C .-. >* ? «* ^ I '. *&*£'?•> <.-! •jo >^a j^ .4 Bt 17-431 z ^Ap^iUAJ^cC 'fry ^^CLAyU THE LIFE AND DEATH JOHN OP BARNEVELD. THE LIFE AND DEATH JOHN OF BAMEVELD, ADVOCATE OP HOLLAND; A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. BY JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D., CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF PRANCE, ETC. ; AUTHOR OP " THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC," AND THE " HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS." IN TWO VOLUMES.— Vol. II. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. NEW YORK: HAEPEE AND BEOTHEES, PUBLISHEES, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, hy JOHN LOTHBOP MOTLEY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS OF VOL. II, CHAPTER XI. PAGE The Advocate sounds the Alarm in Germany — His Instructions to Langerac and his Forethought — The Prince-Palatine and his Forces take Aachen, Miilheim, and other Towns — Supineness of the Pro testants — Increased Activity of Austria and the League — Barne- veld strives to obtain Help from England — Neuburg departs for Germany — Barneveldthe Prime Minister of Protestantism — Ernest Mansfeld 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— TJytenbogaert incurs Maurice's Dis pleasure—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 tie impending general War . . '. 1 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 . . . . 67 CHAPTER XIII. Ferdinand of Gratz crowned King of Bohemia — His Enmity to Pro testants — Slawata and Martinitz thrown from the Windows of the Hradschin — Real Beginning of the Thirty Tears' 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 Re formation 81 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE Bameveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West India Company — Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Bameveld — Maurice openly the Chieftain of the Contra-Remon- strants — Tumults around 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 107 CHAPTER XV. The Commonwealth bent on Self-destruction — Evils of a Confederate System of Government — Rem Bischop's House sacked — Aerssens' unceasing Efforts against Bameveld — The Advocate's Interview with Maurice — The States of Utrecht raise the Troops — The Advocate at Utrecht — Bameveld urges mutual Toleration — Bar- neveld accused of being Partisan of Spain — Carleton takes his Departure ¦ 151 CHAPTER XVI. Maurice revolutionizes the Provinces — Danckaerts' libellous Pam phlet — Barneveld's Appeal to the Prince — Barneveld's Remon strance to the States — The Stadholder at Amsterdam — The Treaty of Truce nearly expired^- King of Spain and Archduke Albert — Scheme for recovering the Provinces — Secret Plot to make Maurice Sovereign 189 CHAPTER XVII. Deputation from Utrecht to Maurice— -The Fair at Utrecht — Maurice and the States' Deputies at Utrecht — Ogle refuses to act in Opposition to the States — The Stadholder disbands the Waartgelders— The Prince appoints forty Magistrates —The States formally disband the Waartgelders • 223 CHAPTER XVIII. Fruitless Interview between Bameveld and Maurice — The Advocate, warned of his Danger, resolves to remain at the Hague — Arrest of Bameveld, of Grotius, and of Hoogerbeets — The States-General assume the Responsibility in a "Billet" — The States of Holland protest — The Advocate's Letter to his Family — Audience of de CONTENTS OF VOL. II. PAGE Boississe — Mischief-making of Aerssens — The French Ambassadors intercede for Bameveld — The King of England opposes their Efforts — Langerac's Treachery to the Advocate — Maurice con tinues his Changes in the Magistracy throughout the Country — Vote of Thanks by the States of Holland 238 CHAPTER XIX. Rancour between the Politico-Religious Parties — Spanish Intrigues — Inconsistency of James — Brewster, and Robinson's Congregation at Leyden — They decide to leave for America — Robinson's Fare well Sermon and Prayer at. Parting 278 CHAPTER XX. Barneveld's Imprisonment — Ledenberg's Examination and Death — Remonstrance of de Boississe — Aerssens admitted to the Order of Knights — Trial of the Advocate — Barneveld's Defence — The States proclaim a Public Fast — Du Maurier's Speech before the Assembly — Barneveld's Sentence — Bameveld prepares for Death — Goes to Execution 298 CHAPTER XXI. Barneveld's Execution — The Advocate's Conduct on the Scaffold — The Sentence printed and sent to the Provinces — The Proceed ings irregular and inequitable 384 CHAPTER XXII. Grotius urged to ask Forgiveness — Grotius shows great Weakness — Hoogerbeets and Grotius imprisoned for Life — Grotius confined at Loevestein — Grotius' early Attainments — Grotius' Deportment in Prison — Escape of Grotius — Deventer's Rage at Grotius' Escape . 394 CHAPTER XXIII. Barneveld's Sons plot against Maurice — The Conspiracy betrayed to Maurice — Escape of Stoutenburg — Groeneveld is arrested —Mary of Bameveld appeals to the Stadholder— Groeneveld condemned to Death — Execution of Groeneveld • . -423 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD CHAPTER XI. The Advocate sounds the Alarm in Germany — His Instructions to Langerac and his Forethought — The Prince-Palatine and his Forces take Aachen, Miilheim, and other Towns — Supineness of the Protestants — Increased Activity of Austria and the League — Bameveld strives to obtain Help from England — Neuburg departs for Germany — Bameveld 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 pas sions — 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 vol. n. b 2 THE >LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. • Chap. XI. 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 ISetherland 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 respon sibility, is always an historical possession of value to man kind. 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 Bameveld, and the writer therefore makes no apology for dilating somewhat fully upon his life- work 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 re lapsing into a drowse. " I believe," he said to one" of his agents in that country,1 " 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 1 Bameveld to Brederode, 2 March 1614. (Hague Arch. MS.) 1614. THE ADVOCATE SOUNDS THE ALARM IN GERMANY. 6 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 Hol land themselves had advanced the money during three years1 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 con tributed about one-half as much in subsidy, but these moneys went in paying the garrisons of Brielle, Flushing, and Ram- mekens, 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 continua tion 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 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 14 April 1614. (Hague Arch. MS.) 4 , THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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, espe cially 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 Bameveld at that epoch, they might well have given in exchange for him a wilderness of Epernons and Sillerys, Bouillons and Condes ; of Win woods, 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 1614. HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO LANGERAC. 5 we're diligently opening an abyss between government and people which in less than half a lifetime more should en- gulph 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 mean time 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,1 " that no special ambassador be sent hither, and that M. du Maurier may remain with us, he being a very intelligent and. mode rate 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,2 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 Jiilich. 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 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 13 June prince of the blood, was always de- 1614. (Hague Archives MS.) signated simply " M. le Prince." 2 The Prince of Conde, being first 6 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 t& 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 Bameveld were resolved to resist at all hazards. " Work diligently, nevertheless," said he, " that they per mit 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 reso lutely 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 161.0 against the attempted sequestration under Leopold were to carry out that purpose. Hold it for certain that our present proceed ings 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 al; 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 1614. HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO LANGERAC. 7 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 mag- 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 13 June 1614. (Hague Archives MS.) 8 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BAKNEVELD. Chap. XI. nificent 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 Bameveld 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,1 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. Bameveld was con stantly 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,2 " the intelligence I received some months back from Ratis- bon, 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 Miilheim, pre venting 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 13 July, 1614. (Hague Archives MS.) 5 Ibid. 1614. BARNEVELD'S FORETHOUGHT. 9 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 Bameveld 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 Bameveld, 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 10 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 divi sion, 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 1614. BARNEVELD'S FORETHOUGHT. 11 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 ap pointed 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, adven turous, 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 Bameveld and take a manly and royal decision in the great emergency, it would be indis pensable for him to come before that odious body, the Parlia ment 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. Bameveld had just hopes from the Commons of Great Britain, if the King could be brought to appeal to Parlia ment. Once more he sounded the bugle of alarm. " Day 12 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XL by day the Archdukes are making greater and greater en rolments 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 en rolling more and more troops every day. He will soon be master of Miilheim. 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 co-operate well with his Majesty, and this occasion should be made use of to redress the whole state of affairs." 1 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,3 " 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 13 July 1614. (Hague Archives MS.) 5 Winwood to Bameveld, 19 Aug. (o. s.) 1614. (Hague Arch. MS. From a collection kindly furnished to me by M. van Deventer, the distin guished editor of the papers of Bame veld, which he has published up to the year 1609.) 1614. BARNEVELD'S FORETHOUGHT. . 13 source of all these entanglements comes from Spain. 'We do not think that the Archduke will attack Julich this year, but rather fear for Miilheim and Aix-la-Ch'apelle." But the Secretary of State, thus acknowledging the peril, chose to be blind to its extent, while at the same time under valuing 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 ad versaries. 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. Un luckily 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 Secre tary by a picture of the Spaniards' progress. " Since your letter," he said",1 " you have seen the course of 1 Bameveld to Winwood, 14 Sept. 1614. (MS., van Deventer.) 14 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. Spinola with the army of the King and. the Archdukes. You haye seen the Prince-Palatine of Neuburg . with his forces maintained by the Pope and other members of the Papistical League. On the 29 th 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. Miilheim is taken and dismantled, and the very houses about • to be torn down. Diiren, Castre, Grevenborg, Orsoy, Duisburg, Ruhrort, and many other towns, obliged to re ceive 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 proceed ings 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 compo- nendae pacts," 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 1614. SDPINENESS OF ..THE PROTESTANTS. 15 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 extermina tion was intended, continued on the part of Spain and Austria. Bameveld 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,1 " that the states men of England do not comprehend the perils with which their fellow religionists are everywhere threatened, especially 1 Bameveld to Caron, 21 Nov. 1614. (Hague Archives MS.) 16 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XL 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 im portant territories as a perpetual " sedem belli," out of which to attack Germany at their pleasure and to cut off all pos sibility 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 Wiirzburg, 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 was 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 Parlia ment and ask for a large grant. This would be doubtless con sented 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. 1614. GREAT. ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIA AND THE LEAGUE. 17 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, Wachten- donk, Maestricht, Aachen, and Miilheim 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.1 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 extra ordinary 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. 1 Bameveld to Caron, without date (late in 1614). (Hague Archives MS.) "... hebben het tractaet spottelyk geilludeert." VOL. II. C 18 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. His religion, his only daughter, his son-in-law, his grandson are all especially interested besides his own dignity, besides the common weal." x He then adverted to the large subsidies from Queen Eliza beth many yeKrs before, guaranteed, it was true, by the cau tionary 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 Pro testantism 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 Bameveld, "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 resolu tion. 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 over shadowing 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, without date (late in 1614). (Hague Archives MS.) 1614. HE STRIVES TO OBTAIN HELP FROM ENGLAND. 19 breadth and unity of design than all these primary move ments of the great war now beginning. The chances super ficially 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 adven turous 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 mon strous 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 Bameveld ? 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 Maxi milian 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 20 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 Bameveld,1 "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 pacifica tion, 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, without date (late in 1614). (Hague Archives MS.) 1615. GREAT ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIA AND THE LEAGUE. 21 struck against the Protestant electors or cities of Germany, was expecting too much ingenuousness on the part of states men 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 arrange ment. 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 Bameveld, 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 Bameveld, 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 pro posals," he said.1 "Every man here wonders that the English government does not comprehend these malver sations. 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 15 Jan. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 22 • THE LIFE OF JOHN OF 3ARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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,1 "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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 19 Jan. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 1615. GREAT ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIA AND THE LEAGUE.. 23 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 t;he 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 24 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. here, but look closely at everything that comes from Brussels, and let me know with diligence." 1 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 Bameveld 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 engage ment 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 Empire in their original condition. And among those laws were the great statutes of 1609 and 1610, the "Majesty-Letter" and the "Com promise," granting full right of religious worship to the 1 Bameveld to Caron, 19 Jan. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) " Oogita maer wacht U van te censureeren S. M" projecten, gely kick cook niet verstae te doen ende zyn oock alhier int pu- bliek nyet bespot, maer let wel wat van Brussel komem," &c. 1615. HE STRIVES TO OBTAIN HELP FROM ENGLAND. 25 /Ct/Ly. citLO 3o II*. trivet. Protestants of the Habsburg— monarchy-. If ever a policy deserved to be called truly liberal and truly conservative, it was the policy thus steadily maintained by Bameveld. 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 pupil, to make it clear to the French government that it was im possible 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,1 " 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 2 upon us. It is an attempt to prevent us from helping the Elector-Palatine and the other Protestant princes of Germany and co religionists 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." 