Life and Death of John of Barneveld Part 43

In this port would a.s.semble all the navigators of the country, and it would become in time of war a terror to the Hollanders, English, and all northern peoples. In order to attract, protect, and preserve these navigators and this commerce, many great public edifices must be built, together with splendid streets of houses and impregnable fortifications.

It should be a walled and stately city, and its name should be Philipopolis. If these simple projects, so easy of execution, pleased his Majesty, the practical person was ready to explain them in all their details.

His Majesty was enchanted with the glowing picture, but before quite deciding on carrying the scheme into execution thought it best to consult the Archduke.

The reply of Albert has not been preserved. It was probably not enthusiastic, and the man who without boasting had declared himself to know everything was never commissioned to convert his schemes into realities. That magnificent walled city, Philipopolis, with its gorgeous streets and bristling fortresses, remained unbuilt, the Scheldt has placidly flowed through its old channel to the sea from that day to this, and the Republic remained in possession of the unexampled foreign trade with which rebellion had enriched it.

These various intrigues and projects show plainly enough however the encouragement given to the enemies of the United Provinces and of Protestantism everywhere by these disastrous internal dissensions. But yesterday and the Republic led by Barneveld in council and Maurice of Na.s.sau in the field stood at the head of the great army of resistance to the general crusade organized by Spain and Rome against all unbelievers.

And now that the war was absolutely beginning in Bohemia, the Republic was falling upon its own sword instead of smiting with it the universal foe.

It was not the King of Spain alone that cast longing eyes on the fair territory of that commonwealth which the unparalleled tyranny of his father had driven to renounce his sceptre. Both in the Netherlands and France, among the extreme orthodox party, there were secret schemes, to which Maurice was not privy, to raise Maurice to the sovereignty of the Provinces. Other conspirators with a wider scope and more treasonable design were disposed to surrender their country to the dominion of France, stipulating of course large rewards and offices for themselves and the vice-royalty of what should then be the French Netherlands to Maurice.

The schemes were wild enough perhaps, but their very existence, which is undoubted, is another proof, if more proof were wanted, of the lamentable tendency, in times of civil and religious dissension, of political pa.s.sion to burn out the very first principles of patriotism.

It is also important, on account of the direct influence exerted by these intrigues upon subsequent events of the gravest character, to throw a beam of light on matters which were thought to have been shrouded for ever in impenetrable darkness.

Langerac, the States' Amba.s.sador in Paris, was the very reverse of his predecessor, the wily, unscrupulous, and accomplished Francis Aerssens.

The envoys of the Republic were rarely dull, but Langerac was a simpleton. They were renowned for political experience, skill, familiarity with foreign languages, knowledge of literature, history, and public law; but he was ignorant, spoke French very imperfectly, at a court where not a human being could address him in his own tongue, had never been employed in diplomacy or in high office of any kind, and could carry but small personal weight at a post where of all others the representative of the great republic should have commanded deference both for his own qualities and for the majesty of his government. At a period when France was left without a master or a guide the Dutch amba.s.sador, under a becoming show of profound respect, might really have governed the country so far as regarded at least the all important relations which bound the two nations together. But Langerac was a mere picker-up of trifles, a newsmonger who wrote a despatch to-day with information which a despatch was written on the morrow to contradict, while in itself conveying additional intelligence absolutely certain to be falsified soon afterwards. The Emperor of Germany had gone mad; Prince Maurice had been a.s.sa.s.sinated in the Hague, a fact which his correspondents, the States-General, might be supposed already to know, if it were one; there had been a revolution in the royal bed-chamber; the Spanish cook of the young queen had arrived from Madrid; the Duke of Nevers was behaving very oddly at Vienna; such communications, and others equally startling, were the staple of his correspondence.

Still he was honest enough, very mild, perfectly docile to Barneveld, dependent upon his guidance, and fervently attached to that statesman so long as his wheel was going up the hill. Moreover, his industry in obtaining information and his pa.s.sion for imparting it made it probable that nothing very momentous would be neglected should it be laid before him, but that his masters, and especially the Advocate, would be enabled to judge for themselves as to the attention due to it.

