English king it was but a perpetual will-o'the-wisp
conducting to quagmires ineffable, the government at Paris sustained the
policy of the Advocate with tolerable fidelity, while it was constantly
and most capriciously traversed by James.

Barneveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet
despair. "We hope that the Spanish-French marriages," he said, "may be
broken up of themselves; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay
or prevent them authoritatively, or in conjunction with others, the
effort would have the contrary effect."

In this certainly he was doomed to disappointment.

He had already notified the French court of the absolute necessity of the
great points to be insisted upon in the treaty, and there he found more
docility than in London or Newmarket.

All summer he was occupied with this most important matter, uttering
Cassandra-like warnings into ears wilfully deaf. The States had gone as
far as possible in concession. To go farther would be to wreck the great
cause upon the very quicksands which he had so ceaselessly pointed out.
"We hope that nothing further will be asked of us, no scruples be felt as
to our good intentions," he said, "and that if Spain and the Archdukes
are not ready now to fulfil the treaty, their Majesties will know how to
resent this trifling with their authority and dignity, and how to set
matters to rights with their own hands in the duchies. A new treaty,
still less a sequestration, is not to be thought of for a moment."

Yet the month of August came and still the names of the mediating kings
were not on the treaty, and still the spectre of sequestration had not
been laid. On the contrary, the peace of Asti, huddled up between Spain
and Savoy, to be soon broken again, had caused new and painful
apprehensions of an attempt at sequestration, for it was established by
several articles in that treaty that all questions between Savoy and
Mantua should be referred to the Emperor's decision. This precedent was
sure to be followed in the duchies if not resisted by force, as it had
been so successfully resisted five years before by the armies of the
States associated with those of France. Moreover the first step at
sequestration had been actually taken. The Emperor had peremptorily
summoned the Elector of Brandenburg and all other parties interested to
appear before him on the 1st of August in Prague. There could be but one
object in this citation, to drive Brandenburg and the States out of the
duchies until the Imperial decision as to the legitimate sovereignty
should be given. Neuburg being already disposed of and his claims ceded
to the Emperor, what possibility was there in such circumstances of
saving one scrap of the territory from the clutch of the League? None
certainly if the Republic faltered in its determination, and yielded to
the cowardly advice of James. "To comply with the summons," said
Barneveld, "and submit to its consequences will be an irreparable injury
to the electoral house of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to our
co-religionists everywhere, and a very great disgrace to both their
Majesties and to us."

He continued, through the ambassador in London, to hold up to the King,
in respectful but plain language, the shamelessness of his conduct in
dispensing the enemy from his pledge to the mediators, when the Republic
expressly, in deference to James, had given up the ampler guarantees of
the treaty. The arrangement had been solemnly made, and consented to by
all the provinces, acting in their separate and sovereign capacity. Such
a radical change, even if it were otherwise permissible, could not be
made without long debates, consultations, and votes by the several
states. What could be more fatal at such a crisis than this childish and
causeless delay. There could be no doubt in any statesman's eyes that the
Spanish party meant war and a preparatory hoodwinking. And it was even
worse for the government of the Republic to be outwitted in diplomacy
than beaten in the field.

"Every man here," said the Advocate, "has more apprehension of fraud than
of force. According to the constitution of our state, to be overcome by
superior power must be endured, but to be overreached by trickery is a
reproach to the government."

The summer passed away. The States maintained their positions in the
duchies, notwithstanding the objurgations of James, and Barneveld
remained on his watch-tower observing every movement of the
fast-approaching war, and refusing at the price of the whole territory in
dispute to rescue Wesel and Aix-la-Chapelle from the grasp of the League.

Caron came to the Hague to have personal consultations with the
States-General, the Advocate, and Prince Maurice, and returned before the
close of the year. He had an audience of the King at the palace of
Whitehall early in November, and found him as immovable as ever in his
apathetic attitude in regard to the affairs of Germany. The murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury and the obscene scandals concerning the King's beloved
Carr and his notorious bride were then occupying the whole attention of
the monarch, so that he had not even time for theological lucubrations,
still less for affairs of state on which the peace of Christendom and the
fate of his own children were hanging.

The Ambassador found him sulky and dictatorial, but insisted on
expressing once more to him the apprehensions felt by the States-General
in regard to the trickery of the Spanish party in the matter of Cleve and
Julich. He assured his Majesty that they had no intention of maintaining
the Treaty of Xanten, and respectfully requested that the King would no
longer urge the States to surrender the places held by them. It was a
matter of vital importance to retain them, he said.

"Sir Henry Wotton told me," replied James, "that the States at his
arrival were assembled to deliberate on this matter, and he had no doubt
that they would take a resolution in conformity with my intention. Now I
see very well that you don't mean to give up the places. If I had known
that before, I should not have warned the Archduke so many times, which I
did at the desire of the States themselves. And now that the Archdukes
are ready to restore their cities, you insist on holding yours. That is
the dish you set before me."

And upon this James swore a mighty oath, and beat himself upon the
breast.

"Now and nevermore will I trouble myself about the States' affairs, come
what come will," he continued. "I have always been upright in my words
and my deeds, and I am not going to embark myself in a wicked war because
the States have plunged themselves into one so entirely unjust. Next
summer the Spaniard means to divide himself into two or three armies in
order to begin his enterprises in Germany."

Caron respectfully intimated that these enterprises would be most
conveniently carried on from the very advantageous positions which he
occupied in the duchies. "No," said the King, "he must restore them on
the same day on which you make your surrender, and he will hardly come
back in a hurry."

"Quite the contrary," said the Ambassador, "they will be back again in a
twinkling, and before we have the slightest warning of their intention."

But it signified not the least what Caron said. The King continued to
vociferate that the States had never had any intention of restoring the
cities.

"You mean to keep them for yourselves," he cried, "which is the greatest
injustice that could be perpetrated. You have no right to them, and they
belong to other people."

The Ambassador reminded him that the Elector of Brandenburg was well
satisfied that they should be occupied by the States for his greater
security and until the dispute should be concluded.

"And that will never be," said James; "never, never. The States are
powerful enough to carry on the war all alone and against all the world."

And so he went on, furiously reiterating the words with which he had
begun the conversation, "without accepting any reasons whatever in
payment," as poor Caron observed.

"It makes me very sad," said the Ambassador, "to find your Majesty so
impatient and so resolved. If the names of the kings are to be omitted
from the document, the Treaty of Xanten should at least be modified
accordingly."

"Nothing of the kind," said James; "I don't understand it so at all. I
speak plainly and without equivocation. It must be enough for the States
that I promise them, in case the enemy is cheating or is trying to play
any trick whatever, or is seeking to break the Treaty of Xanten in a
single point, to come to their assistance in person."

And again the warlike James swore a big oath and smote his breast,
affirming that he meant everything sincerely; that he cheated no one, but
always spoke his thoughts right on, clearly and uprightly.

It was certainly not a cheerful prospect for the States. Their chief ally
was determined that they should disarm, should strip themselves naked,
when the mightiest conspiracy against the religious freedom and
international independence of Europe ever imagined was perfecting itself
before their eyes, and when hostile armies, more numerous than ever
before known, were at their very door. To wait until the enemy was at
their throat, and then to rely upon a king who trembled at the sight of a
drawn sword, was hardly the highest statesmanship. Even if it had been
the chivalrous Henry instead of the pacific James that had held out the
promise of help, they would have been mad to follow such counsel.

The conversation lasted more than an hour. It was in vain that Caron
painted in dark colours the cruel deeds done by the Spaniards in Mulheim
and Aachen, and the proceedings of the Archbishop of Cologne in Rees. The
King was besotted, and no impression could be made upon him.

"At any rate," said the Envoy, "the arrangement cannot be concluded
without the King of France."

"What excuse is that?" said James. "Now that the King is entirely
Spanish, you are trying to excuse your delays by referring to him. You
have deferred rescuing the poor city of Wesel from the hands of the
Spaniard long enough. I am amazed to have heard never a word from you on
that subject since your departure. I had expressed my wish to you clearly
enough that you should inform the States of my intention to give them any
assurance they chose to demand."

Caron was much disappointed at the humour of his Majesty. Coming freshly
as he did from the council of the States, and almost from the seat of
war, he had hoped to convince and content him. But the King was very
angry with the States for putting him so completely in the wrong. He had
also been much annoyed at their having failed to notify him of their
military demonstration in the Electorate of Cologne to avenge the
cruelties practised upon the Protestants there. He asked Caron if he was
instructed to give him information regarding it. Being answered in the
negative, he said he had thought himself of sufficient importance to the
States and enough in their confidence to be apprised of their military
movements. It was for this, he said, that his ambassador sat in their
council. Caron expressed the opinion that warlike enterprises of the kind
should be kept as secret as possible in order to be successful. This the
King disputed, and loudly declared his vexation at being left in
ignorance of the matter. The Ambassador excused himself as well as he
could, on the ground that he had been in Zealand when the troops were
marching, but told the King his impression that they had been sent to
chastise the people of Cologne for their cruelty in burning and utterly
destroying the city of Mulheim.

"That is none of your affair," said the King.

"Pardon me, your Majesty," replied Caron, "they are our fellow
religionists, and some one at least ought to resent the cruelty practised
upon them."

The King admitted that the destruction of the city had been an
unheard--of cruelty, and then passed on to speak of the quarrel between
the Duke and City of Brunswick, and other matters. The interview ended,
and the Ambassador, very downhearted, went to confer with the Secretary
of State Sir Ralph Winwood, and Sir Henry Wotton.

He assured these gentlemen that without fully consulting the French
government these radical changes in the negotiations would never be
consented to by the States. Winwood promised to confer at once with the
French ambassador, admitting it to be impossible for the King to take up
this matter alone. He would also talk with the Archduke's ambassador next
day noon at dinner, who was about leaving for Brussels, and "he would put
something into his hand that he might take home with him."

"When he is fairly gone," said Caron, "it is to be hoped that the King's
head will no longer be so muddled about these things. I wish it with all
my heart."

It was a dismal prospect for the States. The one ally on whom they had a
right to depend, the ex-Calvinist and royal Defender of the Faith, in
this mortal combat of Protestantism with the League, was slipping out of
their grasp with distracting lubricity. On the other hand, the Most
Christian King, a boy of fourteen years, was still in the control of a
mother heart and soul with the League--so far as she had heart or
soul--was betrothed to the daughter of Spain, and saw his kingdom torn to
pieces and almost literally divided among themselves by rebellious
princes, who made use of the Spanish marriages as a pretext for unceasing
civil war.

The Queen-Mother was at that moment at Bordeaux, and an emissary from the
princes was in London. James had sent to offer his mediation between them
and the Queen. He was fond of mediation. He considered it his special
mission in the world to mediate. He imagined himself as looked up to by
the nations as the great arbitrator of Christendom, and was wont to issue
his decrees as if binding in force and infallible by nature. He had
protested vigorously against the Spanish-French marriages, and declared
that the princes were justified in formalizing an opposition to them, at
least until affairs in France were restored to something like order. He
warned the Queen against throwing the kingdom "into the combustion of war
without necessity," and declared that, if she would trust to his
guidance, she might make use of him as if her affairs were his own. An
indispensable condition for much assistance, however, would be that the
marriages should be put off.

As James was himself pursuing a Spanish marriage for his son as the chief
end and aim of his existence, there was something almost humorous in this
protest to the Queen-Dowager and in his encouragement of mutiny in France
in order to prevent a catastrophe there which he desired at home.

The same agent of the princes, de Monbaran by name, was also privately
accredited by them to the States with instructions to borrow 200,000
crowns of them if he could. But so long as the policy of the Republic was
directed by Barneveld, it was not very probable that, while maintaining
friendly and even intimate relations with the legitimate government, she
would enter into negotiations with rebels against it, whether princes or
plebeians, and oblige them with loans. "He will call on me soon, no
doubt," said Caron, "but being so well instructed as to your Mightinesses
intentions in this matter, I hope I shall keep him away from you."
Monbaran was accordingly kept away, but a few weeks later another
emissary of Conde and Bouillon made his appearance at the Hague, de
Valigny by name. He asked for money and for soldiers to reinforce
Bouillon's city of Sedan, but he was refused an audience of the
States-General. Even the martial ardour of Maurice and his sympathy for
his relatives were cooled by this direct assault on his pocket. "The
Prince," wrote the French ambassador, du Maurier, "will not furnish him
or his adherents a thousand crowns, not if they had death between their
teeth. Those who think it do not know how he loves his money."

In the very last days of the year (1615) Caron had another interview with
the King in which James was very benignant. He told the Ambassador that
he should wish the States to send him some special commissioners to make
a new treaty with him, and to treat of all unsettled affairs which were
daily arising between the inhabitants of the respective countries. He
wished to make a firmer union and accord between Great Britain and the
Netherlands. He was very desirous of this, "because," said he, "if we can
unite with and understand each other, we have under God no one what ever
to fear, however mighty they may be."