1 Bameveld to Langerac, Jan. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 8 " Schsndvlek." 26 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 Nether lands, 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 ex torted 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 sus pended. Bameveld 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 un wearied 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 1615. HE STRIVES TO OBTAIN HELP FROM ENGLAND. 27 said to Langerac,1 "" that they do not pursue us there with vain importunity to accept something so notoriously inad missible 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 mis understanding 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 in habitants." 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 * Bameveld to Langerac, Jan. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 28 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. of Neuburg, negotiations being broken off, departed for Germany, a step which the Advocate considered x 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 sur rendered. " If this be true," said Bameveld, " we have been served with covered dishes." 2 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 Bameveld. " 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 out break 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 Bameveld. The history of Europe is there. The fate of Christendom is there. The conflict of elements, the crash 1 Bameveld to Caron. 9 Feb. 1615. 2 "Indien dit waer is worden wy (Hague Archives MS.) Same to Lan- mit gedeckte plateelen gedient." gerac, 10 Feb. 1615. (MS. ibid.) Same Same to same, 9 May 1615 (MS to same, 26 Feb. 1615. (MS. ibid.) ibid.) 1615. BARNEVELD PRIME MINISTER OF PROTESTANTISM. 29 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 field1 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 harmo niously 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 cha racter, 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 Medieean 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 geo graphical considerations alone rendered a cordial alliance between Spain and France very difficult. Notwithstanding the Spanish marriages, which he opposed so long as opposi tion was possible, he knew that so long as a statesman remained in the kingdom, or a hope for one existed, the 30 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XL 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, expe rienced, 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 Buke of Savoy crushed. The old secretary of state was not especially in favour at that moment, but Bameveld 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 sup pressing 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." 1 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 ' Bameveld to Langerac, 10 Feb. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) Same to same, 21 Nov. 1615. (MS. ibid.) MANSFELD TAKES SERVICE WITH CHARLES EMMANUEL. 31 master in that wild business of plunder, burning, black mailing, 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 Leo pold in the duchies, he had been captured by the forces of the Union, and, after waiting in vain to be ransomed by the Arch duke, had gone secretly over to the enemy.1 Thus recovering his liberty, he had enlisted a regiment under Leopold's name to fight the Union, and had then, according to contract, trans ferred 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 wear ing an old grey hat without a band to it ; 2 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 1 Gindely, 'Geschichte des drei- I feld "the remarkable forerunner of ssigjahrigen Kriegs,' i. 387, sqq. Waldstein." This eminent -historian calls Mans- I 2 Du Maurier, 234. 32 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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.1 Many demands had been made upon the States for assist ance 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." 2 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 1 See "Acta Mansfeldica," 1623, quoted' by the historian Wolfgang Menzel, iii. 224. 5 Bameveld to Langerac, 29 April 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) In a later letter the Advocate in formed the Ambassador that Count John had gone to the Duke with ex cuses from the States for not com plying with the request in his letters, on account of their actual and nearer dangers and heavy burdens, but with their hopes that, if the Spaniard could not be brought to reasonable conditions, a common plan of assist ance would be made with the kings, princes, and republics, their friends, to help him against violence and op pression. Count John took with him twenty or thirty adventurers, and meant to raise a couple of companies of riders in, Germany for the servioe of Savov. Same to same, 17 May 1615: (Ibid.) 1615. COUNT JOHN OF NASSAU GOES TO SAVOY. 33 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 Bameveld, com municating the fact to Langerac,1 "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 waxed 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 Bameveld,2 "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 em ployed 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 ' Bameveld to Langerac, 17 May 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Same to same, 26 Feb. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) VOL. II. D 34 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. himself only, and Emperor, King, or League, may send any general to do what they like to-morrow. What is to pre vent 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 Branden burg, 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 Bameveld 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 1615. SLIPPERY CONDUCT OF JAMES. 35 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,1 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,2 " 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 Evan gelical 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 con sequence over France and England. They say they have established the Emperor's authority by means of Aachen and 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 26 Feb. 1615. (Hague Arch. MS.) 2 Ibid. 36 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. Miilheim, 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 sur render, and by possession of which we could hold out a long time against all their power." J Those very places held by the States — Julich, Emmerich, and others — had recently been fortified 2 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 Bameveld 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 sug gested 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." 3 James was also willing that the name of the Emperor 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 27 Feb. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Same to same, 29 April, 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 3 Barneveld to Gillis van Leden- berg, 29 June 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) "... dat den Coninck aldaer serieuse instantien doet dat die Eerts- hertogen ende M. H. die Staten haere acten van beloften impersonali ter ende nyet aen de Coninghen souden doen," &c. 1615. SLIPPERY CONDUCT OF JAMES. 37 should appear upon it. To prevent this, Bameveld 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,"1 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.2 Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter, so that we can no longer digest the Spanish impu dence, 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- our selves. And it is indispensable that the promise be made to the two kings as mediators, as much for their reputa tion 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 16 May 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 ". . . tot syne M" contemplatie nu driemael verandert." 38 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 Ad vocate, 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.1 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 sub stantial that the promise be made to their Majesties. To change this now would be prejudicial to the kings, to the electors, the duchies, arid 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 6 June 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 1615. BARNEVELD'S INFLUENCE GREATER IN FRANCE. 39 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 statesman ship, 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.1 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. Bameveld sighed over these approaching nuptials, but did not yet despair. " We hope that the Spanish-French mar riages," he said,2 " may be broken up of themselves ; but we fear that if we should attempt to delay or prevent them 1 Dudley Carleton's Letters, passim et ad nauseam. 2 Bameveld to Caron, 6 June 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 49 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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.1 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,2 "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,8 had caused new and painful appre hensions 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 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 17 May 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) " We hope no more changes will be desired, and above all the name of the Em peror must be omitted from the act, for the whole affair of Julich was originally undertaken against the Emperor by his late Majesty, the united electors and princes, and our selves. The pledges must be of ne cessity given to the two kings as mediators. Otherwise we have no security whatever, and they will tri umph over us." 2 Same to same, June 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 3 Gindely, i. 387. 1615. BRANDENBURG TO APPEAR BEFORE EMPEROR. 41 decision.1 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.2 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 dis posed of and his claims ceded to the Emperor, what pos sibility 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 Bameveld,. "and submit to its con- *sequences 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." 3 He continued, through the ambassador in London, to hold up to the King, in respectful but plain language, the shame- lessness 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,4 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 18 July 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 42 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XL 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 appre hension 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." 1 The summer passed away. The States maintained their positions in the duchies, notwithstanding the objurgations of James, and Bameveld remained on his watch-tower ob serving 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 audi ence of .the King at the palace of Whitehall early in Novem ber, 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 2 Aug. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 1615. SEQUESTRATION FEARED. 43 assured his Majesty that they had no intention of maintain ing 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.1 "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 Arch duke 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.2 "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 him self 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." 1 Caron to the States-General, 7 Nov. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 ". . . dat is het plat in effecte voor my, seyde syne Ma't ; tselve be- vestigende met grooten eede et op haer borst slaende." — Ibid. 44 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. " 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 Bran denburg 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." 1 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 what ever, 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 ; 1 " . . . de Staten machtich ende I doene." — Caron to the States-General. sterk genoch waren omme allene 7 Nov. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) d' oirloge tegen a'.le de werelt te I 1615. SEQUESTRATION FEARED. 45 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 con spiracy against the religious freedom and international in dependence 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 Miilheim and Aachen, and the proceedings of the Archbishop of Cologne in Rees. The King was besotted, and no impression could be made upon him.1 " 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." 1 " . . . maer bevondt datter niet met alien Sy. M' en beweechde soo verre was hy transporteert in dese saecke." — Caron to the States-Gen eral, 7 Nov. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 46 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 Pro testants 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 im portance 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 ex pressed 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 Miilheim. " 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,1 and then passed on to speak of the quarrel between the Duke and City of Brunswick, and other matters. The interview ende'd, and the Ambassador, very downhearted, went to confer with the Secretaiy of State Sir Ralph Winwood, and Sir Henry Wotton. 1 ". . . een ongehoirde Wreetheit." — Caron to the States-General, 7 Nov. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 1615. SEQUESTRATION FEARED. 47 He assured these gentlemen that without fully consulting the French government these radical changes in the nego tiations would never be consented to by the States. Win wood promised to confer at once with the French ambas sador, 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." J 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 Pro testantism 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 vigor- 1 " . . . soo verhoope ick hy wech I en sal worden, twelck ick wensche synde dat het hooftvanden Coninck dat alzoo mach geschieden." daermede soo veele niet gebroocken | 48 THE LDJE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. ously 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 throw ing the kingdom "into the combustion of war without necessity," and declared that, if she would trust to his guid ance, she might make use of him as if her affairs were his own. An indispensable condition for such assistance, how ever, would be that the marriages should be put off.1 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 Bameveld, 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' in tentions in this matter, I hope I shall keep him away from you."2 Monbaran was accordingly kept away, but a few weeks' later another emissary 3 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 1 Caron to the States-General, 7 Nov. 1615. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Ibid. 8 Bameveld to Caron. 21 Jan. 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 1616. SEQUESTRATION FEARED. 49 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 thou sand crowns, not if they had death between their teeth. Those who think it do not know how he loves his money." x 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 Bameveld of these enthusiastic expres sions 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 infatua tion 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 out bursts of eternal friendship with the States. He contented himself therefore with cautioning Caron to pause before committing himself to any such projects.2 He had frer quently instructed him, however, to bring the disputed 1 Despatch, 17 Feb. 1616, in Ouvre, p. 245. 2 ' ' Waerop hy " (Bameveld) " my ontboed ende vermaende dat ic dies- aengaende wel soude wachten my in sulcx ofte diergelyke engageren." This is all. VOL. II. E 50 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. questions to his Majesty's notice as often as possible with a view to amicable arrangement.1 This preventive policy in regard to France was highly approved by Bameveld, 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 cog nizant 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 ad ministration 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 1 I have found neither the letter of Caron nor Barneveld's reply in the Archives. But in a very important memorandum of the Ambassador, dated 15 April 1619, for the use of the States, I find the brief charac terization given in the text of the two documents. On a later page will be seen the important use to which they were put. 1616. MURDER OF JOHN VAN WELY. 51 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 govern ment." 1- 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.2 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 cham ber, and to remove the more startling evidences of the 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 12 May 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Bameveld to Langerac, 12 May 1616 (Hague Archives MS.), gives the fact. Comp. Brandt, ' Regtspl.' pp. 314, 315. The source of the details of the murder I cannot at this mo ment recall, but they are contempo raneous and authentic. 52 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XL 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 Uyten- bogaert, leader among the Arminians, devoted friend of Bameveld, and up to that moment the favorite preacher of Maurice, stigmatized indeed, as we have seen, by the ortho dox 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.1 " 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." a 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 1 ' Joh. Uytenbogaerts Leven,' &c. c. ix. p. 140 (2nd ed. 1646.) 