The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1614-23 | Page 4

We are
watching closely their movements. Aachen is first threatened, and the
Elector-Palatine likewise. France surely, for reasons of state, cannot
permit that they should be attacked. She did, and helped us to do, too
much in the Julich campaign to suffer the Spaniards to make
themselves masters there now."
It has been seen that the part played by France in the memorable
campaign of 1610 was that of admiring auxiliary to the States' forces;

Marshal de la Chatre having in all things admitted the superiority of
their army and the magnificent generalship of Prince Maurice. But the
government of the Dowager had been committed by that enterprise to
carry out the life-long policy of Henry, and to maintain his firm
alliance with the Republic. Whether any of the great king's acuteness
and vigour in countermining and shattering the plans of the House of
Austria was left in the French court, time was to show. Meantime
Barneveld was crying himself hoarse with warnings into the dull ears
of England and France.
A few weeks later the Prince of Neuburg had thrown off the mask.
Twelve thousand foot and 1500 horse had been raised in great haste, so
the Advocate informed the French court, by Spain and the Archdukes,
for the use of that pretender. Five or six thousand Spaniards were
coming by sea to Flanders, and as many Italians were crossing the
mountains, besides a great number mustering for the same purpose in
Germany and Lorraine. Barneveld was constantly receiving most
important intelligence of military plans and movements from Prague,
which he placed daily before the eyes of governments wilfully blind.
"I ponder well at this crisis," he said to his friend Caron, "the
intelligence I received some months back from Ratisbon, out of the
cabinet of the Jesuits, that the design of the Catholic or Roman League
is to bring this year a great army into the field, in order to make
Neuburg, who was even then said to be of the Roman profession and
League, master of Julich and the duchies; to execute the Imperial
decree against Aachen and Mulheim, preventing any aid from being
sent into Germany by these Provinces, or by Great Britain, and placing
the Archduke and Marquis Spinola in command of the forces; to put
another army on the frontiers of Austria, in order to prevent any
succour coming from Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, Moravia, and Silesia
into Germany; to keep all these disputed territories in subjection and
devotion to the Emperor, and to place the general conduct of all these
affairs in the hands of Archduke Leopold and other princes of the
House of Austria. A third army is to be brought into the Upper
Palatinate, under command of the Duke of Bavaria and others of the
League, destined to thoroughly carry out its designs against the
Elector-Palatine, and the other electors, princes, and estates belonging
to the religion."

This intelligence, plucked by Barneveld out of the cabinet of the Jesuits,
had been duly communicated by him months before to those whom it
most concerned, and as usual it seemed to deepen the lethargy of the
destined victims and their friends. Not only the whole Spanish
campaign of the present year had thus been duly mapped out by the
Advocate, long before it occurred, but this long buried and forgotten
correspondence of the statesman seems rather like a chronicle of
transactions already past, so closely did the actual record, which
posterity came to know too well, resemble that which he saw, and was
destined only to see, in prophetic vision.
Could this political seer have cast his horoscope of the Thirty Years'
War at this hour of its nativity for the instruction of such men as
Walsingham or Burleigh, Henry of Navarre or Sully, Richelieu or
Gustavus Adolphus, would the course of events have been modified?
These very idlest of questions are precisely those which inevitably
occur as one ponders the seeming barrenness of an epoch in reality so
pregnant.
"One would think," said Barneveld, comparing what was then the
future with the real past, "that these plans in Prague against the Elector-
Palatine are too gross for belief; but when I reflect on the intense
bitterness of these people, when I remember what was done within
living men's memory to the good elector Hans Frederic of Saxony for
exactly the same reasons, to wit, hatred of our religion, and
determination to establish Imperial authority, I have great apprehension.
I believe that the Roman League will use the present occasion to carry
out her great design; holding France incapable of opposition to her,
Germany in too great division, and imagining to themselves that neither
the King of Great Britain nor these States are willing or able to offer
effectual and forcible resistance. Yet his Majesty of