Caron duly notified Barneveld of these enthusiastic expressions of his
Majesty. The Advocate too was most desirous of settling the troublesome
questions about the cloth trade, the piracies, and other matters, and was
in favour of the special commission. In regard to a new treaty of
alliance thus loosely and vaguely suggested, he was not so sanguine
however. He had too much difficulty in enforcing the interests of
Protestantism in the duchies against the infatuation of James in regard
to Spain, and he was too well aware of the Spanish marriage delusion,
which was the key to the King's whole policy, to put much faith in these
casual outbursts of eternal friendship with the States. He contented
himself therefore with cautioning Caron to pause before committing
himself to any such projects. He had frequently instructed him, however,
to bring the disputed questions to his Majesty's notice as often as
possible with a view to amicable arrangement.

This preventive policy in regard to France was highly approved by
Barneveld, who was willing to share in the blame profusely heaped upon
such sincere patriots and devoted Protestants as Duplessis-Mornay and
others, who saw small advantage to the great cause from a mutiny against
established government, bad as it was, led by such intriguers as Conde
and Bouillon. Men who had recently been in the pay of Spain, and one of
whom had been cognizant of Biron's plot against the throne and life of
Henry IV., to whom sedition was native atmosphere and daily bread, were
not likely to establish a much more wholesome administration than that of
Mary de' Medici. Prince Maurice sympathized with his relatives by
marriage, who were leading the civil commotions in France and
endeavouring to obtain funds in the Netherlands. It is needless to say
that Francis Aerssens was deep in their intrigues, and feeding full the
grudge which the Stadholder already bore the Advocate for his policy on
this occasion.

The Advocate thought it best to wait until the young king should himself
rise in mutiny against his mother and her minions. Perhaps the downfall
of the Concini's and their dowager and the escape of Lewis from thraldom
might not be so distant as it seemed. Meantime this was the legal
government, bound to the States by treaties of friendship and alliance,
and it would be a poor return for the many favours and the constant aid
bestowed by Henry IV. on the Republic, and an imbecile mode of avenging
his murder to help throw his kingdom into bloodshed and confusion before
his son was able to act for himself. At the same time he did his best to
cultivate amicable relations with the princes, while scrupulously
abstaining from any sympathy with their movements. "If the Prince and the
other gentlemen come to court," he wrote to Langerac, "you will treat
them with all possible caresses so far as can be done without disrespect
to the government."

While the British court was occupied with the foul details of the
Overbury murder and its consequences, a crime of a more commonplace
nature, but perhaps not entirely without influence on great political
events, had startled the citizens of the Hague. It was committed in the
apartments of the Stadholder and almost under his very eyes. A jeweller
of Amsterdam, one John van Wely, had come to the court of Maurice to lay
before him a choice collection of rare jewellery. In his caskets were
rubies and diamonds to the value of more than 100,000 florins, which
would be the equivalent of perhaps ten times as much to-day. In the
Prince's absence the merchant was received by a confidential groom of the
chambers, John of Paris by name, and by him, with the aid of a third
John, a soldier of his Excellency's guard, called Jean de la Vigne,
murdered on the spot. The deed was done in the Prince's private study.
The unfortunate jeweller was shot, and to make sure was strangled with
the blue riband of the Order of the Garter recently conferred upon
Maurice, and which happened to be lying conspicuously in the room.

The ruffians had barely time to take possession of the booty, to thrust
the body behind the tapestry of the chamber, and to remove the more
startling evidences of the crime, when the Prince arrived. He supped soon
afterwards in the same room, the murdered jeweller still lying behind the
arras. In the night the valet and soldier carried the corpse away from
the room, down the stairs, and through the great courtyard, where,
strange to say, no sentinels were on duty, and threw it into an ashpit.

A deed so bloody, audacious, and stupid was of course soon discovered and
the murderers arrested and executed. Nothing would remove the incident
from the catalogue of vulgar crimes, or even entitle it to a place in
history save a single circumstance. The celebrated divine John
Uytenbogaert, leader among the Arminians, devoted friend of Barneveld,
and up to that moment the favorite preacher of Maurice, stigmatized
indeed, as we have seen, by the orthodox as "Court Trumpeter," was
requested by the Prince to prepare the chief criminal for death. He did
so, and from that day forth the Stadholder ceased to be his friend,
although regularly listening to his preaching in the French chapel of the
court for more than a year longer. Some time afterwards the Advocate
informed Uytenbogaert that the Prince was very much embittered against
him. "I knew it well," says the clergyman in his memoirs, "but not the
reasons for it, nor do I exactly comprehend them to this day. Truly I
have some ideas relating to certain things which I was obliged to do in
discharge of my official duty, but I will not insist upon them, nor will
I reveal them to any man."

These were mysterious words, and the mystery is said to have been
explained; for it would seem that the eminent preacher was not so
entirely reticent among his confidential friends as before the public.
Uytenbogaert--so ran the tale--in the course of his conversation with the
condemned murderer, John of Paris, expressed a natural surprise that
there should have been no soldiers on guard in the court on the evening
when the crime was committed and the body subsequently removed. The valet
informed him that he had for a long time been empowered by the Prince to
withdraw the sentinels from that station, and that they had been
instructed to obey his orders--Maurice not caring that they should be
witnesses to the equivocal kind of female society that John of Paris was
in the habit of introducing of an evening to his master's apartments. The
valet had made use of this privilege on the night in question to rid
himself of the soldiers who would have been otherwise on guard.

The preacher felt it his duty to communicate these statements to the
Prince, and to make perhaps a somewhat severe comment upon them. Maurice
received the information sullenly, and, as soon as Uytenbogaert was gone,
fell into a violent passion, throwing his hat upon the floor, stamping
upon it, refusing to eat his supper, and allowing no one to speak to him.
Next day some courtiers asked the clergyman what in the world he had been
saying to the Stadholder.

From that time forth his former partiality for the divine, on whose
preaching he had been a regular attendant, was changed to hatred; a
sentiment which lent a lurid colour to subsequent events.

The attempts of the Spanish party by chicane or by force to get
possession of the coveted territories continued year after year, and were
steadily thwarted by the watchfulness of the States under guidance of
Barneveld. The martial stadholder was more than ever for open war, in
which he was opposed by the Advocate, whose object was to postpone and,
if possible, to avert altogether the dread catastrophe which he foresaw
impending over Europe. The Xanten arrangement seemed hopelessly thrown to
the winds, nor was it destined to be carried out; the whole question of
sovereignty and of mastership in those territories being swept
subsequently into the general whirlpool of the Thirty Years' War. So long
as there was a possibility of settlement upon that basis, the Advocate
was in favour of settlement, but to give up the guarantees and play into
the hands of the Catholic League was in his mind to make the Republic one
of the conspirators against the liberties of Christendom.

"Spain, the Emperor and the rest of them," said he, "make all three modes
of pacification--the treaty, the guarantee by the mediating kings, the
administration divided between the possessory princes--alike impossible.
They mean, under pretext of sequestration, to make themselves absolute
masters there. I have no doubt that Villeroy means sincerely, and
understands the matter, but meantime we sit by the fire and burn. If the
conflagration is neglected, all the world will throw the blame on us."

Thus the Spaniards continued to amuse the British king with assurances of
their frank desire to leave those fortresses and territories which they
really meant to hold till the crack of doom. And while Gondemar was
making these ingenuous assertions in London, his colleagues at Paris and
at Brussels distinctly and openly declared that there was no authority
whatever for them, that the Ambassador had received no such instructions,
and that there was no thought of giving up Wesel or any other of the
Protestant strongholds captured, whether in the duchies or out of them.
And Gondemar, still more to keep that monarch in subjection, had been
unusually flattering in regard to the Spanish marriage. "We are in great
alarm here," said the Advocate, "at the tidings that the projected
alliance of the Prince of Wales with the daughter of Spain is to be
renewed; from which nothing good for his Majesty's person, his kingdom,
nor for our state can be presaged. We live in hope that it will never
be."

But the other marriage was made. Despite the protest of James, the
forebodings of Barneveld, and the mutiny of the princes, the youthful
king of France had espoused Anne of Austria early in the year 1616. The
British king did his best to keep on terms with France and Spain, and by
no means renounced his own hopes. At the same time, while fixed as ever
in his approbation of the policy pursued by the Emperor and the League,
and as deeply convinced of their artlessness in regard to the duchies,
the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Republic, he manifested more
cordiality than usual in his relations with the States. Minor questions
between the countries he was desirous of arranging--so far as matters of
state could be arranged by orations--and among the most pressing of these
affairs were the systematic piracy existing and encouraged in English
ports, to the great damage of all seafaring nations and to the Hollanders
most of all, and the quarrel about the exportation of undyed cloths,
which had almost caused a total cessation of the woollen trade between
the two countries. The English, to encourage their own artisans, had
forbidden the export of undyed cloths, and the Dutch had retorted by
prohibiting the import of dyed ones.

The King had good sense enough to see the absurdity of this condition of
things, and it will be remembered that Barneveld had frequently urged
upon the Dutch ambassador to bring his Majesty's attention to these
dangerous disputes. Now that the recovery of the cautionary towns had
been so dexterously and amicably accomplished, and at so cheap a rate, it
seemed a propitious moment to proceed to a general extinction of what
would now be called "burning questions."

James was desirous that new high commissioners might be sent from the
States to confer with himself and his ministers upon the subjects just
indicated, as well as upon the fishery questions as regarded both
Greenland and Scotland, and upon the general affairs of India.

He was convinced, he said to Caron, that the sea had become more and more
unsafe and so full of freebooters that the like was never seen or heard
of before. It will be remembered that the Advocate had recently called
his attention to the fact that the Dutch merchants had lost in two months
800,000 florins' worth of goods by English pirates.

The King now assured the Ambassador of his intention of equipping a fleet
out of hand and to send it forth as speedily as possible under command of
a distinguished nobleman, who would put his honour and credit in a
successful expedition, without any connivance or dissimulation whatever.
In order thoroughly to scour these pirates from the seas, he expressed
the hope that their Mightinesses the States would do the same either
jointly or separately as they thought most advisable. Caron bluntly
replied that the States had already ten or twelve war-ships at sea for
this purpose, but that unfortunately, instead of finding any help from
the English in this regard, they had always found the pirates favoured in
his Majesty's ports, especially in Ireland and Wales.

"Thus they have so increased in numbers," continued the Ambassador, "that
I quite believe what your Majesty says, that not a ship can pass with
safety over the seas. More over, your Majesty has been graciously pleased
to pardon several of these corsairs, in consequence of which they have
become so impudent as to swarm everywhere, even in the river Thames,
where they are perpetually pillaging honest merchantmen."

"I confess," said the King, "to having pardoned a certain Manning, but
this was for the sake of his old father, and I never did anything so
unwillingly in my life. But I swear that if it were the best nobleman in
England, I would never grant one of them a pardon again."

Caron expressed his joy at hearing such good intentions on the part of
his Majesty, and assured him that the States-General would be equally
delighted.

In the course of the summer the Dutch ambassador had many opportunities
of seeing the King very confidentially, James having given him the use of
the royal park at Bayscot, so that during the royal visits to that place
Caron was lodged under his roof.

On the whole, James had much regard and respect for Noel de Caron. He
knew him to be able, although he thought him tiresome. It is amusing to
observe the King and Ambassador in their utterances to confidential
friends each frequently making the charge of tediousness against the
other. "Caron's general education," said James on one occasion to Cecil,
"cannot amend his native German prolixity, for had I not interrupted him,
it had been tomorrow morning before I had begun to speak. God preserve me
from hearing a cause debated between Don Diego and him! . . . But in
truth it is good dealing with so wise and honest a man, although he be
somewhat longsome."

Subsequently James came to Whitehall for a time, and then stopped at
Theobalds for a few days on his way to Newmarket, where he stayed until
Christmas. At Theobalds he sent again for the Ambassador, saying that at
Whitehall he was so broken down with affairs that it would be impossible
to live if he stayed there.

He asked if the States were soon to send the commissioners, according to
his request, to confer in regard to the cloth-trade. Without interference
of the two governments, he said, the matter would never be settled. The
merchants of the two countries would never agree except under higher
authority.