2 Ibid. 1616. UYTENBOGAERT INCURS MAURICE'S DISPLEASURE. 53 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 with draw 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 state ments 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 clergy man what in the world he had been saying to the Stad holder. 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.1 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 1 The authority for the story is the annotator to the second edition of G. Brandt's ' Hist. v. d. Regtspleging.' p. 315, sqq. Note R (Rotterdam, 1610). Of course it may be easily disputed, and is only given in the text as a tale which was generally believed. Those who think it an im peachment upon the private character of the Prince had better consult the professed eulogist of Maurice and of the Nassau family, de la Pise, espe cially p. 809. Nor can the anecdote be considered beneath the dignity of history when one remembers the great influence of pettiest passions on the fate of personages, and conse quently on the march of events. 54 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. of the States under guidance of Bameveld. 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 earned out ; the whole question of sovereignty and of mastership in those territories being swept subse quently 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 1 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." 1 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 strong- 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 12 June 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 1616. KING OF FRANCE ESPOUSES ANNE OF AUSTRIA. 55 holds captured, whether in the duchies or out of them.1 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," 2 said the Ad vocate, "at the tidings that the projected alliance of the Prince of Wales with the daughter of Spain is to be re newed ; 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 Bameveld, 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 15 June 1616. (Hague Arch. MS.) Indeed these flat contradictionsofGondemar'spromisesto James by the Spanish ambassador at the French court — as well as by the agent at Brussels — were as regular as they were audacious. Noel de Caron called the King's attention to them more than once, in order to arouse him from his dream to a sense of the com mon danger. Nine months later than this period the Dutch ambassador bluntly warned James of the effront ery of the deception. "I reminded the King," said Caron, "that the Spanish ambassador in France, and his resident near the Archdukes, deny the statements made here about the surrender of Wesel and the other cities, in case My Lords the States could be induced to give up Julich and the rest, and say expressly that they know very well that he has had no commission to that effect. To this the King answered that this was true, and that he had mentioned it to the Ambassador, who replied that his Majesty might be assured of his state ments. Let hi s Maj esty only procure from the States the surrender of their places, he said, and he would see the Archdukes at once deliver Wesel and the rest." 2 Ibid. Same to same, 15 Jan. 1617. (Hague Arch. MS.) 56 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 Bameveld had frequently urged upon the Dutch ambas sador 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 Scot land, and upon the general affairs of India.1 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 remem bered 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 suc cessful expedition, without any connivance or dissimulation 1 Caron to States-General, 13 July 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 1616. CONFERENCE CONCERNING PIRACY. 57 whatever.1 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 rephed 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,2 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.3 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,4 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 1 Caron, ubi sup. 2 Or Mannevinck ? 8 MS. of Caron, ubi sup. 4 Caron to the States-General, 13 Sept. 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 58 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 pro lixity, for had I not interrupted him, it had been to-morrow 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." J 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 impos sible to live if he stayed there.2 He asked if the States were soon to send the commis sioners, 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 1 King James to Cecil. MS. in the Cecil Archives at Hatfield House, the seat of .Robert Cecil's- descend ant, the distinguished statesman and man of letters, the present Mar quis of Salisbury. Both Lord and Lady Salisbury will permit me to ex press, in this note, my deep sense of their kindness in permitting, me to use these invaluable papers with per fect freedom. The collection is rich in confidential correspondence during the reign of Elizabeth and the first seven years of James, and it is most agreeable to all lovers of historical science to see such treasures in hands so appreciative to guard and so boun tiful to dispense them. The letter above cited begins, as all the confidential letters of James to Cecil, of which there is a large col lection in these archives, begin, " My little beagle." I give a very few specimens of these letters in the Appendix, with the ori ginal spelling, as illustrative of the King's manner of dealing privately with his great minister. 2 Caron to the States General, 14 Nov. (o. s.) 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 1616. OBSERVATIONS OF KING JAMES. ( 59 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 1 I take these passages literally from Caron's report to the States-General, written the day after the interview. (MS. last cited.) 60 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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, Ger many, and other nations that I ought to give them up never more. 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 sin gularly 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 1616. OBSERVATIONS OF KING JAMES. 61 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." 1 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 Cleve and Julich ques tion 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 Caron, nor Bameveld, 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. x ¦• . . . ic segge dat sy van my nyet te diffideren en hebben ende ick mede int stuck van de religie daer ic wel droeve om sy dat tselve soo ic verstaen als noch duert ; ghy weet dat icker my in den begiune hebbe mede gemoeyt doch vreesende dat het anders ver staen conde werden al of ic eenige authoriteyt in eene andere Repu- blique sochte, ic hebbet daer gelaten Bonder dat ic my daermede meer wil moeyen, maer wil Godt bidden dat hy hemluyden een goet uytende daerin wil geven." It is a pity that the words of this remarkable conversation, in which James appears at his very best, have to be filtered through two or three languages. The States' ambassadors - always of course wrote their confiden tial as well as their public despatches to their government in Dutch. This conversation was probably held in English, as Caron had lived so long in the country as to make that language like his mother tongue. He does not say whether James- spoke French on this occasion, but Queen Elizabeth always used that language in con versing with him or with any foreign ambassador. 62 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BAIiNEVELD. Chap. XI. " 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 how ever 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 col league 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 re commendation 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 1616. COMMENTS OF BARNEVELD. 63 the King that in these proposals there were no guarantees nor even promises that the fortresses would not be reoccu- pied 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 Bameveld had been unceasing in his efforts to arouse France as well as England to the danger to them selves and to all Christendom should Savoy be crushed. We shall have occasion to see the prominent part reserved to Savoy in the fast ripening debate in Germany. Mean time 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 Bameveld 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 aggres sive 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, cen turies after the record has been made up, to observe the 64 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XI. 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 signi ficance 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 de fence ,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,1 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 1 Bameveld to Caron, 29 Dec. 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 1616. COMMENTS OF BARNEVELD. 65 the arrangements by which James so wilfully allowed him self 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 ex perienced 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 Bameveld, while sincerely seeking to preserve the peace in Europe, was determined, if possible, that the Republic should main tain 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 1 " Onse regeeringhe en laet zulcx nyet toe, zodat onsen staet mit difEdentie ende goede besettinghe moet worden geconserveert." VOL. II. F 66 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap.' XI. great commander, "is to give battle to Prince Maurice."1 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 neces sity, 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 inert ness 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 them selves with staring at each other. It was verifying," he 1 continued, bitterly, " the saying of the Duke of Alva, 1 Germany is an old dog which still can bark, but has lost its teeth to bite with.' " 2 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 recon struct itself into a whole — been reduced by subdivision, disintegration, the perpetual dissolvent of religious dispute, and the selfish policy of infinitesimal dynasties. 1 Ouvre, p. 227. 2 Ibid. 228. 1616. JAMES PRESSES FOR PAYMENT OF DUTCH DEBT. 67 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 furriish 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.,1 although the King had declared ' Wagenaar, ix. 175. 29 Aug. 1604. 68 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII. 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 ' ammo 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 rum 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 independ ence 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 malum est eligendum,' the nearest harm is first to be eschewed, a man will leap out of a burn ing 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 vain glorious thirsting for the title of a free state (which no people 1616. JAMES PRESSES FOR PAYMENT OF DUTCH DEBT. 69 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." J 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 £750,000. 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 Bameveld, not only that he saw the chance for a good bargain, but that he fully compre hended 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 1 King to Cecil. (Hatfield Archives MS.) See Appendix. 70 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIL 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 Pro testantism, 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 Bameveld 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.1 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 in structions from Bameveld, to pay £250,000 in full of 1 Rapin, vii. 108, seq. Wagenaar, x. 93-105. 1616. RESTITUTION OF THE CAUTIONARY TOWNS. 71 all demands. It was made to appear that the additional £50,000 was in reality in advance of his instructions. The mouths of the minions watered at the mention of so magni ficent 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 Jmie u Seignior van Maldere, while Sir Horace Vere placed 1616- ' the important town of Brielle in the hands of the Seignior van Mathenesse. According to the terms of the bargain, the i English garrisons were converted into two regiments, re spectively to be commanded by Lord L'isle'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.1 Thus this ancient burthen had been taken off the Re public by the masterly policy of the Advocate. A great source of dread for foreign complication was closed for ever.2 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 1 Wagenaar, x. 93-105. ¦2 " vfe understand," said Bame veld to Caron, "your arrangement to be that the transfer of the cities and places (Brielle,Flushing,andRamme- kens) is promised, on condition that, a month or six weeks after the trans fer, £100,000 sterling shall be paid, and every six months, three times, shall £50,000 be paid, making in all £250,000."— Bameveld to Caron, 20 Feb. 1610. (Hague Archives MS.) After the departure of the English troops from the cautionary towns, a friendly farewell banquet was given, with many compliments, toasts, and expressions of good feeling between the two nations. The officers and magistrates were relieved of their oaths of fidelity to the English go vernment, and the first instalment of the debt was ordered to be paid. The States-General presented each English governor with a gold chain and medal worth 3000 florins, and the lieutenant-governors with presents each of half that value. Bameveld to Caron, 21 June 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 72 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII 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 diffi cult for the States-General, led by Bameveld, 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 pre vent 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."1 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 1 Despatches of du Maurier, Sept. and Oct. 1616, in Ouvre, 240. 1616. TREATY OF LOUDUN. Maurier, had about as many negotiators as there were indi viduals interested in the arrangements. The rebels May 3 were forgiven, Conde sold himself out for a million 1616- and a half livres and the presidency of the council, came to court, and paraded himself in greater pomp and ap- gept 1 pearance of power than ever. Four months after- 1616- wards he was arrested and imprisoned. He submitted like a lamb, and offered to betray his confederates.1 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,2 and had considered it eminently successful. He was now angry at this unex pected 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." s 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 ' Michelet, 'Henri IV et Riche lieu,' p. 250. 2 Caron to States-General, 12 and 13 Sept. 1616. (Hague Archives MS.) 8 Barneveld to Caron, 17 May 1617. (Hague Archives MS.) 74 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII. 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." 1 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 states men 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 ubi quitous nature of nets and pitfalls spreading over Europe by Spain, that he really seemed waking from his delusion. Even Caron was staggered.2 " 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 Mighti nesses 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.3 "And now I will tell your Mightinesses," said Caron,4 1 Caron to the States-General, 30 Jan. 1617. (Hague Archives MS.) 8 Ibid. 8 Same to same, 10 (Hague Archives MS.) 4 Ibid. March 1617. JAMES'S DREAM OF A SPANISH MARRIAGE REVIVES. 75 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 Noue, 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 propo sitions 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 calcu lated 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 76 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII. it was settled, they, as the King's good friends and neigh bours, should have early information of it. " I told him," said the Ambassador, " that undoubtedly this matter was of the highest importance to your Mighti nesses, for it was not good for us to sit between two king doms both so nearly allied with the Spanish monarch, con sidering 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 ihe King was in a state of vehement wrath with the Spanish Netherlands on account of a stinging libel against himself, "an infamous and wonderfully scan dalous pamphlet," as he termed it, called Cc/rona 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, suc cessor 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 1617. JAMES VISITS SCOTLAND. 77 minister-resident Trumbull, and in effect to announce formal hostilities.1 " 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 ex tinguisher of all political conflagrations, away from affairs and to seek the solace of a long holiday in Scotland. His counsellors persistently and vehemently implored him to defer that journey until the following year at least, all the neigh bouring nations being now in a state of war and civil com motion. 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 1 " . . . ende in effecte alle viantschap te bieden." — Caron to the States- General, 10 March 1617. (Hague' Archives MS.) 78 THE LIFE OF . JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII. 