The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1609-14 | Page 9

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state been censured or removed for believing and maintaining in
controversy that his own government is in the right. It was natural that
the French government should be disturbed by the vivid light which he
had flashed upon their pernicious intrigues with Spain to the detriment
of the Republic, and at the pertinacity with which he resisted their
preposterous claim to be reimbursed for one-third of the money which

the late king had advanced as a free subsidy towards the war of the
Netherlands for independence. But no injustice could be more
outrageous than for the Envoy's own government to unite with the
foreign State in damaging the character of its own agent for the crime
of fidelity to itself.
Of such cruel perfidy Aerssens had been the victim, and he most
wrongfully suspected his chief as its real perpetrator.
The claim for what was called the "Third" had been invented after the
death of Henry. As already explained, the "Third" was not a gift from
England to the Netherlands. It was a loan from England to France, or
more properly a consent to abstain from pressing for payment for this
proportion of an old debt. James, who was always needy, had often
desired, but never obtained, the payment of this sum from Henry. Now
that the King was dead, he applied to the Regent's government, and the
Regent's government called upon the Netherlands, to pay the money.
Aerssens, as the agent of the Republic, protested firmly against such
claim. The money had been advanced by the King as a free gift, as his
contribution to a war in which he was deeply interested, although he
was nominally at peace with Spain. As to the private arrangements
between France and England, the Republic, said the Dutch envoy, was
in no sense bound by them. He was no party to the Treaty of Hampton
Court, and knew nothing of its stipulations.
Courtiers and politicians in plenty at the French court, now that Henry
was dead, were quite sure that they had heard him say over and over
again that the Netherlands had bound themselves to pay the Third.
They persuaded Mary de' Medici that she likewise had often heard him
say so, and induced her to take high ground on the subject in her
interviews with Aerssens. The luckless queen, who was always in want
of money to satisfy the insatiable greed of her favourites, and to buy off
the enmity of the great princes, was very vehement--although she knew
as much of those transactions as of the finances of Prester John or the
Lama of Thibet --in maintaining this claim of her government upon the
States.
"After talking with the ministers," said Aerssens, "I had an interview
with the Queen. I knew that she had been taught her lesson, to insist on
the payment of the Third. So I did not speak at all of the matter, but
talked exclusively and at length of the French regiments in the States'

service. She was embarrassed, and did not know exactly what to say. At
last, without replying a single word to what I had been saying, she
became very red in the face, and asked me if I were not instructed to
speak of the money due to England. Whereupon I spoke in the sense
already indicated. She interrupted me by saying she had a perfect
recollection that the late king intended and understood that we were to
pay the Third to England, and had talked with her very seriously on the
subject. If he were living, he would think it very strange, she said, that
we refused; and so on.
"Soissons, too, pretends to remember perfectly that such were the
King's intentions. 'Tis a very strange thing, Sir. Every one knows now
the secrets of the late king, if you are willing to listen. Yet he was not
in the habit of taking all the world into his confidence. The Queen takes
her opinions as they give them to her. 'Tis a very good princess, but I
am sorry she is so ignorant of affairs. As she says she remembers, one
is obliged to say one believes her. But I, who knew the King so
intimately, and saw him so constantly, know that he could only have
said that the Third was paid in acquittal of his debts to and for account
of the King of England, and not that we were to make restitution
thereof. The Chancellor tells me my refusal has been taken as an affront
by the Queen, and Puysieux says it is a contempt which she can't
swallow."
Aerssens on his part remained firm; his pertinacity being the greater as
he thoroughly understood the subject which he was talking about, an
advantage which was rarely shared in