"I have heard both parties," he said, "the new and the old companies, two
or three times in full council, and tried to bring them to an agreement,
but it won't do. I have heard that My Lords the States have been hearing
both sides, English and the Hollanders, over and over again, and that the
States have passed a provisional resolution, which however does not suit
us. Now it is not reasonable, as we are allies, that our merchants should
be obliged to send their cloths roundabout, not being allowed either to
sell them in the United Provinces or to pass them through your
territories. I wish I could talk with them myself, for I am certain, if
they would send some one here, we could make an agreement. It is not
necessary that one should take everything from them, or that one should
refuse everything to us. I am sure there are people of sense in your
assembly who will justify me in favouring my own people so far as I
reasonably can, and I know very well that My Lords the States must stand
up for their own citizens. If we have been driving this matter to an
extreme and see that we are ruining each other, we must take it up again
in other fashion, for Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow. Let the
commissioners come as soon as possible. I know they have complaints to
make, and I have my complaints also. Therefore we must listen to each
other, for I protest before God that I consider the community of your
state with mine to be so entire that, if one goes to perdition, the other
must quickly follow it."

Thus spoke James, like a wise and thoughtful sovereign interested in the
welfare of his subjects and allies, with enlightened ideas for the time
upon public economy. It is difficult, in the man conversing thus amicably
and sensibly with the Dutch ambassador, to realise the shrill pedant
shrieking against Vorstius, the crapulous comrade of Carrs and Steenies,
the fawning solicitor of Spanish marriages, the "pepperer" and hangman of
Puritans, the butt and dupe of Gondemar and Spinola.

"I protest," he said further, "that I seek nothing in your state but all
possible friendship and good fellowship. My own subjects complain
sometimes that your people follow too closely on their heels, and confess
that your industry goes far above their own. If this be so, it is a lean
kind of reproach; for the English should rather study to follow you.
Nevertheless, when industry is directed by malice, each may easily be
attempting to snap an advantage from the other. I have sometimes
complained of many other things in which my subjects suffered great
injustice from you, but all that is excusable. I will willingly listen to
your people and grant them to be in the right when they are so. But I
will never allow them to be in the right when they mistrust me. If I had
been like many other princes, I should never have let the advantage of
the cautionary towns slip out of my fingers, but rather by means of them
attempted to get even a stronger hold on your country. I have had plenty
of warnings from great statesmen in France, Germany, and other nations
that I ought to give them up nevermore. Yet you know how frankly and
sincerely I acquitted myself in that matter without ever making
pretensions upon your state than the pretensions I still make to your
friendship and co-operation."

James, after this allusion to an important transaction to be explained in
the next chapter, then made an observation or two on a subject which was
rapidly overtopping all others in importance to the States, and his
expressions were singularly at variance with his last utterances in that
regard. "I tell you," he said, "that you have no right to mistrust me in
anything, not even in the matter of religion. I grieve indeed to hear
that your religious troubles continue. You know that in the beginning I
occupied myself with this affair, but fearing that my course might be
misunderstood, and that it might be supposed that I was seeking to
exercise authority in your republic, I gave it up, and I will never
interfere with the matter again, but will ever pray God that he may give
you a happy issue out of these troubles."

Alas! if the King had always kept himself on that height of amiable
neutrality, if he had been able to govern himself in the future by these
simplest principles of reason and justice, there might have been perhaps
a happier issue from the troubles than time was like to reveal.

Once more James referred to the crisis pending in German affairs, and as
usual spoke of the Clove and Julich question as if it were a simple
matter to be settled by a few strokes of the pen and a pennyworth of
sealing-wax, instead of being the opening act in a vast tragedy, of which
neither he, nor Carom nor Barneveld, nor Prince Maurice, nor the youthful
king of France, nor Philip, nor Matthias, nor any of the men now foremost
in the conduct of affairs, was destined to see the end.

The King informed Caron that he had just received most satisfactory
assurances from the Spanish ambassador in his last audience at Whitehall.

"He has announced to me on the part of the King his master with great
compliments that his Majesty seeks to please me and satisfy me in
everything that I could possibly desire of him," said James, rolling over
with satisfaction these unctuous phrases as if they really had any
meaning whatever.

"His Majesty says further," added the King, "that as he has been at
various times admonished by me, and is daily admonished by other princes,
that he ought to execute the treaty of Xanten by surrendering the city of
Wesel and all other places occupied by Spinola, he now declares himself
ready to carry out that treaty in every point. He will accordingly
instruct the Archduke to do this, provided the Margrave of Brandenburg
and the States will do the same in regard to their captured places. As he
understands however that the States have been fortifying Julich even as
he might fortify Wesel, he would be glad that no innovation be made
before the end of the coming month of March. When this term shall have
expired, he will no longer be bound by these offers, but will proceed to
fortify Wesel and the other places, and to hold them as he best may for
himself. Respect for me has alone induced his Majesty to make this
resolution."

We have already seen that the Spanish ambassador in Paris was at this
very time loudly declaring that his colleague in London had no commission
whatever to make these propositions. Nor when they were in the slightest
degree analysed, did they appear after all to be much better than
threats. Not a word was said of guarantees. The names of the two kings
were not mentioned. It was nothing but Albert and Spinola then as always,
and a recommendation that Brandenburg and the States and all the
Protestant princes of Germany should trust to the candour of the Catholic
League. Caron pointed out to the King that in these proposals there were
no guarantees nor even promises that the fortresses would not be
reoccupied at convenience of the Spaniards. He engaged however to report
the whole statement to his masters. A few weeks afterwards the Advocate
replied in his usual vein, reminding the King through the Ambassador that
the Republic feared fraud on the part of the League much more than force.
He also laid stress on the affairs of Italy, considering the fate of
Savoy and the conflicts in which Venice was engaged as components of a
general scheme. The States had been much solicited, as we have seen, to
render assistance to the Duke of Savoy, the temporary peace of Asti being
already broken, and Barneveld had been unceasing in his efforts to arouse
France as well as England to the danger to themselves and to all
Christendom should Savoy be crushed. We shall have occasion to see the
prominent part reserved to Savoy in the fast opening debate in Germany.
Meantime the States had sent one Count of Nassau with a couple of
companies to Charles Emmanuel, while another (Ernest) had just gone to
Venice at the head of more than three thousand adventurers. With so many
powerful armies at their throats, as Barneveld had more than once
observed, it was not easy for them to despatch large forces to the other
end of Europe, but he justly reminded his allies that the States were now
rendering more effective help to the common cause by holding great
Spanish armies in check on their own frontier than if they assumed a more
aggressive line in the south. The Advocate, like every statesman worthy
of the name, was accustomed to sweep the whole horizon in his
consideration of public policy, and it will be observed that he always
regarded various and apparently distinct and isolated movements in
different parts of Europe as parts of one great whole. It is easy enough
for us, centuries after the record has been made up, to observe the
gradual and, as it were, harmonious manner in which the great Catholic
conspiracy against the liberties of Europe was unfolded in an ever
widening sphere. But to the eyes of contemporaries all was then misty and
chaotic, and it required the keen vision of a sage and a prophet to
discern the awful shape which the future might assume. Absorbed in the
contemplation of these portentous phenomena, it was not unnatural that
the Advocate should attach less significance to perturbations nearer
home. Devoted as was his life to save the great European cause of
Protestantism, in which he considered political and religious liberty
bound up, from the absolute extinction with which it was menaced, he
neglected too much the furious hatreds growing up among Protestants
within the narrow limits of his own province. He was destined one day to
be rudely awakened. Meantime he was occupied with organizing a general
defence of Italy, Germany, France, and England, as well as the
Netherlands, against the designs of Spain and the League.

"We wish to know," he said in answer to the affectionate messages and
fine promises of the King of Spain to James as reported by Caron, "what
his Majesty of Great Britain has done, is doing, and is resolved to do
for the Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice. If they ask you what we
are doing, answer that we with our forces and vigour are keeping off from
the throats of Savoy and Venice 2000 riders and 10,000 infantry, with
which forces, let alone their experience, more would be accomplished than
with four times the number of new troops brought to the field in Italy.
This is our succour, a great one and a very costly one, for the expense
of maintaining our armies to hold the enemy in check here is very great."

He alluded with his usual respectful and quiet scorn to the arrangements
by which James so wilfully allowed himself to be deceived.

"If the Spaniard really leaves the duchies," he said, "it is a grave
matter to decide whether on the one side he is not resolved by that means
to win more over us and the Elector of Brandenburg in the debateable land
in a few days than he could gain by force in many years, or on the other
whether by it he does not intend despatching 1200 or 1500 cavalry and
5000 or 6000 foot, all his most experienced soldiers, from the
Netherlands to Italy, in order to give the law at his pleasure to the
Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice, reserving his attack upon
Germany and ourselves to the last. The Spaniards, standing under a
monarchical government, can in one hour resolve to seize to-morrow all
that they and we may abandon to-day. And they can carry such a resolution
into effect at once. Our form of government does not permit this, so that
our republic must be conserved by distrust and good garrisons."

Thus during this long period of half hostilities Barneveld, while
sincerely seeking to preserve the peace in Europe, was determined, if
possible, that the Republic should maintain the strongest defensive
position when the war which he foreboded should actually begin. Maurice
and the war party had blamed him for the obstacles which he interposed to
the outbreak of hostilities, while the British court, as we have seen,
was perpetually urging him to abate from his demands and abandon both the
well strengthened fortresses in the duchies and that strong citadel of
distrust which in his often repeated language he was determined never to
surrender. Spinola and the military party of Spain, while preaching
peace, had been in truth most anxious for fighting. "The only honour I
desire henceforth," said that great commander, "is to give battle to
Prince Maurice." The generals were more anxious than the governments to
make use of the splendid armies arrayed against each other in such
proximity that, the signal for conflict not having been given, it was not
uncommon for the soldiers of the respective camps to aid each other in
unloading munition waggons, exchanging provisions and other articles of
necessity, and performing other small acts of mutual service.

But heavy thunder clouds hanging over the earth so long and so closely
might burst into explosion at any moment. Had it not been for the
distracted condition of France, the infatuation of the English king, and
the astounding inertness of the princes of the German Union, great
advantages might have been gained by the Protestant party before the
storm should break. But, as the French ambassador at the Hague well
observed, "the great Protestant Union of Germany sat with folded arms
while Hannibal was at their gate, the princes of which it was composed
amusing themselves with staring at each other. It was verifying," he
continued, bitterly, "the saying of the Duke of Alva, 'Germany is an old
dog which still can bark, but has lost its teeth to bite with.'"

To such imbecility had that noble and gifted people--which had never been
organized into a nation since it crushed the Roman empire and established
a new civilization on its ruins, and was to wait centuries longer until
it should reconstruct itself into a whole--been reduced by subdivision,
disintegration, the perpetual dissolvent of religious dispute, and the
selfish policy of infinitesimal dynasties.




CHAPTER XII.

   James still presses for the Payment of the Dutch Republic's Debt to
   him--A Compromise effected, with Restitution of the Cautionary
   Towns--Treaty of Loudun--James's Dream of a Spanish Marriage
   revives--James visits Scotland--The States-General agree to furnish
   Money and Troops in fulfilment of the Treaty of 1609--Death of
   Concini--Villeroy returns to Power.

Besides matters of predestination there were other subjects political and
personal which increased the King's jealousy and hatred. The debt of the
Republic to the British crown, secured by mortgage of the important
sea-ports and fortified towns of Flushing, Brielle, Rammekens, and other
strong places, still existed. The possession of those places by England
was a constant danger and irritation to the States. It was an axe
perpetually held over their heads. It threatened their sovereignty, their
very existence. On more than one occasion, in foreign courts, the
representatives of the Netherlands had been exposed to the taunt that the
Republic was after all not an independent power, but a British province.
The gibe had always been repelled in a manner becoming the envoys of a
proud commonwealth; yet it was sufficiently galling that English
garrisons should continue to hold Dutch towns; one of them among the most
valuable seaports of the Republic,--the other the very cradle of its
independence, the seizure of which in Alva's days had always been
reckoned a splendid achievement. Moreover, by the fifth article of the
treaty of peace between James and Philip III., although the King had
declared himself bound by the treaties made by Elizabeth to deliver up
the cautionary towns to no one but the United States, he promised Spain
to allow those States a reasonable time to make peace with the Archdukes
on satisfactory conditions. Should they refuse to do so, he held himself
bound by no obligations to them, and would deal with the cities as he
thought proper, and as the Archdukes themselves might deem just.

The King had always been furious at "the huge sum of money to be
advanced, nay, given, to the States," as he phrased it. "It is so far out
of all square," he had said, "as on my conscience I cannot think that
ever they craved it 'animo obtinendi,' but only by that objection to
discourage me from any thought of getting any repayment of my debts from
them when they shall be in peace. . . . Should I ruin myself for
maintaining them? Should I bestow as much on them as cometh to the value
of my whole yearly rent?" He had proceeded to say very plainly that, if
the States did not make great speed to pay him all his debt so soon as
peace was established, he should treat their pretence at independence
with contempt, and propose dividing their territory between himself and
the King of France.

