Life and Death of John of Barneveld Part 46

"From my chamber of arrest, last of August, anno 1618.

"Your dear husband, father, father-in-law, and grand father,

"JOHN OF BARNEVELD."

On the margin was written:

"From the first I have requested and have at last obtained materials for writing."

A fortnight before the arrest, but while great troubles were known to be impending, the French amba.s.sador extraordinary, de Boississe, had audience before the a.s.sembly of the States-General. He entreated them to maintain the cause of unity and peace as the foundation of their state; "that state," he said, "which lifts its head so high that it equals or surpa.s.ses the mightiest republics that ever existed, and which could not have risen to such a height of honour and grandeur in so short a time, but through harmony and union of all the provinces, through the valour of his Excellency, and through your own wise counsels, both sustained by our great king, whose aid is continued by his son."--"The King my master," he continued, "knows not the cause of your disturbances. You have not communicated them to him, but their most apparent cause is a difference of opinion, born in the schools, thence brought before the public, upon a point of theology. That point has long been deemed by many to be so hard and so high that the best advice to give about it is to follow what G.o.d's Word teaches touching G.o.d's secrets; to wit, that one should use moderation and modesty therein and should not rashly press too far into that which he wishes to be covered with the veil of reverence and wonder.

That is a wise ignorance to keep one's eyes from that which G.o.d chooses to conceal. He calls us not to eternal life through subtle and perplexing questions."

And further exhorting them to conciliation and compromise, he enlarged on the effect of their internal dissensions on their exterior relations.

"What joy, what rapture you are preparing for your neighbours by your quarrels! How they will scorn you! How they will laugh! What a hope do you give them of revenging themselves upon you without danger to themselves! Let me implore you to baffle their malice, to turn their joy into mourning, to unite yourselves to confound them."

He spoke much more in the same vein, expressing wise and moderate sentiments. He might as well have gone down to the neighbouring beach when a south-west gale was blowing and talked of moderation to the waves of the German Ocean. The tempest of pa.s.sion and prejudice had risen in its might and was sweeping all before it. Yet the speech, like other speeches and intercessions made at this epoch by de Boississe and by the regular French amba.s.sador, du Maurier, was statesmanlike and reasonable.

It is superfluous to say that it was in unison with the opinions of Barneveld, for Barneveld had probably furnished the text of the oration.

Even as he had a few years before supplied the letters which King James had signed and subsequently had struggled so desperately to disavow, so now the Advocate's imperious intellect had swayed the docile and amiable minds of the royal envoys into complete sympathy with his policy. He usually dictated their general instructions. But an end had come to such triumphs. Dudley Carleton had returned from his leave of absence in England, where he had found his sovereign hating the Advocate as doctors hate who have been worsted in theological arguments and despots who have been baffled in their imperious designs. Who shall measure the influence on the destiny of this statesman caused by the French-Spanish marriages, the sermons of James through the mouth of Carleton, and the mutual jealousy of France and England?

But the Advocate was in prison, and the earth seemed to have closed over him. Hardly a ripple of indignation was perceptible on the calm surface of affairs, although in the States-General as in the States of Holland his absence seemed to have reduced both bodies to paralysis.

They were the more easily handled by the prudent, skilful, and determined Maurice.

The arrest of the four gentlemen had been communicated to the kings of France and Great Britain and the Elector-Palatine in an identical letter from the States-General. It is noticeable that on this occasion the central government spoke of giving orders to the Prince of Orange, over whom they would seem to have had no legitimate authority, while on the other hand he had expressed indignation on more than one occasion that the respective states of the five provinces where he was governor and to whom he had sworn obedience should presume to issue commands to him.

In France, where the Advocate was honoured and beloved, the intelligence excited profound sorrow. A few weeks previously the government of that country had, as we have seen, sent a special amba.s.sador to the States, M.

de Boississe, to aid the resident envoy, du Maurier, in his efforts to bring about a reconciliation of parties and a termination of the religious feud. Their exertions were sincere and unceasing. They were as steadily countermined by Francis Aerssens, for the aim of that diplomatist was to bring about a state of bad feeling, even at cost of rupture, between the Republic and France, because France was friendly to the man he most hated and whose ruin he had sworn.