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,1 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 hands 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 rebel lion, 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 bert, 4 Feb. 1611. (Arch, du Roy. Bruxelles MS. , rel ating a conversation of King James with the French am bassador in London.) i « . . . qu'il y avoit ouy que lors de son sacre il dit que de la envant il estait bien aise d'estre affranchi du fouet." — Degroote to Archduke Al- 1617. DEATH OF CONCINI. 79 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, not withstanding that we are bound to do it by the pledges given not only by the States-General but by each province in par ticular. 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 fore see 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 April 24, dead one fine spring morning on the bridge of the 1617- Louvre. " By order of the King," said Vitry. His body was burned before the statue of Henry IV. by the people delirious with joy.2 " 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.3 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 1 Barneveld to Cornells Pietersz. Hooft, 5 April 1617. (Hague Arch. MS.) 2 Ouvre, 249. Michelet, 255. 3 Ibid. 256. 80 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XII. consistent with the conservation of the King's authority. We hope the princes will submit themselves now that the lapis ofensionis, 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.' " 1 The shooting of Concini seemed almost to convert the little king into a hero. Everyone in the Netherlands, with out 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." 2 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 friend ship for the States, was already equalled by that of- Louis XIII., who had tremblingly acquiesced in the sum mary 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.3 Barneveld had been right in so often instructing Langerac to " caress the old gentleman." 1 Bameveld to Langerac, 1 May 1617. (Hague Archives MS.) 2 Despatch, 4 May 1817, in Ouvre, p. 249. 8 Ibid. 1617. FERDINAND OF GRATZ. 81 CHAPTER XIII. 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 In trigues 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 per mission 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 mediteval entrance towers. VOL. II. G 82 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. But it was not to enjoy the prospect that the aged, dis crowned, 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." 1 History has failed to record the special benefits of the Emperor through which the city had derived its magni ficence 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. Mean time 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 life time 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."2 Whether that was 1 W. Menzel, iii. 213. 2 To wit, "0 L JSsel " (W. Menzel, iii. 189) ; but the name is more properly spelt " Khlesl." 1617. FERDINAND CROWNED KING OF BOHEMIA. 83 a fair measure of his capacity may be doubted, but it cer tainly was not destined to be sufficient to elude the ven geance 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 Pro testantism 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 84 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. 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 spread ing. 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 Pro testants 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 move ment 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 1617. FERDINAND'S ENMITY TO PROTESTANTS. 85 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 day light from Gratz and other cities. -Rather reign over a wilderness than over heretics was the device of the Arch duke, in imitation of his great relative, Philip II. of Spain. In short space of time his duchies were as empty of Pro testants as the Palatinate of Lutherans, or Saxony of Cal vinists, 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 moul dering by their side.1 It was not strange that the coronation as King of Bohe mia of a man of such decided purposes — a country number ing 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 instinc tively 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. 1 W. Menzel, iii. 86 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. But when were doctors ever wanting to prove the unlawful ness 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.1 , 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 eJeetroa^of Ferdinand was in brief a war-shout to be echoed by all the Catholics of Europe. Before the end of the year the Pro testant churches of Brunnau were sealed up. Those at Klostergrab were demolished in three days by command of the Archbishop of Prague.2 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. 1 Gindely, 236. 2 12 and 13 Dec. 1617. C. A. Menzel. iii. 292. Gindely, 249. 1618. THE WINDOW-TUMBLE AT PRAGUE. 87 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 Fer dinand'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 Imperial ^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.1 The Thirty Years' War, which in reality had been going on for several years already, is dated from that day. A pro visional government was established in Prague by the Estates under Protestant guidance, a college of thirty directors managing affairs. The Window-Tumble,2 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 impend ing, seemed at last to have broken forth in full fury on a 1 Freiherr von Hohenfall. W. Menzel, iii. 315. Gindely, 284, 285. 2 Fenstersturz. 88 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIH. 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 eleetien of Ferdinand to the throne of the holy Wenzel, in which his saeeesa©nA to the German Imperial crown was meant to be involved, was a matter which con cerned 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 com promise 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 eleetien^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 'eteetien^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 1618. REAL BEGINNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 89 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 Wittels bach 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 con tinue 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 prescrip- . tive rights of the Estates in Bohemia first, and afterwards perhaps to send the Golden Bull itself to the limbo of worn- out, 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. 90 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. 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 negotia tion 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.1 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 pre vent the ulterior consequences of his elevation. He made a pilgrimage to Sedan, to confer with that irrepressible in triguer and Huguenot chieftain, the Due de Bouillon. He felt sure of the countenance of the States-General, and, of course, of his near relative the great stadholder. He was 1 Hurter, iii. 5, 6. C. A. Menzel, iii. 270. Gindely, 52, sqq. 1618. THE ELECTOR-PALATINE'S INTRIGUES. 91 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 Pro testants respected. Had the two branches of the illustrious house of Wittelsbach been combined m 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 Maxi milian, sternest of Papists, and Frederick V., flightiest of Calvinists, act harmoniously in an Imperial election ? More over, Maximilian was united by ties of youthful and tender friendship as well as by kindred and perfect religious sym pathy to his other cousin, King Ferdinand himself. The case seemed hopeless, but the Elector went to Munich,1 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 coun cillor, Doctor Jocher.. Camerarius assured Jocher that his master was the Hercules to untie the Gordian knot, and the lion of the tribe of Judah.2 How either the lion of Judah or Hercules were to untie the knot which was popularly sup posed to have been cut by the sword of Alexander did not ' Feb. 1618. Hurter, 7, 8. Gin dely, 193. 2 But the observation seems to have been made at a later interview. Hur ter, i. 25. 92 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIH. 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 Ger man. 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." x This time the German was plain enough and produced its effect. Maximilian was too able a statesman and too con scientious a friend to wish to exchange his own proud position as chief of the League, acknowledged head of th'e 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 Dec. with the Heidelberg cabinet, were forced to look for 1618. another candidate.2 Accordingly the Margrave and the Elector-Palatine solemnly agreed that it was indis pensable to choose an emperor who should not be of the House of Austria nor a slave of Spain. It was, to be sure, not pos sible to think of a Protestant prince. Bavaria would not oppose Austria, would also allow too much influence to the 1 Hurter, i 8, sqq. 2 Hurter, i. 9, 10, who says that the document drawn up in French for the two princes, as was usually the case with the functionaries of the Palatinate, was among those which set the fashion for Germans to use a foreign tongue instead of their own for court and state affairs. 1618. THE PALATINE SUPPORTS THE DUKE OF SAVOY. 93 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, notwith standing the heavy drain on their resources, had allowed him 50,000 florins a month besides the soldiers under Count Ernest of Nassau,1 had sent Mansfeld with 4000 men to aid the revolted estates in Bohemia. Geographically, heredi tarily, 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 von 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 Ger many, 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 in dispensable however to form a general federation in Europe 1 Barneveld to Langerac, 31 July 1617. (Hague Arch.. MS.) 94 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIH. of England, the Netherlands, Venice, together with Pro testant 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." 1 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 em ployed on diplomatic business, that on the whole he should require the crown of Bohemia for himself. He also pro posed to accept the Imperial crown, and as for Frederic, he would leave him the crown of Hungary, and would recom mend 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 Pala tinate. 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 1 Gindely, 391, sqq. Hurter, i. 9-11. 1618. THE PALATINE SUPPORTS THE DUKE OF SAVOY. 95 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 magnani mously 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." 1 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 1 Gindely, 446, 447, 450. Mailath, ii. 356. Hurter, i. 12. 96 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF 3ARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. the anointment of other princes.1 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 stipu lated 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 Sa voyard'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.2 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 1 Gindely, ubi sup. The great his torian well remarks that the question was an evidence of the ndweteoi the Elector. 2 "Opraeetans animi juvenis quantum ipse feroci Virtute exsuperat, tanto me impensius aequum est Prospicere atque omnes volventem ex- pendere casus," he said to him on one occasion. dely, 455. Gin- 1617. THE ELECTOR-PALATINE'S INTRIGUES. 97 about which men can fight : the right to worship God ac- - cording 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,1 " 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." 2 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 impos sible 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 king dom on which the world had learned to rely in all move ments 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 1 Gindely, 482. 2 Ibid. 454. 12 Dec. 1618. (From the Archives at Munich.) VOL. II. H 98 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIH. 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 almoBt 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,1 so that there was nothing left to solace him now but the Rudolphian Museum. He had made but one public appearance since the coro nation 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 accom panying the Emperor on this occasion. Since the Reforma tion no cardinal had been seen at the court of Saxony. He cared not personallyfor 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.2 The Cardinal was afraid of Ferdinand with good reason, and complied. By an agree able 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 '14 Dec. 1618. Gindely, 485. In consequence of her uncontrollable ap petite for food she had become enor mously fat, and died in great suf fering. 2 C. A. Menzel, iii. 271, sqq. 1617. THE EMPEROR MATTHIAS VISITS DRESDEN. 99 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 con ciliatory, 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.1 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 1 C. A. Menzel, iii. 271. Khevenhiiller, viii. s. 47. W. Menzel, iii. 218. 100 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIH. 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," 1 cried the Jesuit Sciop- pius, " 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 1 Anno 1614. W. Menzel, iii. 214. THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REFORMATION. 101 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 shoot- .Nov. 1, ing at Dresden in honour of emperors and car- 1617' dinals. And Pope Paul V. had likewise ordained a jubilee for true believers at almost the same time.1 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," 2 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, blas phemies, errors, and horrors of the benighted Popedom have been exterminated in many kingdoms and countries. Innu merable sheep of the Lord Christ have been fed on the whole some 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 1 C. A. Menzel, iii. 272. W. Menzel, iii. 214. 2 The documents are given at length in the Continuation of Em., v.* Meteren, ii. 672, sqq. C. A Menzel, iii. 272. 102 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII rage. Yes, the Roman antichrist in his frantic bluster- ings may bite off his own tongue, may fulminate all kinds of evils, bans, excommunications, wars, desolations, and burn ings, 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.1 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.2 The Lutheran preachers, on the other hand, obedient to the summons from Dresdenj 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 ex changing these blasts and counterblasts of hatred, not less 1 C A. Menzel, 273. 9 W. Menzel, iii. 214, 215. THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REFORMATION. 103 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 theo logical faculty of Wittenberg, he addressed a " true-hearted 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 Galvinist 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! " 1 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,1 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 out break of the war with Catholicism. . Ferdinand, on the other hand, was at the head of a com paratively 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 1 W. Menzel, iii. 2i9. 104 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIIL 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 Etmekd- schifade. 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.1 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, dis ciplined 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 1 12 May 1615. C. A. Menzel, iii. 269. THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REFORMATION. 105 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 suc cessful, and as there has been no intention in the present volume 1 to do more than slightly indicate the most promi nent 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 wonder- 1 I would express my deep obli gations in this chapter to many of the great modern German historians : F. von Hurter, ' Geschichte Kaiser Ferdinands II. ;' Count Mailath, ' Ge schichte des Oesterr. Kaiserthums ;' Wolfgang Menzel, ' Geschichte. der Deutschen;' Karl Adolf Menzel, 'Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen seit der Reformation,' and others ; and most especially to the Bohemian historian Anton Gindely, ' Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Kriegs,' and ' Rudolph II. und seine Zeit,' whose learned and powerful works leave little to be desired. 106 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIII. fully 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 him self, 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 him self 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. BARNEVELD CONNECTED WITH EAST INDIA COMPANY. 107 CHAPTER XIV. Barneveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West India Company — Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Bameveld — 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 sur render 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. Barne veld'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 108 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chat. XIV. 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.1 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 am bition 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 con sidered 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 per sonal 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 . 1 Wagenaar, x. 97, sqq. 1617. • SIR DUDLEY CARLETON'S ENMITY. 