History of the United Netherlands, 1598 | Page 8

Spanish, German, or Italian prince, was
as much her enemy as he was the foe of his ancient subjects in the
Netherlands. At that very epoch Philip was occupied in reminding the
pope that the two had always agreed as to the justice of the claims of
the Infanta Isabella to the English crown, and calling on his Holiness to
sustain those pretensions, now that she had been obliged, in
consequence of the treaty with the Prince of Bearne, to renounce her
right to reign over France.
Certainly it was fair enough for the queen and her, counsellors to stand
out for an equitable arrangement of the debt; but there was much to
dispute in the figures. When was ever an account of fifteen years'
standing adjusted, whether between nations or individuals, without
much wrangling? Meantime her Majesty held excellent security in two

thriving and most important Netherland cities. But had the States
consented to re-establish the Spanish authority over the whole of their
little Protestant republic, was there an English child so ignorant of
arithmetic or of history as not to see how vast would be the peril, and
how incalculable the expense, thus caused to England?
Yet besides the Cecils and the lord high admiral, other less influential
counsellors of the crown--even the upright and accomplished
Buckhurst, who had so often proved his friendship for the States--were
in favour of negotiation. There were many conferences with meagre
results. The Englishmen urged that the time had come for the States to
repay the queen's advances, to relieve her from future subsidies, to
assume the payment of the garrisons in the cautionary towns, and to
furnish a force in defence of England when attacked. Such was the
condition of the kingdom, they said--being, as it was, entirely without
fortified cities-- that a single battle would imperil the whole realm, so
that it was necessary to keep the enemy out of it altogether.
These arguments were not unreasonable, but the inference was surely
illogical. The special envoys from the republic had not been instructed
to treat about the debt. This had been the subject of perpetual
negotiation. It was discussed almost every day by the queen's
commissioners at the Hague and by the States' resident minister at
London. Olden-Barneveld and the admiral had been sent forth by the
Staten in what in those days was considered great haste to prevent a
conclusion of a treaty between their two allies and the common enemy.
They had been too late in France, and now, on arriving in England, they
found that government steadily drifting towards what seemed the
hopeless shipwreck of a general peace.
What must have been the grief of Olden-Barneveld when he heard from
the lips of the enlightened Buckhurst that the treaty of 1585 had been
arranged to expire--according to the original limitation--with a peace,
and that as the States could now make peace and did not choose to do
so, her Majesty must be considered as relieved from her contract of
alliance, and as justified in demanding repayment of her advances!
To this perfidious suggestion what could the States' envoy reply but
that as a peace such as the treaty of 1585 presupposed--to wit, with
security for the Protestant religion and for the laws and liberties of the
provinces--was impossible, should the States now treat with the king or

the cardinal?
The envoys had but one more interview with, the queen, in which she
was more benignant in manner but quite as peremptory in her demands.
Let the States either thoroughly satisfy her as to past claims and present
necessities, or let them be prepared for her immediate negotiation with
the enemy. Should she decide to treat, she would not be unmindful of
their interests, she said, nor deliver them over into the enemy's hands.
She repeated, however, the absurd opinion that there were means
enough of making Philip nominal sovereign of all the Netherlands,
without allowing him to exercise any authority over them. As if the
most Catholic and most absolute monarch that ever breathed could be
tied down by the cobwebs of constitutional or treaty stipulations; as if
the previous forty years could be effaced from the record of history.
She asked, too, in case the rumours of the intended transfer of the
Netherlands to the cardinal or the Infanta should prove true, which she
doubted, whether this arrangement would make any difference in the
sentiments of the States.
Barneveld replied that the transfer was still uncertain, but that they had
no more confidence in the cardinal or the Infants than in the King of
Spain himself.
On taking leave of the queen the envoys waited upon Lord Burghley,
whom they found sitting in an arm-chair in his bedchamber, suffering
from the gout and with a very fierce countenance.