During the summer a bitter personal controversy had been going on, sufficiently vulgar in tone, between Aerssens and another diplomatist, Barneveld's son-in-law, Cornelis van der Myle. It related to the recall of Aerssens from the French emba.s.sy of which enough has already been laid before the reader. Van der Myle by the production of the secret letters of the Queen-Dowager and her counsellors had proved beyond dispute that it was at the express wish of the French government that the Amba.s.sador had retired, and that indeed they had distinctly refused to receive him, should he return. Foul words resulting in propositions for a hostile meeting on the frontier, which however came to nothing, were interchanged and Aerssens in the course of his altercation with the son-inlaw had found ample opportunity for venting his spleen upon his former patron the now fallen statesman.

Four days after the arrest of Barneveld he brought the whole matter before the States-General, and the intention with which he thus raked up the old quarrel with France after the death of Henry, and his charges in regard to the Spanish marriages, was as obvious as it was deliberate.

The French amba.s.sadors were furious. Boississe had arrived not simply as friend of the Advocate, but to a.s.sure the States of the strong desire entertained by the French government to cultivate warmest relations with them. It had been desired by the Contra-Remonstrant party that deputies from the Protestant churches of France should partic.i.p.ate in the Synod, and the French king had been much a.s.sailed by the Catholic powers for listening to those suggestions. The Papal nuncius, the Spanish amba.s.sador, the envoy of the Archduke, had made a great disturbance at court concerning the mission of Boississe. They urged with earnestness that his Majesty was acting against the sentiments of Spain, Rome, and the whole Catholic Church, and that he ought not to a.s.sist with his counsel those heretics who were quarrelling among themselves over points in their heretical religion and wishing to destroy each other.

Notwithstanding this outcry the weather was smooth enough until the proceedings of Aerssens came to stir up a tempest at the French court. A special courier came from Boississe, a meeting of the whole council, although it was Sunday, was instantly called, and the reply of the States-General to the remonstrance of the Amba.s.sador in the Aerssens affair was p.r.o.nounced to be so great an affront to the King that, but for overpowering reasons, diplomatic intercourse would have at once been suspended. "Now instead of friendship there is great anger here," said Langerac. The king forbade under vigorous penalties the departure of any French theologians to take part in the Synod, although the royal consent had nearly been given. The government complained that no justice was done in the Netherlands to the French nation, that leading personages there openly expressed contempt for the French alliance, denouncing the country as "Hispaniolized," and declaring that all the council were regularly pensioned by Spain for the express purpose of keeping up the civil dissensions in the United Provinces.

Aerssens had publicly and officially declared that a majority of the French council since the death of Henry had declared the crown in its temporal as well as spiritual essence to be dependent on the Pope, and that the Spanish marriages had been made under express condition of the renunciation of the friendship and alliance of the States.

Such were among the first-fruits of the fall of Barneveld and the triumph of Aerssens, for it was he in reality who had won the victory, and he had gained it over both Stadholder and Advocate. Who was to profit by the estrangement between the Republic and its powerful ally at a moment too when that great kingdom was at last beginning to emerge from the darkness and nothingness of many years, with the faint glimmering dawn of a new great policy?

Barneveld, whose masterful statesmanship, following out the traditions of William the Silent, had ever maintained through good and ill report cordial and beneficent relations between the two countries, had always comprehended, even as a great cardinal-minister was ere long to teach the world, that the permanent identification of France with Spain and the Roman League was unnatural and impossible.

Meantime Barneveld sat in his solitary prison, knowing not what was pa.s.sing on that great stage where he had so long been the chief actor, while small intriguers now attempted to control events.

It was the intention of Aerssens to return to the emba.s.sy in Paris whence he had been driven, in his own opinion, so unjustly. To render himself indispensable, he had begun by making himself provisionally formidable to the King's government. Later, there would be other deeds to do before the prize was within his grasp.

Thus the very moment when France was disposed to cultivate the most earnest friendship with the Republic had been seized for fastening an insult upon her. The Twelve Years' Truce with Spain was running to its close, the relations between France and Spain were unusually cold, and her friendship therefore more valuable than ever.

