The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1609-14 | Page 6

sport of the highest quality of mortals."
Thus wrote the Archduke sensibly, honourably from his point of view,

and with an intelligent regard to the interests of Spain and the Catholic
cause. After months of delay came conditional consent from Madrid to
the conventions, but with express condition that there should be
absolute undertaking on the part of the United Provinces never to send
or maintain troops in the duchies. Tedious and futile correspondence
followed between Brussels, the Hague, London, Paris. But the
difficulties grew every moment. It was a Penelope's web of negotiation,
said one of the envoys. Amid pertinacious and wire-drawn subtleties,
every trace of practical business vanished. Neuburg departed to look
after his patrimonial estates; leaving his interests in the duchies to be
watched over by the Archduke. Even Count Zollern, after six months of
wrangling in Brussels, took his departure. Prince Maurice distributed
his army in various places within the debateable land, and Spinola did
the same, leaving a garrison of 3000 foot and 300 horse in the
important city of Wesel. The town and citadel of Julich were as firmly
held by Maurice for the Protestant cause. Thus the duchies were jointly
occupied by the forces of Catholicism and Protestantism, while
nominally possessed and administered by the princes of Brandenburg
and Neuburg. And so they were destined to remain until that Thirty
Years' War, now so near its outbreak, should sweep over the earth, and
bring its fiery solution at last to all these great debates.

CHAPTER VII
.
Proud Position of the Republic--France obeys her--Hatred of Carleton
--Position and Character of Aerssens--Claim for the "Third"--Recall of
Aerssens--Rivalry between Maurice and Barneveld, who always
sustains the separate Sovereignties of the Provinces--Conflict between
Church and State added to other Elements of Discord in the
Commonwealth--Religion a necessary Element in the Life of all
Classes.
Thus the Republic had placed itself in as proud a position as it was
possible for commonwealth or kingdom to occupy. It had dictated the
policy and directed the combined military movements of Protestantism.
It had gathered into a solid mass the various elements out of which the
great Germanic mutiny against Rome, Spain, and Austria had been

compounded. A breathing space of uncertain duration had come to
interrupt and postpone the general and inevitable conflict. Meantime
the Republic was encamped upon the enemy's soil.
France, which had hitherto commanded, now obeyed. England,
vacillating and discontented, now threatening and now cajoling, saw
for the time at least its influence over the councils of the Netherlands
neutralized by the genius of the great statesman who still governed the
Provinces, supreme in all but name. The hatred of the British
government towards the Republic, while in reality more malignant than
at any previous period, could now only find vent in tremendous,
theological pamphlets, composed by the King in the form of diplomatic
instructions, and hurled almost weekly at the heads of the
States-General, by his ambassador, Dudley Carleton.
Few men hated Barneveld more bitterly than did Carleton. I wish to
describe as rapidly, but as faithfully, as I can the outline at least of the
events by which one of the saddest and most superfluous catastrophes
in modern history was brought about. The web was a complex one,
wrought apparently of many materials; but the more completely it is
unravelled the more clearly we shall detect the presence of the few
simple but elemental fibres which make up the tissue of most human
destinies, whether illustrious or obscure, and out of which the most
moving pictures of human history are composed.
The religious element, which seems at first view to be the all pervading
and controlling one, is in reality rather the atmosphere which surrounds
and colours than the essence which constitutes the tragedy to be
delineated.
Personal, sometimes even paltry, jealousy; love of power, of money, of
place; rivalry between civil and military ambition for predominance in
a free state; struggles between Church and State to control and oppress
each other; conflict between the cautious and healthy, but provincial
and centrifugal, spirit on the one side, and the ardent centralizing,
imperial, but dangerous, instinct on the other, for ascendancy in a
federation; mortal combat between aristocracy disguised in the plebeian
form of trading and political corporations and democracy sheltering
itself under a famous sword and an ancient and illustrious name;--all
these principles and passions will be found hotly at work in the
melancholy five years with which we are now to be occupied, as they

have entered, and will always enter, into every political combination in
the great tragi-comedy which we call human history. As a study, a
lesson, and a warning, perhaps the fate of Barneveld is as deserving of
serious attention as most political tragedies of the last few centuries.
Francis Aerssens, as