The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1614-23 | Page 8

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. His religion, his
only daughter, his son-in-law, his grandson are all especially interested
besides his own dignity, besides the common weal."
He then adverted to the large subsidies from Queen Elizabeth many
years before, guaranteed, it was true, by the cautionary 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 Protestantism 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 Barneveld, "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 resolution. 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
overshadowing 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 breadth and unity of design than all these
primary movements of the great war now beginning. The chances
superficially 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 adventurous 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 monstrous 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 Barneveld? 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 Maximilian 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 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