"With this you will be apprised of some very high and weighty matters,"

he wrote privately and in cipher to Barneveld, "which you will make use of according to your great wisdom and forethought for the country's service."

He requested that the matter might also be confided to M. van der Myle, that he might a.s.sist his father-in-law, so overburdened with business, in the task of deciphering the communication. He then stated that he had been "very earnestly informed three days before by M. du Agean"--member of the privy council of France--"that it had recently come to the King's ears, and his Majesty knew it to be authentic, that there was a secret and very dangerous conspiracy in Holland of persons belonging to the Reformed religion in which others were also mixed. This party held very earnest and very secret correspondence with the factious portion of the Contra-Remonstrants both in the Netherlands and France, seeking under pretext of the religious dissensions or by means of them to confer the sovereignty upon Prince Maurice by general consent of the Contra-Remonstrants. Their object was also to strengthen and augment the force of the same religious party in France, to which end the Duc de Bouillon and M. de Chatillon were very earnestly co-operating. Langerac had already been informed by Chatillon that the Contra-Remonstrants had determined to make a public declaration against the Remonstrants, and come to an open separation from them.

"Others propose however," said the Amba.s.sador, "that the King himself should use the occasion to seize the sovereignty of the United Provinces for himself and to appoint Prince Maurice viceroy, giving him in marriage Madame Henriette of France." The object of this movement would be to frustrate the plots of the Contra-Remonstrants, who were known to be pa.s.sionately hostile to the King and to France, and who had been constantly traversing the negotiations of M. du Maurier. There was a disposition to send a special and solemn emba.s.sy to the States, but it was feared that the British king would at once do the same, to the immense disadvantage of the Remonstrants. "M. de Barneveld," said the envoy, "is deeply sympathized with here and commiserated. The Chancellor has repeatedly requested me to present to you his very sincere and very hearty respects, exhorting you to continue in your manly steadfastness and courage." He also a.s.sured the Advocate that the French amba.s.sador, M.

du Maurier, enjoyed the entire confidence of his government, and of the princ.i.p.al members of the council, and that the King, although contemplating, as we have seen, the seizure of the sovereignty of the country, was most amicably disposed towards it, and so soon as the peace of Savoy was settled "had something very good for it in his mind."

Whether the something very good was this very design to deprive it of independence, the Amba.s.sador did not state. He however recommended the use of sundry small presents at the French court--especially to Madame de Luynes, wife of the new favourite of Lewis since the death of Concini, in which he had aided, now rising rapidly to consideration, and to Madame du Agean--and asked to be supplied with funds accordingly. By these means he thought it probable that at least the payment to the States of the long arrears of the French subsidy might be secured.

Three weeks later, returning to the subject, the Amba.s.sador reported another conversation with M. du Agean. That politician a.s.sured him, "with high protestations," as a perfectly certain fact that a Frenchman duly qualified had arrived in Paris from Holland who had been in communication not only with him but with several of the most confidential members of the privy council of France. This duly qualified gentleman had been secretly commissioned to say that in opinion of the conspirators already indicated the occasion was exactly offered by these religious dissensions in the Netherlands for bringing the whole country under the obedience of the King. This would be done with perfect ease if he would only be willing to favour a little the one party, that of the Contra-Remonstrants, and promise his Excellency "perfect and perpetual authority in the government with other compensations."

The proposition, said du Agean, had been rejected by the privy councillors with a declaration that they would not mix themselves up with any factions, nor a.s.sist any party, but that they would gladly work with the government for the accommodation of these difficulties and differences in the Provinces.

"I send you all this nakedly," concluded Langerac, "exactly as it has been communicated to me, having always answered according to my duty and with a view by negotiating with these persons to discover the intentions as well of one side as the other."

The Advocate was not profoundly impressed by these revelations. He was too experienced a statesman to doubt that in times when civil and religious pa.s.sion was running high there was never lack of fishers in troubled waters, and that if a body of conspirators could secure a handsome compensation by selling their country to a foreign prince, they would always be ready to do it.