109 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 be lieved 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-concen trated, 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 com pared to most of those by which he was calumniated, con fronted, and harassed ; he accepted the great fight which was forced upon him. Irascible, courageous, austere, con temptuous, 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 la'gunes, and whose admission among the nations had been at last accorded by the proud Queen of the Adriatic, not withstanding 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 110 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. 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 Nether lands 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." 1 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 pro tector of His religion." 2 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,3 at the dictation of the Advocate, he had informed the States that he was convinced of their ability to settle the deplor able 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 1 ' Carleton's Letters.' I 8 King James to States-General, 2 Instructions for Carleton, in 16 March 1613. (Hague Archives ' Letters.' I MS.) 1617. SIR DUDLEY CARLETON'S ENMITY. Ill 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 ex treme 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." 1 And faithfully did the Ambassador act up to his in structions. 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 ecclesi astical 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 dis- 1 Instructions, ubi sup. p. 6. 112 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. courses, except perhaps the contemporaneous and inter minable 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. The1 conflict between the civil and the mili tary 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-bom, brilliant, and scientific soldier, with the laurels of Tumhout and Nieuw- poort and of a hundred famous sieges upon his helmet, reformer of military science, and no mean proficient fn the art of politics and government, were the representatives and leaders of the two great parties into which the Common wealth 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 con- 1617. MAURICE CHIEF OF CONTRA-REMONSTRANTS. 113 summate. 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 free common wealth. 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 into a valuable and exemplary magistrate. In the rivalry of Maurice and Barneveld however for the national affection the chances were singularly against the Advocate. The great battles and sieges of the Princ'e had been on a world's theatre, had enchained the attention of Christendom, and on their issue had frequently depended, or seemed to depend, the very existence of the nation. The labours of the statesman, on the contrary, had been com paratively secret. His noble orations and arguments had been spoken with closed doors to assemblies of colleagues — rather envoys than senators — were never printed or even reported, and could be judged of only by their effects ; while his vast labours in directing both the internal administration and especially the foreign affairs of the Commonwealth had been by their very nature as secret as they were perpetual and enormous. Moreover, there was little of what we now understand as the democratic sentiment in the Netherlands. There was deep and sturdy attachment to ancient traditions, privileges, special constitutions extorted from a power acknowledged to be superior to the people. When partly to save those chartered rights, and partly to overthrow the horrible ecclesiastical tyranny of the sixteenth century, the people had accom- VOL. II. i 114 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. plished a successful revolt, they never dreamt of popular sovereignty, but allowed the municipal corporations, by which their local affairs had been for centuries transacted, to unite in offering to foreign princes, one after another, the crown which they had torn from the head of the Spanish king. When none was found to accept the dangerous honour, they had acquiesced in the practical sovereignty of the States ; but whether the States-General or the States- Provincial were the supreme authority ' had certainly not been definitely and categorically settled.* So long as the States of Holland, led by the Advocate, had controlled' in great matters the political action of the States-General, while the Stadholder stood without a rival at the head of their military affairs, and so long as there were no fierce dis putes as to government and dogma within the bosom of the Reformed Church, the questions which were now inflaming the whole population had been allowed to slumber. The termination of the war and the rise of Arminianism were almost contemporaneous. The Stadholder, who so unwillingly had seen the occupation in which he had won so much glory taken from him by the Truce, might perhaps find less congenial but sufficiently engrossing business as champion of the Church and of the Union. The new church— not freedom of worship for different denominations of Christians, but supremacy of the Church of Heidelberg and Geneva — seemed likely to be the result of the overthrow of the ancient church. It is the essence of the Catholic Church to claim supremacy over and immunity from the civil authority, and to this claim for the Reformed Church, by which that of Rome had been supplanted, Barneveld was strenuously opposed. The Stadholder was backed, therefore, by the Church in its purity, by the majority of the humbler classes — who found in membership of the oligarchy of Heaven a substitute for 1617. TUMULTS AROUND THE CHURCHES. 115 those democratic aspirations on earth which were effectually suppressed between the two millstones of burgher aristocracy and military discipline — and by the States-General, a ma jority of which were Contra- Remonstrant in their faith. If the sword is usually an overmatch for the long robe in. political struggles, the cassock has often proved superior to both combined. But in the case now occupying our attention the cassock was in alliance with the sword. Clearly the contest was becoming a desperate one for the statesman. And while the controversy between the chiefs waxed hotter and hotter, the tumults around the churches on Sun days in every town and village grew more and more furious, ending generally in open fights with knives, bludgeons, and brickbats ; preachers and magistrates being often too glad to escape with a whole skin. One can hardly be ingenuous enough to consider all this dirking, battering, and fisticuffing as the legitimate and healthy outcome of a difference as to the knotty point whether all men might or might not be saved by repentance and faith in Christ. The Greens and Blues of the Byzantine circus had not been more typical of fierce party warfare in the Lower Empire than the greens and blues of predestination in the rising commonwealth, according to the real or imagined epigram of Prince Maurice. "Your divisions in religion," wrote Secretary Lake to Carleton, " have, I doubt not, a deeper root than is discerned by every one, and I doubt not that the Prince Maurice's carriage doth make a jealousy of affecting a party under the pretence of supporting one side, and that the States fear his ends and aims, knowing his power with the men of war ; and that howsoever all be shadowed under the name of religion there is on either part a civil end, of the one seeking a step of higher authority, of the other a preservation of liberty." x 1 'Carleton's Letters,' 170. 116 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. And in addition to other advantages the Contra-Remon- strants had now got a good cry — an inestimable privilege in party contests. " There are two factions in the land," said Maurice, " that of Orange and that of Spain, and the two chiefs of the Spanish faction are those political and priestly Arminians, Uyten bogaert and Oldenbarneveld." 1 Orange and Spain ! the one name associated with all that was most venerated and beloved throughout the country, for William the Silent since his death was almost a god ; the other ineradicably entwined at that moment with every thing execrated throughout the land. The Prince of Orange's claim to be head of the Orange faction could hardly be dis puted, but it was a master stroke of political malice to fix the stigma of Spanish partisanship on the Advocate. If the venerable patriot who had been fighting Spain, sometimes on the battle-field and always in the council, ever since he came to man's estate, could be imagined even in a dream capable of being bought with Spanish gold to betray his country, who in the ranks of the Remonstrant party could be safe from such accusations ? Each party .accused the other of designs for altering or subverting the government. Maurice was suspected of what were called Leicestrian pro-i jects, "Leycestrana consilia" — for the Earl's plots to gain possession of Leyden and Utrecht had never been forgotten — while the Prince and those who acted with him asserted distinctly that it was the purpose of Barneveld to pave the way for restoring the Spanish sovereignty and the Popish religion so soon as the Truce had reached its end.2 Spain and Orange. Nothing for a faction fight could be neater. Moreover the two words rhyme in Netherlandish, which is the case in no other language, " Spanje — Oranje." The sword was drawn and the banner unfurled. ' ' Van der Kemp, iv. 40. 2 ' Carleton's Letters,' 89. 1617. "ORANGE AND SPAIN." 117 The " Mud Beggars " of the Hague, tired of tramping to Ryswyk of a Sunday to listen to Henry Rosaeus, determined on a private conventicle in the capital. The first barn selected was sealed up by the authorities, but Enoch Much, book-keeper of Prince Maurice, then lent them his house. The Prince declared that sooner than they should want a place of assembling he would give them his own. But he meant that they should have a public church to themselves, . and that very soon. King James thoroughly approved of all these proceedings. At that very instant such of his own subjects as had seceded from the Established Church to hold conventicles in bams and breweries and backshops ,in London were hunted by him with bishops' pursuivants and other beagles like vilest criminals, thrown into prison to rot, or suffered to escape from their Fatherland into the trans- Atlantic wilderness, there to battle with wild beasts and savages, and to die without knowing themselves the fathers of a more powerful United States than the Dutch Republic, where they were fain to seek in passing a temporary shelter. He none the less instructed his envoy at the Hague to preach the self-same doctrines for which the New England Puritans were persecuted, and importunately and dictatorially to plead the cause of those Hollanders who, like Bradford and Robinson, Winthrop and Cotton, maintained the inde pendence of the Church over the State. Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride them selves, and Puritanism in the Netherlands, although under temporary disadvantage at the Hague, was evidently the party destined to triumph throughout the country. James could safely sympathize therefore in Holland with what he most loathed in England, and could at the same time feed fat the grudge he owed the Advocate. The calculations of Barneveld as to the respective political forces of the Com monwealth seem to have been to a certain extent defective. 118 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. He allowed probably too much weight to the Catholic party as a motive power at that moment, and he was anxious both from that consideration and from his honest natural instinct for general toleration ; his own broad and unbigoted views in religious matters, not to force that party into a rebellious attitude dangerous to the state. We have seen how nearly a mutiny in the important city of Utrecht, set on foot by certain Romanist conspirators in the years imme diately succeeding the Truce, had subverted the government, had excited much anxiety amongst the firmest allies of the Republic, and had been suppressed only by the decision of the Advocate and a show of military force. He had informed Carleton not long after his arrival that - in the United Provinces, and in Holland in particular, were many sects and religions of which, according to his express sion, " the healthiest and the richest part were the Papists, while the Protestants did not make up one-third part of the inhabitants." 1 Certainly, if these statistics were correct or nearly correct, there could be nothing more stupid from a purely political point of view than to exasperate so influential a portion of the community to madness and rebellion by refusing them all rights of public worship. Yet because the Advocate had uniformly recommended indulgence, he had incurred more odium at home than from any other cause. Of course he was a Papist in disguise, ready to sell his country to Spain, because he was willing that more than half the population of the country should be allowed to worship God according to their conscience. Surely it would be wrong to judge the condition of things at that epoch by the lights of to-day, and perhaps in the Netherlands there had before been no conspicuous personage, save William the Silent alone, who had risen to the height of toleration on which 1 ' Carleton's Letters,' 99. 1617. THE CRY OF PRINCE MAURICE AND HIS PARTY. 119 the Advocate essayed to stand. Other leading politicians considered that the national liberties could be preserved only by retaining the Catholics in complete subjection. At any rate the Advocate was profoundly convinced of the necessity of maintaining harmony and mutual toleration among the Protestants themselves, who, as he said, made up but one-third of the whole people. In conversing with the English ambassador he divided them into " Puritans and double Puritans," - as they would be called, he said, in England. If these should be at variance with each other, he argued, the Papists would be the strongest of all. " To prevent this inconvenience," he said, " the States were endeavouring to settle some certain form of government in the Church ; which being composed of divers persecuted churches such as in the beginning of the wars had their refuge here, that which during the wars could not be so well done they now thought seasonable for a time of truce ; and therefore would show their authority in preventing the schism of the Church which would follow the separation of those they call Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants." l There being no word so offensive to Carleton's sovereign as the word Puritan, the Ambassador did his best to persuade the Advocate that a Puritan in Holland was a very different thing from a Puritan in England. In England he was a noxious vermin, to be hunted with dogs. In the Nether lands he was the governing power. But his arguments were vapourous enough and made little impression on Barneveld. " He would no ways yield," said Sir Dudley. Meantime the Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague, not finding sufficient accommodation in Enoch Much's house, clamoured loudly for the use of a church. It was answered by the city magistrates that two of their persuasion, La Motte and La Faille, preached regularly in the Great 1 Carleton, ubi sup. 120 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. Church, and that Rosaeus had been silenced only because he refused to hold - communion with Uytenbogaert. Maurice insisted that a separate church should be assigned them. " But this is open schism," said Uytenbogaert. Early in the year there was a meeting of the Holland delegation to the States-General, of the state council, and of the magistracy of the Hague, of deputies from the tribunals, and of all the nobles resident in the capital. They sent for Maurice and asked his opinion as to the alarming situation of affairs. He called for the register- books of the States of Holland, and turning back to the pages on which was recorded his accession to -the stadholderate soon after his father's murder, ordered the oath then ex changed between himself and the States to be read aloud. That oath bound them mutually to support the Reformed religion till the last drop of blood in their veins. " That oath I mean to keep," said the Stadholder, " so long as I live." 1 No one disputed the obligation of all parties to maintain the Reformed religion. But the question was whether the Five Points were inconsistent with the Reformed religion. The contrary was clamorously maintained by most of those present. In the year 1586 this difference in dogma had not arisen, and as the large majority of the people at the Hague, including nearly all those of rank and substance, were of the Remonstrant persuasion, they naturally found it not agreeable to be sent out of the church by a small minority. But Maurice chose to settle the question very summarily. His father had been raised to power by the strict Calvinists, and he meant to stand by those who had always sustained William the Silent. " For this religion my father lost his life, and this religion will I defend," said he.2 " You hold then," said Barneveld, " that the Almighty 1 Wagenaar, x. Van der Kemp, iv. 23. Carleton. 2 Carleton, 87. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE CLOISTER CHURCH. 