On the other hand the British king was drawing closer his relations with Spain, and his alliance was demonstrably of small account. The phantom of the Spanish bride had become more real to his excited vision than ever, so that early in the year, in order to please Gondemar, he had been willing to offer an affront to the French amba.s.sador.

The Prince of Wales had given a splendid masquerade at court, to which the envoy of his Most Catholic Majesty was bidden. Much to his amazement the representative of the Most Christian King received no invitation, notwithstanding that he had taken great pains to procure one. M. de la Boderie was very angry, and went about complaining to the States'

amba.s.sador and his other colleagues of the slight, and darkened the lives of the court functionaries having charge of such matters with his vengeance and despair. It was represented to him that he had himself been asked to a festival the year before when Count Gondemar was left out. It was hinted to him that the King had good reasons for what he did, as the marriage with the daughter of Spain was now in train, and it was desirable that the Spanish amba.s.sador should be able to observe the Prince's disposition and make a more correct report of it to his government. It was in vain. M. de la Boderie refused to be comforted, and a.s.serted that one had no right to leave the French amba.s.sador uninvited to any "festival or triumph" at court. There was an endless disturbance.

De la Boderie sent his secretary off to Paris to complain to the King that his amba.s.sador was of no account in London, while much favour was heaped upon the Spaniard. The Secretary returned with instructions from Lewis that the Amba.s.sador was to come home immediately, and he went off accordingly in dudgeon. "I could see that he was in the highest degree indignant," said Caron, who saw him before he left, "and I doubt not that his departure will increase and keep up the former jealousy between the governments."

The ill-humor created by this event lasted a long time, serving to neutralize or at least perceptibly diminish the Spanish influence produced in France by the Spanish marriages. In the autumn, Secretary de Puysieux by command of the King ordered every Spaniard to leave the French court. All the "Spanish ladies and gentlemen, great and small,"

who had accompanied the Queen from Madrid were included in this expulsion with the exception of four individuals, her Majesty's father confessor, physician, apothecary, and cook.

The fair young queen was much vexed and shed bitter tears at this calamity, which, as she spoke nothing but Spanish, left her isolated at the court, but she was a little consoled by the promise that thenceforth the King would share her couch. It had not yet occurred to him that he was married.

The French envoys at the Hague exhausted themselves in efforts, both private and public, in favour of the prisoners, but it was a thankless task. Now that the great man and his chief pupils and adherents were out of sight, a war of shameless calumny was began upon him, such as has scarcely a parallel in political history.

It was as if a whole tribe of noxious and obscene reptiles were swarming out of the earth which had suddenly swallowed him. But it was not alone the obscure or the anonymous who now triumphantly vilified him. Men in high places who had partaken of his patronage, who had caressed him and grovelled before him, who had grown great through his tuition and rich through his bounty, now rejoiced in his ruin or hastened at least to save themselves from being involved in it. Not a man of them all but fell away from him like water. Even the great soldier forgot whose respectful but powerful hand it was which, at the most tragical moment, had lifted him from the high school at Leyden into the post of greatest power and responsibility, and had guided his first faltering footsteps by the light of his genius and experience. Francis Aerssens, master of the field, had now become the political tutor of the mature Stadholder. Step by step we have been studying the inmost thoughts of the Advocate as revealed in his secret and confidential correspondence, and the reader has been enabled to judge of the wantonness of the calumny which converted the determined antagonist into the secret friend of Spain. Yet it had produced its effect upon Maurice.

He told the French amba.s.sadors a month after the arrest that Barneveld had been endeavouring, during and since the Truce negotiations, to bring back the Provinces, especially Holland, if not under the dominion of, at least under some kind of va.s.salage to Spain. Persons had been feeling the public pulse as to the possibility of securing permanent peace by paying tribute to Spain, and this secret plan of Barneveld had so alienated him from the Prince as to cause him to attempt every possible means of diminishing or destroying altogether his authority. He had spread through many cities that Maurice wished to make himself master of the state by using the religious dissensions to keep the people weakened and divided.