"If they be so weak as they cannot subsist either in peace or war," he
said, "without I ruin myself for upholding them, in that case surely
'minus malunv est eligendum,' the nearest harm is first to be eschewed, a
man will leap out of a burning ship and drown himself in the sea; and it
is doubtless a farther off harm for me to suffer them to fall again in
the hands of Spain, and let God provide for the danger that may with time
fall upon me or my posterity than presently to starve myself and mine
with putting the meat in their mouth. Nay, rather if they be so weak as
they can neither sustain themselves in peace nor war, let them leave this
vainglorious thirsting for the title of a free state (which no people are
worthy or able to enjoy that cannot stand by themselves like
substantives), and 'dividantur inter nos;' I mean, let their countries be
divided between France and me, otherwise the King of Spain shall be sure
to consume us."

Such were the eyes with which James had always regarded the great
commonwealth of which he affected to be the ally, while secretly aspiring
to be its sovereign, and such was his capacity to calculate political
forces and comprehend coming events.

Certainly the sword was hanging by a thread. The States had made no peace
either with the Archdukes or with Spain. They had made a truce, half the
term of which had already run by. At any moment the keys of their very
house-door might be placed in the hands of their arch enemy. Treacherous
and base as the deed would be, it might be defended by the letter of a
treaty in which the Republic had no part; and was there anything too
treacherous or too base to be dreaded from James Stuart?

But the States owed the crown of England eight millions of florins,
equivalent to about L750,000. Where was this vast sum to be found? It was
clearly impossible for the States to beg or to borrow it, although they
were nearly as rich as any of the leading powers at that day.

It was the merit of Barneveld, not only that he saw the chance for a good
bargain, but that he fully comprehended a great danger. Years long James
had pursued the phantom of a Spanish marriage for his son. To achieve
this mighty object, he had perverted the whole policy of the realm; he
had grovelled to those who despised him, had repaid attempts at wholesale
assassination with boundless sycophancy. It is difficult to imagine
anything more abject than the attitude of James towards Philip. Prince
Henry was dead, but Charles had now become Prince of Wales in his turn,
and there was a younger infanta whose hand was not yet disposed of.

So long as the possible prize of a Most Catholic princess was dangling
before the eyes of the royal champion of Protestantism, so long there was
danger that the Netherlanders might wake up some fine morning and see the
flag of Spain waving over the walls of Flushing, Brielle, and Rammekens.

It was in the interest of Spain too that the envoys of James at the Hague
were perpetually goading Barneveld to cause the States' troops to be
withdrawn from the duchies and the illusory treaty of Xanten to be
executed. Instead of an eighth province added to the free Netherlands,
the result of such a procedure would have been to place that territory
enveloping them in the hands of the enemy; to strengthen and sharpen the
claws, as the Advocate had called them, by which Spain was seeking to
clutch and to destroy the Republic.

The Advocate steadily refused to countenance such policy in the duchies,
and he resolved on a sudden stroke to relieve the Commonwealth from the
incubus of the English mortgage.

James was desperately pushed for money. His minions, as insatiable in
their demands on English wealth as the parasites who fed on the
Queen-Regent were exhaustive of the French exchequer, were greedier than
ever now that James, who feared to face a parliament disgusted with the
meanness of his policy and depravity of his life, could not be relied
upon to minister to their wants.

The Advocate judiciously contrived that the proposal of a compromise
should come from the English government. Noel de Caron, the veteran
ambassador of the States in London, after receiving certain proposals,
offered, under instructions' from Barneveld, to pay L250,000 in full of
all demands. It was made to appear that the additional L250,000 was in
reality in advance of his instructions. The mouths of the minions watered
at the mention of so magnificent a sum of money in one lump.

The bargain was struck. On the 11th June 1616, Sir Robert Sidney, who had
become Lord Lisle, gave over the city of Flushing to the States,
represented by the Seignior van Maldere, while Sir Horace Vere placed the
important town of Brielle in the hands of the Seignior van Mathenesse.
According to the terms of the bargain, the English garrisons were
converted into two regiments, respectively to be commanded by Lord
Lisle's son, now Sir Robert Sidney, and by Sir Horace Vere, and were to
serve the States. Lisle, who had been in the Netherlands since the days
of his uncle Leicester and his brother Sir Philip Sidney, now took his
final departure for England.

Thus this ancient burthen had been taken off the Republic by the masterly
policy of the Advocate. A great source of dread for foreign complication
was closed for ever.

The French-Spanish marriages had been made. Henry IV. had not been
murdered in vain. Conde and his confederates had issued their manifesto.
A crisis came to the States, for Maurice, always inclined to take part
for the princes, and urged on by Aerssens, who was inspired by a deadly
hatred for the French government ever since they had insisted on his
dismissal from his post, and who fed the Stadholder's growing jealousy of
the Advocate to the full, was at times almost ready for joining in the
conflict. It was most difficult for the States-General, led by Barneveld,
to maintain relations of amity with a government controlled by Spain,
governed by the Concini's, and wafted to and fro by every wind that blew.
Still it was the government, and the States might soon be called upon, in
virtue of their treaties with Henry, confirmed by Mary de' Medici, not
only to prevent the daily desertion of officers and soldiers of the
French regiments to the rebellious party, but to send the regiments
themselves to the assistance of the King and Queen.

There could be no doubt that the alliance of the French Huguenots at
Grenoble with the princes made the position of the States very critical.
Bouillon was loud in his demands upon Maurice and the States for money
and reinforcements, but the Prince fortunately understood the character
of the Duke and of Conde, and comprehended the nature of French politics
too clearly to be led into extremities by passion or by pique. He said
loudly to any one that chose to listen:

"It is not necessary to ruin the son in order to avenge the death of the
father. That should be left to the son, who alone has legitimate
authority to do it." Nothing could be more sensible, and the remark
almost indicated a belief on the Prince's part in Mary's complicity in
the murder of her husband. Duplessis-Mornay was in despair, and, like all
true patriots and men of earnest character, felt it almost an
impossibility to choose between the two ignoble parties contending for
the possession of France, and both secretly encouraged by France's deadly
enemy.

The Treaty of Loudun followed, a treaty which, said du Maurier, had about
as many negotiators as there were individuals interested in the
arrangements. The rebels were forgiven, Conde sold himself out for a
million and a half livres and the presidency of the council, came to
court, and paraded himself in greater pomp and appearance of power than
ever. Four months afterwards he was arrested and imprisoned. He submitted
like a lamb, and offered to betray his confederates.

King James, faithful to his self-imposed part of mediator-general, which
he thought so well became him, had been busy in bringing about this
pacification, and had considered it eminently successful. He was now
angry at this unexpected result. He admitted that Conde had indulged in
certain follies and extravagancies, but these in his opinion all came out
of the quiver of the Spaniard, "who was the head of the whole intrigue."
He determined to recall Lord Hayes from Madrid and even Sir Thomas
Edmonds from Paris, so great was his indignation. But his wrath was
likely to cool under the soothing communications of Gondemar, and the
rumour of the marriage of the second infanta with the Prince of Wales
soon afterwards started into new life. "We hope," wrote Barneveld, "that
the alliance of his Highness the Prince of Wales with the daughter of the
Spanish king will make no further progress, as it will place us in the
deepest embarrassment and pain."

For the reports had been so rife at the English court in regard to this
dangerous scheme that Caron had stoutly gone to the King and asked him
what he was to think about it. "The King told me," said the Ambassador,
"that there was nothing at all in it, nor any appearance that anything
ever would come of it. It was true, he said, that on the overtures made
to him by the Spanish ambassador he had ordered his minister in Spain to
listen to what they had to say, and not to bear himself as if the
overtures would be rejected."

The coyness thus affected by James could hardly impose on so astute a
diplomatist as Noel de Caron, and the effect produced upon the policy of
one of the Republic's chief allies by the Spanish marriages naturally
made her statesmen shudder at the prospect of their other powerful friend
coming thus under the malign influence of Spain.

"He assured me, however," said the Envoy, "that the Spaniard is not
sincere in the matter, and that he has himself become so far alienated
from the scheme that we may sleep quietly upon it." And James appeared at
that moment so vexed at the turn affairs were taking in France, so
wounded in his self-love, and so bewildered by the ubiquitous nature of
nets and pitfalls spreading over Europe by Spain, that he really seemed
waking from his delusion. Even Caron was staggered? "In all his talk he
appears so far estranged from the Spaniard," said he, "that it would seem
impossible that he should consider this marriage as good for his state. I
have also had other advices on the subject which in the highest degree
comfort me. Now your Mightinesses may think whatever you like about it."

The mood of the King was not likely to last long in so comfortable a
state. Meantime he took the part of Conde and the other princes,
justified their proceedings to the special envoy sent over by Mary de'
Medici, and wished the States to join with him in appealing to that Queen
to let the affair, for his sake, pass over once more.

"And now I will tell your Mightinesses," said Caron, reverting once more
to the dreaded marriage which occupies so conspicuous a place in the
strangely mingled and party-coloured tissue of the history of those days,
"what the King has again been telling me about the alliance between his
son and the Infanta. He hears from Carleton that you are in very great
alarm lest this event may take place. He understands that the special
French envoy at the Hague, M. de la None, has been representing to you
that the King of Great Britain is following after and begging for the
daughter of Spain for his son. He says it is untrue. But it is true that
he has been sought and solicited thereto, and that in consequence there
have been talks and propositions and rejoinders, but nothing of any
moment. As he had already told me not to be alarmed until he should
himself give me cause for it, he expressed his amazement that I had not
informed your Mightinesses accordingly. He assured me again that he
should not proceed further in the business without communicating it to
his good friends and neighbours, that he considered My Lords the States
as his best friends and allies, who ought therefore to conceive no
jealousy in the matter."

This certainly was cold comfort. Caron knew well enough, not a clerk in
his office but knew well enough, that James had been pursuing this prize
for years. For the King to represent himself as persecuted by Spain to
give his son to the Infanta was about as ridiculous as it would have been
to pretend that Emperor Matthias was persuading him to let his son-in-law
accept the crown of Bohemia. It was admitted that negotiations for the
marriage were going on, and the assertion that the Spanish court was more
eager for it than the English government was not especially calculated to
allay the necessary alarm of the States at such a disaster. Nor was it
much more tranquillizing for them to be assured, not that the marriage
was off, but that, when it was settled, they, as the King's good friends
and neighbours, should have early information of it.

"I told him," said the Ambassador, "that undoubtedly this matter was of
the highest 'importance to your Mightinesses, for it was not good for us
to sit between two kingdoms both so nearly allied with the Spanish
monarch, considering the pretensions he still maintained to sovereignty
over us. Although his Majesty might not now be willing to treat to our
prejudice, yet the affair itself in the sequence of time must of
necessity injure our commonwealth. We hoped therefore that it would never
come to pass."

Caron added that Ambassador Digby was just going to Spain on
extraordinary mission in regard to this affair, and that eight or ten
gentlemen of the council had been deputed to confer with his Majesty
about it. He was still inclined to believe that the whole negotiation
would blow over, the King continuing to exhort him not to be alarmed, and
assuring him that there were many occasions moving princes to treat of
great affairs although often without any effective issue.

At that moment too the King was in a state of vehement wrath with the
Spanish Netherlands on account of a stinging libel against himself, "an
infamous and wonderfully scandalous pamphlet," as he termed it, called
'Corona Regis', recently published at Louvain. He had sent Sir John
Bennet as special ambassador to the Archdukes to demand from them justice
and condign and public chastisement on the author of the work--a rector
Putianus as he believed, successor of Justus Lipsius in his professorship
at Louvain--and upon the printer, one Flaminius. Delays and excuses
having followed instead of the punishment originally demanded, James had
now instructed his special envoy in case of further delay or evasion to
repudiate all further friendship or intercourse with the Archduke, to
ratify the recall of his minister-resident Trumbull, and in effect to
announce formal hostilities.

"The King takes the thing wonderfully to heart," said Caron.

James in effect hated to be made ridiculous, and we shall have occasion
to see how important a part other publications which he deemed
detrimental to the divinity of his person were to play in these affairs.

Meantime it was characteristic of this sovereign that--while ready to
talk of war with Philip's brother-in-law for a pamphlet, while seeking
the hand of Philip's daughter for his son--he was determined at the very
moment when the world was on fire to take himself, the heaven-born
extinguisher of all political conflagrations, away from affairs and to
seek the solace of along holiday in Scotland. His counsellors
persistently and vehemently implored him to defer that journey until the
following year at least, all the neighbouring nations being now in a
state of war and civil commotion. But it was in vain. He refused to
listen to them for a moment, and started for Scotland before the middle
of March.