121 has created one child for damnation and another for salva tion, and you wish this doctrine to be publicly preached." " Did you ever hear any one preach that ? " replied the Prince. " If they don't preach it, it is their inmost Gonviction," said the other. And he proceeded to prove his position by copious citations. "And suppose our ministers do preach this doctrine, is there anything strange in it, any reason why they should not do so ? " The Advocate expressed his amazement and horror at the idea. "But does not God know from all eternity who is to be saved and who to be damned ; and does He create men for any other end than that to which He from eternity knows they will come ? " And so they enclosed themselves in the eternal circle out of which it was not probable that either the soldier or the statesman would soon find an issue. " I am no theologian," said Barneveld at last, breaking off the discussion. " Neither am I," said the Stadholder. " So let the parsons come together. Let the Synod assemble and decide the question. Thus we shall get out of all this." 1 Next day a deputation of the secessionists waited by appointment on Prince Maurice. They found him in the ancient mediasval hall of the sovereign counts of Holland, and seated on their old chair of state.2 He recommended them to use caution and moderation for the present, and to go next Sunday once more to Ryswyk. Afterwards he pledged himself that they should have a church at the Hague, and, if necessary, the Great Church itself.3 ' Van der Kemp, iv. 24. 2 Van Rees and Brill, 700, sqq. « Carleton, 87, 88. 122 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. But the Great Church, although a very considerable Catholic cathedral before the Reformation, was not big enough now to hold both Henry Rosaeus and John Uyten bogaert. Those two eloquent, learned, and most pugnacious divines were the respective champions in the pulpit of the opposing parties, as were the Advocate and the Stadholder in the council. And there was as bitter personal rivalry between the two as between the soldier and statesman. " The factions begin to divide themselves," said Carleton, " betwixt his Excellency and Monsieur Barneveld as heads who join to this present difference their ancient quarrels. And the schism rests actually between Uytenbogaert and Rosaeus, whose private emulation and envy (both being much applauded and followed) doth no good towards the public pacification." 1 Uytenbogaert repeatedly offered,, how ever, to resign his functions and to leave the Hague. " He was always ready to play the Jonah," he said. A temporary arrangement was made soon afterwards by which Rosaeus and his congregation should have the use of what was called the Gasthuis Kerk, then appropriated to the English embassy. Carleton of course gave his consent most willingly. The Prince declared that the States of Holland and the city magistracy had personally affronted him by the obstacles they had interposed to the public worship of the Contra- Remonstrants. With their cause he had now thoroughly identified himself. The hostility between the representatives- of the civil and military authority waxed fiercer every hour. The tumults were more terrible than ever. Plainly there was no room in the Commonwealth for the Advocate and the Stadholder. Some impartial persons believed that there would be no peace until both were got rid of. " There are many words 1 Carleton, 89. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE CLOISTER CHURCH. 123 among this free-spoken people," said Carleton, " that to end these differences they must follow the example of France in Marshal d'Ancre's case, and take off the heads of both chiefs." 1 But these decided persons were in a small minority. Meantime the States of Holland met in full Jail. 28 assembly ; sixty delegates being present. 1617- It was proposed to invite his Excellency to take part in the deliberations. A committee which had waited upon him the day before had reported him as in favour of mo derate rather than harsh measures in the church affair, while maintaining his plighted word to the seceders.2 Barneveld stoutly opposed the motion. "What need had the sovereign states of Holland of advice from a stadholder, from their servant, their func tionary ? " he cried. But the majority for once thought otherwise. The Prince was invited to come. The deliberations were moderate but inconclusive. He appeared again at an adjourned meeting when the councils were not so harmonious. , Barneveld, Grotius, and other eloquent speakers endea voured to point out that the refusal of the seceders to hold communion with the Remonstrant preachers and to insist on a separation was fast driving the state to perdition. They warmly recommended mutual toleration and harmony. Gro tius exhausted learning and rhetoric to prove that the Five Points were not inconsistent with salvation nor with the constitution of the United Provinces. The Stadholder grew impatient at last and clapped his hand on his rapier. " No need here," he said, " of flowery orations and learned arguments. With this good sword I will defend the religion Carleton, 89. " Van der Kemp, iv. 28, 29. 124 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XTV. which my father planted in these Provinces, and I should like to see the man who is going to prevent ine ! " 1 The words had an heroic ring in the ears of such as are ever ready to applaud brute force, especially, when wielded by a prince. The argumentum ad ensem, however, was the last plea that William the Silent would have been likely to employ on such an occasion, nor would it have been easy to prove that the Reformed religion had been "planted" by one who had drawn the sword against the foreign tyrant, and had made vast sacrifices for his country's independence years before abjuring communion with the Roman Catholic Church.2 When swords are handled by the executive in presence of civil assemblies there is usually but one issue to be ex pected. Moreover, three whales had recently been stranded at Scheveningen, one of them more than sixty feet long, and men wagged their beards gravely as they spoke of the event, deeming it a certain presage of civil commotions.3 It was remembered that at the outbreak of the great war twt> whales had been washed ashore in the Scheldt. Although some free-thinking people were inclined to ascribe the phenomenon to a prevalence of strong westerly gales, while others found proof in it of a superabundance of those creatures in the Polar seas, which should rather give encou ragement to the Dutch and Zealand fisheries, it is probable that quite as dark forebodings of coming disaster were caused by this accident as by the trumpet-like defiance which the Stadholder had just delivered to the States of Holland. Meantime the seceding congregation of the Hague had 1 Van der Kemp, iv. 21. 2 William of Orange first attended communion at a Calvinist meeting on 23 Oct. 1573. ' Dutch Republic,' ii. 243, note -f . Van Wyn op Wag. vi. 73, and other authorities there cited. 8 Carleton, 89. Wagenaar, x. 158. Baudart. ix. 97, 102. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE CLOISTER CHURCH. 125 become wearied of the English or Gasthuis Church, and another and larger one had been promised them. This, was an ancient convent on one of the principal streets of the town, now used as a cannon-foundry.1 The Prince personally superintended the preparations for getting ready this place of worship, which was thenceforth called the Cloister Church. But delays were, as the Contra-Remonstrants believed, purposely interposed, so that it was nearly Midsummer before there were any signs of the church being fit for use. They hastened accordingly to carry it, as it were, by assault. Not wishing peaceably to accept as a july 9) boon from the civil authority what they claimed 1617- as an indefeasible right, they suddenly took possession one Sunday night of the Cloister Church. It was in a state of utter confusion — part monastery, part foundry, part conventicle. There were few seats, no altar, no communion-table, hardly any sacramental furniture, but a pulpit was extemporized. Rosaeus preached in triumph to an enthusiastic congregation, and three children were baptized with the significant names of William, Maurice, and Henry. On the following Monday there was a striking scene on the Voorhout. This most beautiful street of a beautiful city was a broad avenue, shaded by a quadruple row of lime- trees, reaching out into the thick forest of secular oaks and beeches^-s warming with fallow-deer and alive with the notes of singing birds — by which the Hague, almost from time immemorial, has been embowered. The ancient cloister — house and church now reconverted to religious uses — was a plain, rather insipid structure of red brick picked out with white stone, presenting three symmetrical gables to the street, with a slender belfry and spire rising in the rear. Nearly adjoining it on the north-western side was the 1 Arend, ' Vad. Gesch.' continued by van Rees and Brill, iii. 707-716. 126 THE LD7E OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. elegant and commodious mansion of Barneveld, purchased by him from the representatives of the Arenberg family, surrounded by shrubberies and flower-gardens ; not a palace, but a dignified and becoming abode for the first citizen of a powerful republic. On that midsummer's morning it might well seem that, in rescuing the old cloister from the military purposes to which it had for years been devoted, men had given an even more belligerent aspect to the scene than if it had been left as a foundry. The miscellaneous pieces of artillery and other fire-arms lying about, with piles of cannon-ball which there had not been time to remove, were hardly less belli gerent and threatening of aspect than the stern faces of the crowd occupied in thoroughly preparing the house for its solemn destination. It was determined that there should . be accommodation on the next Sunday for all who came to the service. An army of carpenters, joiners, glaziers, and other workmen — assisted by a mob of citizens of all ranks and ages, men and women, gentle and simple — were busily engaged in bringing planks and benches ; working with plane, adze, hammer and saw, trowel and shovel, to com plete the work. On the next Sunday the Prince1 attended public worship for the last time at the Great Church under the ministration July 16, of Uytenbogaert. He was infuriated with the 1617. sermon, in which the bold Remonstrant, bitterly inveighed against the proposition for a National Synod. To oppose that measure publicly in the very face of the Stad holder, who now considered himself as the Synod personified, seemed to him flat blasphemy. Coming out of the church with his step-mother, the widowed Louise de Coligny, Princess of Orange, he denounced the man in unmeasured terms. " He is the enemy of God," said Maurice. At least 1 Van Rees and Brill, ubi sup. Van der Kemp, iv. 45. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE CLOISTER CHURCH. 127 from that time forth, and indeed for a year before, Maurice was the enemy of the preacher. On the following Sunday, July 23, Maurice went in solemn state to the divine service at the Cloister Church now thoroughly organized. He was accompanied juiy33j by his cousin, the famous Count William Lewis of 1617- Nassau, Stadholder of Friesland, who had never concealed his warm sympathy with the Contra-Remonstrants, and by all the chief officers of his household and members of his staff. It was an imposing demonstration and meant for one. As the martial stadholder at the head of his brilliant caval cade rode forth across the drawbridge from the Inner Court of the old moated palace — where the ancient sovereign Dirks and Florences of Holland had so long ruled their stout little principality — along the shady and stately Kneuterdyk and so through the Voorhout, an immense crowd thronged around his path and accompanied him to the church. It was as if the great soldier were marching to siege or battle-field where fresher glories than those of Sluys or Geertruidenberg were awaiting him. The train passed by Barneveld's house and entered the cloister. More than four thousand persons were present at the service or crowded around the doors vainly attempting to gain admission into the overflowing aisles ; while the Great Church was left comparatively empty, a few hundred only worshipping there. The Cloister Church was thence forth called the Prince's Church, and a great revolution was beginning even in the Hague. The Advocate was wroth as he saw the procession graced by the two stadholders and their military attendants. He knew that he was now to bow his head to the Church thus championed by the chief personage and captain-general of the state, to renounce his dreams of religious toleration, to sink from his post of supreme civic ruler, or to accept an 128 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. unequal struggle in which he might utterly succumb. But his iron nature would break sooner than bend. In the first transports of his indignation he is said to have vowed vengeance against the immediate instruments by which the Cloister Church had, as he conceived, been surreptitiously and feloniously seized. He meant to strike a blow which should startle the whole population of the Hague, send a thrill of horror through the country, and teach men to beware how they trifled with the sovereign states of Holland, whose authority had so long been undisputed, and with him their chief functionary. He resolved — so ran the tale of the preacher Trigland, who told it to Prince Maurice, and has preserved it in his chronicle1 — to cause to be seized at midnight, from their beds four men whom he considered the ringleaders in this mutiny, to have them taken to the place of execution on the square in the midst of the city, to have their heads cut off at once by warrant from the chief tribunal without any previous warning, and then to summon -all the citizens at dawn of day, by ringing of bells and firing of cannon, to gaze on the ghastly spectacle, and teach them to what fate this pestilential schism and revolt against authority had brought its humble tools. The victims were to be Enoch Much, the Prince's book-keeper, and three others, an attorney? an engraver, and an apothecary, all of course of the Contra- Remonstrant persuasion. It was necessary, said the Advocate, to make once for all an example, and show that there was a government in the land. He had reckoned on a ready adhesion to this measure and a sentence from the tribunal through the influence of his son-in-law, the Seignior van Veenhuyzen,- who was president of the chief court. His attempt was foiled how ever by the stern opposition of two Zealand members of the 1 Van der Kemp, iv. 43-46. Trigland, ' Hist.' p. 908. THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE CLOISTER CHURCH. 129 court, who managed to bring up from a bed of sickness, where he had long been lying, a Holland councillor whom they knew to be likewise opposed to the fierce measure, and thus defeated it by a majority of one. Such is the story as told by contemporaries and repeated from that day to this.1 It is hardly necessary to say that Barneveld calmly denied having conceived or even heard of the scheme. That men could go about looking each other in the face and rehearsing such gibberish would seem sufficiently dispiriting did we not know to what depths of credulity \nen in all ages can sink when possessed by the demon of party malice. If it had been narrated on the Exchange at Amsterdam or Flushing during that portentous midsummer that Barneveld had not only beheaded but roasted alive, and fed the dogs and cats upon the attorney, the apothecary, and the engraver, there would have been citizens in plenty to devour the news with avidity. But although the Advocate had never imagined such extravagances as these, it is certain that he had now resolved upon very bold measures, and that too without an instant's delay. He suspected the Prince of aiming at sovereignty not only over Holland but over all the pro vinces and to be using the Synod as a principal part of his machinery. The -gauntlet was thrown down by the Stad holder, and the Advocate lifted it at once. The issue of the struggle would depend upon the political colour of the town magistracies. Barneveld instinptively felt that Maurice, being now resolved that the Synod should be held, would lose no time in making a revolution in all the towns through the power he held or could plausibly usurp. Such a course would, in his opinion, lead directly to an uncon- 1 It is very singular that Brandt, ii. 471, narrates the story on authority of Trigland, but without vouching for or denying it. VOL. II. K 130 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. stitutional and violent subversion of the sovereign rights of each province, to the advantage of the central government. A religious creed would be forced upon Holland and perhaps upon two other provinces which was repugnant to a con siderable majority of the people. And this would be done by a majority vote of the States-General, on a matter over which, by the 13th Article of the fundamental compact — the Union of Utrecht — the States-General had no control, each province having reserved the disposition of religious affairs to itself. For let it never be forgotten that the Union of the Netherlands was a compact, a treaty, an Agreement between sovereign states. There was no pretence that it was an incorporation, that the people had laid down a constitution, an organic law. The people were never con sulted, did not exist, had not for political purposes been invented. It was the great primal defect of their institu tions, but the Netherlanders would have been centuries before their age had they been able to remedy that defect. Yet the Netherlanders would have been much behind even that age of bigotry had they admitted the possibility in a free commonwealth of that most sacred and important of all subjects that concern humanity,' religious creed — the relation of man to his Maker— to be regulated by the party vote of a political board. It was with no thought of treason in his heart or his head therefore that the Advocate now resolved that the States of Holland and the cities of which that college was composed should protect their liberties and privileges, the sum of which in his opinion made up the sovereignty of the province he served, and that they should protect them, if. necessary, by force. Force was apprehended. It should be met by force. To be forewarned was to be forearmed. Barneveld forewarned the States of Holland. On the 4th August 1617, he proposed to that assembly a 1617. "THE SHARP RESOLVE." 