There is not a particle of evidence, and no attempt was ever made to produce any, that the Advocate had such plan, but certainly, if ever, man had made himself master of a state, that man was Maurice. He continued however to place himself before the world as the servant of the States-General, which he never was, either theoretically or in fact.

The French amba.s.sadors became every day more indignant and more discouraged. It was obvious that Aerssens, their avowed enemy, was controlling the public policy of the government. Not only was there no satisfaction to be had for the offensive manner in which he had filled the country with his ancient grievances and his nearly forgotten charges against the Queen-Dowager and those who had a.s.sisted her in the regency, but they were repulsed at every turn when by order of their sovereign they attempted to use his good offices in favour of the man who had ever been the steady friend of France.

The Stadholder also professed friendship for that country, and referred to Colonel-General Chatillon, who had for a long time commanded the French regiments in the Netherlands, for confirmation of his uniform affection for those troops and attachment to their sovereign.

He would do wonders, he said, if Lewis would declare war upon Spain by land and sea.

"Such fruits are not ripe," said Boississe, "nor has your love for France been very manifest in recent events."

"Barneveld," replied the Prince, "has personally offended me, and has boasted that he would drive me out of the country like Leicester. He is accused of having wished to trouble the country in order to bring it back under the yoke of Spain. Justice will decide. The States only are sovereign to judge this question. You must address yourself to them."

"The States," replied the amba.s.sadors, "will require to be aided by your counsels."

The Prince made no reply and remained chill and "impregnable." The amba.s.sadors continued their intercessions in behalf of the prisoners both by public address to the a.s.sembly and by private appeals to the Stadholder and his influential friends. In virtue of the intimate alliance and mutual guarantees existing between their government and the Republic they claimed the acceptance of their good offices. They insisted upon a regular trial of the prisoners according to the laws of the land, that is to say, by the high court of Holland, which alone had jurisdiction in the premises. If they had been guilty of high-treason, they should be duly arraigned. In the name of the signal services of Barneveld and of the constant friendship of that great magistrate for France, the King demanded clemency or proof of his crimes. His Majesty complained through his amba.s.sadors of the little respect shown for his counsels and for his friendship. "In times past you found ever prompt and favourable action in your time of need."

"This discourse," said Maurice to Chatillon, "proceeds from evil intention."

Thus the prisoners had disappeared from human sight, and their enemies ran riot in slandering them. Yet thus far no public charges had been made.

"Nothing appears against them," said du Maurier, "and people are beginning to open their mouths with incredible freedom. While waiting for the condemnation of the prisoners, one is determined to dishonour them."

The French amba.s.sadors were instructed to intercede to the last, but they were steadily repulsed--while the King of Great Britain, anxious to gain favour with Spain by aiding in the ruin of one whom he knew and Spain knew to be her determined foe, did all he could through his amba.s.sador to frustrate their efforts and bring on a catastrophe. The States-General and Maurice were now on as confidential terms with Carleton as they were cold and repellent to Boississe and du Maurier.

"To recall to them the benefits of the King," said du Maurier, "is to beat the air. And then Aerssens bewitches them, and they imagine that after having played runaway horses his Majesty will be only too happy to receive them back, caress them, and, in order to have their friendship, approve everything they have been doing right or wrong."

Aerssens had it all his own way, and the States-General had just paid him 12,000 francs in cash on the ground that Langerac's salary was larger than his had been when at the head of the same emba.s.sy many years before.

His elevation into the body of n.o.bles, which Maurice had just stocked with five other of his partisans, was accounted an additional affront to France, while on the other hand the Queen-Mother, having through Epernon's a.s.sistance made her escape from Blois, where she had been kept in durance since the death of Concini, now enumerated among other grievances for which she was willing to take up arms against her son that the King's government had favoured Barneveld.

It was strange that all the devotees of Spain--Mary de' Medici, and Epernon, as well as James I. and his courtiers--should be thus embittered against the man who had sold the Netherlands to Spain.

At last the Prince told the French amba.s.sadors that the "people of the Provinces considered their persistent intercessions an invasion of their sovereignty." Few would have anything to say to them. "No one listens to us, no one replies to us," said du Maurier, "everyone visiting us is observed, and it is conceived a reproach here to speak to the amba.s.sadors of France."