Conde, who had kept France in a turmoil, had sought aid alternately from
the Calvinists at Grenoble and the Jesuits in Rome, from Spain and from
the Netherlands, from the Pope and from Maurice of Nassau, had thus been
caged at last. But there was little gained. There was one troublesome but
incompetent rebel the less, but there was no king in the land. He who
doubts the influence of the individual upon the fate of a country and
upon his times through long passages of history may explain the
difference between France of 1609, with a martial king aided by great
statesmen at its head, with an exchequer overflowing with revenue hoarded
for a great cause--and that cause an attempt at least to pacificate
Christendom and avert a universal and almost infinite conflict now
already opening--and the France of 1617, with its treasures already
squandered among ignoble and ruffianly favourites, with every office in
state, church, court, and magistracy sold to the highest bidder, with a
queen governed by an Italian adventurer who was governed by Spain, and
with a little king who had but lately expressed triumph at his
confirmation because now he should no longer be whipped, and who was just
married to a daughter of the hereditary and inevitable foe of France.

To contemplate this dreary interlude in the history of a powerful state
is to shiver at the depths of inanity and crime to which mankind can at
once descend. What need to pursue the barren, vulgar, and often repeated
chronicle? France pulled at by scarcely concealed strings and made to
perform fantastic tricks according as its various puppets were swerved
this way or that by supple bands at Madrid and Rome is not a refreshing
spectacle. The States-General at last, after an agitated discussion,
agreed in fulfilment of the treaty of 1609 to send 4000 men, 2000 being
French, to help the King against the princes still in rebellion. But the
contest was a most bitter one, and the Advocate had a difficult part to
play between a government and a rebellion, each more despicable than the
other. Still Louis XIII. and his mother were the legitimate government
even if ruled by Concini. The words of the treaty made with Henry IV.
were plain, and the ambassadors of his son had summoned the States to
fulfil it. But many impediments were placed in the path of obvious duty
by the party led by Francis Aerssens.

"I know very well," said the Advocate to ex-Burgomaster Hooft of
Amsterdam, father of the great historian, sending him confidentially a
copy of the proposals made by the French ambassadors, "that many in this
country are striving hard to make us refuse to the King the aid demanded,
notwithstanding that we are bound to do it by the pledges given not only
by the States-General but by each province in particular. By this no one
will profit but the Spaniard, who unquestionably will offer much, aye,
very much, to bring about dissensions between France and us, from which I
foresee great damage, inconvenience, and difficulties for the whole
commonwealth and for Holland especially. This province has already
advanced 1,000,000 florins to the general government on the money still
due from France, which will all be lost in case the subsidy should be
withheld, besides other evils which cannot be trusted to the pen."

On the same day on which it had been decided at the Hague to send the
troops, a captain of guards came to the aid of the poor little king and
shot Concini dead one fine spring morning on the bridge of the Louvre.
"By order of the King," said Vitry. His body was burned before the statue
of Henry IV. by the people delirious with joy. "L'hanno ammazzato" was
shouted to his wife, Eleanora Galigai, the supposed sorceress. They were
the words in which Concini had communicated to the Queen the murder of
her husband seven years before. Eleanora, too, was burned after having
been beheaded. Thus the Marshal d'Ancre and wife ceased to reign in
France.

The officers of the French regiments at the Hague danced for joy on the
Vyverberg when the news arrived there. The States were relieved from an
immense embarrassment, and the Advocate was rewarded for having pursued
what was after all the only practicable policy. "Do your best," said he
to Langerac, "to accommodate differences so far as consistent with the
conservation of the King's authority. We hope the princes will submit
themselves now that the 'lapis offensionis,' according to their pretence,
is got rid of. We received a letter from them to-day sealed with the
King's arms, with the circumscription 'Periclitante Regno, Regis vita et
Regia familia."

The shooting of Concini seemed almost to convert the little king into a
hero. Everyone in the Netherlands, without distinction of party, was
delighted with the achievement. "I cannot represent to the King," wrote
du Maurier to Villeroy, "one thousandth part of the joy of all these
people who are exalting him to heaven for having delivered the earth from
this miserable burthen. I can't tell you in what execration this public
pest was held. His Majesty has not less won the hearts of this state than
if he had gained a great victory over the Spaniards. You would not
believe it, and yet it is true, that never were the name and reputation
of the late king in greater reverence than those of our reigning king at
this moment."

Truly here was glory cheaply earned. The fame of Henry the Great, after a
long career of brilliant deeds of arms, high statesmanship, and twenty
years of bountiful friendship for the States, was already equalled by
that of Louis XIII., who had tremblingly acquiesced in the summary
execution of an odious adventurer--his own possible father--and who never
had done anything else but feed his canary birds.

As for Villeroy himself, the Ambassador wrote that he could not find
portraits enough of him to furnish those who were asking for them since
his return to power.

Barneveld had been right in so often instructing Langerac to "caress the
old gentleman."

     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

     And give advice. Of that, although always a spendthrift
     Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
     Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
     Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
     Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
     Denoungced as an obstacle to peace
     France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
     Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
     History has not too many really important and emblematic men
     I hope and I fear
     King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
     Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
     More apprehension of fraud than of force
     Opening an abyss between government and people
     Successful in this step, he is ready for greater ones
     That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice
     The magnitude of this wonderful sovereign's littleness
     This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination
     Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome
     Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow




CHAPTER XIII. 1617

   Ferdinand of Gratz crowned King of Bohemia--His Enmity to
   Protestants--Slawata and Martinitz thrown from the Windows of the
   Hradschin--Real Beginning of the Thirty Years' War--The Elector-
   Palatine's Intrigues in Opposition to the House of Austria--He
   supports the Duke of Savoy--The Emperor Matthias visits Dresden--
   Jubilee for the Hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation.

When the forlorn emperor Rudolph had signed the permission for his
brother Matthias to take the last crown but one from his head, he bit the
pen in a paroxysm of helpless rage. Then rushing to the window of his
apartment, he looked down on one of the most stately prospects that the
palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural
lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial
situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering
behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the
rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with
the half imaginary fortress-palaces of the Wyscherad. There, in the
mythical legendary past of Bohemia had dwelt the shadowy Libuscha,
daughter of Krok, wife of King Premysl, foundress of Prague, who, when
wearied of her lovers, was accustomed to toss them from those heights
into the river. Between these picturesque precipices lay the two Pragues,
twin-born and quarrelsome, fighting each other for centuries, and growing
up side by side into a double, bellicose, stormy, and most splendid city,
bristling with steeples and spires, and united by the ancient
many-statued bridge with its blackened mediaeval entrance towers.

But it was not to enjoy the prospect that the aged, discrowned, solitary
emperor, almost as dim a figure among sovereigns as the mystic Libuscha
herself, was gazing from the window upon the imperial city.

"Ungrateful Prague," he cried, "through me thou hast become thus
magnificent, and now thou hast turned upon and driven away thy
benefactor. May the vengeance of God descend upon thee; may my curse come
upon thee and upon all Bohemia."

History has failed to record the special benefits of the Emperor through
which the city had derived its magnificence and deserved this
malediction. But surely if ever an old man's curse was destined to be
literally fulfilled, it seemed to be this solemn imprecation of Rudolph.
Meantime the coronation of Matthias had gone on with pomp and popular
gratulations, while Rudolph had withdrawn into his apartments to pass the
little that was left to him of life in solitude and in a state of
hopeless pique with Matthias, with the rest of his brethren, with all the
world.

And now that five years had passed since his death, Matthias, who had
usurped so much power prematurely, found himself almost in the same
condition as that to which he had reduced Rudolph.

Ferdinand of Styria, his cousin, trod closely upon his heels. He was the
presumptive successor to all his crowns, had not approved of the
movements of Matthias in the lifetime of his brother, and hated the
Vienna Protestant baker's son, Cardinal Clesel, by whom all those
movements had been directed. Professor Taubmann, of Wittenberg,
ponderously quibbling on the name of that prelate, had said that he was
of "one hundred and fifty ass power." Whether that was a fair measure of
his capacity may be doubted, but it certainly was not destined to be
sufficient to elude the vengeance of Ferdinand, and Ferdinand would soon
have him in his power.

Matthias, weary of ambitious intrigue, infirm of purpose, and shattered
in health, had withdrawn from affairs to devote himself to his gout and
to his fair young wife, Archduchess Anna of Tyrol, whom at the age of
fifty-four he had espoused.

On the 29th June 1617, Ferdinand of Gratz was crowned King of Bohemia.
The event was a shock and a menace to the Protestant cause all over the
world. The sombre figure of the Archduke had for years appeared in the
background, foreshadowing as it were the wrath to come, while throughout
Bohemia and the neighbouring countries of Moravia, Silesia, and the
Austrias, the cause of Protestantism had been making such rapid progress.
The Emperor Maximilian II. had left five stalwart sons, so that there had
seemed little probability that the younger line, the sons of his brother,
would succeed. But all the five were childless, and now the son of
Archduke Charles, who had died in 1590, had become the natural heir after
the death of Matthias to the immense family honours--his cousins
Maximilian and Albert having resigned their claims in his favour.

Ferdinand, twelve years old at his father's death, had been placed under
the care of his maternal uncle, Duke William of Bavaria. By him the boy
was placed at the high school of Ingolstadt, to be brought up by the
Jesuits, in company with Duke William's own son Maximilian, five years
his senior. Between these youths, besides the tie of cousinship, there
grew up the most intimate union founded on perfect sympathy in religion
and politics.

When Ferdinand entered upon the government of his paternal estates of
Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, he found that the new religion, at which
the Jesuits had taught him to shudder as at a curse and a crime, had been
widely spreading. His father had fought against heresy with all his
might, and had died disappointed and broken-hearted at its progress. His
uncle of Bavaria, in letters to his son and nephew, had stamped into
their minds with the enthusiasm of perfect conviction that all happiness
and blessing for governments depended on the restoration and maintenance
of the unity of the Catholic faith. All the evils in times past and
present resulting from religious differences had been held up to the two
youths by the Jesuits in the most glaring colours. The first duty of a
prince, they had inculcated, was to extirpate all false religions, to
give the opponents of the true church no quarter, and to think no
sacrifice too great by which the salvation of human society, brought
almost to perdition by the new doctrines, could be effected.

Never had Jesuits an apter scholar than Ferdinand. After leaving school,
he made a pilgrimage to Loretto to make his vows to the Virgin Mary of
extirpation of heresy, and went to Rome to obtain the blessing of Pope
Clement VIII.

Then, returning to the government of his inheritance, he seized that
terrible two-edged weapon of which the Protestants of Germany had taught
him the use.

"Cujus regio ejus religio;" to the prince the choice of religion, to the
subject conformity with the prince, as if that formula of shallow and
selfish princelings, that insult to the dignity of mankind, were the
grand result of a movement which was to go on centuries after they had
all been forgotten in their tombs. For the time however it was a valid
and mischievous maxim. In Saxony Catholics and Calvinists were
proscribed; in Heidelberg Catholics and Lutherans. Why should either
Calvinists or Lutherans be tolerated in Styria? Why, indeed? No logic
could be more inexorable, and the pupil of the Ingolstadt Jesuits
hesitated not an instant to carry out their teaching with the very
instrument forged for him by the Reformation. Gallows were erected in the
streets of all his cities, but there was no hanging. The sight of them
proved enough to extort obedience to his edict, that every man, woman,
and child not belonging to the ancient church should leave his dominions.
They were driven out in hordes in broad daylight from Gratz and other
cities. Rather reign over a wilderness than over heretics was the device
of the Archduke, in imitation of his great relative, Philip II. of Spain.
In short space of time his duchies were as empty of Protestants as the
Palatinate of Lutherans, or Saxony of Calvinists, or both of Papists.
Even the churchyards were rifled of dead Lutherans and Utraquists, their
carcasses thrown where they could no longer pollute the true believers
mouldering by their side.

It was not strange that the coronation as King of Bohemia of a man of
such decided purposes--a country numbering ten Protestants to one
Catholic--should cause a thrill and a flutter. Could it be doubted that
the great elemental conflict so steadily prophesied by Barneveld and
instinctively dreaded by all capable of feeling the signs of the time
would now begin? It had begun. Of what avail would be Majesty-Letters and
Compromises extorted by force from trembling or indolent emperors, now
that a man who knew his own mind, and felt it to be a crime not to
extirpate all religions but the one orthodox religion, had mounted the
throne? It is true that he had sworn at his coronation to maintain the
laws of Bohemia, and that the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise were part
of the laws.

But when were doctors ever wanting to prove the unlawfulness of law which
interferes with the purposes of a despot and the convictions of the
bigot?

"Novus rex, nova lex," muttered the Catholics, lifting up their heads and
hearts once more out of the oppression and insults which they had
unquestionably suffered at the hands of the triumphant Reformers. "There
are many empty poppy-heads now flaunting high that shall be snipped off,"
said others. "That accursed German Count Thurn and his fellows, whom the
devil has sent from hell to Bohemia for his own purposes, shall be
disposed of now," was the general cry.