But although believed by Maurice to be himself a stipendiary of Spain, he was above suspecting the Prince of any share in the low and stupid intrigue which du Agean had imagined or disclosed. That the Stadholder was ambitious of greater power, he hardly doubted, but that he was seeking to acquire it by such corrupt and circuitous means, he did not dream. He confidentially communicated the plot as in duty bound to some members of the States, and had the Prince been accused in any conversation or statement of being privy to the scheme, he would have thought himself bound to mention it to him. The story came to the ears of Maurice however, and helped to feed his wrath against the Advocate, as if he were responsible for a plot, if plot it were, which had been concocted by his own deadliest enemies. The Prince wrote a letter alluding to this communication of Langerac and giving much alarm to that functionary. He thought his despatches must have been intercepted and proposed in future to write always by special courier. Barneveld thought that unnecessary except when there were more important matters than those appeared to him to be and requiring more haste.

"The letter of his Excellency," said he to the Amba.s.sador, "is caused in my opinion by the fact that some of the deputies to this a.s.sembly to whom I secretly imparted your letter or its substance did not rightly comprehend or report it. You did not say that his Excellency had any such design or project, but that it had been said that the Contra-Remonstrants were entertaining such a scheme. I would have shown the letter to him myself, but I thought it not fair, for good reasons, to make M. du Agean known as the informant. I do not think it amiss for you to write yourself to his Excellency and tell him what is said, but whether it would be proper to give up the name of your author, I think doubtful. At all events one must consult about it. We live in a strange world, and one knows not whom to trust."

He instructed the Amba.s.sador to enquire into the foundation of these statements of du Agean and send advices by every occasion of this affair and others of equal interest. He was however much more occupied with securing the goodwill of the French government, which he no more suspected of tampering in these schemes against the independence of the Republic than he did Maurice himself. He relied and he had reason to rely on their steady good offices in the cause of moderation and reconciliation. "We are not yet brought to the necessary and much desired unity," he said, "but we do not despair, hoping that his Majesty's efforts through M. du Maurier, both privately and publicly, will do much good. Be a.s.sured that they are very agreeable to all rightly disposed people . . . . My trust is that G.o.d the Lord will give us a happy issue and save this country from perdition." He approved of the presents to the two ladies as suggested by Langerac if by so doing the payment of the arrearages could be furthered. He was still hopeful and confident in the justice of his cause and the purity of his conscience. "Aerssens is crowing like a c.o.c.k," he said, "but the truth will surely prevail."

CHAPTER XVII.

A Deputation from Utrecht to Maurice--The Fair at Utrecht--Maurice and the States' Deputies at Utrecht--Ogle refuses to act in Opposition to the States--The Stadholder disbands the Waartgelders-- The Prince appoints forty Magistrates--The States formally disband the Waartgelders.

The eventful midsummer had arrived. The lime-tree blossoms were fragrant in the leafy bowers overshadowing the beautiful little rural capital of the Commonwealth. The anniversary of the Nieuwpoort victory, July 2, had come and gone, and the Stadholder was known to be resolved that his political campaign this year should be as victorious as that memorable military one of eighteen years before.

Before the dog-days should begin to rage, the fierce heats of theological and political pa.s.sion were to wax daily more and more intense.

The party at Utrecht in favour of a compromise and in awe of the Stadholder sent a deputation to the Hague with the express but secret purpose of conferring with Maurice. They were eight in number, three of whom, including Gillis van Ledenberg, lodged at the house of Daniel Tressel, first clerk of the States-General.

The leaders of the Barneveld party, aware of the purport of this mission and determined to frustrate it, contrived a meeting between the Utrecht commissioners and Grotius, Hoogerbeets, de Haan, and de Lange at Tressel's house.