131 resolution which was destined to become famous. A majority accepted it after brief debate. It was to this effect.1 The States having seen what had befallen in many cities, and especially in the Hague, against the order, liberties, and laws of the land, and having in vain attempted to bring into harmony with the States certain cities which refused to co-operate with the majority, had at last resolved to refuse the National Synod, as conflicting with the sovereignty and laws of Holland. They had thought good to set forth in public print their views as to religious worship, and to take measures to prevent all deeds of violence against persons and property. To this end the regents of cities were authorized in case of need, until otherwise ordained, to enrol men-at- arms for their security and prevention of violence. Further more, every one that might complain of what the regents of cities by strength of this resolution might do was ordered to have recourse to no one else than the States of Holland, as no account would be made of anything that might be done or undertaken by the tribunals. Finally, it was resolved to send a deputation to Prince Maurice, the Princess-Widow, and Prince Henry, requesting them to aid in carrying out this resolution. Thus the deed was done. The sword was drawn. It was drawn in self-defence and in deliberate answer to the Stad- holder's defiance when he rapped his sword hilt in face of the assembly, but still it was drawn. The States of Holland were declared sovereign and supreme. The National Synod was peremptorily rejected. Any decision of the supreme courts of the Union in regard to the subject of this resolu tion was nullified in advance. Thenceforth this measure of the 4th August was called the " Sharp Resolve." It might prove perhaps to be double-edged. It was a stroke of grim sarcasm on the part of the Advo- 1 Wagenaar, x. 162, seq.; Baudart. ix. 37 ; and all the historians. 132 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. cate thus solemnly to invite the Stadholder's aid in carrying out a law which was aimed directly at his head ; to request his help for those who meant to defeat with the armed hand that National Synod which he had pledged himself to bring about. The question now arose what sort of men-at-arms it would be well for the city governments to enlist. The officers of the regular garrisons had received distinct orders from Prince Maurice as their military superior to refuse any summons to act in matters proceeding from the religious question. The Prince, who had chief authority over all the regular troops, had given notice that he would permit nothing to be done against " those of the Reformed religion," by which he meant the Contra-Remonstrants and them only. In some cities there were no garrisons, but only train-bands. But the train bands (Schutters) could not be relied on to carry out the Sharp Resolve, for they were almost to a man Contra-Remonstrants. It was therefore determined to enlist what were called " Waartgelders;" soldiers, inhabitants of the place, who held themselves ready to serve in time of need in consideration of a certain wage ; mercenaries in short.1 This resolution was followed as a matter of course by a solemn protest from Amsterdam and the five cities who acted with her.2 On the same day Maurice was duly notified of the pas sage of the law. His wrath was great. High words passed between him and the deputies. It could hardly- have been otherwise expected. Next day he came before the Assembly to express his sentiments, to complain of the rudeness with which the resolution of 4th August had been communicated to him, and to demand further explanations. Forthwith the 1 Wagenaar, x. 161, seq. Van der Kemp, iv. 49, seq. 2 Wagenaar, x. 161, seq. Van der Kemp, iv. 49, * Brill, v. iii. 730, Van Rees and 1617. "THE SHARP RESOLVE." 133 Advocate proceeded to set forth the intentions of the States, and demanded that the Prince should assist the magistrates in carrying out the policy decided upon. Reinier Pauw, burgomaster of Amsterdam, fiercely interrupted the oration of Barneveld, saying that although these might be his views, they were not to be held by his Excellency as the opinions of all. The Advocate, angry at the interruption, answered him sternly, and a violent altercation, not unmixed with personalities, arose. Maurice, who kept his temper admirably on this occasion, interfered between the two and had much difficulty in quieting the dispute.1 He then observed that when he took the oath as stadholder these un fortunate differences had not arisen, but all had been good friends together. This was perfectly true, but he could have added that they might all continue good friends unless the plan of imposing a religious creed upon the minority by a clerical decision were persisted in. He concluded that for love of one of the two great parties he would not violate the oath he had taken to maintain the Reformed religion to the last drop of his blood. Still, with the same petitio principii that the Reformed religion and the dogmas of the Contra- Remonstrants were one and the same thing, he assured the Assembly that the authority of the magistrates would be sustained by him so long as it did not lead to the subversion of religion.Clearly the time for argument had passed. As Dudley Carleton observed, men had been disputing pro aris long enough. They would soon be fighting pro focis? In pursuance of the policy laid down by the Sharp Resolu tion, the States proceeded to assure themselves of the various cities of the province by means of Waartgelders. They sent to the important seaport of Brielle and demanded a new oath from the. garrison. It was intimated that the Prince would 1 Van der Kemp, iv. 33. 2 ' Carleton's Letters,' p. 100. 134 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. be soon coming there in person to make himself master of the place, and advice was given to the magistrates to be beforehand with him. These statements angered Maurice, and angered him the more because they happened to be true. It was also charged that he was pursuing his Leices- trian designs and meant to make himself, by such steps, sovereign of the country. The name of Leicester being a byword of reproach ever since that baffled noble had a generation before left the Provinces in disgrace, it was a matter of course that such comparisons were excessively exasperating. . It was fresh enough too in men's memory that the Earl in his Netherland career had affected sym pathy with the strictest denomination of religious reformers, and that the profligate worldling and arrogant self-seeker had used the mask of religion to cover flagitious ends. As it had indeed been the object of the party at the head of which the Advocate had all his life acted to raise the youthful Maurice to the stadholderate expressly to foil the plots of Leicester, it could hardly fail to be unpalatable to Maurice to be now accused of acting the part of Leicester. He inveighed bitterly on the subject before the state council. The state council, in a body, followed him to a meeting of the States-General. Here the Stadholder made a vehement speech and demanded that the States of Holland should rescind the " Sharp Resolution," and should desist from the new oaths required from the soldiery. Barneveld, firm as a rock, met these bitter denunciations. Speaking in the name of Holland, he repelled the idea that the sovereign States of that province were responsible to the state council or to the States-General either. He regretted, as all re gretted, the calumnies uttered against the Prince, but in times of such intense excitement every conspicuous man was the mark of calumny. The Stadholder warmly repudiated Leicestrian designs, 1617. "THE SHARP RESOLVE." 135 and declared that he had been always influenced by a desire to serve his country and maintain the Reformed religion. If he had made mistakes, he desired to be permitted to improve in the future.1 Thus having spoken, the soldier retired from the Assembly with the state council at his heels. The Advocate lost no time in directing the military occupation of the principal towns of Holland, such as Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam, Schoonhoven, Hoom, and other cities. At Leyden especially, where a strong Orange party was with difficulty kept in obedience by the Remonstrant magis tracy, it was found necessary to erect a stockade about the town-hall and to plant caltrops and other obstructions in the squares and streets. The broad space in front of the beautiful mediaeval seat of the municipal government, once so sacred for the sublime and pathetic scenes enacted there during the famous siege and in the magistracy of Peter van der Werff, was accordingly enclosed by a solid palisade of oaken planks, strengthened by rows of iron bars with barbed prongs. The entrenchment was called by the populace the Arminian Fort, and the iron spear heads were baptized Barneveld's teeth.2 Cannon were planted at intervals along the works, and a company or two of the Waartgelders, armed from head to foot, with snap- hances on their shoulders, stood ever ready to issue forth to quell any disturbances. Occasionally a life or two was lost of citizen or soldier, and many doughty blows were interchanged. It was a melancholy spectacle. No commonwealth could be more fortunate than this republic in possessing two such 1 Van der Kemp, iv. 57. 2 Broadsheets and caricatures of the year 1617. Baudartius. Van Rees and Brill, 751. 136 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XP7. great leading minds. No two men could be more patriotic than both Stadholder and Advocate. No two men could be prouder, more overbearing, less conciliatory. " I know Mons. Barneveld well," said Sir Ralph Winwood, "and know that he hath great powers and abilities, and malice itself must confess that man never hath done more faithful and powerful service to his country than he. But finis coronat opus and il di lodi lacera; oportet imperatorem stantem mori." i The cities of Holland were now thoroughly "waart- geldered," and ' Barneveld having sufficiently shown his Aug. 14, " teeth " in that province departed for change of 1617. ajr ^0 Utrecht.2 His failing health was assigned as the pretext for the visit, although the atmosphere of that city has never been considered especially salubrious in the dog-days. Meantime the Stadholder remained quiet, but biding his time. He did not choose to provoke a premature conflict in _ Sept 39j the strongholds of the Arminians as he called them, 1617. j^ -with, a true military instinct preferred making sure of the ports. Amsterdam, Enkhuyzen, Flushing, being without any effort of his own within his control, he quietly slipped down the river Meuse on the night of the 29th September, accompanied by his brother Frederic Henry, and before six o'clock next morning had introduced a couple of companies of trustworthy troops into Brielle, had sum moned the magistrates before him, and compelled them to desist from all further intention of levying mercenaries. Thus all the fortresses which Bameveld had so recently and in such masterly fashion rescued from the grasp of England were now quietly reposing in the hands of the Stadholder.3 1 'Carleton's Letters,' 193. 2 Baudart, ix. 81. Wagenaar, x. 168, seq. Van der Kemp, iv. 60, seq. 8 Wagenaar, xi. 174, 175. Van der Kemp, iv. 61, 62. 1617. "THE SHARP RESOLVE." 137 Maurice thought it not worth his while for the present to quell the mutiny — as he considered it — the legal and con stitutional defence of vested right — as great jurists like Barneveld and Hugo Grotius accounted the movement — at its "fountain head Leyden or its chief stream Utrecht;" to use the expression of Carleton.1 There had already been bloodshed in Leyden, a burgher or two having been shot and a soldier stoned to death in the streets, but the Stadholder deemed it unwise to precipitate matters. Feeling himself, with his surpassing military knowledge and with a large majority of the nation at his back,, so completely master of the situation, he preferred waiting on events. And there is no doubt that he was proving himself a consummate politician and a perfect master of fence. "He is much beloved and followed both of soldiers and people," said the English ambassador, " he is a man innoxiae populartitatis so as this jealousy cannot well be fastened upon him ; and in this cause of religion he stirred not until within these few months he saw he must declare himself or suffer the better party to be overborne." 2 The chief tribunal — high council so called — of the country soon gave evidence that the " Sharp Resolution " had judged rightly in reckoning on its hostility and in nullifying its decisions in advance. They decided by a majority vote that the Resolution ought not to be obeyed, but set aside. Amsterdam, and the three or four cities usually acting with her, refused to enlist troops. Rombout Hoogerbeets, a member of the tribunal, informed Prince Maurice that he " would no longer be present on a bench where men disputed the authority of the States of' Holland, which he held to be the supreme sovereignty over him." 3 1 ' Carleton's Letters,' 184. 2 Ibid. 3 Wagenaar, x. 173. 138 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV This was plain speaking ; a distinct enunciation of what ¦ the States' right party deemed to be constitutional law. And what said Maurice in reply ? " I, too, recognize the States of Holland as sovereign ; but we might at least listen to each other occasionally." 1 Hoogerbeets, however, deeming that listening had been carried far enough, decided to leave the tribunal altogether, and to resume the post which he had formerly occupied as Pensionary or chief magistrate of Leyden. Here he was soon to find himself in the thick of the conflict. Meantime the States-General, in full assembly, Nov. n, on Hth November 1617, voted that the National 1617- Synod should be held in the course of the following year. The measure was carried by a strict party vote and by a majority of one. The representatives of each province voting as one, there were four in favour of to three against the Synod. The minority, consisting of Holland, Utrecht, and Overyssel, protested against the vote as an outrageous invasion of the rights of each province, as an act of flagrant tyranny and usurpation.2 The minority in the States of Holland, the five cities often named, protested against the protest. The defective part of the Netherland constitutions could not be better illustrated. The minority of the States of Holland refused to be bound by a majority of the provincial assembly. The minority of the States-General refused to be bound by the majority of the united assembly. This was reducing politics to an absurdity and making- all government impossible. It is however quite certain that in the municipal governments a majority had always governed, and that a majority vote in the provincial assem blies had always prevailed. The present innovation was to govern the States-General by a majority. • Wagenaar, x. 173. 2 Ibid. 177, 178. Van der Kemp, iv. 66, 67. 1617. "THE SHARP RESOLVE." 139 Yet viewed by the light of experience and of common sense, it would be difficult to conceive of a more prepos terous proceeding than thus to cram a religious creed down the throats of half the population of a country by the vote of a political assembly. But it was the seventeenth and not the nineteenth century. Moreover, if there were any meaning in words, the 13th Article of Union, reserving especially the disposition over religious matters to each province, had been wisely in tended to prevent the possibility of such tyranny. When the letters of invitation to the separate states and to others were drawing up in the general assembly, the representatives of the three states left the chamber. A solitary individual from Holland remained however, a burgomaster of Amsterdam. Uytenbogaert, conversing with Barneveld directly after wards, advised him to accept the vote. Yielding to the decision of the majority, it would be possible, so thought the clergyman, for the great statesman so to handle matters as to mould the Synod to his will, even as he had so long con trolled the States-Provincial and the States-General. " If you are willing to give away the rights of the land," said the Advocate very sharply, " I am not." 1 Probably the priest's tactics might have proved more adroit than the stony opposition on which Barneveld was resolved. But it was with the aged statesman a matter of principle, not of policy. His character and his personal pride, the dignity of opinion and office, his respect for constitutional law, were all at stake. Shallow observers considered the struggle now taking place as a personal one. Lovers of personal government chose to look upon the Advocate's party as a faction inspired with 1 Wagenaar, x. 179. Compare van Rees and Brill, 753 ; Uytenbogaert, 881. 140 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV an envious resolve to clip the wings of the Stadholder, who was at last flying above their heads. There could be no doubt of the bitter animosity between the two men. There could be no doubt that jealousy was playing the part which that master passion will ever play in all the affairs of life. But there could be no doubt either that a difference of principle as wide as the world separated the two antagonists. Even so keen an observer as Dudley Carleton, while admitting the man's intellectual power and unequalled services, could see nothing in the Advocate's present course but prejudice, obstinacy, and the insanity of pride. " He doth no whit spare himself in pains nor faint in his reso lution," said the Envoy, " wherein notwithstanding he will in all appearance succumbere afore long, having the disad vantages of a weak body, a weak party, and a weak cause." 