It was plain that heresy could no longer be maintained except by the
sword. That which had been extorted by force would be plucked back by
force. The succession of Ferdinand was in brief a warshout to be echoed
by all the Catholics of Europe. Before the end of the year the Protestant
churches of Brunnau were sealed up. Those at Klostergrab were demolished
in three days by command of the Archbishop of Prague. These dumb walls
preached in their destruction more stirring sermons than perhaps would
ever have been heard within them had they stood. This tearing in pieces
of the Imperial patent granting liberty of Protestant worship, this
summary execution done upon senseless bricks and mortar, was an act of
defiance to the Reformed religion everywhere. Protestantism was struck in
the face, spat upon, defied.

The effect was instantaneous. Thurn and the other defenders of the
Protestant faith were as prompt in action as the Catholics had been in
words. A few months passed away. The Emperor was in Vienna, but his ten
stadholders were in Prague. The fateful 23rd of May 1618 arrived.

Slawata, a Bohemian Protestant, who had converted himself to the Roman
Church in order to marry a rich widow, and who converted his peasants by
hunting them to mass with his hounds, and Martinitz, the two stadholders
who at Ferdinand's coronation had endeavoured to prevent him from
including the Majesty-Letter among the privileges he was swearing to
support, and who were considered the real authors of the royal letters
revoking all religious rights of Protestants, were the most obnoxious of
all. They were hurled from the council-chamber window of the Hradschin.
The unfortunate secretary Fabricius was tossed out after them.
Twenty-eight ells deep they fell, and all escaped unhurt by the fall;
Fabricius being subsequently ennobled by a grateful emperor with the
well-won title of Baron Summerset.

The Thirty Years' War, which in reality had been going on for several
years already, is dated from that day. A provisional government was
established in Prague by the Estates under Protestant guidance, a college
of thirty directors managing affairs.

The Window-Tumble, as the event has always been called in history,
excited a sensation in Europe. Especially the young king of France, whose
political position should bring him rather into alliance with the rebels
than the Emperor, was disgusted and appalled. He was used to rebellion.
Since he was ten years old there had been a rebellion against himself
every year. There was rebellion now. But his ministers had never been
thrown out of window. Perhaps one might take some day to tossing out
kings as well. He disapproved the process entirely.

Thus the great conflict of Christendom, so long impending, seemed at last
to have broken forth in full fury on a comparatively insignificant
incident. Thus reasoned the superficial public, as if the throwing out of
window of twenty stadholders could have created a general war in Europe
had not the causes of war lain deep and deadly in the whole framework of
society.

The succession of Ferdinand to the throne of the holy Wenzel, in which
his election to the German Imperial crown was meant to be involved, was a
matter which concerned almost every household in Christendom. Liberty of
religion, civil franchise, political charters, contract between
government and subject, right to think, speak, or act, these were the
human rights everywhere in peril. A compromise between the two religious
parties had existed for half a dozen years in Germany, a feeble
compromise by which men had hardly been kept from each others' throats.
That compromise had now been thrown to the winds. The vast conspiracy of
Spain, Rome, the House of Austria, against human liberty had found a
chief in the docile, gloomy pupil of the Jesuits now enthroned in
Bohemia, and soon perhaps to wield the sceptre of the Holy Roman Empire.
There was no state in Europe that had not cause to put hand on
sword-hilt. "Distrust and good garrisons," in the prophetic words of
Barneveld, would now be the necessary resource for all intending to hold
what had been gained through long years of toil, martyrdom, and hard
fighting.

The succession of Ferdinand excited especial dismay and indignation in
the Palatinate. The young elector had looked upon the prize as his own.
The marked advance of Protestant sentiment throughout the kingdom and its
neighbour provinces had seemed to render the succession of an extreme
Papist impossible. When Frederic had sued for and won the hand of the
fair Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Great Britain, it was understood
that the alliance would be more brilliant for her than it seemed. James
with his usual vanity spoke of his son-in-law as a future king.

It was a golden dream for the Elector and for the general cause of the
Reformed religion. Heidelberg enthroned in the ancient capital of the
Wenzels, Maximilians, and Rudolphs, the Catechism and Confession enrolled
among the great statutes of the land, this was progress far beyond flimsy
Majesty-Letters and Compromises, made only to be torn to pieces.

Through the dim vista of futurity and in ecstatic vision no doubt even
the Imperial crown might seem suspended over the Palatine's head. But
this would be merely a midsummer's dream. Events did not whirl so rapidly
as they might learn to do centuries later, and--the time for a Protestant
to grasp at the crown of Germany could then hardly be imagined as
ripening.

But what the Calvinist branch of the House of Wittelsbach had indeed long
been pursuing was to interrupt the succession of the House of Austria to
the German throne. That a Catholic prince must for the immediate future
continue to occupy it was conceded even by Frederic, but the electoral
votes might surely be now so manipulated as to prevent a slave of Spain
and a tool of the Jesuits from wielding any longer the sceptre of
Charlemagne.

On the other hand the purpose of the House of Austria was to do away with
the elective principle and the prescriptive rights of the Estates in
Bohemia first, and afterwards perhaps to send the Golden Bull itself to
the limbo of wornout constitutional devices. At present however their
object was to secure their hereditary sovereignty in Prague first, and
then to make sure of the next Imperial election at Frankfurt. Time
afterwards might fight still more in their favour, and fix them in
hereditary possession of the German throne.

The Elector-Palatine had lost no time. His counsellors even before the
coronation of Ferdinand at Prague had done their best to excite alarm
throughout Germany at the document by which Archdukes Maximilian and
Albert had resigned all their hereditary claims in favour of Ferdinand
and his male children. Should there be no such issue, the King of Spain
claimed the succession for his own sons as great-grandchildren of Emperor
Maximilian, considering himself nearer in the line than the Styrian
branch, but being willing to waive his own rights in favour of so ardent
a Catholic as Ferdinand. There was even a secret negotiation going on a
long time between the new king of Bohemia and Philip to arrange for the
precedence of the Spanish males over the Styrian females to the
hereditary Austrian states, and to cede the province of Alsace to Spain.

It was not wonderful that Protestant Germany should be alarmed. After a
century of Protestantism, that Spain should by any possibility come to be
enthroned again over Germany was enough to raise both Luther and Calvin
from their graves. It was certainly enough to set the lively young
palatine in motion. So soon as the election of Frederic was proclaimed,
he had taken up the business in person. Fond of amusement, young, married
to a beautiful bride of the royal house of England, he had hitherto left
politics to his counsellors.

Finding himself frustrated in his ambition by the election of another to
the seat he had fondly deemed his own, he resolved to unseat him if he
could, and, at any rate, to prevent the ulterior consequences of his
elevation. He made a pilgrimage to Sedan, to confer with that
irrepressible intriguer and Huguenot chieftain, the Duc de Bouillon. He
felt sure of the countenance of the States-General, and, of course, of
his near relative the great stadholder. He was resolved to invite the
Duke of Lorraine to head the anti-Austrian party, and to stand for the
kingship of the Romans and the Empire in opposition to Ferdinand. An
emissary sent to Nancy came back with a discouraging reply. The Duke not
only flatly refused the candidacy, but warned the Palatine that if it
really came to a struggle he could reckon on small support anywhere, not
even from those who now seemed warmest for the scheme. Then Frederic
resolved to try his cousin, the great Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom all
Catholics looked with veneration and whom all German Protestants
respected. Had the two branches of the illustrious house of Wittelsbach
been combined in one purpose, the opposition to the House of Austria
might indeed have been formidable. But what were ties of blood compared
to the iron bands of religious love and hatred? How could Maximilian,
sternest of Papists, and Frederick V., flightiest of Calvinists, act
harmoniously in an Imperial election? Moreover, Maximilian was united by
ties of youthful and tender friendship as well as by kindred and perfect
religious sympathy to his other cousin, King Ferdinand himself. The case
seemed hopeless, but the Elector went to Munich, and held conferences
with his cousin. Not willing to take No for an answer so long as it was
veiled under evasive or ornamental phraseology, he continued to negotiate
with Maximilian through his envoys Camerarius and Secretary Neu, who held
long debates with the Duke's chief councillor, Doctor Jocher. Camerarius
assured Jocher that his master was the Hercules to untie the Gordian
knot, and the lion of the tribe of Judah. How either the lion of Judah or
Hercules were to untie the knot which was popularly supposed to have been
cut by the sword of Alexander did not appear, but Maximilian at any rate
was moved neither by entreaties nor tropes. Being entirely averse from
entering himself for the German crown, he grew weary at last of the
importunity with which the scheme was urged. So he wrote a short billet
to his councillor, to be shown to Secretary Neu.

"Dear Jocher," he said, "I am convinced one must let these people
understand the matter in a little plainer German. I am once for all
determined not to let myself into any misunderstanding or even
amplifications with the House of Austria in regard to the succession. I
think also that it would rather be harmful than useful to my house to
take upon myself so heavy a burthen as the German crown."

This time the German was plain enough and produced its effect. Maximilian
was too able a statesman and too conscientious a friend to wish to
exchange his own proud position as chief of the League, acknowledged head
of the great Catholic party, for the slippery, comfortless, and unmeaning
throne of the Holy Empire, which he considered Ferdinand's right.

The chiefs of the anti-Austrian party, especially the Prince of Anhalt
and the Margrave of Anspach, in unison with the Heidelberg cabinet, were
forced to look for another candidate. Accordingly the Margrave and the
Elector-Palatine solemnly agreed that it was indispensable to choose an
emperor who should not be of the House of Austria nor a slave of Spain.
It was, to be sure, not possible to think of a Protestant prince. Bavaria
would not oppose Austria, would also allow too much influence to the
Jesuits. So there remained no one but the Duke of Savoy. He was a prince
of the Empire. He was of German descent, of Saxon race, a great general,
father of his soldiers, who would protect Europe against a Turkish
invasion better than the bastions of Vienna could do. He would be
agreeable to the Catholics, while the Protestants could live under him
without anxiety because the Jesuits would be powerless with him. It would
be a master-stroke if the princes would unite upon him. The King of
France would necessarily be pleased with it, the King of Great Britain
delighted.

At last the model candidate had been found. The Duke of Savoy having just
finished for a second time his chronic war with Spain, in which the
United Provinces, notwithstanding the heavy drain on their resources, had
allowed him 50,000 florins a month besides the soldiers under Count
Ernest of Nassau, had sent Mansfeld with 4000 men to aid the revolted
estates in Bohemia. Geographically, hereditarily, necessarily the deadly
enemy of the House of Austria, he listened favourably to the overtures
made to him by the princes of the Union, expressed undying hatred for the
Imperial race, and thought the Bohemian revolt a priceless occasion for
expelling them from power. He was informed by the first envoy sent to
him, Christopher van Dohna, that the object of the great movement now
contemplated was to raise him to the Imperial throne at the next
election, to assist the Bohemian estates, to secure the crown of Bohemia
for the Elector-Palatine, to protect the Protestants of Germany, and to
break down the overweening power of the Austrian house.

The Duke displayed no eagerness for the crown of Germany, while approving
the election of Frederic, but expressed entire sympathy with the
enterprise. It was indispensable however to form a general federation in
Europe of England, the Netherlands, Venice, together with Protestant
Germany and himself, before undertaking so mighty a task. While the
negotiations were going on, both Anspach and Anhalt were in great
spirits. The Margrave cried out exultingly, "In a short time the means
will be in our hands for turning the world upside down." He urged the
Prince of Anhalt to be expeditious in his decisions and actions. "He who
wishes to trade," he said, "must come to market early."

There was some disappointment at Heidelberg when the first news from
Turin arrived, the materials for this vast scheme for an overwhelming and
universal European war not seeming to be at their disposition. By and by
the Duke's plans seem to deepen and broaden. He told Mansfeld, who,
accompanied by Secretary Neu, was glad at a pause in his fighting and
brandschatzing in Bohemia to be employed on diplomatic business, that on
the whole he should require the crown of Bohemia for himself. He also
proposed to accept the Imperial crown, and as for Frederic, he would
leave him the crown of Hungary, and would recommend him to round himself
out by adding to his hereditary dominions the province of Alsace, besides
Upper Austria and other territories in convenient proximity to the
Palatinate.

Venice, it had been hoped, would aid in the great scheme and might in her
turn round herself out with Friuli and Istria and other tempting
possessions of Ferdinand, in reward for the men and money she was
expected to furnish. That republic had however just concluded a war with
Ferdinand, caused mainly by the depredations of the piratical Uscoques,
in which, as we have seen, she had received the assistance of 4000
Hollanders under command of Count John of Nassau. The Venetians had
achieved many successes, had taken the city of Gortz, and almost reduced
the city of Gradiska. A certain colonel Albert Waldstein however, of whom
more might one day be heard in the history of the war now begun, had
beaten the Venetians and opened a pathway through their ranks for succour
to the beleaguered city. Soon afterwards peace was made on an undertaking
that the Uscoques should be driven from their haunts, their castles
dismantled, and their ships destroyed.