Grotius was spokesman. Maurice had accused the States of Holland of mutiny and rebellion, and the distinguished Pensionary of Rotterdam now retorted the charges of mutiny, disobedience, and mischief-making upon those who, under the mask of religion, were attempting to violate the sovereignty of the States, the privileges and laws of the province, the authority of the magistrates, and to subject them to the power of others. To prevent such a catastrophe many cities had enlisted Waartgelders. By this means they had held such mutineers to their duty, as had been seen at Leyden, Haarlem, and other places. The States of Utrecht had secured themselves in the same way. But the mischiefmakers and the ill-disposed had been seeking everywhere to counteract these wholesome measures and to bring about a general disbanding of these troops. This it was necessary to resist with spirit. It was the very foundation of the provinces' sovereignty, to maintain which the public means must be employed. It was in vain to drive the foe out of the country if one could not remain in safety within one's own doors. They had heard with sorrow that Utrecht was thinking of cashiering its troops, and the speaker proceeded therefore to urge with all the eloquence he was master of the necessity of pausing before taking so fatal a step.

The deputies of Utrecht answered by pleading the great pecuniary burthen which the maintenance of the mercenaries imposed upon that province, and complained that there was no one to come to their a.s.sistance, exposed as they were to a sudden and overwhelming attack from many quarters. The States-General had not only written but sent commissioners to Utrecht insisting on the disbandment. They could plainly see the displeasure of the Prince. It was a very different affair in Holland, but the States of Utrecht found it necessary of two evils to choose the least.

They had therefore instructed their commissioners to request the Prince to remove the foreign garrison from their capital and to send the old companies of native militia in their place, to be in the pay of the episcopate. In this case the States would agree to disband the new levies.

Grotius in reply again warned the commissioners against communicating with Maurice according to their instructions, intimated that the native militia on which they were proposing to rely might have been debauched, and he held out hopes that perhaps the States of Utrecht might derive some relief from certain financial measures now contemplated in Holland.

The Utrechters resolved to wait at least several days before opening the subject of their mission to the Prince. Meantime Ledenberg made a rough draft of a report of what had occurred between them and Grotius and his colleagues which it was resolved to lay secretly before the States of Utrecht. The Hollanders hoped that they had at last persuaded the commissioners to maintain the Waartgelders.

The States of Holland now pa.s.sed a solemn resolution to the effect that these new levies had been made to secure munic.i.p.al order and maintain the laws from subversion by civil tumults. If this object could be obtained by other means, if the Stadholder were willing to remove garrisons of foreign mercenaries on whom there could be no reliance, and supply their place with native troops both in Holland and Utrecht, an arrangement could be made for disbanding the Waartgelders.

Barneveld, at the head of thirty deputies from the n.o.bles and cities, waited upon Maurice and verbally communicated to him this resolution. He made a cold and unsatisfactory reply, although it seems to have been understood that by according twenty companies of native troops he might have contented both Holland and Utrecht.

Ledenberg and his colleagues took their departure from the Hague without communicating their message to Maurice. Soon afterwards the States-General appointed a commission to Utrecht with the Stadholder at the head of it.

The States of Holland appointed another with Grotius as its chairman.

On the 25th July Grotius and Pensionary Hoogerbeets with two colleagues arrived in Utrecht.

Gillis van Ledenberg was there to receive them. A tall, handsome, bald-headed, well-featured, mild, gentlemanlike man was this secretary of the Utrecht a.s.sembly, and certainly not aware, while pa.s.sing to and fro on such half diplomatic missions between two sovereign a.s.semblies, that he was committing high-treason. He might well imagine however, should Maurice discover that it was he who had prevented the commissioners from conferring with him as instructed, that it would go hard with him.

Ledenberg forthwith introduced Grotius and his committee to the a.s.sembly at Utrecht.

While these great personages were thus holding solemn and secret council, another and still greater personage came upon the scene.

The Stadholder with the deputation from the States-General arrived at Utrecht.

Evidently the threads of this political drama were converging to a catastrophe, and it might prove a tragical one.

Meantime all looked merry enough in the old episcopal city. There were few towns in Lower or in Upper Germany more elegant and imposing than Utrecht. Situate on the slender and feeble channel of the ancient Rhine as it falters languidly to the sea, surrounded by trim gardens and orchards, and embowered in groves of beeches and limetrees, with busy ca.n.a.ls fringed with poplars, lined with solid quays, and crossed by innumerable bridges; with the stately brick tower of St. Martin's rising to a daring height above one of the most magnificent Gothic cathedrals in the Netherlands; this seat of the Anglo-Saxon Willebrord, who eight hundred years before had preached Christianity to the Frisians, and had founded that long line of hard-fighting, indomitable bishops, obstinately contesting for centuries the possession of the swamps and pastures about them with counts, kings, and emperors, was still worthy of its history and its position.