1 But Carleton hated Barneveld, and considered it the chief object of his mission to destroy him, if he could. In so doing he would best carry out the wishes of his sovereign. The King of Britain had addressed a somewhat equivocal letter to the States-General on the subject of rehgion in the spring of 1617.2 It certainly was far from being as satisfactory as the epistles of 1613 prepared under the Advocate's instructions had been, while the exuberant commentary upon the royal text, delivered in full assembly by his ambassador soon after the reception of the letter, was more than usually didactic, offensive, and ignorant. Sir Dudley never omitted an opportunity of imparting instruction to the States-General as to the nature of their constitution and the essential dogmas on which their Church was founded. It is true that the great lawyers and the 1 'Carleton's Letters,' 203. 2 "Missive van den Koning van England aan de Staten General," 20 March 1617. MS.) (Hague Archives CARLETON'S ORATIONS BEFORE THE STATES-GENERAL. 141 great theologians of the country were apt to hold very different opinions from his upon those important subjects, but this was so much the worse for the lawyers and theo logians, as time perhaps might prove. The King in this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier letters had been misinterpreted. They had been made use of, he said, to authorize the very error against which they had been directed. They had been held to intend the very contrary of what they did mean. He felt himself bound in conscience therefore, finding these differences ready to be " hatched into schisms," to warn the States once more against pests so pernicious. Although the royal language was somewhat vague so far as enunciation of doctrine, a point on which he had once confessed himself fallible, was concerned, there was nothing vague in his recommendation of a National Synod. To this the opposition of Barneveld was determined not upon religious but upon constitutional grounds. The confederacy did not constitute a nation, and therefore there could not be . a national synod nor a national religion. Carleton came before the States-General soon afterwards 1 with a prepared oration, wearisome as a fast-day sermon after the third turn of the hour-glass, pragmatical as a school- - master's harangue to fractious little boys. He divided his lecture into two heads — the peace of the Church, and the peace of the Provinces- — starting with the first. " A Jove principium," he said, " I will begin with that which is both beginning and end. It is the truth of God's word and its maintenance that is the bond of our com mon cause. Reasons of state invite us as friends and neigh bours by the preservation of our lives and property, but the 1 "Memorie van den Heere Dudley Carleton," &c. 20 April (o. s.) 1617. (Archives at the Hague MS.) 142 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV interest of religion binds us as Christians and brethren to the mutual defence of the liberty of our consciences." He then proceeded to point out the only means by which liberty of conscience could be preserved. It was by suppressing all forms of religion but one, and by silencing all religious discussion. Peter Titelman and Philip II. could, not have devised a more pithy formula. All that was wanting was the axe and faggot to reduce uniformity to practice. Then liberty of conscience would be complete. " One must distinguish," said the Ambassador, " between just liberty and unbridled license, and conclude that there is but one truth single and unique. Those who go about turning their brains into limbecks for distilling new notions 1 in religious matters only distract the union of the Church which makes profession of this unique truth. If it be permitted to one man to publish the writings and fantasies of a sick spirit and for another moved by Christian zeal to reduce this wanderer ad sanam mentem, why then patet locus adversus utrumque, and the common enemy (the Devil) slips into the fortress." He then proceeded to illustrate this theory on liberty of conscience by allusions to Conrad Vorstius. This infamous sectary had in fact reached such a pitch of audacity, said the Ambassador, as not only to inveigh against the eternal power of God but to indulge in irony against the honour of his Majesty King James. And in what way had he scandalized the government of the Republic ? He had dared to say that within its borders there was religious toleration. He had distinctly averred that in the United Provinces heretics were not punished with death or with corporal chastisement. " He declares openly," said Carleton," that contra haereticos 1 "Ceux qui vont alembiqua'nt leurs cerveaux pour exciter nouvelles opinions et disputes en matiere de la religion," &c. CARLETON'S ORATIONS BEFORE THE STATES-GENERAL. 143 etiam vere dictos (ne dumfalso et calumniose sic traductos) there is neither sentence of death nor other corporal punish ment, so that in order to attract to himself a great following of birds of the same feather he publishes to all the world that here in this country one can live and die a heretic, unpunished, without being arrested and without danger." In order to suppress this reproach upon the Republic at which the Ambassador stood aghast, and to prevent the Vorstian doctrines of religious toleration and impunity of heresy from spreading among "the common people, so subject by their natures to embrace new opinions," he advised of course that " the serpent be sent back to the nest where he was born before the venom had spread through the whole body of the Republic." A week afterwards a long reply was delivered on part of the States-General to the Ambassador's oration.1 It is need less to say that it was the work of the Advocate, and that it was in conformity with the opinions so often exhibited in the letters to Caron and others of which the reader has seen many samples. That religious matters were under the control of the civil government, and that supreme civil authority belonged to each one of the seven sovereign provinces, each recognizing no superior within its own sphere, were maxims of state always enforced in the Netherlands and on which the whole religious controversy turned. "The States-General have always cherished the true Christian Apostolic religion," they said, " and wished it to be taught under the authority and protection of the legal government of these Provinces in all purity, and in con formity with the Holy Scriptures, to the good people of these Provinces. And My Lords the States and magistrates 1 " Antwoord op de propositie van den Ambassadeur Carleton," 28 April 1617. (Hague Archives MS.) 144 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. of the respective provinces, each within their own limits, desire the same." They had therefore given express orders to the preachers " to keep the peace by mutual and benign toleration of the different opinions oh the one side and the other at least until with full knowledge of the subject the States might otherwise ordain. They had been the more moved to this because his Majesty having carefully examined the opinions of the learned here on each side had found both consistent with Christian belief and the salvation of souls." It was certainly not the highest expression of religious toleration for the civil authority to forbid the clergymen of the country from discussing in their pulpits the knottiest and most mysterious points of the schoolmen lest the " common people " should be puzzled. Nevertheless, where the close union of Church and State and the necessity of one church were deemed matters of course, it was much to secure subordination of the priesthood to the magistracy, while to enjoin on preachers abstention from a single ex citing cause of quarrel, on the ground that there was more than one path to salvation, and that mutual toleration was better than mutual persecution, was. in that age, a stride towards religious equality. It was at least an advance on Carleton's dogma, that there was but one unique and solitary truth, and that to declare heretics not punishable with death was an insult to the government of the Republic. The States-General answered the Ambassador's plea, made in the name of his master, for immediate and unguaranteed evacuation of the debatable land by the arguments already so often stated in the Advocate's instructions to Caron. They had been put to great trouble and expense already in their campaigning and subsequent fortification of important places in the duchies. They had seen the bitter spirit manifested by the Spaniards in the demolition of the CARLETON'S ORATIONS BEFORE THE STATES-GENERAL. 145 churches and houses of Miilheim and other places. " While the affair remained in its present terms of utter uncertainty, their Mightinesses," said the States-General, " find it most objectionable to forsake the places which they have been fortifying and to leave the duchies and all their fellow- religionists, besides the rights of the possessory princes, a prey to those who have been hankering for the territories for long years, and who would unquestionably be able to make themselves absolute masters of all within a very few days." A few months later Carleton came before the States- General again and delivered another elaborate oration, duly furnished to him by the King, upon the Oct. 6, necessity of the National Synod, the comparative 1617- merits of Arminianism and Contra-Remonstrantism, to gether with a full exposition of the constitutions of the Netherlands.1 It might be supposed that Barneveld and Grotius and Hoogerbeets knew something of the law and history of their country. But James knew much better, and so his envoy endea voured to convince his audience. He received on the spot a temperate but conclusive reply from the delegates of Holland. They informed him that the war with Spain — the cause of the Utrecht Union — was not begun about religion but on account of the violation of liberties, chartered rights and privileges, not the least of which rights was that of each province to regulate religious matters within its borders. A little later a more vehement reply was published ano nymously in the shape of a pamphlet called The Balance,2 1 " Carleton's Letters,' 205, seq. 2 The original is called ' Weegschael om in alle billickheyt te overwegen de Oratie,' &c. The translation is en titled 'Balance pour peser en toute equitelaHaranguedutres-noble.docteet prudent Seigneur Monseigneur Dudley Carleton etc., l'an 1618.' VOL. II. L 146 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. which much angered the Ambassador and goaded his master almost to frenzy! It was deemed so blasphemous, so insult ing to the Majesty of England, so entirely seditious, that James, not satisfied with inditing a rejoinder, insisted through Carleton that a reward should be offered by the States for the detection of the author, in order that he might be condignly punished. This was done by a majority vote, 1000 florins being offered for the discovery of the author and 600 for that of the printer. Naturally the step was opposed in the States-General ; two deputies in particular making themselves conspicuous. One of them was an audacious old gentleman named Brinius of Gelderland, "much corrupted with Arminianism," so Carleton informed his sovereign. He appears to have in herited his audacity through his pedigree, descending, as it was ludicrously enough asserted he did, from a chief of the Caninefates, the ancient inhabitants of Gelderland, called Brinio. And Brinio the Caninefat had been as famous for his stolid audacity as for his illustrious birth ; " Erat in Oaninefatibus stolidae audaciae Brinio claritate natalium insigni." The patronizing manner in which the Ambassador alluded to the other member of the States-General who opposed the decree was still more diverting. It was " Grotius, the Pen sioner of Rotterdam, a young petulant brain, not unknown to your Majesty," said Carleton. Two centuries and a half have rolled away, and there are few majesties, few nations, and few individuals to whom the name of that petulant youth is unknown ; but how many are familiar with the achievements of the able representative of King James ? s Nothing came of the measure, however, and the offer of course helped the circulation of the pamphlet. 1 ' Carleton's Letters,' p. 216. CARLETON'S ORATIONS BEFORE THE STATES-GENERAL. 147 It is amusing to see the ferocity thus exhibited by the royal pamphleteer against a rival ; especially when one can find no crime in The Balance save a stinging and well- merited criticism of a very stupid oration. Gillis van Ledenberg was generally supposed to be the author of it. Carleton inclined, however, to suspect Grotius, " because," said he, " having always before been a stranger to my house, he has made me the day before the publication thereof a complimentary visit, although it was Sunday and church time ; whereby the Italian proverb, ' Chi ti car esse piu che suole,' &c, is added to other likelihoods." 1 It was subsequently understood however that the pam phlet was written by a Remonstrant preacher of Utrecht, named Jacobus Taurinus ; one of. those who had been doomed to death by the mutinous government in that city seven years before.2 It was now sufficiently obvious that either the govern ments in the three opposition provinces must be changed or that the National Synod must be imposed by a strict majority vote in the teeth of the constitution and of vigorous and eloquent protests drawn up by the best lawyers in the country. The Advocate and Grotius recommended a provincial synod first and, should that not succeed in ad justing the differences of churdh. government, then the con vocation of a general or oecumenical synod. They resisted the National Synod because, in their view, the Provinces were not a nation. A league of seven sovereign and independent states was all that legally existed in the Netherlands. It was accordingly determined that the governments should be changed, and the Stadholder set himself to prepare the way for a thorough and, if possible, a bloodless revolution. He departed on the 27th November for a tour through the chief 1 ' Carleton's Letters/ 207. '3 Wagenaar, x. 182. 148 THE LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD. Chap. XIV. cities, and before leaving the Hague addressed an earnest circular letter to the various municipalities of Holland.1 A more truly dignified, reasonable, right royal letter, from the Stadholder's point of view, could not have been indited. The Imperial "we" breathing like a morning breeze through the whole of it blew away all legal and historical mistiness. But the clouds returned again nevertheless. Unfortu nately for Maurice it could not be argued by the pen, how- 1 " In how mournful and dangerous a condition the country stands," he said, "through the religious differ ences and their results is so notorious as to be but too well known to you. We think therefore nothing more necessary than, while there is yet time, to work to that end that all misunderstandingsmaybereasonably removed, peace and unity brought back, and the state restored to its former splendour and reputation." He expressed his fear lest continued attempts should be made .to carry into effect the Resolution of 4th August, the result of which could only be deeper disaster than any that had yet befallen. He intimated that the enemy might take advantage of the internal dissensions to attack and make himself master of the country. He urged them at the next meeting of the States to see to it that the deputies should decide nothing on the propositions which would proba bly be laid before them without tho- roughlyponderingand understanding their meaning and duly deliberating thereon with their constituents. He expressed his earnest hope that they would come to the next assembly of the States of Holland with instruc tions to vote for the National Synod, to be preceded by a provincial one, believing that no more reasonable plan could be devised to bring about unity in religious matters, without prej udice to the general or special sovereignties and laws. "As, next to religion, justice is the chief foundation of republics and kingdoms," he said, " which could not be denied to the inhabitants with out breach of the privileges and laws of the land, therefore the due course of justice should not be diverted or hindered in the ordinary tribunals which were erected to dispense it." After this allusion to the nullifica tion of the courts of law by the " Sharp Resolution," he spoke of the Waart gelders and the new oaths exacted from those mercenaries, and urged that they be disbanded. They sad dled the country with unnecessary expense, and caused great unrest among the good citizens, increasing their distrust of the magistrates and the general confusion. ' ' And as we consider the new oaths and obligations," he continued, ' ' which are no w demanded of captains and soldiers to be of momentous im port and for our person not a little burthensome, we will trust that you will deal therein with so much in sight and discretion that the becoming and necessary respect which we have hitherto received and always must receive from the soldiery be not less ened, to the derogation of our dignity before all the world. Thus much we have deserved by our fidelity and our services to the Provinces, resolved as we are to hold to the end in this our faithfulness. " Herewith, honourable, wise, dis creet, dearly beloved, we recommend you to God. " Your good friend, "Maurice de Nassau. " The Hague, 26 N