Venice declined an engagement to begin a fresh war.

She hated Ferdinand and Matthias and the whole Imperial brood, but, as
old Barbarigo declared in the Senate, the Republic could not afford to
set her house on fire in order to give Austria the inconvenience of the
smoke.

Meantime, although the Elector-Palatine had magnanimously agreed to use
his influence in Bohemia in favour of Charles Emmanuel, the Duke seems at
last to have declined proposing himself for that throne. He knew, he
said, that King James wished that station for his son-in-law. The
Imperial crown belonged to no one as yet after the death of Matthias, and
was open therefore to his competition.

Anhalt demanded of Savoy 15,000 men for the maintenance of the good
cause, asserting that "it would be better to have the Turk or the devil
himself on the German throne than leave it to Ferdinand."

The triumvirate ruling at Prague-Thurn, Ruppa, and Hohenlohe--were
anxious for a decision from Frederic. That simple-hearted and ingenuous
young elector had long been troubled both with fears lest after all he
might lose the crown of Bohemia and with qualms of conscience as to the
propriety of taking it even if he could get it. He wrestled much in
prayer and devout meditation whether as anointed prince himself he were
justified in meddling with the anointment of other princes. Ferdinand had
been accepted, proclaimed, crowned. He artlessly sent to Prague to
consult the Estates whether they possessed the right to rebel, to set
aside the reigning dynasty, and to choose a new king. At the same time,
with an eye to business, he stipulated that on account of the great
expense and trouble devolving upon him the crown must be made hereditary
in his family. The impression made upon the grim Thurn and his colleagues
by the simplicity of these questions may be imagined. The splendour and
width of the Savoyard's conceptions fascinated the leaders of the Union.
It seemed to Anspach and Anhalt that it was as well that Frederic should
reign in Hungary as in Bohemia, and the Elector was docile. All had
relied however on the powerful assistance of the great defender of the
Protestant faith, the father-in-law of the Elector, the King of Great
Britain. But James had nothing but cold water and Virgilian quotations
for his son's ardour. He was more under the influence of Gondemar than
ever before, more eagerly hankering for the Infanta, more completely the
slave of Spain. He pledged himself to that government that if the
Protestants in Bohemia continued rebellious, he would do his best to
frustrate their designs, and would induce his son-in-law to have no
further connection with them. And Spain delighted his heart not by
immediately sending over the Infanta, but by proposing that he should
mediate between the contending parties. It would be difficult to imagine
a greater farce. All central Europe was now in arms. The deepest and
gravest questions about which men can fight: the right to worship God
according to their conscience and to maintain civil franchises which have
been earned by the people with the blood and treasure of centuries, were
now to be solved by the sword, and the pupil of Buchanan and the friend
of Buckingham was to step between hundreds of thousands of men in arms
with a classical oration. But James was very proud of the proposal and
accepted it with alacrity.

"You know, my dear son," he wrote to Frederic, "that we are the only king
in Europe that is sought for by friend and foe for his mediation. It
would be for this our lofty part very unbecoming if we were capable of
favouring one of the parties. Your suggestion that we might secretly
support the Bohemians we must totally reject, as it is not our way to do
anything that we would not willingly confess to the whole world."

And to do James justice, he had never fed Frederic with false hopes,
never given a penny for his great enterprise, nor promised him a penny.
He had contented himself with suggesting from time to time that he might
borrow money of the States-General. His daughter Elizabeth must take care
of herself, else what would become of her brother's marriage to the
daughter of Spain.

And now it was war to the knife, in which it was impossible that Holland,
as well as all the other great powers should not soon be involved. It was
disheartening to the cause of freedom and progress, not only that the
great kingdom on which the world, had learned to rely in all movements
upward and onward should be neutralized by the sycophancy of its monarch
to the general oppressor, but that the great republic which so long had
taken the lead in maintaining the liberties of Europe should now be torn
by religious discord within itself, and be turning against the great
statesman who had so wisely guided her councils and so accurately
foretold the catastrophe which was now upon the world.

Meantime the Emperor Matthias, not less forlorn than through his
intrigues and rebellions his brother Rudolph had been made, passed his
days in almost as utter retirement as if he had formally abdicated.
Ferdinand treated him as if in his dotage. His fair young wife too had
died of hard eating in the beginning of the winter to his inexpressible
grief, so that there was nothing left to solace him now but the
Rudolphian Museum.

He had made but one public appearance since the coronation of Ferdinand
in Prague. Attended by his brother Maximilian, by King Ferdinand, and by
Cardinal Khlesl, he had towards the end of the year 1617 paid a visit to
the Elector John George at Dresden. The Imperial party had been received
with much enthusiasm by the great leader of Lutheranism. The Cardinal had
seriously objected to accompanying the Emperor on this occasion. Since
the Reformation no cardinal had been seen at the court of Saxony. He
cared not personally for the pomps and glories of his rank, but still as
prince of the Church he had settled right of precedence over electors. To
waive it would be disrespectful to the Pope, to claim it would lead to
squabbles. But Ferdinand had need of his skill to secure the vote of
Saxony at the next Imperial election. The Cardinal was afraid of
Ferdinand with good reason, and complied. By an agreeable fiction he was
received at court not as cardinal but as minister, and accommodated with
an humble place at table. Many looking on with astonishment thought he
would have preferred to dine by himself in retirement. But this was not
the bitterest of the mortifications that the pastor and guide of Matthias
was to suffer at the hands of Ferdinand before his career should be
closed. The visit at Dresden was successful, however. John George, being
a claimant, as we have seen, for the Duchies of Cleve and Julich, had
need of the Emperor. The King had need of John George's vote. There was a
series of splendid balls, hunting parties, carousings.

The Emperor was an invalid, the King was abstemious, but the Elector was
a mighty drinker. It was not his custom nor that of his councillors to go
to bed. They were usually carried there. But it was the wish of Ferdinand
to be conciliatory, and he bore himself as well as he could at the
banquet. The Elector was also a mighty hunter. Neither of his Imperial
guests cared for field sports, but they looked out contentedly from the
window of a hunting-lodge, before which for their entertainment the
Elector and his courtiers slaughtered eight bears, ten stags, ten pigs,
and eleven badgers, besides a goodly number of other game; John George
shooting also three martens from a pole erected for that purpose in the
courtyard. It seemed proper for him thus to exhibit a specimen of the
skill for which he was justly famed. The Elector before his life closed,
so says the chronicle, had killed 28,000 wild boars, 208 bears, 3543
wolves, 200 badgers, 18,967 foxes, besides stags and roedeer in still
greater number, making a grand total of 113,629 beasts. The leader of the
Lutheran party of Germany had not lived in vain.

Thus the great chiefs of Catholicism and of Protestantism amicably
disported themselves in the last days of the year, while their respective
forces were marshalling for mortal combat all over Christendom. The
Elector certainly loved neither Matthias nor Ferdinand, but he hated the
Palatine. The chief of the German Calvinists disputed that Protestant
hegemony which John George claimed by right. Indeed the immense advantage
enjoyed by the Catholics at the outbreak of the religious war from the
mutual animosities between the two great divisions of the Reformed Church
was already terribly manifest. What an additional power would it derive
from the increased weakness of the foe, should there be still other and
deeper and more deadly schisms within one great division itself!

"The Calvinists and Lutherans," cried the Jesuit Scioppius, "are so
furiously attacking each other with calumnies and cursings and are
persecuting each other to such extent as to give good hope that the
devilish weight and burthen of them will go to perdition and shame of
itself, and the heretics all do bloody execution upon each other.
Certainly if ever a golden time existed for exterminating the heretics,
it is the present time."

The Imperial party took their leave of Dresden, believing themselves to
have secured the electoral vote of Saxony; the Elector hoping for
protection to his interests in the duchies through that sequestration to
which Barneveld had opposed such vigorous resistance. There had been much
slavish cringing before these Catholic potentates by the courtiers of
Dresden, somewhat amazing to the ruder churls of Saxony, the common
people, who really believed in the religion which their prince had
selected for them and himself.

And to complete the glaring contrast, Ferdinand and Matthias had scarcely
turned their backs before tremendous fulminations upon the ancient church
came from the Elector and from all the doctors of theology in Saxony.

For the jubilee of the hundredth anniversary of the Reformation was
celebrated all over Germany in the autumn of this very year, and nearly
at the exact moment of all this dancing, and fuddling, and pig shooting
at Dresden in honour of emperors and cardinals. And Pope Paul V. had
likewise ordained a jubilee for true believers at almost the same time.

The Elector did not mince matters in his proclamation from any regard to
the feelings of his late guests. He called on all Protestants to rejoice,
"because the light of the Holy Gospel had now shone brightly in the
electoral dominions for a hundred years, the Omnipotent keeping it
burning notwithstanding the raging and roaring of the hellish enemy and
all his scaly servants."

The doctors of divinity were still more emphatic in their phraseology.
They called on all professors and teachers of the true Evangelical
churches, not only in Germany but throughout Christendom, to keep the
great jubilee. They did this in terms not calculated certainly to smother
the flames of religious and party hatred, even if it had been possible at
that moment to suppress the fire. "The great God of Heaven," they said,
"had caused the undertaking of His holy instrument Mr. Doctor Martin
Luther to prosper. Through His unspeakable mercy he has driven away the
Papal darkness and caused the sun of righteousness once more to beam upon
the world. The old idolatries, blasphemies, errors, and horrors of the
benighted Popedom have been exterminated in many kingdoms and countries.
Innumerable sheep of the Lord Christ have been fed on the wholesome
pasture of the Divine Word in spite of those monstrous, tearing, ravenous
wolves, the Pope and his followers. The enemy of God and man, the ancient
serpent, may hiss and rage. Yes, the Roman antichrist in his frantic
blusterings may bite off his own tongue, may fulminate all kinds of
evils, bans, excommunications, wars, desolations, and burnings, as long
and as much as he likes. But if we take refuge with the Lord God, what
can this inane, worn-out man and water-bubble do to us?" With more in the
same taste.

The Pope's bull for the Catholic jubilee was far more decorous and lofty
in tone, for it bewailed the general sin in Christendom, and called on
all believers to flee from the wrath about to descend upon the earth, in
terms that were almost prophetic. He ordered all to pray that the Lord
might lift up His Church, protect it from the wiles of the enemy,
extirpate heresies, grant peace and true unity among Christian princes,
and mercifully avert disasters already coming near.

But if the language of Paul V. was measured and decent, the swarm of
Jesuit pamphleteers that forthwith began to buzz and to sting all over
Christendom were sufficiently venomous. Scioppius, in his Alarm Trumpet
to the Holy War, and a hundred others declared that all heresies and
heretics were now to be extirpated, the one true church to be united and
re-established, and that the only road to such a consummation was a path
of blood.

The Lutheran preachers, on the other hand, obedient to the summons from
Dresden, vied with each other in every town and village in heaping
denunciations, foul names, and odious imputations on the Catholics; while
the Calvinists, not to be behindhand with their fellow Reformers,
celebrated the jubilee, especially at Heidelberg, by excluding Papists
from hope of salvation, and bewailing the fate of all churches sighing
under the yoke of Rome.

And not only were the Papists and the Reformers exchanging these blasts
and counterblasts of hatred, not less deadly in their effects than the
artillery of many armies, but as if to make a thorough exhibition of
human fatuity when drunk with religious passion, the Lutherans were
making fierce paper and pulpit war upon the Calvinists. Especially Hoe,
court preacher of John George, ceaselessly hurled savage libels against
them. In the name of the theological faculty of Wittenberg, he addressed
a "truehearted warning to all Lutheran Christians in Bohemia, Moravia,
Silesia, and other provinces, to beware of the erroneous Calvinistic
religion." He wrote a letter to Count Schlick, foremost leader in the
Bohemian movement, asking whether "the unquiet Calvinist spirit, should
it gain ascendency, would be any more endurable than the Papists. Oh what
woe, what infinite woe," he cried, "for those noble countries if they
should all be thrust into the jaws of Calvinism!"

Did not preacher Hoe's master aspire to the crown of Bohemia himself? Was
he not furious at the start which Heidelberg had got of him in the race
for that golden prize? Was he not mad with jealousy of the Palatine, of
the Palatine's religion, and of the Palatine's claim to "hegemony" in
Germany?

Thus embittered and bloodthirsty towards each other were the two great
sections of the Reformed religion on the first centennial jubilee of the
Reformation. Such was the divided front which the anti-Catholic party
presented at the outbreak of the war with Catholicism.