It was here too that sixty-one years before the famous Articles of Union were signed. By that fundamental treaty of the Confederacy, the Provinces agreed to remain eternally united as if they were but one province, to make no war nor peace save by unanimous consent, while on lesser matters a majority should rule; to admit both Catholics and Protestants to the Union provided they obeyed its Articles and conducted themselves as good patriots, and expressly declared that no province or city should interfere with another in the matter of divine worship.

From this memorable compact, so enduring a landmark in the history of human freedom, and distinguished by such breadth of view for the times both in religion and politics, the city had gained the t.i.tle of cradle of liberty: 'Cunabula libertatis'.

Was it still to deserve the name? At that particular moment the ma.s.s of the population was comparatively indifferent to the terrible questions pending. It was the kermis or annual fair, and all the world was keeping holiday in Utrecht. The pedlars and itinerant merchants from all the cities and provinces had brought their wares jewellery and crockery, ribbons and laces, ploughs and harrows, carriages and horses, cows and sheep, cheeses and b.u.t.ter firkins, doublets and petticoats, guns and pistols, everything that could serve the city and country-side for months to come--and displayed them in temporary booths or on the ground, in every street and along every ca.n.a.l. The town was one vast bazaar. The peasant-women from the country, with their gold and silver tiaras and the year's rent of a comfortable farm in their earrings and necklaces, and the st.u.r.dy Frisian peasants, many of whom had borne their matchlocks in the great wars which had lasted through their own and their fathers'

lifetime, trudged through the city, enjoying the blessings of peace.

Bands of music and merry-go-rounds in all the open places and squares; open-air bakeries of pancakes and waffles; theatrical exhibitions, raree-shows, jugglers, and mountebanks at every corner--all these phenomena which had been at every kermis for centuries, and were to repeat themselves for centuries afterwards, now enlivened the atmosphere of the grey, episcopal city. Pasted against the walls of public edifices were the most recent placards and counter-placards of the States-General and the States of Utrecht on the great subject of religious schisms and popular tumults. In the shop-windows and on the bookstalls of Contra-Remonstrant tradesmen, now becoming more and more defiant as the last allies of Holland, the States of Utrecht, were gradually losing courage, were seen the freshest ballads and caricatures against the Advocate. Here an engraving represented him seated at table with Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and others, discussing the National Synod, while a flap of the picture being lifted put the head of the Duke of Alva on the legs of Barneveld, his companions being transformed in similar manner into Spanish priests and cardinals a.s.sembled at the terrible Council of Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the distance. Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General shaking the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve through which came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate and his abettors. Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen c.o.c.ks rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder--Arminians by a detestable pun being converted into "Arme haenen" or "Poor c.o.c.ks." One represented the Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of a golden bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his official robes to receive them, or whole carriage-loads of Arminians starting off bag and baggage on the road to Rome, with Lucifer in the perspective waiting to give them a warm welcome in his own dominions; and so on, and so on. Moving through the throng, with iron calque on their heads and halberd in hand, were groups of Waartgelders scowling fiercely at many popular demonstrations such as they had been enlisted to suppress, but while off duty concealing outward symptoms of wrath which in many instances perhaps would have been far from genuine.

For although these mercenaries knew that the States of Holland, who were responsible for the pay of the regular troops then in Utrecht, authorized them to obey no orders save from the local authorities, yet it was becoming a grave question for the Waartgelders whether their own wages were perfectly safe, a circ.u.mstance which made them susceptible to the atmosphere of Contra-Remonstrantism which was steadily enwrapping the whole country. A still graver question was whether such resistance as they could offer to the renowned Stadholder, whose name was magic to every soldier's heart not only in his own land but throughout Christendom, would not be like parrying a lance's thrust with a bulrush.