Ferdinand, on the other hand, was at the head of a comparatively united
party. He could hardly hope for more than benevolent neutrality from the
French government, which, in spite of the Spanish marriages, dared not
wholly desert the Netherlands and throw itself into the hands of Spain;
but Spanish diplomacy had enslaved the British king, and converted what
should have been an active and most powerful enemy into an efficient if
concealed ally. The Spanish and archiducal armies were enveloping the
Dutch republic, from whence the most powerful support could be expected
for the Protestant cause. Had it not been for the steadiness of
Barneveld, Spain would have been at that moment established in full
panoply over the whole surface of those inestimable positions, the
disputed duchies. Venice was lukewarm, if not frigid; and Savoy, although
deeply pledged by passion and interest to the downfall of the House of
Austria, was too dangerously situated herself, too distant, too poor, and
too Catholic to be very formidable.

Ferdinand was safe from the Turkish side. A twenty years' peace,
renewable by agreement, between the Holy Empire and the Sultan had been
negotiated by those two sons of bakers, Cardinal Khlesl and the Vizier
Etmekdschifade. It was destined to endure through all the horrors of the
great war, a stronger protection to Vienna than all the fortifications
which the engineering art could invent. He was safe too from Poland, King
Sigmund being not only a devoted Catholic but doubly his brother-in-law.

Spain, therefore, the Spanish Netherlands, the Pope, and the German
League headed by Maximilian of Bavaria, the ablest prince on the
continent of Europe, presented a square, magnificent phalanx on which
Ferdinand might rely. The States-General, on the other hand, were a most
dangerous foe. With a centennial hatred of Spain, splendidly disciplined
armies and foremost navy of the world, with an admirable financial system
and vast commercial resources, with a great stadholder, first captain of
the age, thirsting for war, and allied in blood as well as religion to
the standard-bearer of the Bohemian revolt; with councils directed by the
wisest and most experienced of living statesman, and with the very life
blood of her being derived from the fountain of civil and religious
liberty, the great Republic of the United Netherlands--her Truce with the
hereditary foe just expiring was, if indeed united, strong enough at the
head of the Protestant forces of Europe to dictate to a world in arms.

Alas! was it united?

As regarded internal affairs of most pressing interest, the electoral
vote at the next election at Frankfurt had been calculated as being
likely to yield a majority of one for the opposition candidate, should
the Savoyard or any other opposition candidate be found. But the
calculation was a close one and might easily be fallacious. Supposing the
Palatine elected King of Bohemia by the rebellious estates, as was
probable, he could of course give the vote of that electorate and his own
against Ferdinand, and the vote of Brandenburg at that time seemed safe.
But Ferdinand by his visit to Dresden had secured the vote of Saxony,
while of the three ecclesiastical electors, Cologne and Mayence were sure
for him. Thus it would be three and three, and the seventh and decisive
vote would be that of the Elector-Bishop of Treves. The sanguine Frederic
thought that with French influence and a round sum of money this
ecclesiastic might be got to vote for the opposition candidate. The
ingenious combination was not destined to be successful, and as there has
been no intention in the present volume to do more than slightly indicate
the most prominent movements and mainsprings of the great struggle so far
as Germany is concerned, without entering into detail, it may be as well
to remind the reader that it proved wonderfully wrong. Matthias died on
the 20th March, 1619, the election of a new emperor took place at
Frankfurt On the 28th of the following August, and not only did Saxony
and all three ecclesiastical electors vote for Ferdinand, but Brandenburg
likewise, as well as the Elector-Palatine himself, while Ferdinand,
personally present in the assembly as Elector of Bohemia, might according
to the Golden Bull have given the seventh vote for himself had he chosen
to do so. Thus the election was unanimous.

Strange to say, as the electors proceeded through the crowd from the hall
of election to accompany the new emperor to the church where he was to
receive the popular acclaim, the news reached them from Prague that the
Elector-Palatine had been elected King of Bohemia.

Thus Frederic, by voting for Ferdinand, had made himself voluntarily a
rebel should he accept the crown now offered him. Had the news arrived
sooner, a different result and even a different history might have been
possible.




CHAPTER XIV.

Barneveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West
India Company--Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Barneveld--Maurice
openly the Chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrants--Tumults about the
Churches--"Orange or Spain" the Cry of Prince Maurice and his Party--They
take possession of the Cloister Church--"The Sharp Resolve"--Carleton's
Orations before the States-General.

King James never forgave Barneveld for drawing from him those famous
letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and
to admit the possibility of salvation under them. These epistles had
brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his
theological discussions a laughing-stock. He was still more incensed by
the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary
towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he believed, had
twice outwitted him.

On the other hand, Maurice, inspired by his brother-in-law the Duke of
Bouillon and by the infuriated Francis Aerssens, abhorred Barneveld's
French policy, which was freely denounced by the French Calvinists and by
the whole orthodox church. In Holland he was still warmly sustained
except in the Contra-Remonstrant Amsterdam and a few other cities of less
importance. But there were perhaps deeper reasons for the Advocate's
unpopularity in the great commercial metropolis than theological
pretexts. Barneveld's name and interests were identified with the great
East India Company, which was now powerful and prosperous beyond anything
ever dreamt of before in the annals of commerce. That trading company had
already founded an empire in the East. Fifty ships of war, fortresses
guarded by 4000 pieces of artillery and 10,000 soldiers and sailors,
obeyed the orders of a dozen private gentlemen at home seated in a back
parlour around a green table. The profits of each trading voyage were
enormous, and the shareholders were growing rich beyond their wildest
imaginings. To no individual so much as to Holland's Advocate was this
unexampled success to be ascribed. The vast prosperity of the East India
Company had inspired others with the ambition to found a similar
enterprise in the West. But to the West India Company then projected and
especially favoured in Amsterdam, Barneveld was firmly opposed. He
considered it as bound up with the spirit of military adventure and
conquest, and as likely to bring on prematurely and unwisely a renewed
conflict with Spain. The same reasons which had caused him to urge the
Truce now influenced his position in regard to the West India Company.

Thus the clouds were gathering every day more darkly over the head of the
Advocate. The powerful mercantile interest in the great seat of traffic
in the Republic, the personal animosity of the Stadholder, the
execrations of the orthodox party in France, England, and all the
Netherlands, the anger of the French princes and all those of the old
Huguenot party who had been foolish enough to act with the princes in
their purely selfish schemes against the government, and the overflowing
hatred of King James, whose darling schemes of Spanish marriages and a
Spanish alliance had been foiled by the Advocate's masterly policy in
France and in the duchies, and whose resentment at having been so
completely worsted and disarmed in the predestination matter and in the
redemption of the great mortgage had deepened into as terrible wrath as
outraged bigotry and vanity could engender; all these elements made up a
stormy atmosphere in which the strongest heart might have quailed. But
Barneveld did not quail. Doubtless he loved power, and the more danger he
found on every side the less inclined he was to succumb. But he honestly
believed that the safety and prosperity of the country he had so long and
faithfully served were identified with the policy which he was pursuing.
Arrogant, overbearing, self-concentrated, accustomed to lead senates and
to guide the councils and share the secrets of kings, familiar with and
almost an actor in every event in the political history not only of his
own country but of every important state in Christendom during nearly two
generations of mankind, of unmatched industry, full of years and
experience, yet feeling within him the youthful strength of a thousand
intellects compared to most of those by which he was calumniated,
confronted, and harassed; he accepted the great fight which was forced
upon him. Irascible, courageous, austere, contemptuous, he looked around
and saw the Republic whose cradle he had rocked grown to be one of the
most powerful and prosperous among the states of the world, and could
with difficulty imagine that in this supreme hour of her strength and her
felicity she was ready to turn and rend the man whom she was bound by
every tie of duty to cherish and to revere.

Sir Dudley Carleton, the new English ambassador to the States, had
arrived during the past year red-hot from Venice. There he had perhaps
not learned especially to love the new republic which had arisen among
the northern lagunes, and whose admission among the nations had been at
last accorded by the proud Queen of the Adriatic, notwithstanding the
objections and the intrigues both of French and English representatives.
He had come charged to the brim with the political spite of James against
the Advocate, and provided too with more than seven vials of theological
wrath. Such was the King's revenge for Barneveld's recent successes. The
supporters in the Netherlands of the civil authority over the Church were
moreover to be instructed by the political head of the English Church
that such supremacy, although highly proper for a king, was "thoroughly
unsuitable for a many-headed republic." So much for church government. As
for doctrine, Arminianism and Vorstianism were to be blasted with one
thunderstroke from the British throne.

"In Holland," said James to his envoy, "there have been violent and sharp
contestations amongst the towns in the cause of religion . . . . . If
they shall be unhappily revived during your time, you shall not forget
that you are the minister of that master whom God hath made the sole
protector of His religion."

There was to be no misunderstanding in future as to the dogmas which the
royal pope of Great Britain meant to prescribe to his Netherland
subjects. Three years before, at the dictation of the Advocate, he had
informed the States that he was convinced of their ability to settle the
deplorable dissensions as to religion according to their wisdom and the
power which belonged to them over churches and church servants. He had
informed them of his having learned by experience that such questions
could hardly be decided by the wranglings of theological professors, and
that it was better to settle them by public authority and to forbid their
being brought into the pulpit or among common people. He had recommended
mutual toleration of religious difference until otherwise ordained by the
public civil authority, and had declared that neither of the two opinions
in regard to predestination was in his opinion far from the truth or
inconsistent with Christian faith or the salvation of souls.

It was no wonder that these utterances were quite after the Advocate's
heart, as James had faithfully copied them from the Advocate's draft.

But now in the exercise of his infallibility the King issued other
decrees. His minister was instructed to support the extreme views of the
orthodox both as to government and dogma, and to urge the National Synod,
as it were, at push of pike. "Besides the assistance," said he to
Carleton, "which we would have you give to the true professors of the
Gospel in your discourse and conferences, you may let fall how hateful
the maintenance of these erroneous opinions is to the majesty of God, how
displeasing unto us their dearest friends, and how disgraceful to the
honour and government of that state."

And faithfully did the Ambassador act up to his instructions. Most
sympathetically did he embody the hatred of the King. An able,
experienced, highly accomplished diplomatist and scholar, ready with
tongue and pen, caustic, censorious, prejudiced, and partial, he was soon
foremost among the foes of the Advocate in the little court of the Hague,
and prepared at any moment to flourish the political and theological goad
when his master gave the word.

Nothing in diplomatic history is more eccentric than the long sermons
upon abstruse points of divinity and ecclesiastical history which the
English ambassador delivered from time to time before the States-General
in accordance with elaborate instructions drawn up by his sovereign with
his own hand. Rarely has a king been more tedious, and he bestowed all
his tediousness upon My Lords the States-General. Nothing could be more
dismal than these discourses, except perhaps the contemporaneous and
interminable orations of Grotius to the states of Holland, to the
magistrates of Amsterdam, to the states of Utrecht; yet Carleton was a
man of the world, a good debater, a ready writer, while Hugo Grotius was
one of the great lights of that age and which shone for all time.

Among the diplomatic controversies of history, rarely refreshing at best,
few have been more drouthy than those once famous disquisitions, and they
shall be left to shrivel into the nothingness of the past, so far as is
consistent with the absolute necessities of this narrative.

The contest to which the Advocate was called had become mainly a personal
and a political one, although the weapons with which it was fought were
taken from ecclesiastical arsenals. It was now an unequal contest.

For the great captain of the country and of his time, the son of William
the Silent, the martial stadholder, in the fulness of his fame and vigour
of his years, had now openly taken his place as the chieftain of the
Contra-Remonstrants. The conflict between the civil and the military
element for supremacy in a free commonwealth has never been more vividly
typified than in this death-grapple between Maurice and Barneveld.

The aged but still vigorous statesman, ripe with half a century of
political lore, and the high-born, brilliant, and scientific soldier,
with the laurels of Turnhout and Nieuwpoort and of a hundred famous
sieges upon his helmet, reformer of military science, and no mean
proficient in the art of politics and government, were the
representatives and leaders of the two great parties into which the
Commonwealth had now unhappily divided itself. But all history shows that
the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt to have the advantage, in a
struggle for popular affection and popular applause, over the statesman,
however consummate. The general imagination is more excited by the
triumphs of the field than by those of the tribune, and the man who has
passed many years of life in commanding multitudes with necessarily
despotic sway is often supposed to have gained in the process the
attributes likely to render him most valuable as chief citizen of a flee
commonwealth. Yet national enthusiasm is so universally excited by
splendid military service as to forbid a doubt that the sentiment is
rooted deeply in our nature, while both in antiquity and in modern times
there are noble although rare examples of the successful soldier
converting himself i

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